HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Meeting - Council Workshop - Minutes - 09/03/2002 COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES
• September 3, 2002
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: President Judy Woods,Tim Clark, Leona Orr, Julie Peterson, Bruce
White, Rico Yingling
STAFF PRESENT: Mike Martin, Dena Laurent,May Miller, Tom Brubaker,Brett Vinson, May Miller,
Fred Satterstrom, Charlene Anderson, Bob Hutchinson, Eleanor Borgardts
The workshop was called to order at 5:00 p.m by Council President Judy Woods. Council member Connie
Epperly was not present.
2002 Second Quarter Strategic Plan Performance Update
Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Dena Laurent highlighted a few items and gave a quick overview of the
Second Quarter 2002 Strategic Plan.
♦ Executive Summary: Changes that have occurred between the end of 2001 on various work items, and
work that has progressed in 2002.
♦ Strategic Plan at a Glance: Covers work plan for the year.
♦ Full Strategic Plan Update:Recently improved, consolidated, including who items are assigned to.
♦ Vibrant Downtown: The Garage Use Agreement with Sound Transit is moving along nicely and is
anticipated to be completed this year.
Chief Administrative Officer Mike Martin—Exchanged email with Joanie Earl at Sound Transit. Sound
Transit has been very unable to focus on this to the extent where the Mayor had actually called Joanie
. personally. It's beginning to be the bane of my existence,just getting them to sit down. This has been a
meeting that has been scheduled and rescheduled since July 15". The meeting is to talk about the actual
language in the MOU for the use of the Sound Transit garage.
Councilmember Julie Peterson—Is there anything that we can do to help with that?
Mike Martin—No. The Mayor has not had the eye to eye contact with the director yet. I've had a real good
conversation with her. What's happening is,they say that they've been too busy. I think what's happened is
that I've made an agreement with Joanie that the mid level manager's loath and they're in denial, and so I
wrote them an email saying you have to do what your boss says now and I've sent them the memo that I sent
her confirming our conversation and I think they just don't want to deal with it. I think the Mayor needs to
have a conversation with her and at that point we'll take them to court.
Councilmember Rico Yingling—What are they having problems with?
Mike Martin—They wanted to charge us for parking in that facility. First,they wanted a market rate and then
they wanted something else that was still not feasible to us. The agreement was pretty plain what that was
supposed to be. I just said no. We said there will be benefit to other parties outside of the city and in
acknowledgement of that we are willing to participate in the maintenance of that facility,but not to the level
that you want us to participate. I laid out the parameters that we would be willing to participate in. One of the
things that we can do for them that's worth a lot of money is maintain the grounds around it. In exchange,
what we wanted was unfettered access after all the commuters had arrived. At 10:00 we can show.
Everybody who is going to be using that facility for Sound Transit purposes is already there. If there are extra
spaces, all we wanted to do was have access to those remaining spaces,period,and we would be willing to
monitor. I think they had a hole in their budget and this was a way that they could try to fix some of that hole.
Councilmember Bruce White—They're not charging commuters to park there are they?
Council Workshop,9/3/02 2
Mike Martin—No. They might at some point in the future but they're certainly not going to do that now.
• Their contention was that the $4 million that we put into that facility was the cost of going vertical and that we
got no use beyond that. They said if you hadn't given us$4 million to do that we would have gone horizontal
and it would have been 6 acres of asphalt.
Council President Judy Woods—Please remind them that that would never have occurred. It would have been
over our 7 dead bodies that that ever would have occurred. We made that clear to them over and over and over
again. They were not going to have 1000 stalls of surface parking,period,whether we contributed or not.
Those of us who have been around just a few years said,either structured or go somewhere else.
Julie Peterson—And that's why I asked if there's anything that we can do. Maybe as a council,if you don't
get anywhere, then we need to write a letter as a council.
Mike Martin—Jeanie sent me an email yesterday afternoon and said she would be back in a day or two and
make it a point to talk with the Mayor_
Judy Woods—Please remind the Mayor because she's wasn't there then.
Mike Martin—She is in agreement. She's fine. She can't get her staff to do what she's telling them to do and
really that is the problem. I'll remind him of that.
Dena Laurent—An accomplishment we're significantly more proud of is the completion of the Kent Station
MOU and the progress that's being seen on the development agreement and the ground breaking that we had
last month for the 2"d Avenue Extension.
Mike Martin—They gave us preliminary site plans.
• Dena Laurent—
♦ Safe Community. We've been spending time with the county's district court system and their plan to
consolidate the number of districts from 9 to 3 and to close 2 of their district court facilities,which happen
to be in Federal Way and Renton,and that decision is going to the Regional Policy Committee tomorrow
and that will impact the utilization of the county's space at the Aukeen Court Building where we have our
municipal court. We have certain interest there, long-term desire to potentially acquire that building. We
have more than our toes in that discussion to make sure that we understand under what conditions the
facilities be closed,what the impacts are,and to urge policy positions that require them to recognize our
interests, their need for parking for our property and Mike has been working with their property facility
management folks to renew our lease agreement. It has been a very successful discussion.
Mike Martin—We sent them a draft lease agreement. We also sent them a draft of a document that gives us
first right of refusal if we decide to sell the building and then a final document that kind of clarified some of
the cost of the work that we had done in the parking lot.
Dena Laurent—The cities new contract with the district court system for municipal court services have been
put on notice by the county that their contracts will expire at the end of 2004 and the county is seeking full cost
recovery. Several of those cities have entered into a staff level work team to explore what their various
options are for providing municipal court services,including the potential of contracting the city's that already
have a mum court,and so we're actively participating in those discussions as a potential provider of services.
We have a lot to learn and a lot of crunching to know once we have something that looks real. We'll bring that
to you. Participating seems like it might make some sense.
Mike Martin—A peripheral issue to this is there is a problem with parking at RJC and as soon as they
consolidate the courts it's conceivably going to get worse. We're talking with the county and the developer of
Kent Station about the possibility of having the county contribute to a parking structure that would be built
Council Workshop,9/3/02 3
either on Kent Station(that's our preference), or on the municipal parking lot as part of the first phase rather
• than the 2vd or P phase,which would be great. It would solve their problem. It would jump start that
structured parking and be a very nice solution to what potentially was a very nasty problem.
Julie Peterson—And this would be a revenue stream if cities contract for services with us?
Dena Laurent—It wouldn't be big bucks but could help pay a note if that was initiated.
♦ Effective Transportation System. Don Wickstrom is securing grants for 228d'. His staff, as well as myself
and Doug Levy, are continuing to work very hard to get 228d'on every possible list that it can be on to try
to secure funds to get that project fully funded. According to Tom Brubaker, City Attorney,the formation
on the 228d'LID will be September 17d'. The work on 277d'is progressing and we're already trying to
plan a road opening for the end of October.
Councilmember Leona Orr—Do we know when we are going to widen the east side of West Valley
Highway/277d'to now meet up with the new wider west side of 277".
City AttomeyTom Brubaker--There was a little bit of controversy with Auburn about their real willingness to
build up those final two lanes. They are supposed to be theirs. I believe I heard that they sort of owned up to
that and are planning to do it. I think Don(Wickstrom) also has been setting some funds aside to have a
backup plan because it is a critical link.
Leona Orr—It's not like it needs to be done immediately,but it needs to be done in the foreseeable future.
Judy Peterson—The Mayor has had conversations with Julia Patterson about the county's responsibility for
their portion and also West Valley Highway. I think she's had a couple meetings in the South End.
Dena Laurent—
♦ Strong Local Economy. Nathan (Torgelson)has been working on an Economic Development Plan that
he'll be giving you some first taste of at your retreat next week. Participating on KDP boards and
committees and could have some good outcomes. The Sounders piece is still exciting and moving
forward.
Mike Martin—The City of Seattle is in the process of appraising that property. They need to show that it is
not a gift of public funds if they lease it to the Sounders for a dollar,or whatever it is, and they are in the
process of documenting their public value of doing something like that. The Sounders have actually hired for
a design of the stadium and the surrounding properties. Fred Mendoza has a draft of the MOU between the
cities of Kent, Seattle,and the Sounders. People are spending time and real money outside of the City of Kent.
I didn't realize they wanted to do an appraisal and that slowed it down but everybody is willing. Haven't
heard a single roadblock. Department of Ecology is on board.
Dena Laurent—
♦ Valued Government Services. We are making progress on the non representative employees
compensation study. Council President Woods is sitting on that study and that group is having its last
meeting tomorrow. I'm sure some recommendations will be forth coming to you shortly on that.
Provide Positive Recreation Experiences: Wanted to note the progress that John(Hodgson) and Lori
(Flemm)have been making on getting that Clark Lake funding goal met—just the jump from 35% to 80%
toward that$3 million since Just six months ago.
If you ever want to change this format to make it more useful to you or extract something different please let
me know.
Judy Peterson—The East Hill Youth Complex is 70%complete. Do you have a timeline?
Council Workshop,9/3/02 4
Parks Director John Hodgson—They are beginning with the synthetic turf next Monday. If all goes well it
will be done by the end of October. We had a little problem with the rocks and it's fixed now.
Mike Martin—Both fields or just one?
John Hodgson—For sure one field. If they can work through October they'll have both fields done.
Code Enforcement Update
Mike Martin—The next item we brought to you under Safe Community. It has to do with the way we handle
our code enforcements. We made a couple of changes in recent months and we just wanted to call those to
your attention so you were clear on what we were doing. It does have implications for the people that would
be dealt with under this new code. I'm not sure who knows what about how we handle our code enforcement
and Brett Vinson is prepared to talk in very conceptual terms about how we do that.
Assistant City Attorney Brett Vinson—The process is split up into two different categories. The first category
is Building Services. Brian Swanberg is the full time Code Enforcement Officer. He seeks enforcement of
various codes including the building,mechanical,and plumbing codes and Title 8, which is the health and
sanitation provisions,junk vehicles,noise,litter,and weeds. That's the bulk of the code enforcement. Other
code enforcement actions are from the Public Works and Planning Departments and they are the more unique
types of code enforcement actions such as filling or grading a wetland,sewer storm water detention facilities,
things like that where we'd actually have inspectors who go out and review it and they are more familiar with
those particular codes. Those individuals have been designated as code enforcement officers. They will issue
the correction letters,notices of violation, and will testify at a hearing just the same as Brian Swanberg would
do. Our code enforcement is generally complaint driven. We get complaints from a variety of sources
including city staff,neighbor disputes,and other people who just happen to be driving along and see a bunch
• of junk vehicles or burnt-out trailers.
The recent change in process in procedures in the last year, to year and a half, is that there is an assistant city
attorney who is specifically assigned to kind of oversee the code enforcement actions,review the notice of
violations,make sure that they are legally sufficient and to present evidence,like an actual trial, at the hearing
in front of the hearing examiner. Try to make the process a little bit more smooth and if in those instances
where we have to go to Superior Court,to seek additional enforcement action that we have a clean, clear, and
adequate record here at the hearing examiner. When we go to Superior Court it's not a new trial, it's a review
of the record of the hearing that was conducted in front of the hearing examiner. (Brett Vinson is the assistant
city attorney that is doing that.)
New City Code Provisions Enacted Last Year, Section 1.04 of the Kent City Code provided some additional
tools and mechanisms for the city to seek compliance in these code enforcement actions. Most notably is
sending fines to a collection agency. We've been meeting with Mike(Martin)and other various staff to
determine the best process and procedure for doing that. Tammy White, the paralegal in our department,has
been in contact with the collection agency that the court uses,and we are now reviewing contracts in an
attempt to enter into an agreement with the collection agency so that when we go to the hearing exammer,the
hearing examiner says,ok Mr.Vinson,you have 10 days to get the junk vehicles off your property. If you
don't, for every day after the 10 days you will begin to accrue $50,$150 fine for each and every day until the
property is brought up. Before, we would have to take those assessments of monetary penalty into Superior
Court and get a judgement and then attempt to put a lien on the property. The process was rather cumbersome
and, in fact, we never did it mainly because there is a cost that is associated and we didn't do it.
Mike Martin—We threatened though.
Brett Vinson—We have threatened. Most times people would comply. There are a few who still have
outstanding violations that we are now going back through,revisiting,and will likely issue a new notice of
Council Workshop,9/3/02 5
violation and start the process over again so that if they failed to comply this time we could send them to
• collection. The collection agency would collect the money and give it to us. Subsequent Repeat Violations
can be charged as a misdemeanor. This is something that we would use sparingly,but it does provide us
another tool to seek compliance.
Two action items that I would like to update the council on are: Pat Fitzpatrick and myself are reviewing the
city code for enforcement consistency. There are several different types of enforcement sections throughout
the code and what we're doing now is going back through and amending all the city codes so that there is a
consistent basis or consistent provisions to seek enforcement. Also there are some sections where it's a little
bit unclear as to our enforcement authority and we're going through there to clear that up so that there won't
be any questions or any possibility for arguments to be made at the time of hearing as to our authority to
enforce certain actions. We are also initiating Superior Court action to abate a dangerous building and place a
lien against the property. It's a burnt out home on Kent Kangley. It's an attractive nuisance. I went up there
and saw where there were a bunch of teen age kids in there smoking, drinking,and some adult magazines that
were in there. It's like a little hideout for these kids. We want to tear down that building,bulldoze it,and
clear it up and then we'd file a lien against the property so,when the property is eventually sold,we would
recoup our cost for that.
Mike Martin—The big change here is we're getting tougher on the assessment of financial penalties for people
that we just can't get there with and as Brett said, usually by the time you Just say clean this thing up most
people just clean it up. There are people as you all know that we just can't get them to do that. In the past
we've rattled our saber. They knew,we knew it, and oh well. This really places some teeth in the code and,
by using the collection agency that we use for the courts, we're dealing with an outfit that we know well and
we can deal with and control and make sure that nothing that shouldn't get to a collection agency goes to a
collection agency.
Brett Vinson—In 2001,Bob Hutchinson provided these statistics for me. There were 321 code enforcement
cases that were open. 245 were resolved, 10 that were taken to a hearing, so 96.9%of the cases were resolved
without a hearing. This is only for the building services department,not for other departments. We do get a
very good percentage of individuals who act a while, get the idea that they need to clean up their property. I'd
imagine that those statistics are similar but higher for this year other than the code enforcement cases. I
believe we have 8 to 10 so far this year. Still about the same percentage is coming to the city attorney's office
or the law department to take to the hearing examiner,but we are continuing, actively pursuing code
enforcement actions within the City of Kent.
Building Official Bob Hutchinson—Not only are these measures in our view necessary in order to contain
compliance with those very few but they are also necessary to maintain the credibility of our lower level code
enforcement actions. The fact that we were able last year to obtain compliance in 97%of the cases I think
speaks well for that process,but unless we have teeth on the other end for those few remaining,those
percentages will slip. This will help us to get some good fuel. It will let our folks go out in the field and say,
hey,we're not kidding. This is what can happen,
Mike Martin—A small thing but,just in terms of process,we found it's important. A couple of years ago
these sorts of issues weren't really tracked in a nice, tight, formal way and so when there's a complaint or
something it goes right into the same system that we use for our permitting. Its tracked that way. We can get
accurate data on it. We're using KNA. We can see how long it takes to get compliance.
Judy Woods— Any nasty cases out there now without mentioning any names?
Brett Vinson—We have a pretty big wetland violation. Those tend to get really big. There's one where an
individual built a building without a permit in the middle of a wetland. Several hundred thousand dollar
building. Now because of grading and filling at wetland and constructing a building without a permit, he may
Council Workshop,9/3/02 6
have to tear it down. Those are pretty significant. If it was a workshop shed,then you'd have the typical
neighborly disputes.
Finalize Council Retreat
Mike Martin-Just wanted everyone to see what we're actually doing. There's still time to make changes if
you care to. The agenda is as it's stated. Paul put this document together after talking with everybody. Staff
will be prepared to give you very brief presentations on all of the subjects that you see here. My general
instruction to everybody is going to be less,rather than more, less paper but we will be able to provide you
with answers to any questions that you have. If we can't,we'll give them to you in subsequent time. The way
this is laid out is we'll talk about those major issues that you have under the 3-4 o'clock timeline there. One
thing I wanted to point out is we're kind of continuing nonstop through dinner. Nathan is going to talk to you
about the economic development strategy. At that point we'll ask if there's anything else that you'd like to
discuss and we'll ask staff to kind of clear out. The Mayor and I will stay if you want us to. If you don't,we
will also leave at the same time. There may be other miscellaneous issues that you may wish to talk about and
if you let us know we'll come prepared with whatever information you need on those. I've included the
council work plan which you've all reviewed,I'm sure. I've also included a memo that I sent to Council
Member Clark which kind of spoke to a few miscellaneous items that Paul didn't capture in his report which
are very small things,but things you may also want to talk about.
Judy Woods-If you have things you want to change, why not call Mike and work with Dena and Mike
because it's not set in concrete. It's that we have a limited amount of time and there were some things that
came through in all of our discussions with Paul but wanted to address.
Mike Martin-One of the things that fell off was I had asked John to give us a presentation on the pool and the
homeless,and we just didn't have time for that so we moved both of those subjects into subsequent Council
Workshops where we will be able to tell you exactly what's going on with that situation in the county and also
. about the Homeless Task Force and what we're doing there. Those are both major issues that I think you need
to have a real grasp on because your constituents may ask you.
Judy Woods-We also talked briefly,and I don't believe John that you and I visited about this but I visited
with Mike about it,but at some point we might want to talk about the pool situation on camera at a Parks
Committee meeting in order that we can better inform the general public about the dilemma that we're
confronting. But we don't want to do that until more of the details are worked out.
John Hodgson-At the next Council Workshop we'll be providing you kind of a synopsis of what the county
is offering to us and kind of what the cost will be, short of any thorough evaluation of the building itself up
there and what our cost might be over and above the operating cost and then, from there,we could probably go
in whatever direction we want in terms of either working with the public or not working with the public.
Judy Woods-Any changes, additions,deletions you're interested in please call Mike or Dena.
Rico Yingling-What are you doing with the last sheets? Are we getting an update on all these items?
Mike Martin- I just included it. You don't have to do anything with it. These are items that I've gone over.
Item number 3 regarding the bus stop at 259 h. That's something that I don't know the status of but I'll find
out beforehand. In almost every case these are done or taken care of. What I was just trying to do was be
thorough about bringing back to you what you had asked for. I don't think you really have to do anything with
these things. Just wanted you to know that we hadn't lost track of them.
Julie Peterson-If we could get an update that would be great,because I don't know where we are with almost
everything.
Council Workshop,9/3/02 7
Judy Woods—The tour is still scheduled for the 21"? Am I correct on that? What time had you thought it
could start? 3pm?
Mike Martin—We've already made an item for the next Council Workshop to come back to you and say this
is exactly where it is,where we're going, and how we're going to do it.
Rico Yingling—I thought the tour was on the 14s'. I can't go on the 21s`.
Councilmember Tim Clark—I can't either.
Dena Laurent—I think that it is the last Tuesday of the month.
Leona Orr—I have the 24s'written down.
Mike Martin—We'll bring the finalized itinerary to you on the 17" or we'll send it out to you before hand if
you care to have it. I will help coordinate dinner.
Dena Laurent—We've asked Jackie to order for us.
The workshop adjourned at 5:40 PM.
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