October 12 City Council Meeting
October 12 City Council Meeting
All Councilmembers in attendance.
Proclamation: Indigenous Peoples Day
Where’s the Fun? Jack Crawford Day this weekend 10/17 at Log Boom Park from 9am-12pm. Sign up on the City’s website.
Public Comments: The first two commenters spoke against speed cushions in Arrowhead. The second commenter also expressed concerns over the environmental impact of the artificial turf at Moorlands. The final commenter spoke about the recent examiner hearing regarding an exceptional tree.
Consent Agenda: Approved unanimously
SOUND CITIES ASSOCIATION (SCA) PRESENTATION
Three SCA reps presented. SCA is an association of 37 Cities in the region “that are not Seattle”. SCA advocates for regional policy changes. There are nine different boards and committees that they appoint people to, a number of which have vacancies.
Recently, SCA has been expressing concerns to King County about the rising cost of solid waste & sewer rates in an attempt to slow the rate of increase; they are also working on an Affordable Housing levy. One of their recent wins was that they got the cities a share of the Transportation Sales Tax.
Mayor Herbig said that he really enjoyed his time on the Affordable Housing Committee and encouraged others to apply for committees.
BUSINESS AGENDA
LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
Shelly Helder, State Lobbyist, Gordon Thomas Honeywell, presented. She represents the City in Olympia. Some of the prior successes include a $300k Burke Gilman Trail project contribution, $3.5M for 61st Sidewalk, and $3.1M for the 84th Sidewalk/Bike lane improvements, and $464k for the Geothermal Heating at the Public Works Operation Center.
This year, the major themes at the State are expected to be constrained budgets, tax policy, “jobs package” and affordability. The State is looking for budget cuts, and will not add new spending unless absolutely necessary. The State has three budgets; the one we most often refer to is the operating budget. Revenue for the operating budget is increasing, but at a slower rate than costs. The State’s Transportation budget, which receives revenue from gas tax, has seen revenues decline because of increased fuel efficiency. The Capital Budget is the smallest of the three, it’s primarily funded through bonds, and it’s the most stable.
Emerging themes for this legislative session are increasing jobs through public works, streamlining permit processing, energy resilience, and more. She expects to see a strong emphasis on affordability; just as the state’s revenues are rising slower than costs, so are households.
For the legislative session, she noted that Kenmore has been very good about having a manageable agenda; it’s one page, and doesn’t run on. She recommended not to focus on transportation or operating budget requests, since these are unlikely to be funded, but it is having a transportation request on the agenda just in case there is revenue available. The focus should be on policy and capital requests, and noted that the City’s voice is most powerful when their priorities are city-centric.. It’s important the priorities have the full support of Council and ideally the community as a whole; they don’t want to work on something that is divisive, controversial, or would damage the City’s reputation in Olympia.
The current priorities are flexibility in the traffic camera adjudication, $500k to fill the funding gap in the 181st sidewalks (this is eligible for climate commitment funds), funding for tourism promotion, and a placeholder for Lakepointe in future years. There is also a policy statements document that outlines the City’s position on a number of issues; the new draft policy statements include vehicle noise, kratom regulations, transit service, and tourism promotion.
Tourism Promotion
CM Loutsis said there was a local business who would have benefitted from this and recent information indicates that we need to take action on this so it doesn’t happen again.
CM Marshall said that every proposal seemed reasonable.
Tourism promotion will remain on the legislative agenda instead of the policy statements.
Racial and Social Issues
DM Sasson proposed that they add gender-affirming healthcare to the reproductive healthcare statement. She moved the same; Mayor Herbig seconded. Motion carried unanimously.
Zoning and Land Use
CM Culver moved to strike this section. He said local control comes from Project 2025. He wants to develop a better relationship with the State regarding housing and striking this would be a move in the right direction. He moved the same; Mayor Herbig seconded for discussion.
CM Marshall said that we need to be accountable to our citizens and they need to know that the State is setting goals, and their local government is going to maintain some control as to how the State’s direction plays out. We shouldn’t cede or surrender our expertise, knowledge and duty to our neighbors about what they want in our community. Local control is a check and a balance on centralized power; a remnant of autonomy. He argued it is not racist to want to apply general goals that the state has set to environmental requirements; it’s not racist to advocate to keep denser housing within walkable areas of transit. Local control is important to avoid state overreach, and the ignorance that can ensure when people who are removed from your area have good intentions but don’t understand how it plays out locally. He believes we have to keep some form of local democracy or we lose it.
CM Culver said that if it were true we were experts in affordable housing we would have more affordable housing at this point; there was a bill named after us for a reason. He said local control has racist history associated with excluding people. It becomes a civil rights issue; the State is trying to get in front of this issue for cities and Council needs to be a good partner with the State.
CM O’Cain said that she supports the statement in the policy goals and it’s reasonable for local governments to be responsible to their residents. She said that every city has different needs and we need to be able to determine how we best proceed with accomplishing state goals. She questioned what Council is there for if they don’t have discretion on how to implement policy for the city.
CM Loutsis said the characterization of local control is not by nature, on its face, racist. He spoke of a case study about where control at the local level of a fish population was handed over to indigenous population and they found the best way to implement them. This was more successful than having the State employ a policy that wasn’t responsive to local needs. Depending on the issue and the way we address it, it’s not always on its face racist. Historically, power was consolidated at the State or Federal level for racist motives, too.
DM Sasson asked if the statement would serve the City in Olympia or if it just benefits Council's relationship with the community. The Attorney said that this is a document that allows her to know what information to bring back to the Council so they can address it with the community.
CM Loutsis flagged the word “housing” as the divisive word in the policy statement, and the way this particular statement is worded could be interpreted a certain way by our representatives. He does think it’s valuable to be kept apprised of zoning and land use decisions and moved to replace “housing” with “zoning and land use”. CM Marshall seconded.
CM Culver said he appreciated the motion and intent, but that’s not the tree he’s barking up.
VOTE: Amendment to motion (replace “housing” with “zoning and land use”) passed 6-1 with CM Culver opposed.
MAIN MOTION: This now preserves the policy statement, with CM Loutsis’ amended language. Motion passed 6-1 with CM Culver opposed.
MOTION: CM Culver moved to strike the section. Mayor Herbig seconded. Motion failed 5-2 with CM Culver and Mayor Herbig in support.
Passenger Only Ferry:
Mayor Herbig said he would be fine stepping out of this section for the next few years; not seeing any objections it was removed.
Tourism Promotion
Shelly asked if there was a preference between expanding lodging tax (LTAX) revenue and utilizing the tourism promotion area (TPA). The TPA has to be requested by the tourism industry in the City, but the spend is determined by Council. LTAX is seen as a tax on hospitality, not done in cooperation.
CM Loutsis said that he would be in support of the TPA. Mayor Herbig agreed and believes that we have folks that would step up in that.
Lifting The 1% Limit on Property Tax
CM O’Cain pointed out that property tax is a regressive tax, and asked fellow council members if they’d rather focus on measures that restructure our tax system, and create a more progressive form of taxation. We have the most regressive tax structure in the country, and it would be great for our City to support something on those lines. Focusing on progressive reform is the most important thing in this list. As much as we as a City need the 1% lifted, she does not believe that it’s what our residents want.
[CM Culver walked out of the meeting about a minute after CM O’Cain began speaking about removing the regressive tax structure. He did not return for the duration of the meeting.]
CM Adman asked Shelly if she has any thoughts about the likelihood of any of these gaining traction. Shelly said she expects there to be a more robust conversation on progressive tax reforms, and the Association of Washington Cities has this as a priority agenda item as well. She doesn’t expect the cap on the 1% to advance in the near future.
CM Loutsis said he’d prefer that the tax structure reform be the first bullet point, and he feels the two priorities are in tension with one another since one asks us to double-down and the other asks for a totally new structure. He would like to focus most, if not all, of the efforts on the reform.
DM Sasson said she is in full support of having progressive tax reform, She said that they have had many discussions as a council as to the limited tools that the legislature gives cities to raise revenue. She is open to eliminating the bullet point, in favor of equitable, stable, reliable, revenue.
Mayor Herbig said that he’s torn on this one. The 1% fix is a structural issue that many Cities are struggling with. Right now 32% of our budget can only grow 1% per year plus new construction and that obviously doesn’t keep up with inflation, when our police contract goes up 13.5% in a year and that’s 40% of the budget. There was almost an agreement to lift this two years ago but the governor didn’t support it. The State needs to provide either a lift on this or find a new, stable, revenue for cities or we’re going to see cities go bankrupt and disincorporate like Clyde Hill will if their levy fails. He’s in favor of at least flipping the bullet points, but wanted to stand in solidarity with other cities in advocating for the 1%.
CM Marshall said it is a close issue and it’s tough but he agrees with CM O’Cain.
DM Sasson said that she would be fine with striking the “lifting the 1% cap on property tax” bullet point but she wants to retain the description of how it impacts the City for context. Other members of council agreed.
2027-2028 BUDGET PRESENTATION
Melinda Merrell and John Vicente presented. This was the first of three presentations and included: general fund revenue and expenditures, finance and administration, and engineering.
Total general fund revenues (p. 53 and 62 of budget book). The total budget is just shy of $40m, and revenues are up 9.4% ($3.4m) from the prior biennium. Sales tax, utility tax, and property tax collections are up. Property tax is the largest portion of the budget but sales tax is gaining share. Budgeted expenditures are just over $43m, up 10.6% from the prior biennium. Salary, medical insurance, public safety, and new and changed positions all contributed to increases.
Melinda overviewed shifts in positions, which resulted in an increase in total cost of $473k for the biennium. The front desk has been restored (+.5 FTE), an IT position was added, she added an Assistant Director of Human Resources, and a GIS analyst. HR Expenses were up because of staffing; legal costs are also up.
John Vicente presented engineering. His department manages transportation capital, the transportation impact fee fund, KAPE, and Sammamish River Bridge Fund. Operations (p. 100 in the budget book) is roughly $1.5m, and is up 9.4% from the previous biennium. They will be updating some code, conducting a traffic study on 522/adjacent roads, and his department works on a lot of grant writing for funding.
Transportation capital fund deals with sidewalks, bike lanes, road improvements, pavement, traffic calming and more. Their budget is just over $22m and the expenditures are just over $24m. The Transportation Impact Fee fund (they receive these from development projects) is down substantially. They are only anticipating $80k per year in revenue. This is a 76.8% reduction in fees due to a reduction in development. They will be using these on 80th, 84th and 181st. This fund dosn’t have any staffing.
KAPE fund (p. 149). This fund covers program management and revenue processing. The total budget is $15.5m, with total expenditures at $16m. Both revenues and expenditures are up over 125% from the last biennium. They are planning on adding transportable cameras in 2027. KAPE funds 2.75 FTEs.
Sammamish River Fund (p.172) replaced the southbound bridge on 68th and did wetland mitigation. There are still unresolved costs from PSE and the wetland mitigation is required through 2028 as a requirement of the permit. The PSE cost is because they undergrounded the utility line. The City paid 40% and this is the reconciliation of the amount the City is obligated to pay.
STAFF REPORTS
Teri Killgore said that the next meeting will start at 5:30pm because of a joint meeting with Northshore School District.
COUNCIL REPORTS
CM O’Cain spoke about recognition of Indigenous People’s Day, and the ongoing conflict in Palestine.
CM Marshall spoke about his employment with the Tulalip tribes and the honor it was.
CM Loutsis said that Eastside Transportation Partnership and SeaShore Transportation have both been updating their legislative agendas, so if there are things that he should advocate for he would like to know.
CM Adman thanked staff and Sound Cities Association. He said that someone shared a photograph of a Chinook salmon in Swamp Creek.
DM Sasson said that she was not alone at Coffee with Council. She wants to say that the references to the exceptional tree hearing included her neighbor, Mark Moore, and her husband, Gary May. She wanted to thank those who have worked on the budget to address the structural deficit. She moved to have Staff bring a resolution to clarify the intent of Prop 1 at the next meeting; she feels the public wants to hear that they have guardrails on the proposition. She feels council and Staff are clear on their intent, but a few issues have been raised, and a resolution will go a long way in discussing this.
Mayor Herbig seconded the motion. Motion passed 5:1 (CM Marshall opposed, CM Culver had not returned).
Mayor Herbig said that the ribbon cutting for the sushi restaurant is having their grand opening on Tuesday. He will be doing the ribbon cutting. He has helped ETP edit their legislative priorities and will be doing that again
Agenda and recording for this meeting can be found here: City Council Regular Meeting of Monday, October 12, 2026 • City of Kenmore Agendas and Minutes • CivicClerk
