Notes from Shoreline council meeting June 3, 2019

Shoreline City Hall
Photo by Steven H. Robinson

Shoreline City Council Meeting 

06/03/2019
Notes by Pam Cross

Mayor Hall called the meeting to order at 7:00pm
All councilmembers were present.

Report of the City Manager Debbie Tarry

The City continues to provide pesticide free parks and surface water facilities by using alternative treatments. Goats will be used for vegetation management throughout the City through the end of the summer. Visitors are welcome to visit the goats. For current locations contact Earthcraft Services Facebook page. 

June 8th is the Shoreline Farmers Market opening day. The market will be open Saturdays through October 5th, from 10:00am to 3:00pm at Shoreline Place, 156th and Aurora.

June 9th the Shoreline Social Justice Book Club is having a special event in City Hall Council Chamber from 2:00 to 4:00pm. The author of Pass it On! Dr. Gloria Burgess will read and discuss her book. Kids welcome. Food, activities and music included. And you don’t need to have read the book.

Park Volunteer Work Parties will work to restore and improve select Shoreline parks Saturdays and Sundays in June. Check online for locations and times.

Public Reminder

The Planning Commission will meet on Thursday, June 6th at 7:00pm in the Council Chamber.
This is a Public Hearing on minor amendments to Aurora Square Planned Action Ordinance.

Council Reports

Mayor Hall: The Puget Sound Regional Council General Assembly was last week. It adopted a budget and discussed Vision 2050. The Mayor also met with the Orca Task Force. One of the topics was the potential impact of future growth on orcas and salmon.

Public Comment

Boni Biery requested the upcoming bond measure include both neighborhood parks and the Community Aquatics Center based on her analysis of the figures provided in the survey.

Gretchen Brookes questioned the selection of the neighborhood representatives for the Park Funding Advisory Committee. The individual representing Hillwood was not known to have participated in any Hillwood neighborhood events and is not known to the Board. She stated the neighborhood board should have been contacted.

Janet Way, Shoreline Preservation Society, stated funding was needed for parks. The City is required, under Growth Management, to fund parks. The City has lost enough trees to light rail development and it is time to find ways to stop cutting down any more trees.

The agenda was approved unanimously.
The Consent Calendar was approved unanimously.

Action Item 8(a) Approval of Amendment #1 to the City’s 2017 – 2027 Comprehensive Garbage, Recyclables, and Compostables Collection Contract with Recology CleanScapes Inc.

Staff report by Randy Witt, Public Works Director, joined by Kevin Kelly, General Manager of Recology CleanScapes Inc

This Amendment provides a rate increase with a requirement to reduce contamination at the source, and a principal goal to maintain an inbound contamination level from City customers of no greater than five percent (5%) by volume for collected Recyclables and no greater than three percent (3%) by volume for collected Compostables.

This was last discussed at the April 1, 2019 meeting. The following changes have been made since that meeting: (1) enhanced education and outreach including quarterly presentations and monthly communications; (2) language accessibility has been more clearly spelled out; (3) commercial and multifamily container monitoring protocol and enforcement procedure; (4) contamination reduction for single-family, but does not include enforcement fees for the first two years; and (5) monitoring and reporting.

Discussion

Council retired for an Executive Session. (15 minutes)
Regular Meeting back in session

Councilmember Scully asked how a decision to strike a part of this contract would affect the process. City attorney Julie Ainsworth-Taylor advised it would then go back to Recology and depend on their response like any normal contract negotiation.

Move and second to approve Action Item.

Discussion

Councilmember Scully moves to strike the following paragraph because of the wording highlighted turns enforcement over to private industry. Also, enforcement of single family customers is after 24 months, so why are we including it now? After two years, we will know whether enforcement fees applied to MultiFamily and Commercial worked, and may want to apply it to single family homes. We can add it then. 

“Twenty-four (24) months after the amendment, if the aggregate data does not meet inbound contamination levels of no more than five percent (5%) by volume for collected Recyclables and no greater than three percent (3%) by volume for collected Compostables, the Contractor may, in its sole discretion, institute further efforts to decrease contamination rates among single family customers. The Contractor must inform customers of contamination protocol and procedures at least 90 days before implementation.”

Councilmember Roberts asked if the current contract’s written notification tags for contaminated recycling provide Recology with sufficient ability to say the container is contaminated? Kevin Kelly responded due to the scale, scope and need to more rigorously address the issue, it does not. Currently this only comes into play when a driver gets out of the truck for some type of collection exception. - not for improperly prepared contents of the containers.

Councilmember McGlashan suggests leaving the paragraph in as an incentive. If the citizens are aware they have two years to clean up their act, they actually will. Every city and county is concerned about this and he believes that ultimately the legislature is going to have to address this on a statewide basis.

Councilmember Chang asked what happens now when the driver leaves a tag? When the driver has to get out of his truck, he leaves a tag and the customer is notified by phone not to, for example, leave the lid open. This happens infrequently.

Mayor Hall summarized the problems and cost of too much recycling going into our landfills. A pathway to recover the recyclables is needed. Ratepayers do not want to pay the cost for employees hand-sorting every piece of garbage/recyclables piece by piece (which also opens up the privacy issue). And people who don’t want to sort their recyclables should have to pay to have them picked up as garbage. We’re asking Recology to set up performance standards. Council tells them what to achieve, now it’s up to Recology to determine how to achieve it. For that reason he prefers to keep the paragraph in.

Deputy Mayor McConnell prefers education and that feels that should be enough. This City wants to recycle. Prefers the paragraph be struck out and reconsidered in 24 months.

Councilman Scully is still unhappy with “the Contractor may, in its sole discretion”. His only focus is the turning over legislative control and accountability to the contractor without limitation.

The Motion to remove the aforementioned paragraph fails 2 to 5 with Councilmember Scully and Deputy Mayor McConnell dissenting.

Discussion of the main motion

The following items were discussed by Council

1. the existence of an appeal process. Recology will have pictures of the tagged items and will take the opportunity to educate the customer and work to get it resolved

2. a load audit is a tool for education. Recology will administer visual inspections of aggregate truck contents from residential city routes to monitor progress. They take a sample from the total contents and hand sort the sample. That gives them an idea of where a certain type of contaminant appears and contact everyone on the route by social media, phone calls, etc.

3. additional outreach for those who do not attend meetings and/or public events will include door to door contact, more mailers, and social media. This may result in getting them more engaged in the community effort.

4. commercial bins get contaminated by others who drop off mattresses, tires etc. When the bins are locked, they leave garbage next to it. Some help and guidance is needed for commercial users.

Motion to authorize Amendment as presented by staff passes 6 to 1 with Councilmember Scully dissenting.

Action Item 8(b) Adoption of Ordinance No. 858 - Amending SMC 3.01.500 Solid Waste Rate Schedule to Reflect Amendment # 1 to the City’s 2017–2027 Comprehensive Garbage, Recyclables, and Compostables Collection Contract with Recology CleanScapes Inc.

Randy Witt continues presentation.

The description is self explanatory: to fully implement amendment 8(a), Ordinance No. 858 needs to amend SMC 3.01.500 to reflect the updated rate schedule.

No Discussion.

Ordinance No. 858 Passes 6 to 1 with Councilmember Scully dissenting.

Action Item 8(c) Reconsideration of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan Amendment Docket

Staff report by Steve Szafran, Senior Planner

The Planning Commission recommendation was discussed March 18th and the final docket adopted on April 15th.

Council to consider removing Amendment #3 on the 2019 Comprehensive Plan Docket until the State completes a plan for the Fircrest campus.

Discussion

The City Attorney confirms that removing Amendment #3 will not create another Docket. Councilmembers want to make sure Shoreline is fully engaged in this process. If we don’t start the rezoning now, are we missing an opportunity to influence the final decisions? The State has not identified the 5-acre property and we have not been able to follow the normal procedure which includes a planning commission review. Delaying the zoning will be more accurate with identification of the 5 acres, and also allow Council to follow the normal procedure. 

Council voted unanimously to remove from docket.

Study Item 9(a) Discussing Ordinance No. 861 - 2019-2020 Biennial Budget Amendment Amending Ordinance No. 855 for Phase 1 Improvements of the City Maintenance Facility

Sara Lane, Administrative Services Director, will provide the Staff report for these three related study items

Council last discussed this at the April 22nd meeting and asked staff to move forward with implementing phase one of that analysis. This is the amendment that supports that process. It provides the budget authority to cover the cost of the Phase 1 improvements for the City Maintenance Facility project within the proposed schedule, and without impacting other projects in the General Capital Fund by using interfund transfers.

Moved to consent calendar.

Study Item 9(b) Discussion of Ordinance No. 862 - Authorizing the Refunding of Limited Tax General Obligation (LTGO) Bonds (for the City Hall) and Ordinance No. 864 - Amending No. 829 (CAC) to Extend the Delegation Period for Bond Anticipation Notes

Refunding bonds are issued to achieve interest cost savings among other things. The refunding of the 2009 Bonds (City Hall) is estimated to provide net interest savings of approximately $2,600,000.

This is a delegation ordinance that gives the City Manager authority to issue the Refunding Bonds for a period of up to one year. Because the acquisition of property for the CAC (Community Aquatics Center) was delayed while alternative sites were evaluated, staff recommends extending the delegation period to February 1, 2020 from August 6, 2019 so interest rates can be monitored and the best savings can be achieved.

Discussion

What happens if the Bond Measure doesn’t pass? Staff will come back with a different LTGO bond because this one is anticipating bond issues.

Moved to consent calendar.

Study Item 9(c) Discussing Resolution No. 438 - Approving the Sale of Limited Tax General Obligation Bonds Supported by the Shoreline Transportation District 0.2% Sales Tax as Authorized by Ordinance No. 853 (Sidewalks)

Staff is developing a schedule for the delivery of the sidewalk implementation plan. The issue of the first series of bonds is expected to support the delivery of design for approximately five (5) sidewalk projects and construction of four (4) of those projects.

Resolution 438 delegates authority to City Manager to conduct the sale of bonds with a $10M maximum principal amount, an interest cost of no more than 3%, and a term no longer than 15 years.

Discussion

The money is being requested in relatively small amounts to keep costs down by keeping the money more closely tied to when the projects will be completed. The timing and order of projects (of the initial 12) is being evaluated. Because this is the first implementation of the Sidewalks Project, costs may vary and that is the reason a $10M limit is set. The jobs differ in size and complexity, and are expected to somewhat overlap, increasing uncertainty as to the number of projects completed within a year. As this gets further underway, we will be better able to get the work done in the most efficient way possible as well as better control costs and scheduling.

Moved to consent calendar.

The Regular Meeting is adjourned at 8:32pm to be followed by another Executive Session. No decision is expected from this Executive Session.