HomeMy WebLinkAbout04012025 CC Transcript0:00
here tonight for the regular meeting of the port angeles city council um you
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know it's tempting to do an april fool's joke but i'm not going to so um we're
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just going to proceed business as usual um before we do the roll call um we did
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have a request from council member suggs last week to or last meeting to excuse her for tonight if someone would be
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interested in making that motion i would entertain it i move to excuse council member suggs from tonight's meeting
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is there a second second all right um anyone opposed to the motion to
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excuse council member suggs from tonight's meeting please state your opposition all right hearing none the
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motion passes unanimously um so we know she will not be joining us and uh carrie can you do the roll call please mayor
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dexter here deputy mayor carr here council member meyer present council
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member miller here council member shman warren good evening council member
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schwab here council member suggs deputy city manager cummings here
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attorney blur and i'm here thank you thank you all right thank you very much
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um if you can please stand as you are able for the pledge of allegiance
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i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the
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republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and
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justice for all
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all right thank you very much um are there any late items from staff mayor no
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late items from staff tonight all right thank you are there any late items from council
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all right hearing none we will move on to public comment so i will check the
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sign-in sheet first while we're waiting i will just uh
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remind folks that the first public comment period is for um comments related to items on tonight's agenda and
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if you are a virtual attendee um you can raise your virtual hand it's down at the
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bottom um or if you're callin dial star three um and we will see your hand thank
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you we'll start in council chambers and then i don't have any hands online right now but if i have any we'll go to them
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after in council chambers um so i will go to uh we'll start with stephen
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playo and at least the folks signed up probably know but i'll state it just in
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case anyone else wants to speak and hasn't before name whether or not you're a resident and if you're here the lights
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will keep your time for you great stephen pleo i have a couple businesses in the city but i live outside in the
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county uh i just want to speak a little bit to the eltech um i i feel like there's some inconsistencies or a lack
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of understanding it's been one of the most overfunded budgets and i just want to make sure that the if the council can
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somehow direct them to um i guess we have to have a minimum reserve but some
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reason maybe it's okay to have a maximum amount i i i think we need to make sure that the elac committee understands they
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have a fiduciary duty to invest that money into our community secondly i
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would just say the elac committees of the last two or three or so have just been i don't know again inconsistent maybe it's structure or method and a
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little bit unprofessional here as well so i'd like to see us maybe try to uh maintain a little bit more respectful
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and professional manner in our lte meetings that's it thank you stephen anyone else wish to speak out of the
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first public comment period all right we don't have any hands online either so we will um move
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on to the consent agenda is there anything anyone would like to add to the
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consent agenda or pull from the consent agenda okay anything anyone would like to add
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to consent drew uh yes i'd like to add i to the teamsters local 589 communication
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support unit collective bargaining agreement approve and authorize any opposition to that okay and as well as i
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the 2025 ltac fund budget amendment adopt and request opposed opposed okay
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so we'll add the teamsters um okay i'll go ahead and read the consent agenda the city council minutes of march 4th and
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march march 18 2025 expenditure report from february 22nd 2025 to march 22nd
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2025 in the amount of
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$4,636,945.37 team service local 589 communications and support unit collective bargaining agreement uh any
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questions comments or a motion to approve move to approve second
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all right um anyone opposed to the motion to approve the consent agenda please state your opposition all right hearing none the
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motion passes unanimously um okay that moves us right along to um item i1 and uh that is a
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presentation um about the mural festival by sam gerello the executive director of
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the port angeles waterfront district thanks for being here sam you can go ahead and come up and we will look
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forward to your presentation i'll try to keep this kind of short and we can have some questions at the
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end um all right so uh i'm going to be talking about the west by northwest
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mural festival uh could we do the next thank you uh so a couple things that i'm
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going to be talking about during this presentation going over murals that we have in port angeles now kind of a bit
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of the history of that and talking about you know the importance of that in our community the inspiration for doing a
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mural festival now uh getting into some of the details about the west by northwest mural
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festival uh talking about where we see this going in the future and what we want to do with this after this first
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year uh and then just kind of answering any questions that you guys might have about it um so next slide
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please so murals in port angeles are a big deal um there's a lot of pride for
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them in our town uh we've got we've had a couple rounds of murals that have been
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installed uh in the past 30 or so years in the '9s we had a bunch of murals
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installed like the uh welcome to port angeles mural that's right on the black
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ball uh warehouse as you come off of the ferry uh the mv kacula mural on the old
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bank of america building slooh of the hogback was also done in the late 90s as
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well as the olympic visions mural that's on the dire fountain and the the norman mural that's on bar hop that's not in
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great condition right now uh there were a few murals that went up in the 2000s
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not a lot uh in the 2010s we had some more really big prominent murals
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installed in town so we had the strong people mural at the gateway uh center put it that was really cool the
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pedestrian breeze breezeway between alleycat boutique and cabled fiber and yarn was put up as well and then the
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really big pacific fleet mural was put up uh in like 2017 2018 uh and so we've
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got these really great murals uh they're heavily featured for our downtown uh
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historic walks uh stuff that shows up in pictures when you google port angeles uh
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they're they're cool uh next slide but right now uh we have murals in flux
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in our community uh in a couple of different ways so we have a mural trail
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that is listed on our visit board website 13 murals are listed on that
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trail one is already gone that's the logging mural that is on angelus machine
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it's a little bit outside of the downtown area uh one has become blight that's the one that is uh that's the
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norman mill on bop that's a five panled mural but two of the panels have been down uh one of the panels went down back
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in october uh in addition to that just um they it can't be repaired at this point uh it wasn't painted on the white
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material it was on plywood board and so the water has kind of ruined that um and then we have two more murals that are
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potentially going away soon and you know that's important we should start talking about that because they're prominent
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murals in the waterfront district one of them is the olympic visions mural that's around the dire fountain in the next
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couple of years uh the stairway is going to be replaced with a new stairway uh at that time this mural is going away it is
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painted on panels so there's the potential for this mural to get relocated somewhere else in our community there are discussions about
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that right now and then uh the other mural that has a bit of a questionable
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future is the envy kacula that's on the back side of the old bank at first that
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building is for sale right now for a very high price uh there is the possibility that the folks that buy it
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are going to raise it you know but that's not a conversation right now but
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there's a possibility that mural is painted on the building it's going to be extraordinarily difficult to relocate
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that's really not a practical thing at this point um so it's just important for us to know that uh and you know if we
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want to maintain murals in the community we need to start looking at that actively right now uh the majority of
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our murals uh in port angeles are historical tableau which are cool you know and they really help with our
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walking tour but it's a very specific type of mural uh and it's also a type of mural that um while not dated these are
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not the types of murals that are getting painted right now uh so let's just you know where's the note could we do the
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next slide so the inspiration for doing a mural festival right now a couple of
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things one the value of m murals in small communities is big uh murals
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beautify neighborhoods and murals are placemaking they're a way to identify you know how does a community feel about
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itself how does a community see itself uh also the waterfront district is you
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know created out of elevate pa which you guys have heard a lot about uh beautifying and placemaking are key
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elements of our 64 point action plan so this really falls in with the mission that we're doing right now and then the
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timing and the timing is really important too uh these are uncertain days and there's a lot of chaos
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happening uh at different levels both outside of our community and within it uh and this is a really a nice
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opportunity for some positive momentum and just a positive narrative about what's happening in our community right
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now so next slide so there are other towns that uh have
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exercise um starting meal festivals and it's been a really nice drive for some
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economic development but also cultural development um and making the community
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a place that folks from the way want to come visit and potentially move to uh one of my inspirations for this festival
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uh that we're doing is the up here festival in subway ontario which is rust belt canada uh they've seen better days
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um they started a mural festival like 12 years ago and in that time they've
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gotten 57 murals installed uh throughout sudbury uh it's become a very large
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festival with music happening uh all types of arts and creative stuff uh they
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bring in nurses from around the world and so that picture up there is a really famous project that they did of an old
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abandoned hospital that was prominently seen throughout all of town right off of the highway it was blight it was
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terrible and so they hired some nails outside of los angeles to come up uh and
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paint the building and so the building has since been raised to the ground but this was up for about 10 years and it's
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just a really nice way to transform blight into art uh during a a transition
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so you know it's not a permanent thing but it is a way to address kind of
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daunting overwhelming fight um so that's a really cool thing uh up here acts as a
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mural broker essentially between muralists and wall rubbers
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so they they get the muralists they have applications come in uh and then they
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have wall owners and people from the community submit wells for consideration and then they matchmake they basically
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play like a yenta role where they they find the two people who have a similar idea of what they want to put onto their
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building and then they do that uh they started very small with really tiny murals which is what we're doing this
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year but they eventually got to the place where they were able to commission full well ms which is where we would
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like to see this go in the next couple of years next slide a closer inspiration and something
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that is much closer to what we're doing this year can be found in bellingham uh
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this is the noisy waters mural festival and this is only 3 or four years old
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they do things a little bit differently um so this festival is happening on a new waterfront uh which is where their
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old uh mural plant was that they've redeveloped in the last decade or so uh
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and they saw this as an opportunity to bring people to a new area that they
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hadn't been going to in the past um and it's been very successful for them so
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the way they do this uh they get they have much smaller meals around
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100 square feet which is what we're looking to do this year um they're painted on cans uh in front of the
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public uh and it's it's like an art event it's an art festival they have live music playing uh they have uh you
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know kids painting all different sorts of stuff is related to art uh and it's an excuse to bring people down onto
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their new waterfront the murals are juried um winners for like this year are
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then selected to um paint massive murals on the sides of uh full walls the
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following year and so they get you know $15,000 contracts awarded to them uh and
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that's funded both through the watcom uh county foundation their community foundation fund uh and then also the
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eltac uh um from up there um so they also act as a mural broker as well um so
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that's that's two of the festivals that we're kind of looking at to emulate here uh next
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slide so what are we doing uh we are doing the west by northwest mural
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festival it's taking place at the end of this month from thursday april 24th to sunday april 27th we're going to be
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having five roughly 96 square foot murals that's uh three 4x8 sheets just
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fyi um and they're going to be live painted at the hub uh and so the hub is
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going to be open to the public at this time we're going to be having some live music playing there uh kids face
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painting there are going to be some presentations from uh the muralists to student artists in our community hey how
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do you make a mural how do you do it um the murals are going to be uh worked on
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during these four days but not completed uh you know it takes a while to to make these barrels done they'll be completed
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by the end of may and then the plan is for us to install them over the summertime so we'll have them up by like
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mid october at the latest um let's see next
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slide so uh so what is the theme of our mural festival because you kind of need
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one for applications um please don't roll your eyes who is port angeles uh so
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it's a very pretentious sounding statement right um like what does that even mean uh and that that's kind of the
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idea uh so port angeles is in a moment of great change um you know there are a
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lot of people that want to see things done both differently we have a lot of construction projects happening uh and
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there's stuff happening on the national stage too so there there's a lot of change happening right now change is
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inevitable it's the only constant in life um so you know if you don't plan for it it's just going to happen to you
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us as a community have a lot to say about our community don't we and um you
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know this is a really nice opportunity for artists within our community to say
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you know this is what i think of angelus you know it's all positive stuff right and it's good stuff um and so you know
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these are murals that are going to be up on our buildings in our waterfront district uh over at least the next 5
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years and so these are some of the public art that we're going to be looking at as new construction projects
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are happening downtown so it's a way to you know set the tone um of what we want
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to see in our community uh you know look like in 5 years and 10 years a lot of
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these murals that we have downtown have been up for 30 years um so you know we
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want these nails to be up for 30 years as well too next slide
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so the nitty-gritty like how are we doing this uh i was awarded an eltac
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grant last year uh so you know that is funding part of this uh the water
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district has won a number of grants from outside of this community uh that we
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will also be using to fund part of this and we're exploring the possibility of
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um utilizing a facade improvement grant that's something that we're working on right now to see if if this works as a
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model basically um so the uh the
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waterfront district owns and commissions these murals um we share maintenance with the wall owner for 5 years so
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basically uh you know we wanted to find a way to get murals up on buildings
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downtown um and it they're expensive it's really expensive to get public art up uh and so we wanted stuff to go up on
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buildings but it was a hard sell to get building owners especially right now
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pennies are tight um to invest you know massively and putting art up on their
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buildings and so you know a lot of the big murals downtown are not owned by the
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building owners right they were donated by like the northwest rotary club things like that and so we saw this as a way
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where you know we can step in we own them but we just we own them in the way
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where you know it's our responsibility to make sure that they don't become blight right uh like that that is our
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ownership of these um the uh the walls and the
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minists professionals so we have you know members of the arts council the hub
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um field hall fuca so uh you know it was a relatively small group for this first
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round but we're very open to you know we invited the fine arts center um it's
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it's hard to get everybody together in a room right now but it is very open to you know all the other arts
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organizations in town for future years um next
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slide so what are the desired outcomes from this uh we want some renewed
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community pride there's a lot of wounded pride in this town and this is a really nice way to point to something cool
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positive and fun that's happening in our community right now um we want an
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engaging festival for locals and visitors it's going to be relatively small this year as we figure out uh you
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know how how to do this and how to do this well this year it's going to be at the hub next year uh you know we're
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hoping that we're going to have murals painted directly on one or two massive walls uh that's as long as the proof of
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concept works this year so that we're figuring things out um we yeah we want
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five new cool murals up in the waterfront district and around the district uh and just you know proof of
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concept next slide um and then uh a couple of other
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things too that fit with uh what the waterfront district is trying to accomplish right now so we are engaging
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in entering washington main street and main street usa this year uh it's a pretty laborious application process
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part of that is collaborating with other nonprofit organizations um the city uh
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you know kind of all these different groups and getting them to come together to talk about things uh in the community
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right beautifification and placemaking are a big part of main street program so
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this it really just falls in well uh once we become a main street we have
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been talking to the uptown arts district about going in together to uh get a
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creative district established in port angeles um we've been talking to arts law about that that involves a lot of
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collaboration between all of the different arts groups and so we see this fun project as a way to get there um and
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so it's fun you know we having some great conversations about that and you know next year like the murals aren't
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all necessarily going in the waterfront district the lincoln street corridor uh as well as 8th street uh it needs some
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more fresh art up there as well um and then we want just community excitement
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about more murals you know we got we were expecting uh you know at least five to six applications from mirrorless we
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got over 50 uh which is amazing um you know for a relatively we're paying the artists $2,000 so that's about 20 to $25
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a square foot which is a little bit below what the standard rate is for
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murals uh however uh we got a we got about 25 muralists from the north
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olympic peninsula which is wonderful and then we got about 25 from the seattle area and we got some internationally
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famous muralists which is really exciting i can't announce who the muralists are yet we're still putting
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them together with wallers um so i don't want to put the cart before the horse but uh we have some really exciting
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artists that are going to be making art here uh and we figure you know once this gets started
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like we see more happening and so we've developed a list of all the artists we
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want to play yenta between uh building owners uh you know who want to commission murals outside of our program
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to privately get their own art up on their own buildings uh and we've started some of those conversations as well so
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we're hoping that we just get the ball starting to roll and we start to see more independent murals just going up on
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buildings like the harbortown uh marketplace right um it's just it's great and so uh you know this stuff can
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be contagious and so we want it to catch um let's see and then kind of the final
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thing that we're looking to do is you know ultimately we don't want to be in charge of this you know we would love the waterfront of uh the arts council to
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perhaps take this on or another organization we are happy to run it for the next couple of years uh until maybe
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it becomes something that is fun enough that another organization wants to take it on um you know it's a lot of work uh
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next slide so uh you know what next what are
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things that we're looking at a little bit down the line that are exciting uh there are uh some big canvases in town
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that could also technically be considered blight um that could be beautified right and so uh you know the
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mckinley mill um and their uh it's it's like
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biomass thingy yeah uh you can see it as you're
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driving into town on front street right oh man and it's it's already white so like uh you know i've reached out to
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biopel i haven't heard anything yet but um i want that painted that there are so
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many ways that that could look great um and i don't understand why we can't do that um and then uh the the picture to
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the right there uh that is an old building that was associated with the
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warf uh you know as folks come into our country they look at it it got a paint
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job in the last year and a half which is great that's a wonderful you know upgrade uh it still doesn't look super
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uh if we you know the owner is amenable to having like a real deal decorate it
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like it's a great welcome to port angeles to america it's a it's an opportunity that's waiting for something
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to happen um so those are two properties that i would love to see some massive public art put on in the next couple of
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years um if you guys can think of any other things love to hear about it because you know right now we're in a
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bit of a fun stage of being like okay what buildings are you know blank canvases that need paint on them right
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now um next slide so uh i can always use help with
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this right now it is me and two people from elevate pa that are working on this
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uh we're a little bit like uh what have we done um just in terms of the scope of the work uh that is involved with this
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um so this is a fun project though because you know we are helping to you
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know gently guide the art that is going to be put up on walls you know for
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another generation um so you know if you want to have your your input put into
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that like we are open to people collaborating with us on this right now um so shoot me an email directorpa
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waterfront.org uh and i' i'd love to get some more help on this but we're okay but it's just it's a lot of work you
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know it's a lot of coordinating between all the different artists and the wall owners and matchmaking is is not an easy
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thing to do i'll tell you what um so that's the presentation uh love to
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answer any questions if you guys have any um i also don't have to do that let me start all right we'll see if there
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are any questions from council amy go ahead
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thank you uh not really a question i wanted to just say i really have been enjoying that one um child with picking
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their nose um on the side of the hub and also think this is a really brilliant way to engage people in walking around
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the downtown um i've been in places like mexico and malaysia where they have like self-guided tours following street art
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um so i just think this is a really good idea looking forward to supporting it i'm not sure if i fit into the brun or
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the brains but i'll shoot you an email totally yeah uh you know and that is
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something that we're looking towards uh there are a lot of small communities where they have biking tours that go
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between all the different murals uh you know in the audience is steve hargus who owns uh you know the downtown walking
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tours and those murals are really heavily used um for that so yeah it's
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you know how do we get more young families into port angeles um you know there's a housing crisis everywhere but
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like we're a clear town so we should lean in
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navara go ahead well sam i'm glad you were here tonight i've obviously heard
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about uh the festival through eltech and also some of our past conversations but
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i wanted i first wanted to say one of the things you didn't mention that um i think is a huge selling point is that
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public art slows people down um it improves traffic safety um people drive
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slower when they have something fun to look at instead of foreign buildings um and so anyhow i'm very supportive and i
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i certainly hope that this is the first of many um i have a couple of questions
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that you kind of talked about and i think they're going to be um the first
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question i feel like is kind of embarrassing but so there's going to be five murals painted is it five muralists
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painting all like a different muralist per painting so freddy you should ask uh
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for at least so one of them might have two muralists working together uh i
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can't announce who but it's local um and it would be a cool collaboration uh and
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so so that's part of it as well is that we actually um i think uh amy you
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mentioned you liked the kid picking his nose in the back of the hub um so that is that's a real deal mirrorless that
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has joined the hub uh his name is brady i couldn't tell you his last name i'm sorry brady
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um it's just brady right um but so there are other plans we're starting to hatch
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about developing our local artists and developing local muralists and uh
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because we have such an amazing arts community here uh and so you know in bringing out some murals from seattle we
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do plan to have some it's not like a really like train but it's like you know a meeting of the minds of like hey you
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know you should do this or don't do this and like you know in this material you want to do it like that kind of stuff
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right great so but just to like be really clear at least five different
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people paint doing artwork yeah i don't i'm sure there's multiple mediums people
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can use to make murals six or seven probably yeah okay very cool um and then
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so you kind of talked about it already but as you mentioned and as i've said to you before um i i really
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um i i really hope that we continue to look for a diversity of artists and
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kinds of art and styles of art um it's something that i think has been lacking
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in the public art in the downtown spaces not just our murals um and i think
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through some conversations with the city as well um you know when we're talking about putting a public art in you know
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that might be in city right ofways or whatever a concern is always well is it just going to be one guy's artwork so
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i'm really glad to hear that there is a diversity of artists i hope there will
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continue to be a diversity of artists and artworks and art styles and i think that you know you going through the list
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sort of of the older murals versus the newer murals i mean even the newer mural murals really still have one cohesive
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style to them which is lovely i'm not trying to knock it but um i think that's
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one of the things i'm really excited for for this festival is um to continue to
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make sure that the artwork we have and as you know uh sam and i have been at a
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few art council meetings together um as stakeholders i guess um and so to just
31:20
um be in those conversations and hear sort of the direction that i think uh public art is going you know in more
31:26
than on front um and i just want to say that i hope we can keep i think that
31:31
it's i think it's clear from the people you mentioned as a part of the selection process but just that i hope that that
31:38
continues to be at the forefront as it is this year uh a million% so uh all
31:46
respect to the people who have come before us because um you know they have made some amazing murals and uh it's
31:53
really cool what they did heavy lift super heavy lift to do that sort of a stuff in a community where like i don't
31:58
i mean i don't honestly don't know if 30 years ago there were other murals that were up downtown that like came down
32:03
it's before my time um but in our rubric we actually you know we asked artists
32:10
hey what kind of a thing do you want to put up um and so we were super heavy on
32:16
we do not know there will be no more historical tableau put up this year in the future there may be but like right
32:22
now like we have enough of those and are wonderful um but you know we don't have
32:28
the kind of like urban that you see in other towns even in like bellingham and
32:33
it's stuff that uh you know it's just color it's abstract but it's also whimsical so like you know i don't
32:39
necessarily want to uh do a new olympic visions downtown right um you know we
32:46
have uh we have a lot of animals put up and we have a lot of stuff like that so like let's get some new interesting
32:53
stuff that you might actually stop and look at for a second so like that's color um you know that's like different
32:59
shapes it's different style but like we've selected our muralist based on
33:05
that like we want new um but no disrespect to the old like it will complement the old and we'll have
33:11
variety and diversity in our art and like we think that that's important and you kind of need the whole picture in my
33:16
opinion anything else from council all right
33:23
well i don't know if i'm available to help but i'm certainly looking forward to uh the process and the outcome and
33:30
appreciate um you and the other folks involved in getting this off the ground
33:35
um i agree that you know we had some people who really made an impact on the
33:41
local art scene and sort of brought a local art scene and so it's
33:46
really cool to see um this being picked up and carried forward in a unique not
33:52
necessarily unique but in a way that is unique to port angeles and new um and just a cool new thing to do and see um i
34:00
think it's fun to watch people paint so i'll try to make it if i can't help awesome yeah go ahead yeah i i really
34:07
appreciate the idea of of different styles of art i was in dc last spring and at the african-american museum of
34:12
art and culture there was an afroofuturism exhibit and just the idea of futurism and like using murals to
34:19
project like what port angeles can be not just the past so i i appreciate that you're thinking about that and then just
34:25
maybe future project after you're done with this overwhelming number of applications is um the boxes the utility
34:33
boxes at intersections i've been in olympia a lot this spring and um it's really cool to see art just around in
34:40
those places so i don't know if we currently have any proposals for that i know we've been on and off trying to make that happen but um that'll be a
34:48
cool project too that will be a really cool project i'm talking to kyle zimmerman about you know he he's trying
34:54
to get that done uptown right and so um you we're gonna compare notes and like
34:59
that's that's on our docket too just fyi yeah thank you guys thank you thanks so much
35:06
and um we look forward to hearing other fun things that are happening at the water with the waterfront district um
35:12
but mostly we'll for now look forward to this totally thank you very much the next thing is um just uh open containers
35:18
everywhere able that's a great way to end
35:25
there was a there is or was a state bill for that so yeah i think i signed in pro
35:32
thank you very much um all right calvin should we go to your presentation
35:39
thank you mayor and members of the council uh tonight's presentation is on improving our permitting system and key
35:44
performance indicators hard copies of this presentation are available at the council dis and there are copies for the
35:51
public in the lobby this is about a 12-minute presentation so if possible please consider maybe holding your questions till the very end likely
35:57
questions early on are answered by a later slide all right so let me start with an overview of tonight's
36:03
presentation first talk a little bit about our guiding pillars second the city's overarching goals in this effort
36:09
third our current processes fourth the phased improvements we are now implementing fifth we'll talk a little
36:15
bit about the kpis and sixth our next steps and your questions so let's kick
36:21
off uh with our guiding pillars and these really have been our north star in this process uh the development services
36:28
team which is comprised of the community and economic development department public works and utility and the fire marshall is dedicated to providing an
36:35
excellent customer service experience strengthening community partnerships and connections and supporting a thriving
36:40
and inclusive port angeles so our goal is to become the best permitting agency
36:46
on the north olympic peninsula and that means providing greater transparency greater speed greater clarity and
36:53
greater responsiveness so i think it's clear to everyone that our current processes weren't delivering the
37:00
highquality customer service experience the public deserved and was expecting and we've been working hard to address
37:05
these challenges which at times can seem to lack coordination across departments
37:10
can be lengthy and uh with inconsistent timelines are outdated with no regular reporting mechanisms and finally lacking
37:18
transparency so to remedy these shortcomings the city manager set a very clear direction to ced public works and
37:24
the fire marshall's office to get our arms around these challenges and develop a thoughtful and comprehensive plan to
37:31
address it that directive led to an intense eight-phase plan over the last 14 months and really to elevate and
37:38
improve our permitting process and i'm excited tonight to share with you the progress and next steps all right so
37:44
let's start with phase one which was engaging with our stakeholders so in mid 2023 we began engaging stakeholders to
37:51
collect their feedback on our permitting processes and what we gained was a very clear picture of the inefficiencies and
37:58
the community needs and the priorities for future improvements so following that phase one outreach staff formed a
38:05
cross-d departmental team focused on improving permit review coordination known as the consolidated application
38:11
review policies and procedures or carp say that three times fast bringing together ced public works and the fire
38:18
marshall's office that effort resulted in united workfl unified workflows
38:23
eliminated duplicative duplicative routing of applications and prepared staff for the upcoming permitting
38:29
software upgrade now phase three led to a permit review tracker so in early 2024
38:35
staff developed a consolidated tracker to monitor the status of all pending permits and regular cross-dep
38:41
departmental meetings were established to review the tracker and address any outstanding issues this work improved
38:47
accountability enhanced collaboration and eliminated internal bottlenecks
38:53
phase four was brought on by a new law senate bill 5290 which you might remember passed by the washington state
38:59
legislature that required municipalities like port angeles to modify their procedures for land use and permitting
39:04
applications while sp 5290 did not specifically address building permits the city of port angeles elected to
39:11
include all development permits in the amended procedures bringing even greater transparency and timeliness than was
39:17
required by the state legislature now the staff has been spending the last several months preparing for this change
39:22
with significant updates being made to the municipal code to establish clear timely timelines for review allow for
39:30
concurrent reviews enhance clarity and consistency by consolidating scattered procedures into a single cohes cohesive
39:36
system and by doing so setting clear expectations and increasing the city's accountability
39:42
well three months in and with a lot of hard work i'm pleased to report to you tonight that we are 100% compliant with
39:49
these timeline requirements a big thank you to city staff who have been laser focused on this implementation and to
39:56
our stakeholders for their patience and we have as we have implemented these changes now for phase five you might
40:03
recall over-the-counter permitting was a recommendation of the city council during your adoption of senate bill 5290
40:09
legislation as a result staff incorporated a new type zero permit into the code revisions this new initiative
40:17
has been very successful permits that do not require a public notice or a public hearing can be processed over the
40:23
counter further streamlining the process staff is now available to price process type zero applications and provide same
40:31
day permit issuance each tuesday this includes minor residential mechanical work like hvac system installation mini
40:38
split system installation and new kitchen hood installation minor residential plumbing work such as
40:44
replacing or installing water heaters connecting appliances to water supply lines and replacing a water or sewer
40:50
line as well as residential miscellaneous work such as abandoned tank removal residential solar panel
40:56
installation and roofing and siding replacement so again after years of talk
41:01
we are excited to be taking action and implementing this important customer service
41:06
enhancement we are pleased to report that super tuesdays with tristan launched just in late january has
41:13
already issued nearly 80 over-the-counter permits and we're working now with public works utilities
41:19
to add some of their simple permits to the same over-the-counter process speaking of public works we are very
41:24
excited that starting starting in early february public works staff is now co-located at the permit counter and is
41:31
available in person without an appointment monday through friday from 8:00 to 5:00 p.m so to give you a sense
41:37
of how important this initiative is we have had over
41:42
700 in-person counter visits this year already this is definitely a customer
41:48
service enhancement that is working now to phase six enterprise permit and licensing software or epl as you know we
41:56
are sending and spending significant resources to implement epr epl uh which will introduce a fully digital
42:02
permitting and licensing software system here in the city the expected outcome of epl will be streamlined workflows and
42:08
automation improved review and collaboration modernized processes including mobile apps and electronic
42:14
plan submitt and real-time reporting for greater transparency phase seven is key performance
42:20
indicators or kpis you may recall way back in november of 2023 the council approved ordinance 3723 which revised
42:28
the city's master fee schedule as part of that effort council passed a specific reporting requirement to enhance
42:34
transparency and efficiency in the permit review and approval process specifically the council's legislation
42:41
stated four months after the tyler enterprise resource planning effort is fully implemented to upgrade the city's
42:46
permitting software for the development re review process the directors of ced
42:52
fire department and public works will present key performance indicator dashboard to the council and report regularly thereafter the kpis will be
42:59
developed in collaboration with key community stakeholders where we are pleased to be before you tonight months
43:05
ahead of schedule so to assist with that process staff met with key stakeholders
43:10
on january 17th to discuss the kpi initiative representatives from the
43:16
following organizations participated in that forum chamber of commerce edc
43:21
waterfront district habitat for humanity north peninsula builders association association of realators pa business
43:28
association port angeles uh pbh and others and i'll share a little bit more about the kpi initiative in just a
43:34
moment so now looking ahead to phase eight staff will use these kpis to
43:40
develop a transparent permitting system that alerts staff when reviews risk being late it will create automated
43:47
automated reports that provide detailed permitting and statistics enhance transparency and demonstrate whether
43:53
staff meet the kpis and evaluate employee performance accordingly
43:58
real time data will be used to increase staff accountability and make continuous and resultsdriven improvements this will
44:05
benefit not only staff but the council applicants and the public by providing valuable insights into our overall
44:11
success so now let's get to the specifics the forum mentioned earlier
44:17
brought together key stakeholders uh to craft the kpis now i won't say that there was unonyimity uh but this does
44:24
reflect the general consensus of those who participated in that forum so kpi1
44:31
onboarding and training forums hold at least two educational how-to sessions with the development community prior to
44:37
the launch of the new portal and explore beta testing with high frequency users kpi 2 customer satisfaction score once
44:45
implemented the city will gauge customer satisfaction through surveys focused on ease of use transparency and overall
44:51
experience with a goal of an 80% satisfaction rating or higher kpi 3
44:56
permit application submission time track repeat customers average time to submit a complete permit application using the
45:03
new portal track the percentage of incomplete applications and the percentage of applications requiring
45:08
second and third rounds of reviews kpi4 approval times for permits measure the
45:14
average time for permit application submission to approval track the percentage of approved permits within
45:19
timelines consistent with the requirements of ordinance 3742 that's the senate bill 5290 requirements and
45:25
within 18 months of launching the portal review opportunities to decrease those timelines under 3742 and evaluate these
45:33
timelines against our sister jurisdictions kpi 5 number of automated
45:38
permitting steps identify the number of automated versus manual steps in the permitting process by the end of the
45:43
first year reduce the number of manual steps by 25% within 18 months of launching the portal kpi 6 transparency
45:51
index assess the transparency level the permit process by eval evaluating the availability and accessibility of
45:57
information to the public through customer service surveys with a goal of at least an 80% satisfaction rating or
46:03
higher kpi 7 customer support response time measure the average response time
46:08
of customer support for inquiries related to the permitting process ensure average response time is two business
46:14
days or less for all inquiries within four months of implementation kpi 8
46:19
issue resolution time measure the average time to resolve issues or challenges identified during the
46:24
implementation of kpl epl with the goal of resolution within five business days
46:30
kpi 9 code evaluation on an annual basis review the top 10 sections of code cited
46:35
in application denials review development regulations for possible streamlining and simplification
46:40
opportunities and evalate the possible codification of previous director's determinations and kpi 10 frequent users
46:48
program within 18 months of launching the portal evaluate the option of creating a certified submitters program
46:53
which would require less staff review time for application materials from these certified applicants and then
46:58
finally our next steps the 10 key performance indicators will be integrated into the enterprise
47:05
permitting and licensing project and staff anticipate the launch of this portal in q4 of this year so we are
47:10
getting very close council members and finally a big thank you the city very much appreciates the community
47:16
stakeholders for their time input and collaboration as we work together to become the best permitting agency on the
47:22
north olympic peninsula and with that i'm answer happy to answer any questions
47:27
thank you calvin are there any questions from council lindsay go ahead kpi3 slide
47:36
please
47:46
we're working on it it' be slide 32 carrie
48:02
so this says track repeat customers average time to submit i'm curious why
48:08
we're tracking repeat customers and not all customers uh great question that was one of the
48:13
issues that was discussed at the forum uh the sense from the the the forum participants that one-time users one-off
48:20
users are are going to have some challenges at time and don't give a as clear a baseline as folks that are
48:26
consistently using the system so the group really wanted to focus in on those kind of high frequency users to see um
48:32
as as frequent users what their timeline what their experiences were so that was the the thought behind uh focusing on
48:38
those repeat user timelines yeah i i appreciate that i think there's
48:44
kind of two groups of people who come to the permit counter and one is is repeat users or frequent repeat customers and
48:52
then the other is is people are like hey i've got a backyard and i want to put a backyard cottage in it and i own one
48:58
backyard because i just own one backyard i'm not a developer and i think we should also track those people's
49:04
experience as well and we can always split the sample into two different groups and see if there's differences in
49:10
in results for repeat versus one-time customers but our goal really should be
49:16
that somebody can come into the permit counter at 8:00 a.m maybe maybe 8:30 i
49:21
forget when we open and leave by noon ready to build that afternoon so i think this is a step in that direction but we
49:29
shouldn't just be building the system for the professional developer community although it should definitely be better
49:34
for that community but it should also be available for people who are like "hey i
49:39
have one backyard and one backyard cottage and i want to make this work thank you council member we'll we'll make that adjustment thank you i lied
49:47
about the sun um jokes's on me um brendan go ahead
49:53
yeah this is great thank you so much for doing this this is what we asked for um i understand um you know the timing like
50:01
lindsay said it's great to have sort of as much data as you can get uh i understand like you said the reason for
50:08
you know repeat customers limiting the variables will get you better cleaner data um and uh refining the process but
50:15
yeah this is uh really good you know there was a lot of um i think we had a lot of
50:23
uh questions about you know trying to increase the time getting things built
50:30
uh getting people here having people at the counters wonderful um the number 700 you said just so far
50:37
this year wonderful i think that having that f face forward approach you know uh
50:43
a lot of stuff um can be explained quickly when you talk to somebody face to face as opposed to um trying to you
50:51
know communicate via email or on the phone so um all those things are going to get this moving faster and uh
50:58
hopefully lead to more uh houses being built uh you know more economic activity
51:04
in our our community and um yeah just really happy with this so thank you thank you thank you brendan amy go ahead
51:14
kind of feeling bad for tristan right now probably had no idea what he was signing up for um my favorite is number
51:20
nine um i think that is a really good idea to um or a really good way to
51:27
evaluate where changes can be made um i think that was really uh thoughtful um
51:32
also just wanted to say it's clear that um there's excitement behind this um and
51:39
a lot of work has been put into making these changes you guys are overachievers bringing this to us months early um and
51:46
now our expectations will be higher so but thank you this is really well done i
51:52
appreciate the presentation and all the information uh lindsay go ahead just piggybacking on
51:59
that i think nine is a great evaluation as well um and a good way to identify what the needs are um if we have some
52:07
things that are actually like repeatedly good reasons cited in applications
52:12
though those might stay at the in the top 10 list you know like like a good song just stays there for a long time um
52:20
and there's a potentially good reason for that so i'm wondering if maybe like we we add something of like check the
52:26
ones in in position 11 just in case it's a new one if that makes sense i'm not
52:31
quite sure how to say that but you know if we end up with a top 10 list in five years that is like yeah those are actually good reasons for these denials
52:38
we still want to be fixing our code
52:44
excellent uh anyone else all right mayor if i could just again a thank you to my colleagues um the director of public
52:51
works uh the fire chief the fire marshall have been very helpful and collaborative as we've kind of created this development services team i also
52:58
wanted to introduce uh chris jackson uh who is in wearing five or six different hats and is going to be uh really um
53:05
leading this charge and the the dashboard and so i just want to again thank the city staff and our stakeholders who were really
53:11
instrumental in getting this before you today thank you yes thank you and thank you for the presentation it's great to get an update um and we look forward to
53:18
for lots of reasons uh the tyler stuff coming online lindsay go ahead yeah one
53:24
one last comment about this you know in terms of our structure of the city we we basically have departments of like
53:31
specialty knowledge bases so we put all the planners upstairs in the engineer or sorry all the planners are downstairs in
53:37
the planning department or ced all the engineers are upstairs in public works all the finance people are tucked back
53:44
in in the corner with the mountain view um all the lawyers are upstairs i don't
53:49
think they get a view um and so what we're doing here is actually creating an interdisciplinary team which is really
53:56
much more how functional organizations function sorry i forgot the fire department you're not even in city hall that's why i forgot about you i'm not
54:03
sure how how you get to those meetings um and so like it it raises a larger
54:09
question i think of the the departmental structure of the city in that so much of
54:14
what we do is interdisciplinary as a general purpose government and you know does interdisciplinary teams make more
54:21
sense for our organizational structure as we attempted to tackle basically interdisciplinary problems so i just
54:28
want to throw that out as more more food for thought thanks thank you um all
54:33
right thank you for that presentation and for all the work that's happening in that regard um and we will take a fivem
54:40
minute break and come back and uh pick up with eltech
1:00:28
all right we need to reconvene our break is over
1:00:47
i should say my issue here is nothing to do with the actual content of it it's the procedure so if it's okay i mean
1:00:54
it's it's up to everyone else we can skip the content part of the conversation if it's up to you um i'm
1:01:01
going to go to calvin for the opening and then we can go from there thank you mayor council members you'll find this
1:01:07
information started on page i 38 of your packet i'll make this quick uh pursuant to the process set on
1:01:12
rcw7828 more than 45 days ago the city council submitted to the lodging tax advisory committee eltac a proposal to
1:01:18
reconsider or to consider the utilization of $238,751 from excess reserves to fully
1:01:24
fund applications that were not previously recommended for full funding or were underfunded as part of the eltac
1:01:30
2025 budget and to consider the 16 applications outside the scope of previously determined funding category
1:01:36
limits the elac met on march 20th and has recommended on a 5 to1 vote the use of
1:01:42
$163,613 in excess reserves to fund 11 applications as indicated in the memo uh
1:01:47
table funding for these applications is available in the lodging tax reserves from excess revenue collected in 2024 so
1:01:54
tonight's recommendation is to one adopt the lodging tax advisory committee's recommendation to utilize
1:02:00
$163,613 from excess lodging tax fund reserves for 11 applications and two
1:02:06
request the finance director to include this item in the next formal budget amendment to the 2025 budget finally the
1:02:12
city attorney finance director and planning supervisor are available for any questions you may have thank you you
1:02:18
go ahead also just uh i have to say it i have to recuse myself for uh whenever we
1:02:26
start talking about the votes or the motion if a motion is made but i did
1:02:31
want to make myself available as well for any questions that may come up um
1:02:36
before that happens thank you uh lindsay go ahead can i just
1:02:42
ask for clarification what was that rcw chapter number reading from the memo it's 6728 okay 6728 so that is this the
1:02:52
rcw chapter on lodging tax and the collection of lodging tax fees um and it
1:02:58
sets forth specific requirements for how the city decides how to spend this taxpayer money so i know that we said
1:03:06
there are no april fools today i guess this this is this is my version of april
1:03:11
fools because as a lawyer i think this is a little little funny maybe april
1:03:16
fool's joke anyway um so this is not a normal let me explain the issue here
1:03:22
this is not a normal advisory committee recommendation so our choices are limited by the statute itself you know
1:03:28
if if um the public safety advisory board comes to us with a recommendation it's really just something that's kind
1:03:34
of gone through a process we can do whatever we want with that in this case the statute reads quote "the
1:03:40
municipality may choose only recipients from the list of candidates and recommended amounts provided by the
1:03:46
local lodging tax advisory committee." and that's in that rcw67281 1816 subsection 2 subsection b
1:03:54
subsection double i um so we can only choose things provided by the local
1:03:59
lodging tax advisory committee so there has to be a local lodging tax advisory committee making a recommendation
1:04:05
so to have a lodging tax advisory committee that's also defined by the statute and it defines the composition
1:04:12
of the members of the lodging tax advisory committee it says quote the committee membership shall include a at
1:04:19
least two members who are representatives of businesses required to collect tax under this chapter and b
1:04:24
at least two members who are persons involved in activities authorized to be funded by revenue received under this
1:04:29
chapter that's in the same chapter second uh section 1817 subsection one uh
1:04:36
our legal department interpreted this provision to mean that quote the requirement of a balancing of persons
1:04:42
representing collectors and users pertains to the number of positions on the committee not whether each position
1:04:48
is currently filled so this issue of at least two members who are representatives of businesses at least two members who are persons involved in
1:04:54
activities authorized our our legal department said that that's about the number of positions not whether each
1:05:00
position is currently filled uh there's an organization in washington state called municipal research service center
1:05:06
which is an excellent source of information on local government legal and financial experts it's on the board
1:05:12
um their managing attorney provided an opinion that said quote "you asked
1:05:19
whether there's an issue if one of the collector recipient seats is vacant which i understand is the current situation on on our eltech resulting in
1:05:27
an unbalanced committee yes i do see this as an issue as a statute requires
1:05:32
the committee made up of two collectors two recipients and one elected official ccw this is the rcw i just read from the
1:05:40
eltac vacancies should be filled before the eltac makes decisions and recommendations about applications for
1:05:46
lodging tax funds so our legal department acknowledges that legal
1:05:53
experts disagree on this issue um our legal department wrote quote "as much as we respect the opinions of our
1:05:59
colleagues at mrsc this is matter in which legal experts have found disagreement." end quote um mrsc's
1:06:07
opinion uses the actual language from the applicable statute the word quote member rather than our legal department's interpretation which uses
1:06:13
the word position although that word is not used in the applicable statute personally i think the rule of
1:06:20
construction that the words used in statute are intentional and member and position are not synonyms here in this
1:06:26
context members hold positions positions don't hold members that doesn't make any
1:06:31
sense um but i'm not reinterpreting this i
1:06:36
don't think we have to be like "no a legal department got it wrong and mrc got it right or the other way around." i
1:06:42
think the the better way for us to make this decision is to think about the consequences of if one of these is right
1:06:48
or wrong um so we should consider the opinion of our legal department that as
1:06:53
they said this is a matter in which legal experts have found disagreement so what is the risk of this action now
1:07:00
versus later so what if our legal experts are right hey we've got a valid
1:07:05
recommendation from a valid eltac we can approve it and then issue these contracts based on that now what if mrsc
1:07:13
is right in that case we don't have before us today a valid recommendation from
1:07:20
eltac because the group of people that sat down and gave us this recommendation didn't meet the membership criteria to
1:07:26
actually be a lodging tax advisory committee they didn't meet the requirements of the law under which we're collecting this tax under which
1:07:32
we're able to then distribute this tax to other people we thus cannot meet the statutory requirements where quote the
1:07:38
municipality may choose only recipients from the list of candidates and recommended amounts provided by the lodging tax advisory committee if we
1:07:45
pretend that they we do do that and we vote tonight to pass this alleged
1:07:50
recommendation from an alleged lodging tax advisory committee our action won't be in compliance with the state law that
1:07:56
allows us to collect this revenue it will be what's called ultravirus meaning it is outside the
1:08:02
authority of the governing body to make right this means that if we then issue
1:08:08
contracts to these hopeful eltac fund recipients who we're trying to help there's a serious question of whether
1:08:14
those are valid contracts and if we then give them money under those contracts as they've requested as this group of
1:08:20
people that call themselves the elac but is not constituted properly under the statute or might not be legal opinions
1:08:26
differ legal experts differ uh we might be doing that illegally and then if that's challenged the whole thing falls
1:08:32
apart those organizations that thought they had money don't have money um and honestly they were justifiably relied on
1:08:39
the contract they had with us and we have liability so that doesn't sound like we're actually helping them and we're
1:08:45
not helping the city in that situation so from a riskmanagement perspective i
1:08:51
think we i i would go with the with the conservative decision that hey legal experts disagree here let's wait until
1:08:59
we have an eltac that legal experts don't disagree about its its legal con
1:09:04
its legal validity the way it's constituted and then get a recommendation from that properly
1:09:11
properly constituted eltac and then approve it so that means waiting a month
1:09:16
or two until we fill the vacancy in the eltac and then they send us a recommendation so i apologize that was a
1:09:24
long way of going around saying i don't want to decide who's right or who's wrong but we have a a decision that hey
1:09:32
this is a hard decision to make we have a very easy fix to it which is just wait a little longer and then give people
1:09:39
like good money not like questionable money uh so i move to table the
1:09:45
recommendation and direct eltac to review applications after the vacant positions on eltac are filled by
1:09:51
committee
1:10:00
members second all right do you want to speak to
1:10:05
your second yeah i think this is a like
1:10:10
legitimately a bad place to be i think um i think for some additional context
1:10:17
uh our like we've tried to solicit um volunteers to serve on this board for
1:10:22
months i'm looking over at carrie she knows exactly how long i don't but i think it was at least four or five months that we had this position open
1:10:29
and we didn't receive a single applicant so it's not like there were good people or any literally anybody who applied and
1:10:38
we said no we don't think they're worthy of being on this board there was literally not a single person who um
1:10:46
submitted an application um which i think you know i'm looking over at amy and drew that
1:10:51
were on the committee um you know and i think this was disappointing to all of us certainly no more than to me the
1:10:59
chair of this board um i also feel like the procedures that we underwent during
1:11:07
the meeting were fair and valid i think we had good discussions um we have two
1:11:14
new members on the board um maybe one new member and a voting
1:11:19
member a a person who's now voting um either way people who hadn't been
1:11:24
eligible to vote in the past or weren't um serving in this in really the same capacity i think one of the things that
1:11:30
we saw from the prior council decision was a lot of uncertainty by applicants
1:11:36
who um didn't know if they were going to be able to receive funding for the
1:11:42
events that occurred during during the times that uh the months where we did
1:11:48
not meet as an elac so um there are a number a number of folks who uh who
1:11:55
whose events have already passed who are in this recommendation um to you know on
1:12:01
whether or not to be funded um and there will be at least uh one
1:12:06
more which will be my partner eric's um and i'm saying that because well it's
1:12:13
in the packet should be obvious and full transparency and i also believe that
1:12:21
um you know every single one of these grants that we give out is a reimbursement grant so people have to
1:12:27
spend the money to then receive it from the city um so it's not like we you know
1:12:35
somebody applies for $10,000 we give them $10,000 to do whatever they have
1:12:40
they literally have to show us receipts and then we give them the money for what they spent so if they don't spend all
1:12:47
$10,000 they don't receive it so those things to me um certainly impact the way
1:12:55
that i'm approaching approaching this decision um
1:13:01
i yeah it's like it i don't think um to to me i think that
1:13:11
um it's as lindsay said it's just very it feels very risky to proceed with a
1:13:17
decision where um where somebody might be able to
1:13:22
challenge that and organizations that we um chose to fund are then held up in
1:13:29
essentially legal limbo um and i would prefer not to do that today was the
1:13:35
closing date for the second um the second round of uh pos position
1:13:44
applications to be received for that position um so i i hope i'm i'm pretty
1:13:50
sure we have at least one applicant i'm hopeful that we have a few applicants um
1:13:56
because i always hope that we have applications for all of our positions on this board and every board um and i
1:14:03
think it's it's a very important one um but i i don't i don't think that putting our
1:14:12
nonprofits at um at risk of a challenge
1:14:17
is um or at least i i would want to know more about what will
1:14:23
occur if and when a challenge occurs and what that looks like for our funds
1:14:32
other council members amy um i am curious to hear what um maybe
1:14:39
our city attorney um has to say but i also in looking through the minutes it
1:14:45
looked like most of the um approvals were like a five to one so having an one
1:14:51
more vote didn't for me didn't seem like it would actually sway the results
1:14:57
um and i guess my worry would be um what
1:15:03
kind of risk we're putting these nonprofits at by not giving them the money um and so that's sort of also on
1:15:10
my mind in thinking about um what we have to decide mayor council members to
1:15:16
go to attorney blure before that just i think one thing for the council uh to consider is the practical effects of
1:15:23
this approach which could be to set precedents that would give absolute veto
1:15:29
power to any member of the eltac um if one member didn't want to be there didn't like what was happening that
1:15:35
member by this approach would simply leave and they would not have a full uh compliment so i think it's just
1:15:40
something u for council to consider and i'll turn to attorney blur to kind of walk through the city's um approach on
1:15:46
this issue and recommendation
1:15:52
okay go ahead the um the motion is to continue um action on the eltac grants
1:16:00
for a couple of months and i personally don't have any
1:16:06
um concern about continuing the eltac grants for a couple of months i do not
1:16:13
know what effect that would have on the applicants uh and so i don't know whether that would put any of them in
1:16:20
jeopardy but from a legal point of view i don't care whether you continue action for a couple of months or not however i
1:16:27
do want to clarify uh the situation uh with regard to the
1:16:33
the legal issues um first of all i think the wrong question is being asked um we
1:16:41
have uh an eltac committee with all of the positions filled except for one one
1:16:46
of the required positions so you have um plenty of members on the commission uh
1:16:55
and so the question is not whether all the positions have uh human beings
1:17:01
appointed to them the question is whether there's a quorum
1:17:06
uh it is a quorum that in washington state law that's what governs the
1:17:12
validity of the action by a governing body that is what the um opma says you
1:17:22
judge the validity of the action of an of a governing body and i think in this
1:17:29
instance elac would be within the broad definition of a governing body but the
1:17:36
opma says is whether a quorum exists and that is the question to answer and in
1:17:45
this case in the case of the meeting you're talking about a quorum clearly did exist and it doesn't matter why
1:17:53
there's a missing member you have a missing member tonight does that invalidate the city council meeting no
1:18:00
it does not no one would consider that because you have a quorum the same thing applies to every committee commission
1:18:10
board meeting in the state there that's in the statutes and that is in uh
1:18:18
numerous numerous numerous court cases they all say what you look at to determine the validity of a um meeting
1:18:27
is whether there's a quorum or not and so that's i think that is the question
1:18:32
that should be asked and there is a quorum in this case and so i think the
1:18:38
risk is very low just consider an example
1:18:44
um of the um for instance the state
1:18:50
statutes they say that the number of council members in a city or town under
1:18:58
a city manager plan of government shall be based on the population and it shall be either five or seven
1:19:08
so that language council members shall be in the
1:19:14
number of seven or five depending on the population what the the rcw on the eltac
1:19:22
says is a lodging tax advisory committee shall consist of five
1:19:27
members so the language is virtually the same the language is virtually the same
1:19:34
but no one would cons what no one would dream of saying the council the city council port angela cannot conduct
1:19:40
business because one of the members are missing tonight for whatever reason whether they have resigned and gone away
1:19:47
or or or are just out of town um so i think the you have to
1:19:54
consider the context and then consider whether you want to continue the
1:20:01
motion uh and then finally i want to say also we work with uh municipal research
1:20:08
center uh every week uh they are a great resource they provide a lot of good
1:20:14
information but they are not your attorneys uh in fact the um the email
1:20:22
that was sent out by mrc has a disclaimer says this email is not legal
1:20:31
advice this email is not legal advice and then emlazed on their website they
1:20:38
have a further disclaimer that says mrsc is a statewide resource that provides
1:20:43
legal guidance mrc uh website is not is forformational
1:20:50
purposes only is not intended as legal advice nor as a substitute for advice of an attorney you should contact your own
1:20:57
legal counsel if you have questions um so the differences i just want to point
1:21:03
out if you uh if you were uh
1:21:09
to act on the advice of mrsc they will
1:21:15
not defend you in court and if you act on the advice of
1:21:20
the legal department of port angeles we will we are willing to back up our
1:21:26
opinions in court uh in support of you um so i wanted i think i'm saying all
1:21:33
that just to give you more context and perhaps a little bit different view of
1:21:40
what the important issues are and of course i i'd be glad to answer your questions too
1:21:48
thank you bill we'll go to brendan drew me and then back to lindsay because you had your hand up too uh brendan go ahead
1:21:55
yeah uh you know three out of four dentists prefer colgate over the leading
1:22:01
brand um there it's okay to have uh professional people experts in fields
1:22:07
have disagreements i won't be supporting this because our legal department is giving us a different opinion so that's
1:22:15
it drew go ahead um so this one's a little bit of a
1:22:22
tricky one for me because as someone who i am not a lawyer we have do i get to
1:22:27
call you a lawyer yet one and almost another lawyer up here so we do have
1:22:33
lawyers up here um but i do play a lot of games and read a ton of rule books and so i can legitimately see the
1:22:40
argument for both interpretations both interpretations make sense to me um and
1:22:46
is the case that has happened over the several years that i've done things for the city um i will defer to our legal
1:22:52
department because it's our legal department um they're the ones that have to back up anything they say to us um so
1:22:59
that's why uh regardless of how i feel this could be interpreted i i'm going to
1:23:05
defer and uh i'll vote no on this so we can try to vote for the original
1:23:10
um well the original packet that was brought to us tonight
1:23:16
um i'm just going to go really quickly and i'll go back to you lindsay um i am
1:23:21
also of the opinion that i don't want to start the trend of disregarding our legal department um since they're the
1:23:27
ones who are going to take a go to court for us um if something like this were to be challenged and my thought is if it
1:23:34
was challenged then we bring these all back um when the position is filled if for
1:23:41
some reason that happened um so i think for many of them the the planning piece
1:23:47
is important and if they don't know if they can count on the funding from lodging tax which they've already waited
1:23:54
from the fall to find out um while yes it's reimbursement i think um some of
1:24:01
these may need to modify their event or change how they're going to move forward if they don't get the funding that is um
1:24:08
that has now been awarded and so i would hate to delay that even longer so that
1:24:14
somebody might not actually have their event um because they don't know um and i know this was a unique round um based
1:24:20
on how things went and the way that we ended up here is not something that has happened before um but i still um so
1:24:28
anyway i'll stop talking and just say i'm i'm not in support of the current motion u lindsay go ahead all right so
1:24:36
there's this confusing issue of quorum which is completely not applicable to the discussion we're having here because
1:24:43
quorum means you have members who are not present at the meeting quorum is one
1:24:49
requirement to hold a meeting there are multiple requirements to hold a valid meeting in this case the statute
1:24:56
requires that the committee membership shall include at least two members who are representatives of businesses at
1:25:02
least two who are the tax collectors right so this is an additional requirement that city council doesn't
1:25:08
have that that other bodies don't have of course they have to have quorum that's what gets to the vote issue it's
1:25:14
not a matter of oh there were four to one votes or whatever the vote was it doesn't matter if the body wasn't
1:25:19
legitimately meeting our attorney made some great arguments that he would be ready to make in court that's great i'm
1:25:27
glad we're ready to defend this in court i'm suggesting that we do this so that we don't have to consider whether we
1:25:33
need to go to court in the first place and it's not like we have to make a decision here we can wait two weeks two weeks two
1:25:41
months however long it takes to get these applicants in and then redo the decision do the decision um so it's not
1:25:50
a question of oh do we do we go with this or not we don't have to make a decision right now a consequence of what
1:25:57
i said before the risk management of saying "hey let's wait till we have a solid decision where our legal
1:26:03
department says legal experts disagree on this issue." so i'm not choosing
1:26:08
mrc's opinion over our legal department's opinion i'm saying our legal department told us legal experts
1:26:14
disagree i don't want to waste time on this issue let's just do it right and then do it then thank you thank you um
1:26:23
any other comments amy wouldn't another consequence of waiting
1:26:29
be that from now on we would not be able to get a recommendation from elac unless
1:26:37
like we're sort of setting a there's a legal term but thank you um
1:26:44
like a so that in the future this will also we
1:26:50
will not have a fully membered um eltech group we i mean
1:26:57
i don't know when we have and so will we ever be able to then move forward with
1:27:02
recommendations if we are now here saying that we require all the the
1:27:09
members um to have been filled
1:27:14
i mean i just feel like we're kind of setting ourselves up to never be able to um give away this money
1:27:20
we'll go to navara that's just a point of information the requirements in the
1:27:26
rcw are the floor and our eltac chooses
1:27:31
we've made a conscious choice as a council to include members of the public on our eltac and so for as long as i've
1:27:40
been on the board and i believe when mike french was on the
1:27:47
board as well um that we have always had the requirement the committee
1:27:54
requirements as set forth in the rcw as having two lodging tax collectors
1:28:03
um be on you know have those seats be filled and two tax recipients have those seats
1:28:12
be filled as well um i think i mean i've
1:28:17
been thinking about this for two months now and um i think it's i mean it's i
1:28:25
honestly it's a really fascinating issue um and one that i don't really like
1:28:31
being the test case of um and i think um
1:28:36
yeah i i think i think there are just i think there's just consequences either way like what what whatever we decide
1:28:43
tonight i think there are just consequences of that decision and
1:28:49
um you know and i um i think i'm not saying that those
1:28:54
consequences are bad or good but i think um whatever yeah whatever we decide this
1:29:00
is one of those issues where i feel like there's just like the pros and cons almost don't outweigh each other on on
1:29:07
either side or sort of cancel each other out in a way that i find very
1:29:12
uncomfortable um anyhow just to just just to say that
1:29:18
i guess all right let's vote on the current motion which i believe i have
1:29:24
corrected you tell me if i missed something oh you did okay it's weird it's not coming up um i believe the
1:29:31
motion is that we table the um this item the lodging tax 2025 lodging tax fund
1:29:37
budget amendment uh until the lodging com until the lodging tax committee has
1:29:45
all required positions filled uh the motion is to table the
1:29:51
recommendation and direct elac to review applications after the vacant positions on eltac are filled by committee members
1:29:57
okay oh there it is didn't pop up okay i'm going to reread it just for um to try to be um following the rules um so
1:30:06
we have a motion to table this recommendation and direct eltech to review applications after the vacant
1:30:11
positions on eltech are filled by committee members all those in favor of the motion please say i i opposed no
1:30:19
thank the motion fails to write this
1:30:25
down and you're going to recuse yourself now presumably someone will make a motion i am
1:30:32
okay madame mayor i move to adopt the lodging tax advisory committee's recommendation to utilize
1:30:40
163,613 from excess lodging tax funds for the 11 applicants and two request
1:30:45
the finance director to include this in the next formal budget amendment to the 2025 budget
1:30:52
second okay any discussion about the motion do you want to speak to your
1:30:58
motion at all yeah i'm glad that uh we came back and uh you know asked eltac to
1:31:04
uh go ahead and look at the unfunded ones and that if they didn't get all of the money at least they got some of the
1:31:10
money and that'll go to helping these events and helping our uh community and
1:31:16
uh driving our economy and uh helping kids and um yeah so thank you thank you
1:31:25
i'm sorry my mic was on the whole time anyone else wish to speak to the motion okay um so we have a motion to
1:31:33
adopt the lodging tax advisory committee's recommendation to utilize 163,613 from excess lodging fund
1:31:39
reserves for 11 applications and request the finance director to include this item in the next formal budget amendment
1:31:45
to the 2025 budget all those in favor of the motion please say i i i opposed no
1:31:52
okay uh thank you i have a new sheet so we make sure we
1:31:58
log the votes correctly so i'm filling it out real quick um if someone wants to let navar know that we're done that
1:32:04
would be great um give me just a
1:32:16
second
1:32:21
okay thank you very much we will um move on to um council
1:32:29
reports oh i was going to go first with latricia first because i keep going to brendan because my it's easier for me to
1:32:34
look this way but she's not here so we'll start at brendan uh yeah just a couple quick updates um
1:32:41
north north olympic community media is moved out of the um lincoln building now
1:32:46
um we have placed the servers here in the city uh moving to next steps to maybe try to find another place that we
1:32:53
can actually hold some in-person stuff um for uh column transit we're uh our
1:33:00
general manager has decided to retire um unfortunately for us cuz he's been doing
1:33:06
a good job he was only there for about two years but you know it's not often about um how long you're at a place it's
1:33:13
about what kind of impact you leave there and um he did a really good job of um you know uh helping get uh zero fair
1:33:21
um doing you know so much that uh jim fetzer did over there and uh we're
1:33:26
looking we're grateful that he was there and um looking forward to the selection process of finding his replacement and
1:33:34
um thought there was something else but i just can't think that off the top of my head but um oh yeah and just quickly
1:33:42
um i know council has in council reports spoken about you know the tough time
1:33:47
that some folks are having with the current federal situation and their feelings towards it and how it can be
1:33:53
you know some folks are finding uh it really upsetting what's going on other people are pretty happy about it you
1:34:00
know it's a very diverse thing and um you know i just sometimes rhetoric rhetoric can get really out of hand uh
1:34:07
there's been a lot of attacks on you know one corporation or another uh last year during the palestine um thing with
1:34:15
israel one of our service members in washington dc lit himself on fire in protest so it's really um unfortunate
1:34:23
sometimes when rhetoric can get people heated to a spot where they feel that
1:34:29
they need to attack or um make some kind of bold statement uh
1:34:35
like our service member did um so i just i hope that everybody could just take a breath and try to talk with people who
1:34:42
they have differences with to try to um and you know by all means like if you're
1:34:48
really upset you know protest peacefully you know do what you have to do and there's plenty of things the federal
1:34:53
government has done that i am not happy with and um but just all remember that we live in a community together and uh
1:35:00
just try to um you know bridge those mend those fences and bridge those gaps that's it
1:35:07
thanks brendon amy i don't know how i'm going to follow
1:35:12
that um with business um okay i do have a couple of things to update you guys on
1:35:18
um i've been attending u monthly arc meetings which for i had to be reminded
1:35:24
what that stand for so i figured you guys also might have needed that is a ad hoc aligned response and care team where
1:35:32
we have it's a interdisciplinary team from the city um we have representation
1:35:38
from the police department fire department parks um public works um me
1:35:45
and some other um departments as well and what um what we are what we have
1:35:51
been trying to do is to come together so that we can
1:35:58
um address and consider some priorities in the community to
1:36:05
um look at them from um a real eclectic way and so keeping our spaces in our
1:36:13
community safe and looking at um what are some different ways that each member
1:36:20
coming in can uh address that and so i just wanted to share with you some of the things that have been happening um
1:36:27
we uh had identified a handful of priority areas in the community that
1:36:35
um we decided needed to be um assessed um in in regards to sort of
1:36:44
how those spaces are being used and um we've had some successes um specifically
1:36:50
we our first um area was the peabody creek corridor and um we have done things um
1:36:59
successfully um specifically we got a trash can down there um and we put up
1:37:06
some signs and um part of that uh priority um space was also that um the
1:37:14
old firehouse um which you guys have just moved out of um thank you because
1:37:19
um i think that building is about to be um condemned um and so we're also
1:37:25
looking at how to um do that in a safe way as well um i
1:37:31
think you guys are probably pretty familiar that that building butts up against the uh the veterans bell park
1:37:37
which has also been sort of a hot topic on council before me uh
1:37:42
um and so we're looking at how to best sort
1:37:48
of close up um that building while it awaits its next um life which has yet to
1:37:57
be decided um and recently we took a field trip down to 911 uh memorial park
1:38:05
which is our next um priority area um luckily for me uh it was the day after
1:38:12
the shooting and i had chief smith with me so i felt very safe and tim from
1:38:17
parks he's tough um um but looking around that area um a because it has um
1:38:26
sort of high visibility we've had um some things go down there and i think
1:38:31
there um we come together as a group to consider how best to improve that space
1:38:37
for our community and so i just wanted to remind you that that stuff is happening we're actually um i shouldn't
1:38:43
say it like i'm surprised but we're getting things done um and that feels pretty good we've been meeting um mostly
1:38:50
every month um and and moving right along so i just appreciate um the staff
1:38:55
members that are attending that regularly and i really enjoy the conversations that we've had and um the
1:39:02
sort of meeting of the minds is because we are not always agreeing uh but we get there so that is that i also have been
1:39:08
attending the homelessness task force i've been putting a lot of um hours into that group recently working on the
1:39:15
five-year plan which is still sort of rolling along but also we just did our rfp
1:39:21
um uh process um and we usually have um
1:39:28
don't quote me on this um pdn but we usually have like
1:39:34
1.7 million um to um disperse based on the request for money and this year we
1:39:40
had um about 55% less than that um with the same amount of requests um and so it
1:39:48
was a really difficult process i'm i know you guys probably have done that kind of thing it was just really
1:39:54
heart-wrenching we do have some um nonprofits who are um facing a lot of
1:40:00
difficulty um potentially facing reduction of services reduction of staff
1:40:06
um it's going to be rough um but we i had a good group of people um with me
1:40:12
and we did make those decisions it's going to go to the commissioners on tuesday i believe for approval end of
1:40:18
note i'm going to stop talking eventually um the uh point in time count
1:40:24
which is where we do a one one day a year we count um we do a census of
1:40:31
individuals who are um living unhoused and we got um it's not official meaning
1:40:37
that the state has not rubber stamped it but i do have some preliminary um numbers and i wanted to share that with
1:40:44
the public um current well in 2023 3 our total
1:40:52
amount of individuals counted was 215 and last year it was 235 and this
1:40:59
year it's 300 um 176 individuals uh living unsheltered
1:41:08
um and 125 are staying at the
1:41:14
shelter wanted to share that um and follow it up with
1:41:20
um sority house gave me some flyers they are doing a fundraiser um they're trying
1:41:25
something new and um they're really going to need it so i will have this and
1:41:32
if you need it i will share it thank you thank you did you have a question
1:41:38
for her oh indicating i'd like her to share it got it okay very good um navar go ahead well we obviously had our eltc
1:41:46
meeting and
1:41:52
um that apparently i don't know you wouldn't be surprised
1:41:57
um well believe it or not one of the ways that the city has improved its communication is through having a very
1:42:02
large tv outside in really the place where um you would sit to recuse
1:42:09
yourself so um believe it or not i did see um i think maybe if we're maybe
1:42:18
maybe it's a future conversation at counselors where do you go to recuse yourself um instead of pretending that
1:42:24
you uh didn't see everything written in um written out um anyhow so that being
1:42:33
said uh moving right along i also had um nodc
1:42:38
um and we had a really fascinating presentation from rick dickinson who
1:42:44
used to be at um another organization and who's now at
1:42:50
habitat for humanity center for inclusive entrepreneurship thank you um so anyhow
1:42:56
rick has moved over into doing like working as i'm going to get his title wrong but specifically with habitat for
1:43:02
humanity he's working on being um on on improving the services that habitat
1:43:09
provides to native american communities specifically um on reservations um but
1:43:16
also anywhere in the community and so um he his position is the first for habitat
1:43:24
in the nation which is kind of exciting and he's been doing a lot of outreach to the local tribes on ways that they can
1:43:32
um ways that they can be ways that habitat can be um you know a good partner and ally and think through a lot
1:43:39
of the different ways that um local tribes get money to build housing um and
1:43:45
i learned quite a lot um one of the things i wanted to highlight is that canoe journeys is this summer um going
1:43:52
to uh elwa and so h one of the things that habitat is doing is sort of
1:43:57
donating their um building crew and um a lot of their tools that they have to
1:44:04
partner with the tribe around um you know some of the the areas on the
1:44:09
reservation that um that they are working to partner on so i thought that
1:44:15
was kind of a neat project that i wanted to highlight um i obviously said that we
1:44:21
are always always um hoping that habitat will build more homes here in port
1:44:27
angeles um and that anything that we can do to support that i think we've been as
1:44:33
a council really um a good partner to our friends at habitat and uh it's great
1:44:38
to see them working on um some new programs that i think will certainly
1:44:44
benefit our community but also the the the nation as well and then last i had
1:44:52
um the pool board uh and wanted to highlight a few things the first is that
1:44:57
um they are open longer hours a little bit different hours this week for spring break um so if there are kids in your
1:45:05
life um or i guess adults who also have spring break this week um the pool is a great place to be um they we've been
1:45:14
working for a number of years now on getting a child care center like right
1:45:19
over that way right behind the pool in the old um school board building at omc owns it
1:45:26
now um and so uh steve has been working on getting funding through the state um
1:45:33
obviously there's a lot of uncertainty for that um but uh they've also been sort of going going ahead on sort of the
1:45:40
permitting applications and trying to um work on the things they can work on um
1:45:46
and then last they're um the pool's uh easter celebration is coming up i
1:45:51
believe it's on the 13th um where they're they put thousands of eggs into the pool and i asked it's open
1:45:59
to adults not just children so if you too would like to go and hunt for eggs in the pool um please feel invited to go
1:46:07
it's the price of eggs plastic
1:46:13
eggs plastic i'm assuming they're plastic uh so they float um yes not not
1:46:20
real eggs in the in the chlorinated pool water sorry for that
1:46:26
miscommunication um i think that's my i think that's my report well that would be a good april fools
1:46:32
but here comes amy with her bucket all right lindsay go
1:46:38
ahead uh i have one light thing one one not so thing just to clarify the
1:46:43
decisions around veterans park never came to the city council those are were closed area decisions that are under the
1:46:50
authority of the park's director with the exception of ericson playfield skate park for some reason i don't know why
1:46:56
corey doesn't have authority to close that park um so yeah that actually never came to the city council as an issue
1:47:02
despite a lot of people coming to us and yelling at us about it um so that was the heavy thing the light thing is our
1:47:10
presentation earlier mentioned you know after we get all these murals we can walk around with with a drink and go
1:47:16
admire them an adult beverage um and there is a bill to modernize the
1:47:23
regulation of alcohol service in public places um awc has a um a blog post on
1:47:30
that called i'll drink to that the bill is house bill 1515 so everyone write that down house bill 1515 because this
1:47:37
bill is still alive this legislative session and it has a public hearing on
1:47:43
saturday at noon so everyone should be sober by then um to so you can go if you
1:47:49
search ledge.wah.gov and type in 1515 house bill 1515 you
1:47:55
should be able to find it you can sign up to pro and i mean we know some of the best cities in the world like you can
1:48:02
walk down the sidewalk to the next pub or whatever it is depending on if you're new orleans or london and if we're going
1:48:08
to have the best permitting system we should have the best downtown too so house bill 1515
1:48:14
thank you lindsay cute yeah so uh last th friday i had another
1:48:21
recompete uh meeting um just as a quick reminder because after a while we're all
1:48:27
on so many things what the heck is that one again um that's the one so i'm just going to straight up crib list from
1:48:34
their website it's faster that way the north olympic peninsula recompete plan uh so noprc led by clum county aims to
1:48:42
revitalize the marine and natural resource industries in the north olympic peninsula the new funding will help noprc drive renewed economic
1:48:49
competitiveness and good job job opportunities in the region specifically the funding will support critical marine
1:48:55
and natural resource industries a workforce strategy aligned with educational components as well as social
1:49:00
support services uh and then it's through the recompete task force tribal
1:49:05
county governments local colleges and economic development partners are poised to create and connect uh residents to
1:49:11
good jobs um good jobs actually has a legal definition also i don't remember
1:49:16
what it is off the top of my head it's actually a percentage of uh wages so there actually is a defined good job
1:49:24
payment structure um but what this one was was this was a grant program that um
1:49:30
mike french is actually uh the commissioner kind of in charge of and spearheading most of that um i forget
1:49:38
how many total municipalities and locations applied for across the country
1:49:43
but we were one of about a dozen um areas and i think the only one that was multiple areas because it's colum and
1:49:50
jefferson county all working together and we did receive a $35 million uh grant this last fall and that's in with
1:49:58
partnership and uh programs tied with uh the tribes with some of the industries
1:50:04
locally as well as the college and a lot of other groups and there's i i don't even know how many
1:50:10
pages of documents that i don't need to get into right this second but if anyone's curious i can send you websites of what all that entails um but more
1:50:17
importantly now that we we've the funding has been secured the funding has
1:50:23
already been uh guaranteed so my understanding is there's no concerns as far as federal funding not coming
1:50:29
through on this and with that we're partnering and actually starting to work with a lot of the groups that are
1:50:35
receiving the funding um where i'm going with this specifically right this second is now that our meetings are averaging
1:50:42
35 45 50 member meetings um we are forming a board of voting members uh to
1:50:48
actually oversee and kind of direct some of those um projects and kind of help with those um and i am going to be one
1:50:55
of the voting members on that board um and so that's the update for that uh so
1:51:01
that way you guys are all aware of no one has brought up what would happen if i'm no longer the city representative if
1:51:06
the next city representative is a voting board member by default we're still working on what our mission statement is
1:51:12
that's the next meeting um and then the other hat that i wear is um north
1:51:19
olympic peninsula tourism i mean sorry the olympic peninsula tourism uh commission so um we have a meeting this
1:51:26
upcoming thursday and then right around on monday is actually the olympic peninsula tourism summit that's out at
1:51:33
um seven seeders and so that's going to be about a day and a half of um sessions and seminars and guest speakers about uh
1:51:40
travel tourism specifically and i'm really looking forward to that i think it'll be a really good session uh that's
1:51:46
all i have this evening thank you um i will just point out as a reminder
1:51:52
because i i think i've said this not too long ago but um a couple of my most
1:51:58
regularly meeting my two most regular uh council committee assignment meetings um
1:52:06
are nonprofit boards who are not subject to public records requests and aren't necessarily things that i can report on
1:52:12
um in the or that i need to report on um so uh lorisen trust in particular the
1:52:20
the trust says the mayor is a trustee so so i am um but we've uh
1:52:27
we give um financial support to widows in the
1:52:33
county um when asked and with some limitations but just a quick note on
1:52:38
that one um while i was um uh in between meetings uh i will just mention i was
1:52:46
thinking um particularly um nathan and i went on sunday to bob stokes service at
1:52:54
studio bob um it was very well attended um i learned a lot about him uh because
1:52:59
uh nathan spoke about his impact on port angeles and some other folks spoke about
1:53:04
his um early life he was very interesting person i had met him once or twice but didn't really know him well um
1:53:11
but was um glad to be able to go with nathan and represent um the city um at
1:53:18
his service um i think it meant a lot to his it was um his family his children
1:53:24
were there um and said how touched they were to hear um how how much he meant to
1:53:33
the port angeles community and that it was really cool to learn more about that part of his life um and so thinking
1:53:40
about the presentation earlier i think um bob certainly is someone who is responsible for the initial art scene in
1:53:48
port angeles um so um uh that is the end of my report just going to stop there
1:53:55
and we'll go to city manager report thank you mayor and council we have eight items for you just one quick uh
1:54:01
note for your calendars uh a joint meeting with the kalum county pub has been scheduled for tuesday june 3rd at
1:54:08
4:30 here in your council chambers please make a note that's it for staff thank you thank you um that brings us to
1:54:15
second public comment period if you are online and wish to um speak please uh raise your virtual hand um and i have
1:54:22
one person signed up um because he went ahead and signed up um james taylor who's on his way down if you wish to
1:54:28
speak at second public comment period um you don't need to have signed up um we'll start with james and we'll do
1:54:34
council chamber first i don't have any hands online at this time go ahead is james taylor uh property owner and uh
1:54:44
um so first of all since i'm always so negative up here excellent job i thought
1:54:51
i thought you were spot on i really really hope that you can hit half of
1:54:57
what you're trying to accomplish um okay back to my normal persona
1:55:03
um i i went looking at payroll this last time and i have noticed that since
1:55:11
uh 2021 so in three years um our payroll has gone up $10
1:55:17
million and that's 36.5% increase
1:55:24
so um the population of port angeles has increased hasn't increased but we keep
1:55:31
adding people to the city government and
1:55:36
um that is a burden to the community and i know that you're going to need money and you're going to come ask your
1:55:42
citizens to pay more in sales tax and go after people for more money and i'm i'm
1:55:49
just letting you know that you know the growth of city government is what's
1:55:54
driving these rate increases it's not it's not necessarily inflation and all
1:56:00
those details it's growth and what what i'm really concerned about with this is
1:56:07
um we also outsource a bunch of our thinking you know such as makers um
1:56:14
architecture and so what's going to happen when grant funds start drying up
1:56:21
based on what we're hearing out of washington dc um where is the money
1:56:27
going to come from to to pay for all these employees we now have um
1:56:33
are we going to be making employee cuts um due
1:56:38
to i'm really sure that grants are going to dry up and i think that's right on the doge target i was talking to rebecca
1:56:48
miller and she's not sure if she has a job next week so
1:56:54
um you know is there a plan in place thinking this through of how we're how
1:57:00
we're going to adjust should these grant funds start shrinking because i think a
1:57:06
big chunk of this 36.5% increase was to go after grant
1:57:11
funds so i just you know you know in the coming months i i would like to hear a
1:57:16
plan from the city on on how we're going to address what i think is going to be a major shortfall to the city you know not
1:57:24
okay so i'm done being all harpy um great job again
1:57:31
thank you james mr mr barbary go ahead
1:57:41
my name is glim barbi i am a uh city resident i have not forgotten about the
1:57:47
letter that i'd wanted to send to city council upon advice i've concluded that
1:57:54
i need more information i'm expecting to gain much of that is information over the next two
1:58:00
weeks they don't have a clear idea what information they'll need to officially
1:58:05
ask for suffice for now i am very curious about the ceremonial diplomatic
1:58:13
and practical aspects of port angeles's city sister city
1:58:20
program on the immediate horizon is squatchcon i do plan to attend it as
1:58:26
both a participant and a guest now if anyone from either or both
1:58:31
the us coast guard or the canadian coast guard would be willing to engage me in
1:58:37
an extended conversation i am confident that it will be time well spent after all i did graduate from navy
1:58:45
nuclear power school while having undiagnosed autism however the medical physics is a
1:58:52
hobby of mine and i work 100% proono
1:58:59
unfortunately i have you jokers as character references so there is that
1:59:07
so we had a uh let me talk very eloquently about public art and that is
1:59:17
very i mean being in the military i know how important morale is and morale in
1:59:24
this country is down and that is a major concern
1:59:32
because when people have poor morale that can lead to poor poor decisions poor politics anger
1:59:40
aggression all sorts of things that are really not good for the general community now i'm interested in
1:59:47
something that's a little more speculative so i mean i'm gathering more information
1:59:53
about this is the idea of public science basically if you want to make
1:59:59
money you start a business you want to make jobs you start an industry and
2:00:05
that's something i have been seeking a lot about and in the coming months and years i plan to be doing what i can in
2:00:12
that direction thank you thank you anyone else wish to
2:00:19
speak okay just your name and whether or not you're a resident susie blake port angeles
2:00:25
resident i am somewhat encouraged by council member miller's uh report tonight but i am here to make public
2:00:30
comment about the drug and crime problem in central port angeles in my neighborhood that sometimes hides in
2:00:36
encampments and uses homeless people as customers but not just customers as mules as couriers and as shields for
2:00:43
their activities i believe these issues can be addressed by allowing police to do the job they already do very well and
2:00:49
enforce the laws we already have on the books requiring jails to hold offenders especially those that come here from out
2:00:55
of the area with multiple extraable warrants and we so often hear jail will not hold and expecting the courts to
2:01:03
prosecute fully and i say this as someone who firmly believes that interruption accountability and yes
2:01:09
often incarceration can save lives it saved my son's life and he's a productive citizen today because of it i
2:01:15
do not believe further burdening the working class with more taxes will do anything to fix these public safety
2:01:21
problems it is an insult to the integrity of most struggling with housing to say what is happening on the
2:01:26
streets of my neighborhood is a homeless issue we have a massive drug and crime camp problem as i stated in my past my
2:01:33
preferred transportation is my feet and the following are just some of the things that occurred in places i frequently last walk in the last three
2:01:39
or so weeks this saturday morning i went downtown to enjoy uh supporting local businesses and on my way home as i
2:01:46
passed by the health department i witnessed no less than eight males openly smoking fentanyl on foil with
2:01:52
straws in the health parking lot um this has been a weekly occurrence every weekend that i've been home for the last
2:01:58
couple months and the groups get larger each week a couple weeks ago i went to safeway on a friday evening with my car
2:02:05
in a targeted list with their sale items but i did not stop or park because i believed i saw a male who i identify as
2:02:12
v and have a 5-year protective order against awarded by the courts when i made a w a victim statement at his
2:02:18
hearing i believed i saw him and a male who's also frequently in and out of our jail who i identify as jay smoking
2:02:24
fentinel in the back of safeway and i decided not to bother with stopping the potential to need to call police to
2:02:29
infect uh enforce my protective order um um later that night male j um was
2:02:36
involved in a police chase that literally ended on my front lawn and he was pursued due to multiple warrants the
2:02:43
words and actions of law enforcement ent and there were at least four officers and four emt were compassionate and calm
2:02:49
so i was reassured and they were compassionate and calm with all parties concerned yet it was traumatic enough
2:02:56
for me that my entire body shook physically for half an hour after they left you see i know that suspect has a
2:03:02
history of violence against women and strangling his girlfriends i know one of his old girlfriends is in the jail
2:03:07
trying to get clean and his current wound was left on my curb in tears as she tried to defend him and deal with
2:03:14
her own withdrawals um in other events and areas i walk metal thieves caused thousands of dollars in damage to the
2:03:20
waterfront trail in 911 front park yet the city has not publicly addressed the situation or the cost of
2:03:27
repairs that was three minutes already it was okay if you can just back next time all right thank you susie good to
2:03:33
see you in person
2:03:39
all right stephen polo again i live in the county have a couple businesses here in the city um tonight's discussion i
2:03:45
guess proved my my initial comment here we seem to have a consistent bit of dysfunction in in our eltac and i just
2:03:52
want to remind everybody that this is something we created the latest issue it seems like for the tax collector role if
2:03:58
you collected taxes in the city you could probably have that person on ltac
2:04:04
and so by limiting to people city residents i think that's shrunken the pool of people that are wanting to get
2:04:10
involved with elac so i think that's something maybe we ought to consider second thing is i hope hopefully you
2:04:15
guys caught uh jim hwood in my presentation on coffee with colleen this week if not uh let me know happy to meet
2:04:21
with you share my slides spreadsheets links to all my data but i've been doing a little bit more analysis benchmarking
2:04:26
our community to 20 other similar cities uh uh and and i think it's pretty
2:04:31
objective way of of looking at it and i'd be happy to share that analysis with you uh the third point i really want to
2:04:37
make is um some of my own i don't know just to feed your own mosaic here uh last night at the elevate pa meeting
2:04:43
mark abshshire mentioned that it looks like this year's fourth of july we're not going to be able to have fireworks
2:04:49
at this point uh we just talked a little bit about morale for the city i think this would hurt kind of a reputation and
2:04:55
morale so it seems like it's a money issue it's a barge issue it's many issues uh we still have the same
2:05:00
sponsors it looks like maybe we need more to cover the inflation for this but i think this is something hopefully we can start to work on now and maybe find
2:05:07
a solution for that couple other puzzle pieces for your mosaic um colleen spoke
2:05:12
this morning at the port angeles business association breakfast she was in olympia meeting with ferguson
2:05:17
governor ferguson as well who basically told her to prepare for potentially edc budgets being cut in half as well uh
2:05:25
third and last data point was uh valley medical in reton uh in talking to daryl
2:05:31
wolf of omc he says this is one of the largest hospital districts if not the largest uh in in washington they
2:05:37
announced uh layoffs of more than 100 people uh and it was directly resulting uh as a result of um uh uh pauses in um
2:05:46
medicare related uh or medicaid pardon me uh and in talking to daryl about it
2:05:52
he simply said "and we have a worse payer mix than they do." so again this is another one of these indicators that
2:05:58
uh continue to scare me so i've mentioned the last time i was here contingency planning i heard a little
2:06:03
bit about it from james today uh i i think we really need to be prepared to uh uh to for hunkering down that's all
2:06:11
thanks thank you stephen anyone else justin
2:06:17
there is no uh there are no hands online
2:06:29
hello justin williamson city resident uh just a couple of things one is the
2:06:34
murals i look forward to the murals and i'm excited about the murals the only thing i don't look excited about or want
2:06:40
excited about is the painting of blighted properties i don't think we should be throwing a bunch of money at blighted properties i think more we
2:06:47
should be looking to get the people that have bleded properties out of those properties and get somebody to move into
2:06:52
them and then decide whether we should throw a bunch of money at painting them for murals murals because if you go i've
2:06:59
go by the old uh paper mill all the time and i think of tons of things that i'd like to do with it and painting it
2:07:06
hasn't been one of them but i could see painting it being a benefit to the owners now that it's sitting blight
2:07:11
vacant and turning into rubbish uh painting it would benefit them for resale but then somebody comes along and
2:07:18
they buy it and then tear it all down so they can put up an apartment or construct something else that could go there it seems like a waste of money to
2:07:24
paint that paint it beforehand um the other thing is jobs because we have
2:07:30
access to a deep water port and i think if we're honest with ourselves i we know why we don't do this but ship breaking
2:07:38
uh why don't we break down ships and use those raw materials and ship them to
2:07:43
other places or actually recycle them here in town and i think that might be able to provide jobs because we have
2:07:48
access to the deep water port that's all thank you thank you justin anyone
2:07:54
else all right uh no other public comment we are adjourned thank you and
2:07:59
we'll see you all on the 15th of april
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