By Debbie Tarry, Shoreline City Manager
Weekly Update for week of 3/17/2014
Council Meetings
· March 17:
o Business Meeting:
§ Appointment of Planning Commissioners. The Council appointed the following - Donna Moss, Jack Malek, and Terri Strandberg.
§ Waive Council Rules and Reappoint the 2013 Council Subcommittee for Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Board Appointment. There
is a vacancy as a result of the resignation of Kevin McAuliffe. Mayor
Winstead and Councilmembers McConnell and Roberts served on the
committee in 2013. Council waived their rules so the committee can
review the applications received in 2013 to make a recommendation for
appointment to fill the vacancy. Staff will schedule the appointment
recommendation for action on March 24.
§ Ten Year Financial Sustainability Strategy Update: Staff updated the full Council on the recommended strategies from the Council sub-committee.
· March 24:
o Dinner Meeting: Council
will hear information from the Directors of: the Shoreline-Lake Forest
Park Arts Council (Fred Wong), Shoreline Historical Museum (Vicki
Stiles) and Shoreline Farmers Market Association (Brendan Lemkin). Staff
will also provide information about Celebrate Shoreline.
o Business Meeting:
§ Annual Traffic Update: Staff
will share with Council the process that our Traffic Division and
Police Department have used to develop action plans to address higher
accident locations within the City, a review of the effectiveness of
past improvements and efforts to lower accident rates of key
intersections and corridors, and opportunities for enforcement and/or
engineering solutions to address high collision intersections or road
segments.
Point Wells Update
· Approximately
40 residents attended TCS Workshop #3 last Thursday night. This
workshop was focused on reviewing several road cross-section options for
Richmond Beach Drive. Participants were able to look at overlay maps
with proposed width of road, bicycle lanes and amenity zones and provide
comments on what they liked and didn’t like. Given the light turn-out
staff will be working with the residents along Richmond Beach Drive to
see if we can do a couple of house meetings to have more feedback from
the residents along this stretch. We will also put the information on
the website to solicit feedback.
· The next Traffic Corridor Study workshop is scheduled for March 19 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. This will be Workshop #4 focused on Segment B – Richmond Beach Road and the areas east of 24th NW.
SPU Acquisition Update
On Monday,
Mayor Winstead had a conference call with Seattle Mayor Murray to
discuss the acquisition. Mayor Murray’s office will be scheduling a
face-to-face in the near future. On Wednesday, March 19,
Councilmember Hall will be meeting with Nick Harper, Seattle’s
Intergovernmental Director, to discuss the importance of the SPU
acquisition to Shoreline, along with other topics. I have a meeting
scheduled with Ray Hoffman, SPU Executive Director, for Monday, March 24.
Financial Update
February 2014 Sales Tax, Real Estate Excise Tax, and Development Revenue Report.
Total sales tax receipts for the month of February, which reflects
activity from December 2013, are $54,186, or 8.2%, greater than
projections and 2.4% ahead of the same period for last year. REET
collections through February 2014 total $185,252 and are running ahead
of projection by $14,217, or 8.3%, and ahead of 2013 collections by
$58,812, or 46.4%. Permit revenue for the first two months of 2014 is
21% ahead of the targeted year-to-date projection and 16% ahead of the
year-ago level.
This and That
· Seattle City Light sent the City a construction notification
regarding work in the coming months that will occur at the Shoreline
Substation. The work is to replace an old power transformer to increase
system reliability.
· Kruckeberg
Botanic Garden is hosting a Leprechaun Hunt during the entire month of
March in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Clues are hidden around the Garden
that lead children (and I guess adults too) to special treats. In
addition participants are learning about Shamrocks and rainbows are
encouraged to explore the trees and plants that they encounter during
their hunt. The Garden staff tell us that between 50 and 80 people per
day have brought their kids to the Garden to do the hunt!
The City of Shoreline continues to do a lousy job of keeping its community informed on Point Wells.
ReplyDeleteSnohomish County issued a public notice on March 12 of a second scoping comment period for the Point Wells development EIS, beginning on March 12, and ending at 5:00pm on April 2. Why did the City of Shoreline not report this in their March 17 City Council meeting? Why did they not report this on their website until March 19, a full 8 days into the 21-day period? Why did they erroneously call it an extension of the comment period? Why did they not mention that Snohomish County said its second Scoping Comment Period was required by law because Snohomish County failed to give proper legal notice of the first one?
The bottom line is this. The citizens of this community have been given a second opportunity to comment on the scope of the upcoming Point Wells environmental impact study precisely because they did not get adequate notice of their first opportunity. Why is the City of Shoreline helping to hide these opportunities from its citizens?
And why has the Shoreline Area News not reported this story?
It is time to reopen Shoreline!
Councilmember Will Hall should recuse himself of all matters pertaining to the acquisition of the SPU water system, the assumption of Ronald Wastewater, and the annexation of Point Wells. All three are interrelation, and the attempt to compartmentalize them is doomed.The acquisition is intimately tied to the assumption by the City of the sanitary sewer system operated by Ronald Wastewater District, as evidenced by the Ronald assumption's inclusion in the SPU Citizen's Acquisition Committee documents. Ronald's system extends to Point Wells, which lies in Snohomish County. It is tied to the negotiations with the Point Wells developer over the provision of infrastructure services, and the annexation of Point Wells by the City. Councilmember Hall is employed by Snohomish County as a legislative analyst, and purports to recuse himself from all things Point Wells in his work for the Council.
ReplyDeleteA Point Wells mega-development, as is being planned, promises significant population growth and economic development for the city, in full keeping with the City's Vision 2029.
If Councilmember Hall feels the need to recuse himself from Point Wells, how is it that he can encapsulate and isolate it from everything Point Wells touches--and make no mistake, Point Wells touches everything. I asked him about this during his 2013 reelection campaign, at a candidates forum in Richmond Beach, and he deftly dodged the question.