Everett Council of Neighborhoods

Council of Neighborhoods Meeting Minutes Nov 24, 2014 Meeting was called to order at 4pm. Agenda and minutes of the previous meeting were approved as prepared. Attendance: Roger Hoot, Michael Trujillo, Ben Blacker, Sandy Macham, Tom Norcott, Colleen Kain, GeorgaDee MacLeod, JT Dray, Art Olson, Jim Prissel, Victor Harris, Dean Smith, Dennis Dudder, George Lockeman, Teresa Schultz Excused: Andrea Tucker Staff: Deborah Wright, Allan Giffen, Matt Coombs, Council President Moore, Mayor Stephanson Citizens: Gail Chism, Bonnie Arnestad Citizen Comments: Bonnie Arnestad, 2312 Kenilworth Place, re: recreational marijuana shop being planned for the area near her home on Rucker Ave. She has concerns about the impacts on her neighborhood and feels it is an urgent matter. The license has been applied for and no notification was received. She spoke with Planning Dept. – she sees it as a licensing issue, not a zoning issue. She feels it is a crime-ridden area and this will make it worse. Gail Chism- Lowell – she has completed a new book of Lowell history, with lots of stories and pictures. It is available for sale at $25. Fliers are available about the book. Mayor Stephanson: Mayor indicated that Allan Giffen, Planning Dept, will be visiting the recreational marijuana business site to make sure it complies with interim regulations passed by Council. The business, called Purple Haze, was first going to open on Broadway, then found a new location and city is evaluating whether it is in compliance. If not, the merchants will be notified. If it is allowed, the next avenue of appeal is to go to city council to change regulations about interim use. City is being responsive and going through process. It will be up to City Council if it wants to change the conditions. The Community Streets Initiative task force presented their findings, and are expected to be here in January to give an update. The task force developed a series of short and long term solutions, including social services and creative enforcement options. Ordinances will be brought to city council - also already there is more visible police presence downtown. Mayor indicated the need to find more creative solution to problems than just sending people to the next town. Some folks have drug and alcohol abuse issues; poverty is a key issue. Not everyone on the street is a criminal, but police have made a number of arrests based on illegal behavior. An ordinance to prohibit panhandling at intersections anywhere in the city will be proposed. Giving money on the street corner is not effective way to help, better to donate to groups to provide services they need. David Hall will lead the Implementation Plan effort and Deborah Wright has been instrumental in process. Mayor plans to ask mayors of other cities to help, and to ask ourselves if we are willing to put more resources toward housing. Task Force did a remarkable job, a lot of good work was done. Later Council President Moore will be here to talk about getting more diverse people involved in leadership. Mayor started Diversity Council, now a board, supporting this effort. Plan is to develop training for folks to learn about boards and commissions and how they can be involved in leadership positions. Good team effort as we move forward. Victor asked about panhandling – why are we allowing it any place in the city? City government is not getting message that this is a problem. Mayor responded that this is a matter frequently tested in court system, but can’t outlaw completely, ordinances have been struck down in courts. City is attempting to deal with it from public safety perspective –cars stopping to give money is hazardous for traffic and pedestrians. Grocery stores can ask people who become aggressive to move along, and can call police. So far, the biggest impact with homeless has been police officers trying to help people to get to the services they need. Pierce County and King County have filed a lawsuit against state for lack of funding for mental health treatment. Dennis asked about Marysville and Arlington, signs have been posted. Mayor responded that signs will be posted here as well. People on news reports seem to say they can make $100 per day. Tom thanked Mayor to chartering the process. Tom feels it is right thing to do. City and Community Reports: Terrie Battuello – Port of Everett - Dec 22 meeting next public meeting. She described development work to clean up site to get ready for redevelopment. There are 3,000 acres of waterfront owned by port. Port is nearly done with clean up to make them available for use. Community committee reviewed the Port’s goals, core values, including intention to develop a quality place, connect community to waterfront, destination. Creating 15 public places, water will become more accessible. Authentic place, jewel in Everett community to raise awareness of waterfront and opportunities here. The new design includes more large open spaces on outside of property, open to public. 2 acres more open space and more aggregated, useable for community. More connected to Everett’s history. $33 million public investment, 2 hotels, office and commercial space, marine retail, services. Site plan is visible on website. Would include 350-660 housing units. The design brings the buildings to center of the site. Requesting of the city that port be allowed to pull buildings to center of the site, revised view corridor study. Planning commission will review. $360 million in private development funding. Slide show: View of site with images flags to trading partners. Boxcar Park at waterfront area, tidal pools, interpretive programs for kids. Planning to relocate Weyerhaeuser building as marina club house. Fisherman’s harbor, first part of project. Public access dock. Festival streets can be cordoned off, for special uses. Tribute to mills and millwrights. Tom – He is excited to see what is going on here. Public investment of Port funds - $33million. Port collects $4.4 million a year. Money being invested on infra-structure. Dave DeHaan – Fire Dept. – Coal trains and oil transport. Everett ended up with east- west terminus for trains and the north south train lines early in its history. There is a tunnel 5 blocks long, right through town. When rail companies got their statutory authority from congress, also got special powers to build the rail lines and move through communities without fees. Cities don’t have much control over what railroads can do. City and fire department have grown up with the threat there, including what is hauled on the rai lines. Less hazardous now, but now a new commodity is coming over the rails - Crude oil is product coming now. Out of Bakken oil field in North Dakota. Different from most crude oil, it is much more flammable than other oil. Couple different derailments have occurred with huge fire, damage. Large hazard, the cars that are used aren’t as good as they could be with safety measures. Traffic comes in packet trains, over 100 cars, which are over mile to mile and a half long. Long trains are easier for train industry. Reported trains, 8-12 a week so far, are reported for oil trains. Don’t have data on coal trains. These trains come back empty through city and back over the mountains. Sometimes trains park in Delta yard waiting to go north to Anacortes. Delta and Bayside yards can be holding places. No place in town where train goes over 30 mph. Tunnel is 20 mph. Tend not to stack up ore dept is familiar with these materials and haz mat training on oil trains. Other issues that cause concern: Landslides that impact tracks, one occurred today. Moratorium by BNSF on moving passengers for 24 hours when a slide occurs. City working very closely together with other jurisdictions, train watch group in city, and working to keep communications open with everyone. Also city is working with congressional leaders on safety. Marysville and Edmonds affected by at grade crossings. Congressman Larsen working on safety aspects, need to pressure railroad to comply. For people who live near tracks, those folks should have a plan to evacuate. Should be prepared. Ask your CERT volunteers about how to be prepared. City doesn’t have evacuation plan broadcast since different disasters come from several locations around the city. Depends on incidents how the evacuation route would go. Will get info out via EAS messages or weather alert radios, landline phones, cell phones. City will continue to keep an eye on issue, try to keep residents informed. George – Is rail traffic supposed to increase in numbers? Dave DeHaan says railroads do project increases. Vibrations don’t cause problems according to railroad. But city has been working with railroad. Best practices will help with protections. Railroads don’t control content of cars. Michael – why haven’t pilings been built along slopes? And how would city respond to incident along rail lines. Can’t stabilize bluffs we have here, prohibitively expensive. Fire response has large number of techs with hazardous training to mitigate against problems. Fire dept has a lot of foam to bring to site to fight fires. Airport and Boeing has a lot of foam for those fires. Catastrophic wreck in Ontario had a lot of immediate damage. Andrea Welles- Edwards – Diversity Board, schools rep. Inclusion piece is her focus. She is on PTA Council vice president. Planning work plan for next years. Partners in community among neighborhoods, schools could work together on common concerns, to work together in partnership. Question about diverse groups that are target of the efforts – cultural diversity, ethnic diversity. Community Reports: Deborah Wright – She reported on Mayor’s Diversity board, which is interested in linking up to support ties between schools and PTAs with all the neighborhoods. Diversity board partnered with senior center on inclusion and diversity of participants. Senior Center attracted more diverse participants by offering more events and attracted more diverse attendees as a result. Hoping Diversity board will work with Neighborhoods Council to encourage more participation. Civic engagement as the goal – how does it work? Asking neighbors to participate is a good way to connect with people. Andrea – She suggested NNO elements to attract diverse cultures. Starting at schools is possible point of contact. In Delta, language translators are needed to help overcome barriers with some populations. Several languages are spoken in Delta area. Have to overcome barriers of perceptions of government and police from other countries. Need to reach the kids, younger people to let them know what they can do, what they can accomplish through community involvement. Need to take long term view to recruit people for future. Teamwork: Jan 29 – Social Practical on Resilience. Meet at Evergreen Middle School at 6:30pm. Mini grant guidelines Council President Moore – Spoke about diversity outreach and inclusion opportunity. 80 different languages spoken by families within school district. Project that somewhere around year 2022, Caucasians will become minorities. At a forum at Evergreen Middle School, someone asked about how to improve diversity at city council. We have to do a better job of getting people engaged. Council President Moore explained he met with Mayor to do something about it. Equity and Diversity council at school district is looking at how to recruit so that teachers reflect diversity of students. Where are people of color to involve in district. How can Council of Neighborhoods engage your neighbors to get involved? Natural leaders program being expanded to reach more diverse leaders. Cultures may not trust government, need to build relationships to make connections. Three step program to occur over the spring – engaging conversations to link people together. Show them the values of bringing them into opportunities and develop them into leaders for city council and other elected positions. Seeing partnerships to bring people into the schools, have a higher level of trust to get involved. Teresa indicated that at Madison elem school, some of the parents are illiterate in their own languages. She sees a lack of communication, language wise. She would like to see school district offer opportunities to learn English in an environment that would be safe. Colleen – she sees option to link through multi ethnic students team up with 9th graders as mentors, to have support and help. Link with parents to get to neigh meetings and recruit. Kids could help link with kids and then tell parents. Roger – suggested that many of the immigrants, if parents are illiterate, children carry a big burden. Send out simplified diagrams of resident, neighborhood organizations, volunteer, paid positions of leadership, how America works. Distribute through schools for students to bring home. Important to remember that many people have educations who are working below their knowledge level. Victor – we awarded people MLK prizes, winners left the city – where are the young people now? Can we involve them now, encourage them to come back to community? Important to look at trends in population in Everett. Question about volunteer service or community service requirements? Is it required in Everett schools? Teresa – At Madison all we have to do is ask parents, and they will help and don’t know how. Example of food drive with high participation, despite 80% free and reduced lunch. Michael asked if involvement in PTAs is same as on neighborhoods. Natural leaders are successful tool to involve ethnic families. Council president Moore asked for feedback on how this might best work. Need to do this as community. Council President Moore went up with his updates. Council will swear in new councilmember Judy Tuohy just before council meeting. Ceremonially Dec 3rd. Dec 3rd budget approval. Dec 10th legislative update will take place. Council officers will be elected this week Wednesday. JT asked about whether Council President Moore had a comment on “council of the whole” process and impacts on conversations of Council. Council members have a lot of work that occurs that doesn’t happen on dais. Ambassadors, service on other bodies, representing city. Need to have conversations in public. Issue of committees leads to some members having more information than non-committee members. Can’t get info during council meetings. Need to do homework before meetings, have debate at meetings. Neighborhood reports: Bayside – no reps present Blvd Bluffs – no meeting Cascade/View Twin Creeks –in attendance Eric Hicks, Kelley, Chuck King. Police officer. No attendance beyond Michael. No meeting in December. Delta – had 13 in attendance. Evergreen – no meeting. Park site is being heavily pruned, “limbing up” trees and eliminating all the low growing native plantings,, despite designated wetland status. Neighbors aren’t too happy, even though the cutting was done to limit illegal use in park. Glacier View – Had a meeting on Nov 13. No report. H-S-G – 23 people attended. Mayor attended meeting, budget, streets initiative, CEMEX, street overlay. Mayor talked about budget – marijuana sales revenue sharing is not being shared with cities which were supposed to receive it. Annual holiday dinner is on Dec 16th. City got back to residents about complaints raised at meeting. Lowell – Lowell held a special meeting about dog park to change to south part of park site. Residents shared opinions about park use. Book about Lowell history has brought back people to the meeting, because they are in the book. Holiday party Dec 6 5pm party, coming up. Delivered fliers door to door. Cocoon House kids delivered fliers. NW – 28 people attended. New admin sergeant Mike Braley attended. Molly Beeman, EvCC and electric supervisor gave a program on conversation. Dec 6 holiday party Pinehurst – met Sept 23, 16 attended. Speaker was Lindsey Brandt from Cascade High School. She spoke on how to get to know teens. Planning meeting and are setting up for a drill and radio testing. Seattle Men’s Choir having their performance on Dec 20 and a Pinehurst volunteer will be singing. Port Gardner – 23 attended meeting on Nov 17. Fire dept attended. They had a lot of speakers. Briefing on port activities. Dec 7th will be their holiday party. Riverside – active group with holiday lighting contest, lots of activities coming up. Valley View – still no meeting structure. Bill Randall working in Commons area, put up new sign in area acknowledging volunteers of community, shows pride. View Ridge Madison – Had 14 in attendance. No police officer report. Dennis discussed crime mapping. Lots of car prowls. Neighborhood changing with crime rates. Pocket of neighborhood affected by noise at CEMEX. Committee of residents will work on that issue. View Ridge holiday party coming up. The Pecks Drive Community Center is new community center formerly Memorial Church. Announcements: Dec 3, 6pm Tai Chi demo at Madison Elementary school. Top 5 Items to report: Marijuana issue store locations Streets Initiative recommendations Port Everett report Diversity outreach Coal trains and oil trains Meeting adjourned at 6:15pm. Next meeting on Jan 26 Minutes prepared by Wendy McClure