City Council - Committee Of The Whole

City of Bellingham Committee Of The Whole Minutes 07/21/2014, 1:10 PM Mayor Kelli Linville Contact: (360) 778-8200, ccmail@cob.org Council Members Jack Weiss, Gene Knutson, Cathy www.cob.org/council Lehman, Pinky Vargas, Terry Bornemann, Michael Lilliquist All meetings are held in the City Hall Council Chambers at and Roxanne Murphy 210 Lottie Street, Bellingham, WA unless otherwise noted. Call to Order Council Standing Committee Meetings: Committee Of The Whole 20499 1. Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors Liaison Position Jack Weiss/Michael Lilliquist moved to recommend approval that the City Council will appoint a liaison to the Chamber of Commerce. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. Roxanne Murphy/Gene Knutson moved to recommend that Michael Lilliquist be named the liaison to the Chamber of Commerce. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. 20500 2. Authorization for the City of Bellingham to continue with the Army Street Property Owners Memorandum of Agreement process Michael Lilliquist/Gene Knutson moved to recommend approval. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. 20501 3. Discussion of Comment Letter Regarding Rail Impacts of Proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal Michael Lilliquist/Roxanne Murphy moved to recommend approval of the letter with Council Member Lilliquist's written amendments to the third paragraph as follows: The original PID from SSA Marine contained assurances that the “rail system has adequate capacity” to serve GPT, but the applicant removed these assurances from the revised PID. In their place, the revised PID makes reference to State Department of Transportation reports. These reports point to a need, if rail traffic increases significantly 1  in the future, for a Bellingham siding in order to alleviate the most serious rail capacity bottleneck on the main line north of Everett. Specifically, the revised PID states that "the State Transportation Plan identifies shortages of rail capacity…" More recently, the updated Washington State Rail Plan identified the same Bellingham siding as the way to provide an increase in rail capacity in this bottleneck, if rail traffic increases, but concluded that it would not be required under normal growth modeling (without GPT) through 2035. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. Michael Lilliquist/Gene Knutson moved to invite Mayor Linville to sign the letter as amended. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. 20502 4. Discussion of Public Access Television 20503 5. A Resolution Designating BTV10 as a Public-Access ("P"), Educational ("E"), and Government ("G") Channel for a 12-Month Trial Period Terry Bornemann/Gene Knutson moved to recommend approval of the Resolution. Terry Bornemann/Michael Lilliquist moved to amend the Resolution with the following amendment to the third sentence under "Now Therefore": "If supply exists, the City shall set aside an average of six hours per week for public access programming on days to be determined." MOTION CARRIED 6-0, Pinky Vargas out of the room. (MAIN) MOTION CARRIED AS AMENDED 7-0. 20504 6. An Ordinance Appropriating Funds From The Estimated Ending Restricted Reserve In The Public Education And Government Access Television Fund To Increase One Part-Time Position In The Information Technology Services Department To Full-Time. Gene Knutson/Terry Bornemann moved to recommend approval. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. 20505 7. Review Financial Guidelines and Facility Task Force Recommendations INFORMATION ONLY 2  20506 8. Lake Whatcom Watershed Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Phosphorus Reduction Targets INFORMATION ONLY 9. Approval of City Council Committee and Special Meeting Minutes For July 7, 2014 Gene Knutson/Michael Lilliquist moved to approve minutes. MOTION CARRIED 7-0. 10. Old/New Business Terry: A follow-up to the 7-7-14 meeting conversation regarding limiting public comment at the beginning of the Regular Council Meeting due to the recent late night meetings in order for the Council to be able to attend to the citizens' business sooner. A possible solution would be to prioritize the comment of those individuals who want to address items that are on the Council agenda that night, or issues that were discussed during the afternoon (excluding public hearing issues that can only be addressed during the appropriate public hearing). The President will consider. Jack: Would like a report from the Police Chief on the fireworks ban to be given at the August 4th Public Works Committee. Brian Heinrich will arrange. Michael: Drafted a letter to PSE regarding encouraging them to move away from coal power. He would like the Committee of the Whole to review it at its next meeting. Michael Lilliquist/Roxanne Murphy moved to recommend presenting the letter to the Committee of the Whole on August 4th. MOTION CARRIED 6-0. Abstained: Pinky Vargas Roxanne: She, Cathy, Michael, and the Mayor (via phone) attended the Leadership Alliance Against Coal gathering in Seattle that brought together 40 elected leaders from across the state. Roxanne also encouraged people to vote in the August 5th primary. Adjourned to Executive Session at 3:33 PM. 1. Litigation: Nash v. City of Bellingham, et al. (Brady approx. 10 min) 2. Litigation: Newlun v. Sucee, et al. (Brady approx. 20 min) 3. Potential Litigation (Marriner approx. 10 min) 4. Potential Property Acquisition (Marriner approx. 5 min) 5. Potential Property Acquisition (Marriner approx. 5 min) 6. Potential Litigation (Stamps approx. 5 min) 7. Potential Property Acquisition (Marriner approx. 10 min) Returned from Executive Session to reconvene and adjourn the meeting at 4:32 PM. 3