Shoreline City Council Meeting January 27, 2014

Devon Vose Rickabaugh
Photo by Jerry Pickard

Shoreline City Council Meeting January 27, 2014

By Devon Vose Rickabaugh

2006 Solid Waste Transfer and Waste Management Plan (Transfer Station Plan)

The Shoreline City Council discussed alternatives to the 2006 Solid Waste Transfer and Waste Management Plan (Transfer Station Plan). The King County Solid Waste Division (SWD) is in the process of finishing its review of this plan to account for significantly lower revised tonnage forecasts completed in 2013.

One of the main issues is whether or not to rebuild a station in North East King County which would cost one hundred million dollars to build and would raise customer rates countywide. Not building the station would result in significant saving to customers. One of the options identified was to redirect some commercial traffic from the Factoria Transfer Station to the Shoreline Transfer Station (which has significant excess capacity) and the Renton Transfer Station (which would remain open) to balance use of the transfer station system.

The Mayor of Redmond sent a letter to King County and subsequently to the City of Shoreline requesting the City Council sign onto the letter requesting among other things that “The county plan must be amended to eliminate the reference to a new Northeast transfer station, since it is not necessary and other options exist to utilize capacity already available in the system.”

Deputy Mayor Eggen requested a study on the potential impact on Shoreline of more garbage trucks traveling on 175th Street and Meridian. But he said, “the change would be tolerable and not a huge issue considering it would save much higher rates.” Mayor Winstead and Councilmember McGlashan said they would sign the letter. Mayor Winstead said the garbage industry is changing with recycling and newer methods of garbage disposal such as waste to energy.

Draft Chronic Nuisance Ordinance

Planning and Community Development Director Rachael Markle  presented the draft Chronic Nuisance Ordinance for discussion and modification for potential adoption on February 24th. Currently, the City does not have regulations in place that provide adequate tools to hold property owners and/or their tenants responsible for correcting chronic nuisances when illegal activities and other code violations repeatedly occur on their property.

Markle said in 2010 a house ion 169th  Street in the Meridian Park neighborhood has been a problem with stolen property, raw sewage, disruptive behavior, and drug sales. It took thirteen years to resolve this issue because the parties involved could be sent to jail, for a short period of time and then be back in the house continuing with illegal activities.

A neighbor across the street from this house said it took a stabbing and someone being murdered before the landlord would step in and meet with the police to help get the “squatters out of the house who were prostituting and selling heroin.”

Although there would be no budgetary impacts to adopting the chronic nuisance ordinance, existing staff resources from the Police Department, Planning and Community Development Department, Community Services Division, and City Attorney’s Office would be impacted when the ordinance is utilized. However, it is anticipated that the utilization of a chronic nuisance ordinance will help resolve repetitive criminal and civil code violations more quickly at chronic nuisance properties, thereby reducing the total number of service calls and enforcement actions to those properties. Thus, the ultimate result may actually be a reduction in staff resources.

The ACLU expressed concerns that the proposed ordinance could be too far reaching, not contain adequate due process, not adequately protect innocent victims, and give excessive discretion to the Chief of Police. City Staff believes they have addressed these concerns within the changes to the draft ordinance. Staff will send a copy of this staff report to the ACLU to share information and receive feedback from them. Councilmember Salomon said he would be interested in what the ACLU says after seeing the revised version. He said this ordinance is “talking about  protection of neighborhoods and government control over people’s property” so it’s important to be clear where the law falls in these situations.”