City Council notes Jan 14

Devon Vose Rickabaugh

Shoreline City Council Jan 14 notes

By Devon Vose Rickabaugh

At the Shoreline City Council Meeting Monday January 14 the Council voted to approve modifications to the Neighborhood Mini-Grant Program proposed by the Council of Neighborhoods and the City staff. 

The changes would make the program more accessible to all Shoreline neighborhoods by requiring the neighborhoods to provide $1 for every $2 provided by the city instead of the current 1 to 1 match. 

In addition criteria for the grant applications would be established and a cross-department review team would make recommendations to the City Manager for grant approval.

Mayor McGlashan spoke for six council members when he said that some neighborhoods have had difficulty in getting enough volunteers and were discouraged by the amount of funds or volunteer sweat equity they had to provide and this resolution would make it easier to get their projects off the ground.

He also said that this could be viewed as a pilot program and could be modified if it appeared too liberal.

Council Member Salomon said he didn’t favor making it easier to give money away and even small neighborhood should be able to find volunteers for their projects.

In other business public comment was sought about the proposed Coal Train project which would construct a new terminal to receive an expected 54 million tons of coal annually from Montana and Wyoming via Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks along Puget Sound through Shoreline to Cherry Point, north of Bellingham. The Environmental Impact Statement is in process.

Richard Gamon retired professor at UW involved in climate change research said, ”We need to leave the coal in the ground. We’re on path to disaster if we don’t leave 2/3rds of fossil fuel in the ground. We will destroy civilization as we know it.”

Alisa Brooks said “We depend on our natural environment. Orca depend on Chinook Salmon which are endangered. We can’t afford to ruin all the work we have done.”