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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Meeting - Council Workshop - Minutes - 06/19/2001 COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES JUNE 199 2001 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: President Leona Orr, Tom Brotherton, Tim Clark, Connie Epperly, Judy Woods,Rico Yingling STAFF PRESENT: Mike Martin, Dena Laurent, John Hodgson, Cyndi Wilbur, Charlene Anderson, Phil Noppe, Kim Marousek, Gary Gill, Len Olive, Fred Satterstrom, Don Wickstrom, Bill Wolinski, Cliff Craig, John Hillman, Mike Mactutis, Jackie Bicknell PUBLIC PRESENT: Doug Levy, Ella Mae Pruitt The workshop began at 5:06 PM. Strategic Plan Review Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Dena Laurent— We were with you about a month ago and we got some input. We had some separate meetings with interested council members, and have developed this draft based on input from council members as well as from our management team. It has starting action steps, resource requirements,percent complete, and goal due dates, although we need to go back and tweak it because it's not uniform through. This would be the format that would come back to you quarterly-with how things are going on your strategic plan • and whether these reporting columns meet your needs. Then we have also gone through and shaded a number of different goals that weren't re-selected as priorities by council. They were things that we've completed and we need to know if you have concerns about any of those things that are shaded. Otherwise, the next draft you would see, at the end of July, would have those deleted. We would be focusing on the things that you most recently set at this past April's retreat that you want us to work on. Essentially your goals and objective items have not changed from the previous year,which is good and is interesting. How we get to achieve those objectives, or the target items, has evolved, which I think shows some positive progress by us. Goal 1 -Vibrant Downtown Objective I ♦ Looks at improving downtown appearance and infrastructure. The carryover target item that you have said is still important is to continue to pursue parking facilities downtown. We would propose keeping that in the plan,but taking out those next four shaded items,Bike lanes, Central Avenue and West Valley, Home Conversion to Business, and Undergrounding Infrastructure. This is not to say that we don't have some ongoing work in those areas, but that they wouldn't be high-level report items to you. Station Area Appearance and Land Use Around Kent Station. We consolidated those with one big Kent Station Objective. b'eetive Z ♦ We propose taking out Transit Oriented Development because we consolidated that with Kent Station and Downtown Development. ♦ Property Tax and Economic Tools are complete for now. • ♦ Performing Arts Center Decision is complete for now. Council Workshop,6/19/01 2 ♦ We have one big Kent Station development issue, and one big update for the downtown plan under Objective 2 along with continuing to work on the City Hall Complex and the RV Park Assessment. Obiective 3—Support for Downtown Activities There are many things that are already programmed in our operating plan and aren't significantly different so we propose to take that objective out. Goal 2—Safe Community Objective I —Delivery of_Etfective Fire and Lie Safety and Law Enforcement Services We propose to take out Budget Direction 2001, and Correctional Facility/Jail Direction, which we're moving under Strategic Management (a different goal), and we're going to continue to work on the Additional Work Release Crew. We've moved Public Safety Bond Issue into Strategic Management. ♦ Disaster preparedness ♦ Continued community partnerships Objective 2—Strategic Management of Police. and Fire and Life Safety Services ♦ EMS study and decision ♦ Jail direction ♦ Public safety bond issue ♦ Review of 1710, Court space ♦ Fire strategic plan. • These are all elements of the strategic management of those services. Objective 3—Enhance Community Appearance ♦ Street lighting ♦ Code enforcement ♦ Air quality ♦ Updating the criminal code. Goal 3— Transportation Obiective I—Multi-modal Transportation ♦ Signal study, updated TIP ♦ Street standards ♦ Evaluating the UTCD manual, looking at the utility tax. Objective 2—Building Transportation Infrastructure 196`h, 2281h, 277 h, Meeker and Washington Streets, construction mitigation and communication Objective 3—Enhancing Non-SOV and Pedestrian Alternatives ♦ Metro services in Kent ♦ Shopper Shuttle system, ♦ Encouraging Sounder ridership ♦ Enhancing non-SOV and pedestrian facilities Council Member Tom Brotherton—Is anyone getting a lot of benefit out of this presentation? . Frankly, I'm getting lost. I can't get a picture of what you're telling us. You can read through those and I can read them just as fast, but it doesn't really mean anything to me. Council Workshop,6/19/O1 3 Dena Laurent—Are you comfortable with the reporting columns? You had specifically asked us to add a percent complete, and the goal due date. Tom Brotherton—I'd rather talk about the columns and what people think about them and what else we need. I'd like to see kind of a summary format that I can draw from myself for my own use. Dena Laurent—And we are ready to do that for you. I just needed to confirm specifically what the deleted target items are, and then I can make you a one-page picture of this plan. Council Member Rico Yingling—Actually,I am getting some benefit from going over this because it's good to see what's still in,what's getting transferred,what is being considered for removal. I'm sure I could do that on my own but this gives us a chance as a group to ask any questions. Tom Brotherton—I was wondering, because no one had asked any questions. Council Member Judy Woods—What I think I appreciate is that you consolidated some of the things we felt were important but could be better addressed in a different area. It makes more sense to me seeing it the way you and the others have done it than what we gave you to work with originally. Interim Chief Administrative Officer Mike Martin—The simple goal was to consolidate what we got from the retreat, combine that with the past document and then make the adjustments as needed. Then, once you're comfortable with the content, we were going to give you something that was a little more user friendly, where you could see a summary and you wouldn't have to go through it line by line. Dena had actually suggested that. It was my suggestion to try to focus on the boring detail here for a moment, and then come back to you with something that would be a little more user friendly. It would be necessary for you to say that you were comfortable with every single one of these lines on here right now. If we gave it to you today and asked you when you would like us to come back, we could make a proposal with the different format. Tom Brotherton—So the goals of this presentation are to review the columns and see if we're happy with it and to familiarize us with which ones have been taken out? Mike Martin—Particularly that. Because we didn't want to delete anything that you in fact wanted to stay there. If you notice in the column under the Council ranking, those were the rankings that you had voted upon during the retreat. We thought to ourselves, and we'd heard from several of you, that rather than focus on this mass of targets, goals, and objectives, that if we focus specifically on the ones that you had identified as high priorities we would be more effective in our resource use. That's why you are getting this presentation today. Dena Laurent—Do you want to just look at the things that we're deleting under Strong Local • Economy, Goal4? Council Workshop,6/19/O1 4 16 Rico Yingling—I'd just keep going the way you're going if you have the time. I was fine with that. Dena Laurent— Goal 4—Strong Local Economy Objective 1 —Strategy for Economic Development ♦ Economic Development and redevelopment action plan and budget. This consolidates a number of things that you were interested in having us look at, from specific projects to focuses on development and redevelopment. All of that needs to be in one place and one plan, because there are many complimentary issues. Tom Brotherton—So there was no Council ranking on here because it was an accumulation of several things of different ranks? Dena Laurent—This is the plan that will flow out of the next box document: ♦ Economic Development strategy and policy with performance indicators. So that second box is really where we will get our direction from Council, then we'll go off and do the one above it, which is how we're going to make it happen. ♦ Industrial land study, which we will be doing as a web-based project ♦ We're continuing Marketing/Tourism, Update of the Permitting Code and a focus on Retention. • You'll see those other items shaded, where I've combined them or moved them. Objective 2 ♦ Business friendly city services/processes ♦ City/business community relations Council Member Tim Clark—Are we available for an amendment on that? Under City/business/community relations, because I think we need to also pay attention to educational partners in this. I think its going to be a factor with both the community colleges, the one on Highway 99 and one potentially on the valley floor. Dena Laurent—I'll add that to the little definition under that target title. Goal S—Valued government services Obiective I-Recruit, retain, and train a professional workforce ♦ Labor negotiations ♦ Compensation and benefit system ♦ Recruitment of a diverse applicant pool ♦ City training Objective 2-1..T.Services ♦ Finishing Tech Plan I ♦ Thinking about Tech plan II ♦ Developing and implementing an e-Government strategy 10 Obiective 3- Communications ♦ Audit and plan ♦ Public access channel Council Workshop,6/19/01 5 i Rico Yingling—On Objective 3, item number 2 was crossed out. That was Community Building Neighborhood Strategy. Has that gone somewhere else? Dena Laurent—It hasn't. I'm proposing to take that out. It's something that has not had a lot of definition or focus. But, if there were something in particular you'd like to see us address, we could talk about it off line. Rico Yingling—I personally think it's very important. Tom Brotherton—I think one reason that happened was the strongest staff promoter of that retired, and there wasn't anyone who was really pushing it,plus there wasn't a lot of definition for it. I think if we're going to pursue that we need to find someone on the staff who really wants to push that and make it happen. Tim Clark—I have to admit I have a concern on that too. Dena Laurent—Why don't we do this. I'll add it as a separate target and Mike (Martin) will assign it to someone. We'll come up with some ideas and then we'll get Rico, Tim, Tom, you've expressed interest, and talk about what you specifically mean by that, so that we could be effective in meeting your expectations. Objective 4—Financial Services ♦ Budgeting, strategic plan — strategic budgeting is a high priority item. It's got four different rankings. ♦ Financial forecasts, Policy direction, Revenue strategy—that is our direction for doing the things above, and is also a ranked item. ♦ Capital Improvement plan ♦ Legislative agenda ♦ Management and policy analysis capacity ♦ National recognition for service excellence Objective 5 ♦ Maintaining Comprehensive Legal Services Objective 6 We moved this under downtown,because the investment is so significant. We thought you might want to show the progress on that goal in that section rather than just a maintenance thing. I moved the whole City campus issue under downtown because you've given us policy direction to maintain the City campus downtown. Objective 7 Recreation Services ♦ Programs ♦ Clark Lake ♦ BMX track ♦ Sister city program Objective 8—Land Use Services/Prepare for Potential Annexations ♦ Annexation ♦ King County land use issues Council Workshop, 6/19/01 6 ♦ Public education on land use issues ♦ Parking/ADA requirements Objective 9—Implementation of the New Permit Center Obiective 10—Utility Services ♦ Water ♦ Waste water ♦ Surface water ♦ ESA response ♦ Telecommuting utility evaluation ♦ Storm water management phase 2 ♦ Electric utility evaluation Tom Brotherton—Under ESA, isn't some of this already done? You don't show any completions. I wonder if you just didn't have data, or if I'm mistaken and is it being done. I thought the Rock Creek HCP was initiated already. Mike Martin-It is initiated, yes. Tom Brotherton—The word was initiate, and I thought that was done but I was just verifying it. Dena Laurent—This is the clean up that we need to do to these now. Rico Yingling—That might be a good thing to include in the reports if it is initiated, although there might not be a percentage complete that's significant enough to put in there. Dena Laurent- Obiective 11 —Human Services ♦ Working with providers ♦ Domestic violence ♦ One-stop human service center study ♦ Developing an information tool on all human services Chair and Council President Leona Orr—On page 18, you've taken out Homeless. I don't know if that's a really good thing to ignore right now. I'm hearing from people that it is becoming a bigger issue, so it may be something that we still need. I'm hearing, especially around the library and the Market, that it is becoming a little bit of a problem. Also, now I'm hearing that behind that liquidation place is where they are hanging out at night. So there's a whole camp that sets up at night. Council Member Connie Epperly—They are kind of a different kind of homeless. We have our regular homeless guys that we know and don't necessarily love but you've gotten used to. There is kind of a different element involved now, because they are coming in from Seattle and they are M rougher and they're tougher. Even some of our homeless guys that I talked to are scared to death of them. If we don't keep up on it, you don't see a lot of that stuff out there. Council Workshop,6/19/O1 7 Dena Laurent—We'll add that back in and maybe talk with you. Get some understanding of your concerns and find the right place to plug it in. Tom Brotherton—I'm not sure if this is good or bad, I just want to see what people think about it. I notice that the"assigned to"is always a department head or almost always. Maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe it ought to be the person doing the work, instead. They'll feel not only empowered, but also enabled to do the work on this, and we won't just hear from the department heads. Mike Martin—That was only because we wanted members of the MLT, who meet once a week and we have direct contact with all the time, to be ultimately responsible. How they delegate it is really up to them. In fact, we don't expect them to do this work but we expect them to be accountable for the work that's done. Tom Brotherton—I was thinking about actually giving people doing the work credit for it. Dena Laurent—We would propose to do an update report to you at the second meeting of July, which would reflect our second quarter performance. We said we wanted to get on a quarterly schedule and we'll have something—one page for you. A lot of this data is annual. Strategic Plan Review Legislative Consultant Doug Levy—I think there are some things that are significant that have come through the regular and first special session, and also some significant things that are unresolved. The House passed the Capital Budget, and for us one of the most significant things is that there is a special earmark for Clark Lake. It is additional to some of the programmed money for Clark Lake, so of the $750,000 that you see, $250,000 of it is earmarked. The rest of it is through the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, which actually funded four of the Parks Department grant programs for park improvements. That will be a significant item for us. An earmark in the Capital Budget is a rarity. In the Operating Budget, there will continue to be police, fire, criminal justice related money in the wake of an issue of 1-695, and that went as high as that $731,000 number and as low as $450,000 depending on whose budget you were looking at, at the time. The $731,995 will be what we end up seeing. We hope these numbers two and three come through. They haven't yet. They are associated with the Operating Budget. One of them is setting up a pool to deal with some of the extraordinary medical care and long term medical care costs for active and retired LEOFF 1 employees. Dena Laurent—Doug is speaking from a score sheet that I made up today to show Doug's value to the City. The item he's talking about now is LEOFF 1 and LEOFF 2 funding that the City is required contribution. Doug Levy—One of the things associated with the Operating Budget has to do with LEOFF 1 active and retired employees. There's also a proposed temporary reduction. It would be something to even out the PERS and LEOFF 2 for the next biennium,where there would be a temporary rate reduction. Under that temporary rate reduction to those systems, there would be cost savings to the City of just under $2 million. I do want to stress the word temporary. That's not something we opt to budget for out beyond the next biennium,but we would see a half year Council Workshop, 6/19/01 8 • this year, a whole year in 2002 and a half year in 2003 as a result of that rate adjustment. There are some other things in the Operating Budget, but those are the core ones for us in terms of showing you some of the direct dollar impact. Another thing that happened during the session that was very important was that the legislature passed a supplemental list of projects to be allocated money from the Public Works Trust Fund Loan Program. It was a loan as low as 0.50%, and for Don and his folks that was a$10 million loan toward our pipeline 5 obligation. So that one is passed, signed into law, and done. There have been a couple of things in the area of economic development tools. As a City, for large projects,we can now choose to use design,build, and general contractor construction management forms of contracting those out. There was also legislation passed on tax increment financing with the property tax based approach. We worked on coordinating a couple of discussions on that with Jay Rich who is with the Preston Gates law firm. He is probably the person most familiar in the state with tax increment financing. I think what we heard is that it can be a tool in the right kinds of situations. Jacki (Skaught) is looking at whether the transit oriented development project we're working on with King County Metro, as part of the overall downtown project, might be something that works. Those are some of the things that are done. They are either in the bag, or we think they're coming and they are beneficial to us. Today I was talking to Dena, and a thing that didn't happen was we didn't have any 2 x 4's hit us in the back of the head. The legislature didn't adopt anything that had real significant negative revenue impacts to us, or we were not handed any significant new mandates without any money. There were some things that were certainly proposed and there are every session, but none of those came to pass. Dena Laurent—I have heard from some of you that Doug's weekly reports,which you get, have been helpful in keeping you up, without long diatribes from me about what's happening. So we're really grateful to Doug for that. Just to summarize some of the cost savings or financial benefits we're finding as a result of Doug's advocacy on our behalf, we were talking about the post I-695 backfill and this temporary rate reduction could be $1.3 million per year for the next two years. The capital items are $1.6 million. Some of that we would have gotten because John(Hodgson) and Lori (Flemm) are great, but we got an extra boost from Doug's participation there. Something that Doug did for us,was the Public Works Trust Fund loan (can't get money any cheaper than that), dogging that, and making sure that it was in, getting the right people to make calls. That's without even looking at how we might or might not benefit from the transportation package if there is one. Our legislators from the Kent area will be here with us at the Council meeting this evening. We have a little Kent coffee mug for them and we're going to thank them for all their work on our behalf. We did this last year and it was very successful, so we're excited to do it again. Just so you don't think Doug will be getting any sleep any time soon, the things that are on his interim work plan include: continuing to work on transportation,monitoring five different task forces on everything from drug forfeitures to water rights, monitoring two studies on manufactured homes, law enforcement services, and beginning work on the 2002 agenda. So if you have any suggestions for how we can make this work better, please let us know. Council Workshop,6/19/01 9 i Doug Levy—I might add one thing, and that is that tonight when the legislators come in(we understand of our nine,we're going to have seven of them, so that's a good turnout), one of the things you can do is to diplomatically issue a challenge to them on transportation. That is such a big one for us, and a lot of the things Dena just went over in the work plan, the talk about the 228`h corridor, what we're going to do on Pac Highway, or finishing 277"', they're all wrapped up in this transportation package. My personal opinion is that I feel good about some of these other things we've gone over, but I will have the sense of their failure if the legislature does not do something to deal with all the transportation investment that is needed. I think it gives you all a chance to deliver that message. Tim Clark—It seems apparent they're going to come out with state, regional, and statewide packages of some sort. The constant concern has been control over regional financing and distribution of funding. The House deeds were still kind of accepting that the county becomes the major player in terms of the decision of what the regional money does and where it goes. Is that accurate or not? Doug Levy—I'm feeling a little better—if we're talking about something being set up for a region on its own-use taxing sources and putting something before the voters for their own regional projects. I'm feeling better about what the legislature started to look at in terms of who would select the projects. You're right; I think some of the early versions we saw we felt were too county driven. Not that the county isn't supposed to be at the table,but that we felt the cities most certainly needed to be at the table. We saw one compromise version that was in the House and had an ability to use a regional planning organization composed of both cities and counties. We had seen Representative Fred Jarrett, who is a former Mercer Island Council Member, come out with something that would have legislators nominating city and county officials and the Governor selecting a group of eleven city and county officials. We've seen some of the more recent iterations give more participation to cities and we've also seen some of the more recent bill drafts bring local and regional corridors, freight corridors, and some of the things that are real huge to us, into the list of what is allowed as a project on a regional basis. Some of what we saw earlier and some of what passed in Senate were just stating highways are of statewide significance. To us, the state is sort of washing its hands of part of its finance and responsibility and asking a region to shoulder it without any ability to do anything else. Dena Laurent—And with a region like ours, it's so connected to the success of the economy of the state. We just can't stand by and not offer more input. We're going to be tracking that right up to the very last day. Tim Clark—The last part is the revenue side of that. Did you get a feel for what will be the revenue and where it's being derived from? Rico Yingling—How close are they approving a revenue plan in the legislature instead of going to the public? Doug Levy—They're not there yet. They're being pushed extremely hard by the business community to do just that. I've been down there a lot of years. I can't remember a year where Council Workshop,6/19/O1 10 . Boeing, the automobile dealers, Weyerhaeuser, and the Association of Washington Business was knocking on the doors of legislators and saying please pass a tax package for transportation investment and do it right here—don't put it to the voters. But obviously that's still a big policy decision and it's not there yet. That's where they hope to get in the next two weeks. Tim, in answer to your question, in the array of sources that have been looked at, clearly the gas tax is on everyone's list. Some optional tool to look at sales tax has been on a lot of lists. There's concern in this county in particular about the sales tax being at its high threshold. Vehicle license fees has been on most of the lists, something like the old motor vehicle excise tax. One of the most acceptable is new weight surcharges on truckers and the trucking community has basically endorsed that,because its been dedicated to freight mobility. New weight fees on RV's and motor homes is another one that is showing up on the list. So those are some of the array of sources we've seen. Tom Brotherton—What kind of cooperation are you seeing among the King County legislatives? Are they really working together, or do they still split apart a number of ways? Doug Levy—I think they have their own flex. If you saw today's Seattle Times you saw Julia Patterson's name on an opinion editorial about having a mix of different choices, roads, transit, transportation demand management tools, those kind of things. There are other members of the King County delegation that feel the money really needs to be put toward roads and roads only. I think they're in different places. Last year there was a weekly meeting of a King County Transportation Coalition. Those haven't occurred as much this year, so I think the members have been more left to their own devices. We felt like we've had a lot of receptivity from our folks on some of the issues that Tim talked about on the regional transportation. City of Kent's Response to ESA Tim Clark—I have spent some 18 months now sitting down at the Tri County Executive Board, marching through how the regional, and particularly the urbanized areas, have to struggle with the listing and the implications for those communities under the Federal law. As you know,the 4D Rule requires that the communities that are impacted must demonstrate that they are making a difference in terms of saving salmon. It has become a six-part program that, as you start to march through, the question begins to dawn on you whether everybody is on board and all going the same direction. I'd like to speak with assurance on that, but I can't. Let's go from where we are at in the City of Kent. All of the tri county area is the most urbanized part and it is broken up into watersheds, which are referred to as WRIA's. We, in the City of Kent, are actually participants in two of those watersheds, and I represent the City on both of those forum boards. That is going to be an ongoing commitment on the part of the City that's probably only going to get larger over time. The purpose of this particular intent and display that Bill's (Wolinski) going to walk us through is specifically to talk about the approach the City is taking towards complying with the 4D Rule. The fact remains that there will be urban areas inside of that tri county area that will not adopt certain phases of this. Part of that is they won't see a need for it because they don't have a lot of streams running through their jurisdictions. It is a simple fact that adopting the 4D Rule, in all of its parts, does create a shield for your city that makes you more or less bulletproof in terms of lawsuits on behalf of saving the salmon. You will notice that when we get into the various Council Workshop,6/19/01 11 • phases of what the tri county proposal says, that it will suddenly get murky. That they won't specify all the things that they are going to do to that. The actual negotiations, behind the doors stuff that actually determines what goes into the paper and then becomes part of the 4D Rule, is handled by the G-7. What it really translates to is, that three county executives, King, Snohomish, and Pierce, and the Cities of Everett, Seattle, Bellevue, and Tacoma can and have devoted full time staff to this, and they have significant lands that are specifically threatened by the outcome, and are now attempting to try to negotiate a plan. At the very end of it,we start to get into management zones and so forth and you'll discover they will take their own approaches and we will be left with a discussion point on that at some future time. Bill Wolinski, Environmental Engineering Manager—Over the last couple of years we had an opportunity to give several workshops on the Endangered Species Act. We'll go through a brief review of things and then get into specific areas. We wanted to come before the Council at this time because we had a couple of initiatives that we want to bring before the Council in July to ask for specific Council action on. We wanted to give you background on the rationale for the initiatives. (Power Point Presentation) The Endangered Species Act addresses needs of protecting species from going into extinction. It's a federal act, and it's been around since 1973. It covers both aquatic and terrestrial species. There was a lot of discussion about the spotted owl and now the salmon. They are all covered under the Act. It is the intent, under the Act, not to have these species listed forever. They want recovery. They want to bring them back in number where they're not threatened with extinction. In our own region, the big emphasis right now is on two stocks, the Puget Sound Chinook and the bull trout. They were listed as threatened, that was a federal action that took place several years ago and we're dealing with responding to the listing of those two stocks. To give you an idea of the geographic area, it's not just a small portion of the region. It encompasses a large area that extends up to the Canadian border and out to Port Angeles and as far south as Olympia. This is the range of these species, and the recovery plan would be dealing with a coordinated effort in all of that area and all levels ofgovernment and into private industries as well. There is a myriad of problems. Tim (Clark) and I talked, and we wanted to give you representation of all the types of issues that come into play, as far as dealing with the extinction issues, and the impacts on the species. There are a wide range of issues, dealing with hatchery operations, dam operations, stream channel modifications, dredging, anything under the sun that's causing impact, and one of the challenges is to try to understand the relative significance of all these impacts. They are simply focussing right now on factors and the decline of the species. They talk about four principle areas, habitat, hatchery operations, harvest of the fish, and hydropower. From a local and regional government perspective, our area of responsibility is primarily in the habitat. We also are concerned about a coordinated approach with the harvest, hydropower and hatcheries, which is mainly a state,federal, and tribal responsibility. Basically, the goals of the Act are to increase the abundance of naturally spawned fish to self-sustaining harvestable levels. The tribes are particularly concerned about their tribal rights. They want to seethe species brought back in numbers, as well as the recreational and commercial fisheries. There is a Council Workshop,6/19/O1 12 concern that, in this large geographic area, they don't want the fish brought back into one sub watershed, they want the populations restored throughout the entire region. The genetic integrity of the different sub-stocks provides a cushion for survival, because if you only had one or two sub populations it would be easy for them to crash, and that would result in extinction. So they want genetic diversity. They want all the sub watersheds to be addressed in the species, but a healthier condition. Tom Brotherton—Hatcheries are both a blessing and a curse. It sounds like it's complex. That's one of the factors in decline, but we still are using them to keep the stocks of at least some fish species up. Bill Wolinski—That's an area of active work right now. They are actually working between the tribes,the state, and federal government to modify hatchery operations. Instead of being big fish farms, they are looking at them to intercept wild fish and spawn them artificially and then release their progeny out into the watersheds and change the whole operations. I think we're going to see a pretty dramatic change in what were traditional hatchery operations. Because we're in a highly developed area with high population, the three counties in this area were concerned about the federal government dictating to them what they had to do. One of the early things was that the county governments of Snohomish, Pierce, and King County worked on it themselves, to try to take a proactive approach in dealing with the pending requirements. They felt that if they could actively engage in a cooperative and management strategy, they could preempt the federal government coming in and dictating to them what they would have to do. • There was concern about the adverse impacts that these regulations might have on the economic prosperity of the region. The three jurisdictions wanted to organize, and that was what was driving this tri county response. They wanted to play an active role incoming up with their own plan. The Tri County Goals correspond with the federal goals but they also are dealing with maintaining the economic health of the region. The federal requirements aren't really limited by economic considerations, whereas tri county is trying to balance out economic objectives with recovery of the species. One of the things Tim alluded to is the 4D Rule, (the 4D comes from Section 4, Subsection D of the Federal Endangered Species Act). It says essentially that federal law has a provision when species are in a threatened status, that they limit their regulations on prohibition of taking the species. If you could come up with a strategy of conducting your operations in such a way that it would result in the conservation of the species, and if you didn't have this limitation on the federal regulation, they would say you categorically can't take any species in any activities that the government has underway. What the county governments are trying to do is take advantage of this section of the federal law by offering certain controls on activity and saying- we'll do it this way and it won't harm the fish. There may be a couple fish impacted but, overall, it will result in recovery of the species. The government is really interested in trying to offer up certain restrictions on how they do their operations in exchange for the federal coverage that they would be somewhat immune to any federal lawsuits. These six proposals are areas that the tri county was trying to get coverage under. We'll systematically go through each of these and explain the status of them, and also offer a statement on how the City is approaching it right now. Council Workshop,6/19/01 13 • One of the things we were hoping to accomplish, in getting into this several years ago, is that all this would be worked out and the City would follow recommendations. There have been a lot of delays, debates and argument on all of these areas and they aren't really finalized right now. There is concern on the part of the administration in the City, so we want to take some proactive steps, even though a lot of these activities are being delayed and debated. There are certain things we can do proactively that make sense and that will reduce the City s risk of any lawsuits from the federal government or from private individuals. The first area in the tri county deals with regulation of development and management zones. This area is hotly debated right now. It has far reaching impact on development, because it deals with restriction of land use along stream corridors. Anytime you have a property undergoing development or redevelopment along a stream or river corridor, there's an imposition of restrictions on what can be done. When you're talking about areas as wide as 200 feet from each side of the streams,you can imagine within Kent how much of an impact that would have on their redevelopment or future development. Some of the standards vary with different types of streams, but we're looking at the possibility that once the federal government rules on this, ofpossible restrictions as severe as 200feet, right now. What we're proposing to do as a proactive measure is to look at our SERA (State Environment Policy Act)process and look at provisions that we can do on an interim basis. When developments come up, we could offer an analysis of the potential impacts of that development on the stream and come up with some types of mitigation measures as opposed to saying categorically you've got to stay out of 200 feet of stream. We'd look at what we could do within existing setbacks that are in our zoning code and offer some type of mitigation. When you look at these slides, they depict some of the existing conditions along city streams where, under our existing zoning code, we can allow far placement of material right up to the stream bank I don't think it's going to be anything that would be overly prohibitive, to try to regulate and improve the condition along the stream corridors. One of the things the City did in the annexation of the Meridian/Meridian Valley area (we call it the Soos Creek Basin because that's essentially in the Soos Creek watershed) is we retained King County s stream setback requirements. We worked with the Council and they were a lot more protective of the stream corridors but they aren't as restrictive as the 200 feet. In the Soos Creek area we have prohibition of impacts within 100 feet ofsalmon bearing waters. In this particular interim SEPA proposal, we feel that this approach is adequate. The balance of the City, where zoning code just provides certain setback from development along the stream corridors, we're looking at initiating a SEPA process where we'd be looking at impacts of the proposed development and looking at certain mitigation measures. In the rest of the City, they are restricted on a certain setback and the restriction is prohibition of placing herbaceous material within that 50 feet or 25 feet, but allows all kinds of activities,parking vehicles, taking out the vegetation, etc. What we're suggesting on this SEPA process is to look more carefully at those types of activities and offer up some mitigation. • Tom Brotherton—We have a couple of ditches alongside roads that I think are salmon bearing streams sometimes, do those count in this category? Bill Wolinski—Anything that is salmon bearing would be. The salmon don't exhibit that much discretion in ditch versus stream,because Council Workshop,6/19/O1 14 • you can go into a lot of these ditches and there'll be thousands of Coho. That's the primary species that we have in our streams. If it's good water quality and the right temperature,they'll use. They are actually salmon bearing waters, and sometimes it's hard for the property owners to have an appreciation that a ditch behind their property has anything to do with salmon—but they do. The other big area is storm water management. For the last year we've been working at adopting King County's latest version of their Storm Water Management Manual for use in the City. Over the past year or so, whenever there have been negotiations over the issue of storm water management, the King County Manual has been held up as what would minimally be required. Before the end of the year, we're going to bring the manual up for consideration to the Council in a series of workshops on what the impacts of adopting that manual would have on the City and what other specific provisions are there. We're also planning workshops with the development and engineering community to give them an opportunity to comment. In the process of adopting the manual in King County, they held several years of workshops with the development community, engineers, and the citizenry, and they got fairly widespread support for what they did. Our rationale is that the King County Manual is held up to be what is minimally required, so we considered looking at it for adaptation to our own use. Of all the areas in the tri county 4D Rule, this is the farthest advanced. Road maintenance best management practices are close to approval by the agencies and we have a thick document. It • contains all types of restrictions on how road maintenance takes place. It seems a little strange, but it's a very specific area of operation. It is one area that the jurisdictions wanted coverage under. During the past two years one of the utilities, the Soos Creek Water and Sewer District, was concerned about trying to get coverage for their maintenance activities in water and sewers. The City, along with several other jurisdictions and utilities, cosponsored and developed a Best Management Manual for Water and Sewer Utilities, similar to their road maintenance manuals. We're hoping to come before the Council with an adoption of these two sets of BMP's sometime in July. They are essentially protective measures, which take place in maintenance that protects streams and water quality. This gives you an idea of some of the associated problems with drainage and utilities, and the BMP's we've talked about. You'll see, out in the f eld, that they're used a lot of times already. They involve the silt fences and fabric fences that protect silt from running off the sites. This slide also shows the use of straw bales that intercept and filter silt laden water and then become mulching. A lot of these best management practices have been around a long time, and this manual pulls them together and sets them up for specific use for specific types of operation. It is fairly prescriptive, it says when you do this,you will use these techniques. We thought it would be in the City's interest to formally adopt them for our own activities. Tom Brotherton—Do we require training for the people who are putting those things in place? Bill Wolinski—Yes. We actually have an ongoing effort where we have a consultant. We had a formal workshop for all of our inspectors and engineers to look at the best management practices . for construction, and we're actually critiquing our programs in-house to see how they are working and how they're being enforced. Council Workshop,6/19/01 15 • Tom Brotherton—I visited a subdivision in Kent, in the annexed area, and they had the silt fences carefully placed on all the original lines. Bill Wolinski—There is a lot more refinement, inspection, and enforcement, and we're very aware of it. That whole area of control is probably one of the more visible activities throughout the City and we're paying attention to that right now. A big area of concern in order to get coverage— not only do you have to do prescriptive measures, they want you to undertake watershed planning. Geographically, the City is primarily in the Green/Duwamish watershed, but because our principle water supply, Rock Creek, is a sub-tributary to the Cedar River, we're actively involved with the Cedar River work. We're cosponsoring the development of watershed plans, which are a five year process, and we've been actively working on them for the last two years. Tim (Clark) sits on the Steering Committee in the Watershed Forum and I've been actively involved in the technical committees. They're looking to pool together all this information on a specific watershed basis, to determine what has to be done and to focus the recovery efforts, because some of the planks that you've seen in these areas I've described are not all encompassing. There are other areas, like water supply operations, sanitary sewer operations, that really aren't covered. The watershed plans are meant to pool together all these issues with issues of harvest and hatcherie, and come up with a recovery plan on a watershed basis. Tom Brotherton—If we, as a City, have our own requirements and we participate in a larger group organization like the WRIA's, do we get counted in with those larger organizations because of their management practices,or are we judged on our own watershed rules? Tim Clark—You're actually in two different worlds. The state is required to demonstrate they're managing the problem. They created the WRIA's and you have to belong to those per se. In terms of adopting the 4D Rules, that's a choice that a city can make and you can decide how far you want to go down that pathway. Tom Brotherton—Ok. But the point is, when we're in these two watersheds and we're following the state rules, do we adopt our own 4D policies or do we simply say we will live up to those in the watersheds we're in, in those areas? Tim Clark—The WRIA's are primarily set up to become a conduit of money to begin the restoration of the watershed, specifically the stream and the tributaries. Tom Brotherton—It's a subset of responsibilities. We are our own management practices for the watershed area that we control directly. Bill Wolinski— These other two areas assess depth of management. Once you implement all these measures,you want to monitor things and then, based on how much benefit they are, you make adjustments to your approach. The Habitat Funding Program brings a realization that even if you do all this, it may not be enough to recover because there's been so much impact. They're going to be looking for the jurisdictions to commit to certain ongoing habitat restoration work. The City, to their credit, has over the last ten years, initiated a lot of projects that are beneficial to fish restoration. We've done work in Mill Creek. The Green River Natural Resource is a tremendous benefit. • Even before ESA, we had a lot of beneficial projects and we have a lot more. Any time we do a Capital Improvement Program for storm water, we integrate any considerations for the stream recovery. That's part of this program. It's funded as part of the recovery. Council Workshop,6119101 16 The Tri County Model is still being worked through. The National Marine Fisheries was hopeful that something would be resolved by mid 2001. It will probably be the end of the year, so we'll be coming back to the Council once they rule on all this and have further discussions of what more we might have to do. We're ready to work based on what happens. In summary, we're looking again at Council considering approval of best management practices for the roads, water and sewer, and also the interim strategy for SEPA. This was meant to give you background on why we're doing what we're doing and how it f is into larger context. Mike Martin—That's the punch line. Next month we're going to come to you with these documents and we're going to ask you to adopt them. I want to make it clear that this represents hundreds of hours, and the whole intent here is to do the right thing. It also makes us appear to be proactive. Brent(McFall)was adamant about this. We get out in front of ESA and protect ourselves against attack and lawsuit. There are some other actions that will be more complex yet, and more costly, that the private sector is going to be intensely interested in. Tom Brotherton—When you do come, would you bring a budget analysis with it, so we can see what we have to do in the budget in the fixture to adapt to these things? Bill Wolinski—We have some web sites. The last slide emphasizes our interaction with the citizens. We have a lot of work underway, some of the Council people are out there on a preplanning project, and we try to reach out to the citizenry to get them involved and to understand what's going on. That's a big part of this whole process, to have them engaged and involved in this. They can understand when they have impacts to their property and they can understand why. Tim Clark—We're going to hear much more on this, we already know that. If you're paying attention to the account of the Orca whales, the health of Puget Sound is so critically important to our own sense of what it means to live in the northwest. The problem With it is we're just now starting to go through the scientific research to make the connections and we're not there yet. Unfortunately it is going to come down to something near and dear to the Council's heart, and that's money. There's no escaping it and I want to put it up front with you. You're a participant right now in WRIA 8 and WRIA 9. That may not mean a lot to you now,but it's going to carry budget implications over time. I'm always fearful that it will be a shock,because the day will come when the Fed will, in fact, not forward the money,then suddenly we'll be left with the infamous M&O. The other part of that is what the staff has already pointed out to you,we are not going to be left untouched in the discussion,because the road maintenance standards have tremendous implications for private development. Once you enact them,then that becomes a part of the cost of housing and I don't see any way to escape that. I don't have an answer for it and we're not going to be left untouched. The workshop adjourned at 6:18 PM. Council Office 2°d Floor, City Hall 220 4`h Ave. South, Kent, 98032 PLEASE SIGN IN DATE: . r ame Address Phone v umber 5-3 M0Pp9--' pop-7u& wop-r4�7 Jo kp- (►ice �I � ( L�.,.� ,� ��-;1 �� �� /a �6��� 55a Z CC off C/LO