Notes from Shoreline council meeting November 16, 2020

Pam Cross, Reporter

Shoreline City Council Meeting

November 16, 2020

Notes by Pam Cross

The meeting was held remotely using the Zoom platform.

Mayor Hall called the meeting to order at 7:00pm.

All Councilmembers were present.

Report of the City Manager, Debbi Tarry

COVID-19 Update

These new restrictions are effective through December 14.

Case counts in King County are at an all time high. The average over the past 14 days was 223 new cases per 100,000 residents. Remember that the target is 25 per 100,000.

In Shoreline we’ve had 29 in one day, and averaged 14 new cases per day in the last two weeks. The cases are all throughout our community.

Please continue to take prevention measures seriously.

Wear a face covering, especially indoors in public settings regardless of the distance between people. Remember the guidance is wear a mask AND maintain at least six feet of distance from others. Limit the number of people you are with, and the time you are with them. Avoid large gatherings. Do what you can to improve indoor ventilation by opening windows as much as you can. Wash hands frequently and clean surfaces often.

Get tested at the first sign of illness. Testing lines are getting longer so we may see new sites open up.

More information available at shorelinewa.gov/covid

145th Interchange Online Open House

Learn about the current challenges at the 145th and I-5 interchange and plans to address those challenges. Share what’s important to you and provide your comments October 26 through Nov 20. Go to 145thInterchange.infocommunity.org

Shoreline Celebrates with Food shorelinewa.gov/recipes

Even if we aren’t able to enjoy holiday gatherings together right now, we can still cook our favorite fall and winter meals. Spread some joy this season by sharing a recipe and exploring the recipes your neighbors have shared.

Send recipes to Constance Perenyi at cperenyi@shorelinewa.gov and include a picture if you have one.

Public Reminders

City Council and members of the Planning Commission and PRCS/Tree Board will attend training for racial equity on Wednesday, November 18 at 7pm.

The City Manager made a request to add an Executive Session for Litigation or potential litigation and to hold that session prior to tonight’s Action Items.

Council Reports

None

Public Comment

Kathleen Russell, Shoreline, Save Shoreline Trees
We have proposed several code amendments and sent them to Steve Szafran, Senior Planner for Planning and Community Development, copied Council, and asked for expedited consideration.

Jackie Kurle, Shoreline
Spoke against the enhanced shelter

William Bear, Shoreline
Spoke on behalf of Shoreline Organized Against Racism
We have a lot of work to do but the discussion of Resolution No. 467 is a good start.

Janet Way, Shoreline, Shoreline Preservation Society
We are moving forward with landmark status for the Chapel at Fircrest and request Council’s support

Mark Ellerbrook, Seattle, KingCo.
Thanked Shoreline for its support of the enhanced shelter and the spirit of partnership between the City of Shoreline and King County.

Approval of the Agenda

Deputy Mayor Scully requested that Item 7(d) “Adoption of Ordinance No. 913 - Amending Ordinance No. 906 - Interim Zoning Regulations to Allow Siting a 24/7 Enhanced Shelter in the R-48 Zone District” be removed from the Consent Calendar and added as an Action Item, and that Council recess for an Executive Session as requested by the City Manager.

Approval of the Agenda as modified adopted by unanimous consent.

The Consent Calendar containing items (a) through (c) approved unanimously by roll call vote.

Council recessed for 15 minutes for an Executive Session as authorized by RCW42.30.110(1)(i) to discuss with legal counsel matters relating to litigation or potential litigation to which the City, the governing body or member acting in an official capacity is or is likely to become a party when public knowledge regarding the discussion is likely to result in an adverse legal or financial consequence to the agency.

(Council returns after about 5 minutes)

Action Item 8(a) Adopting Ordinance No. 913 - Amending Ordinance No. 906 - Interim Zoning Regulations to Allow Siting a 24/7 Enhanced Shelter in the R-48 Zone District (Moved from Consent Calendar)

City Attorney Margaret King made the presentation

Last month the Council adopted Ordinance 906 interim regulations to allow an enhanced shelter in R48. The staff proposed six index criteria, and at the October 26 meeting Council added a 7th criterion requiring an Interlocal Agreement between the City and the shelter operator. Today you are considering an ordinance that amends the previous ordinance in two ways: it adds primary funding organizations as an additional necessary party to the agreement. And it changes the agreement from an Interlocal Agreement (ILA) to Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). Those are the changes that were provided to the Council as part of the Consent item.

Staff is recommending some additional amendments for the Council to consider. That is the reason Ordinance 913 was moved from Consent to Action.

Both amendments are under section G.

G. The “primary funding organization and” shelter operator shall enter into an “memorandum of agreement” Interlocal Agreement with the City addressing operational issues of concern such as:

• Staffing plans
• Requirement for regular reports to the Council on how the shelter is meeting performance metrics
• Documentation of the number of calls for service to the site and an agreement that “if calls exceed an agreed upon threshold,” the shelter operator “will work with the City to reduce calls below the threshold level” will be billed for calls over an agreed threshold, 
• If possible, shelter operator to contribute to the cost of a mental health professional to assist in police response, perhaps through part of the RADAR program.
• Require adherence to a Good Neighbor Plan that addresses litter, noise, security procedures, and other issues of concern.
• Staff to develop criteria to discontinue the shelter use if documented violations of the operational agreements are not addressed in a timely manner.
• Provisions for city approval of any proposed change in shelter operator.

Public Comment is now allowed since this is the first time as appeared as an Action item.

Does anyone wish to speak on this proposed amendment?

Mike Dee stated that since the Executive Session was shorter than planned, he doesn’t know what he missed.

DISCUSSION

Motion and second to adopt Ordinance 913

Motion and second to amend Ordinance 913 with the staff recommended options shown under Section G

This will require a public hearing, correct?

Reply: Yes, but it can be held after the decision is made because it is a change to interim regulations. It must be determined that changes made are substantial to make a public hearing a requirement.

Mayor Hall leaves this decision to the City Attorney.

Disagree that these are minor inconsequential amendments. They actually take the teeth out of this section by allowing King County to walk away from them. These are the things we wanted included in our memorandum of agreement (MOA) in order to protect the City, to protect the neighborhood. We need to be clear to King County what we want. These items should not be discretionary. If we get these items in a MOA, something that Council can approve, we have some assurance about what this facility will be in our community and that we have an ability to affect the outcome if things aren’t going the right way.

King County should be paying for calls above a threshold because what we want to avoid is the problem that occurred with Licton Springs or the Red Lion in Renton. Also, King County says there won’t be an increase in calls so it shouldn’t be a problem - but if there are, Shoreline will pay for them. Leave the language as is and set a high threshold. We should push King County on this so it’s not a problematic shelter.

When we went through all of this before, we were supporting significant guardrails to make this project successful - not just to protect the local community. The criteria are important for all of us, as evidenced by Council’s agreement to them. If there are problems with the shelter, King County won’t suffer any backlash, but we will. We want to do the right thing. We passed the shelter so now we have to make sure that the enhanced shelter will be successful.

When we originally passed these criteria, the wording already included “such as” but I’m ok with this further clarification. It should not be mandatory.

King County has already agreed to all the other sections?

Reply: Yes. The sticking point on this item is the County being billed automatically.

Grant funding can’t be used to pay for police/fire department services for the running of a facility. If this verbiage is left in, could it put the grant funding at risk?

Reply: I don’t know the conditions of the grant funding but it isn’t unusual to have restrictions for its use.

Debbie Tarry: this grant was applied for based on the budget to operate the facility and did not include additional police services.

I think we can believe that King County will work with us to get the number of calls down if they happen to exceed the threshold we set.

VOTE

Amend Ordinance 913 with the staff recommended options shown under Section G

Passes 5-2

Councilmembers Chang and McConnell opposed

VOTE

Move to amend the main motion to waive three readings

Passes Vote 6-1

Chang opposed

VOTE

Approval of Ordinance 913 as amended

Passes 5-2

Councilmembers Chang and McConnell opposed


Action Item 8(b) Adoption of Resolution No. 468 – Making a Finding and Declaration of Substantial Need for Purposes of Setting the Limit Factor for the Property Tax Levy for 2021

Sara Lane, Administrative Services Director

Why we need substantial need.

Since inflation is less than 1.0%, Council may adopt a resolution of “substantial need” allowing it to increase the levy up to the full one percent (1.0%) as allowed by statute.

DISCUSSION

No additional discussion

VOTE to adopt Resolution 468

Passes 7-0

Action Item 8(c) Adoption of Ordinance No. 902 - Setting the 2021 Regular and Excess Property Tax Levies

Sara Lane, Administrative Services Director

$14.3M regular levy provides for general operations

$1.1M excess levy provides for debt service for 2006 parks bond that will be retired in 2021

DISCUSSION

No additional discussion

VOTE to adopt Ordinance 902

Passes 7-0

Action Item 8(d) Adoption of Ordinance No. 903 - Adopting the 2021-2022 Biennial Budget, the 2021 Fee Schedule, the 2021 Salary Schedules, and the 2021-2026 Capital Improvement Plan

Sara Lane, Administrative Services Director

We have been discussing this budget every Monday night since October 12. There was one amendment proposed by Councilmember Roberts:

Increase Roads Capital Fund appropriations by $100,000 for a NE 200th Street Sidewalk project, which will install approximately 160 feet of sidewalk on NE 200th Street from the end of the Aldercrest School sidewalk to the intersection with 25th Avenue NE, to be funded with fund balance available from Real Estate Excise Tax collections in excess of the 2020 budget projection.

Staff does not recommend adopting this amendment because it’s a medium priority route, and #98 out of 140 sidewalk projects, as ranked by the Sidewalk Advisory Committee.

DISCUSSION

Councilmember Roberts makes a motion to pass the above amendment.

He supports the motion by explaining this is an attempt to close a gap in the sidewalk that is a safety hazard for school children.

There are other sidewalks with higher priorities and it might be possible to get this done as part of another project.

Why don’t we try for a Safe Routes To Schools grant?

Reply by Nora Daley-Peng, Senior Transportation Planner: The Safe Routes grants run on a 2 year cycle and we evaluate all of the needs each time. There’s no limit to how many we can apply for but we want to win so we look at how they will score. Also, the City has to match funds so we need to consider our budget as well. There are other sidewalks near schools that are higher priority.

There are a lot of places where we need sidewalks. Council intervened to have this sidewalk moved from low to medium on the matrix. But now we shouldn’t move it up again over other sidewalk projects. And we need this money for restrooms in parks etc. There are sidewalk gaps all over the City. The volunteer committee spent 9 months on the matrix and we had numerous Council meetings, so the matrix should stand until we do a comprehensive review and see if there are other projects that should be higher priority as well.

This is a very small segment. Some of the high priority sidewalks are several blocks long. This is just filling in a gap. It’s not much money.

VOTE for potential amendment 1

Fails 2-5

Councilmembers Robertson and Roberts Supporting

VOTE ON 903 - Adoption of Ordinance No. 903 - Adopting the 2021-2022 Biennial Budget

Passes unanimously

Study Item 9(a) Discussion of State Legislative Priorities and Issues of Shared Interest with the 32nd District Delegation

Jim Hammond, Intergovernmental Relations Manager, did the introductions

Senator Jesse Salomon, Representative Cindy Ryu, and Representative Lauren Davis represent the 32nd Legislative District in Washington State, which includes the City of Shoreline.

Normally we get together over a dinner meeting, but due to COVID we are doing this remotely. It is a somewhat casual conversation.

Mayor Hall went over the City’s list of priorities that includes

1. The need for local funding tools, both for general revenue and Transportation Benefit District (TBD) funding;
2. The need for statewide transportation funding and the value/importance of the proposed 148th Street non-motorized bridge allowing access to light rail;
3. The ongoing importance of addressing challenges related to housing and human service needs, which has been particularly aggravated during the current COVID-19 pandemic;
4. A shared interest with the State for the residents and future use of the Fircrest Campus;
5. The importance of a coordinated state/local partnership and a watershed-based approach when tackling culverts and other barriers to fish passage; 
6. State-level proposals for implementing changes to law enforcement practices
7. And healthy forests, habitat restoration, and others as part of our overall goals of supporting transportation, climate concerns, and environmental goals.

DISCUSSION

Question: How do we get the more behavioral health people out there to support the police in addressing non-police calls? Do we start at the state, county or city level?

Rep. Davis: the State funds very little - just the State Patrol. Cities and counties do the rest.

Behavioral response calls require different models for different circumstances. We need to rethink what first responders look like. Mental health professionals are in short supply. Even if we had the money to hire them, they are not even in the pipeline. We need to utilize non-clinicians - people who are in recovery themselves, or experienced homelessness. They are not diagnosing but assisting people in need. This can work quite effectively with good training.

To pay for it, she is working on a bill that would tax industries in a couple of different ways - alcohol producers (not restaurants) and drug manufacturers. We also have the nationwide 988 crisis line coming in July 2022. This is a real opportunity. State and local government can work together.

Sen. Salomon: Police accountability is important. Decertification on statewide level by a state board should be used for police who violate such things as use of force. Defunding is not an option. They do a tough job and do it well, but in too many instances some officers step over the line without consequences. When one department investigates another, there is too much of a relationship between them to effectively investigate. Collective bargaining gets the officer off in a way that nullifies the best of efforts. We need to tighten that up. Also, secondary employment as crowd control for example has no regulation. Who should regulate it?

Main priorities: housing and homelessness is a growing problem. After the rent moratorium rent will come due. Landlords can’t go without payment. That is not only unfair, but will result in smaller landlords getting out of the business. How do you address this? State might forgive some back rent.

What’s the thinking about 976? That we’ve moved from big hole to smaller hole?

Rep. Ryu: We’ve suffered a lack of revenue even from tolls since people are staying home. As for assisting in paying for the cost of culverts, we need to coordinate doing significantly more with a lot less right now, and this won’t change any time soon. Reports from consultants on Fircrest have been delayed due to COVID. We have to approach Fircrest as an entire campus plan even if it is done in stages. That will be best for the community and Fircrest. Meanwhile we have to keep the fire department and water departments involved. Housing is definitely an issue. The eviction moratorium was a stopgap measure. We have seven pilot programs in seven counties to address this. We will be getting some data from these pilot programs.

Also, the foreclosure moratorium expires in March. Homeowners should start looking at resources that are available. No additional money has come in from the Federal government.

These are interesting comments on revenue sources that we’ve come to depend on. Revenues are down because we’re being careful about COVID. Essential workers who are more at risk are still working and paying their taxes but most people aren’t spending.

• Note: this conversation roamed from topic to topic and this is not intended as a comprehensive review. The video is available on the City’s website shorelinewa.gov on the Council Meetings tab.

Study Item 9(b) Discussing the 2021 State Legislative Priorities

Jim Hammond, Intergovernmental Relations Manager gave the presentation

January is the next legislative session. It will be the 120 day long session where big revenue gets handled. The short session is more about trimming and course correcting.

Shoreline-specific priorities: 

• maintain project visibility for the bike/pedestrian bridge at N 148th Street that would connect neighborhoods to the Shoreline South/148th Street light rail station; 
• partner with State agencies to seek legislative action that supports City goals and the long-term vision of an approved Fircrest Master Development Plan; 
• seek Local/Community Project funding in the Capital Budget for important Shoreline park improvements, including construction of a pavilion at Shoreline Park, 
• renovation of outdated public restrooms at key park facilities, and habitat restoration at Southwoods Park.

Shoreline policy issues: 

• transportation policies, funding and local control; 
• financial sustainability/flexibility; 
• affordable housing/homelessness; 
• fish blocking culverts; 
• climate change;
• tax increment financing (TIF) relevant to our station areas where we are looking to attract significant multifamily development but it’s hard when the infrastructure is not in place; and 
• policing reform.

DISCUSSION

Pleased to hear from our legislators that revenue options that were not available a year ago might be on the table such as taxes on the highest earning employees, and taxes on the highest earning companies and potentially capital gains. Shouldn’t we support this move towards a less regressive tax? We might want to move in this direction since people are asking for no cuts to existing services. Increasing current taxes only makes our system more regressive. It’s a step towards necessary comprehensive tax reform. At this time, a state income tax is a non-starter.

We should continue to press for money for an aquatic and recreation center. If we’re silent, then we are not going to get it. 55% of the voters wanted this facility. We need it on the list while we start to consider other revenue sources. We don’t want them to forget about it.


Study Item 9(c) Discussion of Resolution No. 467 - Declaring the City’s Commitment to Building an Anti-Racist Community - Sponsored by Councilmembers Roberts and Robertson (Resolution 467 - Attachment B page 9C-12)

Christina Arcidy, Management Analyst

Staff reviewed other resolutions both locally and nationally. The most common resolution is to declare racism as a public health emergency which is commonly done in conjunction with the local health department. The second type declares a broader commitment declaring racism as a public emergency. The third type emphasizes one or two race-related actions such as developing diversity training or using a consultant.

Councilmembers Roberts and Robertson asked staff to propose declaring Shoreline an Anti-Racist Community. This resolution will creates a broad approach by creating a common framework, committing to co-create a vision for an anti-racist community, and commits to community listening sessions about how the City can influence more equitable outcomes within our community. 

DISCUSSION

In January 2017, the Shoreline City Council declared the City of Shoreline to be an inviting, equitable, and safe community for all by adopting Resolution 401. The resolution states, “As leaders in the community, we have a special responsibility not to stay silent in the face of discrimination, harassment or hate against any of our residents, and we choose to be a leader in protecting human rights, equity, public safety and social well-being.”

We have work to do for this ongoing process. And we are stating in this proposed resolution

“That for meaningful and lasting change to occur, the City must work together with members of our community …. to co-create a vision of this anti-racist community and the outcomes and activities that will bring us closer to this vision.”

The use of “co-create” is intentional. We are leaders and need to participate, but it is the community’s vision so we must work with the community to build it together.

There are concrete things we are committing to. This is not some nebulous feel-good statement, but work we are actually committing to do.

The “Whereas” statements are not part of what we are resolving and I think they should be reduced. Particularly the second one that defines racism. It gives a good definition of institutional racism but leaves out the personal part. So the definition needs to be broader. Slavery of Blacks is mentioned but not the slaughter of indigenous peoples. Nothing is said about the internment camps during WWII. We can’t identify each group that has suffered from racism. Maybe we should consider reducing this section of the Resolution so that more emphasis is given to what we are resolving to do.

This Resolution is open to public comment so if we start hearing from people who feel left out, then we can address it. But right now, let’s bring it back in its current form.

Members of the public can comment at our next meeting or on the 30th when it comes back for action. People may also write to council@shorelinewa.gov and your comments are distributed to every council member. The written comments are also posted online.

Meeting adjourned.

Corrections: Strike-thrus in the notes were inadvertently removed when the formatting was stripped. They have been added back in.