Everett Council of Neighborhoods

Council of Neighborhoods Meeting Minutes Jan 26, 2015 Meeting was called to order at 4pm. Agenda and minutes of the previous meeting were approved. Attendance: James Grindle, Roger Hoot, Steve Bugge, Tom Norcott, Colleen Kain, GeorgaDee MacLeod, JT Dray, Art Olson, Jim Prissel, Andrea Tucker. Victor Harris, Laurel Haseley, Jo Brodersen, Dennis Dudder, George Lockeman, Teresa Schultz, Dennis Dudder Absent/Excused: Liz Hawkins, Michael Trujillo Ben Blacker Citizen Comments: None Mayor Stephanson: Mayor introduced David Hall, deputy city attorney, who is here to talk about streets initiative. There are 6 subcommittees that will work on subject areas and recommendations to make plans for implementation. Mayor reported he also plans a meeting with other county officials late in February to discuss concerns and plans countywide. The annual Point in Time count of homeless should be available soon. This count gives an idea of the numbers of homeless in the county. Detour signs on Broadway Bridge are going in now in preparation for demolition. Stripping is weather dependent but Jan 30 is planned closure date for construction lasting about 12 months. Project is a real challenge for traffic, since this is route with heavy use, but bridge needs to be repaired. State funds depend on us starting at a certain time. Mayor announced he will be giving his State of the City address on Thursday at 7am, at Hansen Conference center. Remarks will be filmed and accessible on line on city website. Mayor will be going to Olympia to talk about transportation - the governor placed $81 million in budget. A low budget number was given, but Mayor is concerned that amount will not be responsive to needs in our county. Snohomish county has highest job and population growth in state. Traffic count Everett to Seattle has increased one hundred percent in 4 years. Ultimate solution is light rail. Sound Transit route to Boeing is in plans. The year 2040 would bring light rail to Everett. Mayor is advocating in Olympia for $60 million building for WSU building at EvCC Campus. Legislature may be in session until June. City Council unanimously approved plan for Port redevelopment. Mayor sees it is a positive project, if economy stays strong, it should take off. Council agrees that government building needs to provide parking, and is asking County to do their part. City will be paying for employee parking under Marriott. Herald newspaper has option for community to respond to issues on line. On courthouse project, 41% scrap court house project, 21% build somewhere else. Public feels county should provide parking. Questions: JT attended NW meeting. Allan Giffen, Planning Dept, spoke about plan to give tax breaks to developers who develop housing around the college. Impact of parking was big topic at NW meeting. College staff suggested EvCC would ask city to change city regulations. College smoking ban affects neighbors. Transit eliminated shelter and seat at the adjacent bus stop. Encouraged Mayor to suggest to President of college that the college address issues related to smoking on perimeter of campus. Mayor responded that Deborah will assist in communication with college. Mayor also commented on parking for WSU. WSU is in negotiations to acquire WSDOT space. Surface parking is to be preserved. Tax support for housing will help support nearby student housing so students don’t drive. Victor commented on city comp plan update. Population targets of 165,000 population is high, according to Mayor. More likely 145,000. Have about 95,000 working in city now. Expecting to see another 35,000 workers in city limits. Counts are more representative of what we expect. Burlington Northern update – requirement to restore public access at Bond, or Hewitt. Came back to talk about how to solve problem. Mayor is interested in daylight hours for opening for Bond Street. Ramp over railroad tracks would be ultimate goal. City Council Liaison President Scott Bader: Good to be out visiting neighborhoods. Council president Bader mentioned importance of attending neighborhood meetings during recent council meeting. Upcoming activity includes a downtown parking study coming up. Byproduct of improving economy is impact on parking downtown. Message is going out to employers to provide parking. Port project was exciting for city council members. Want to see integration of port area into community, whether into existing neighborhoods, etc. Broadway Bridge project is coming soon. Please let city council members know about traffic impacts in your neighborhood. Deb Williams was out a couple weeks, back now. She will be working with Scott on briefing scheduling over next few weeks to get more information and stay informed. Want to work with citizens to hear comments and thoughts. Teresa re: improvements to Evergreen Way. Pecks Drive left turn light red constantly. Have to wait, big back up results. Victor reports that Engineering staff Ryan Sass knows this is an issue. Community Reports: Alcohol Impact Areas – Lt. Bruce Bosman, Everett PD – formerly north admin sergeant. Asking for help with alcohol impact area project, which is part of community streets initiative. Lt Bosman gave a short description of effort – maps, data to establish area (WAC requires documentation of impacts of chronic inebriates. Application needs to be supported by data. Problems around the city related to alcohol, high alcohol content, single-serve sales. If you have been impacted by chronic alcohol issues, send photos to Bruce, camping areas with debris left behind. Need to show relationship to alcohol. ASAP. Introducing Administrative Sgt. Michael Braley - North Precinct Everett PD taking over from Bruce Bosman. Sgt. Braley was raised in Everett, started as reserve police with Everett, then served in Marysville, then came to Everett 14 years ago. Mainly at south precinct, K-9 unit 7 years, promoted and working as the nights central sergeant. Also he supervised the K-9 unit. He can be reached at mbraley@everettwa.gov 257-8474 Sean Kelly – Map Your Neighborhood – AmeriCorps volunteer. Sean is pushing Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) over last several months. MYN is designed to build and strengthen disaster readiness among neighbors, to be able to handle situations before first responders arrive. Process is to identify skills among neighbors that would be useful in a disaster. Neighbors work together on mapping skills, utilities, etc. Sean is available to give training, or volunteers can lead training. 257-7979 skelly@everettwa.gov Library Hours Update – Eileen Simmons was unable to attend due to illness. Hours have expanded at library. Boys on the Boat author will be at EPAC in February. Community Streets Initiative report – Legal – Deputy City Attorney David Hall – Community Streets Initiative was started in July, with 23 person task force to address issues in core downtown and business areas. Task Force was charged with task to address - incivility, public safety, mental illness, homelessness. Goal was to understand issue and devise recommendations. Task Force members met nine times over several months to prepare the report. In implementation planning phase now for each recommendation. There are 6 committees organized to address recommendations within category. Committee members are from task force and community members, plus city staff support. Plan for Implementation is due March 15. Asking citizen members to step up. Plan will have variety of tasks and plans to accomplish them. Some of the items are straightforward, some are very complicated. Coordination of services is a difficult item. 20-30 % of recommendations are more complex to implement. Residents have opportunity to comment on plan, stay involved. Communications roll out of implementation plan will occur later in spring. Lots of info online about the Task Force plan. The report has been well received at city and county council – both were supportive. Most current updates will be made via website. Status reports will be emailed to task force members, posted on website. Questions: George asked about Journey Church meal program. He commented on meal program at Presbyterian Church and asked about meal programs and day center services. George feels it would be smart to transition these activities in a way so as not to affect people too badly. Where will those people eat this Saturday? Have an up-ramp on services, gradual rather than abruptly leaving people hanging. David responded that this is a zoning problem. The church was allowed to locate there only because it occurred before zoning regulation was changed but feeding program is not grandfathered in. There is a process in zoning code to request expanded use. Outcome is not a forgone conclusion. Issue was raised as a complaint, investigated and now process is underway. Not a city action against church feeding programs. Some recommendations in final report deal with church feeding programs, including balancing act. Want to help populations that need help, to address homeless, drug and alcohol addictions, also deal with impacts on neighbors to serve populations and minimize impacts on surrounding area. Best practices – churches to work together to develop best practices for feeding programs, such as restrooms, feeding inside buildings, reduce litter outside. Where will funding come from for the recommendations? Some are being implemented by city staff working harder, some sources in community, county and others – partnership to use existing resources and reduce duplication. Chronic Utilizer Response Team – already in place. Example of person using over $500,000 in Providence services, jail, etc. Interagency coordination with staff from jail, prosecutor, fire, Providence, human services division. Effort is on how to use resources smarter, in more coordinated way. Would city have authority to expand business owner authority to kick people on property? David responded that options include trespass letter can be given to chronic folks such as at transit center exclusion order. Panhandling ordinance restriction at intersections being developed new ordinance. Teamwork:  Next Social Practical – Jan 29 – Resilience – Please RSVP to Wendy – topic addresses importance of strong social connections among neighbors. These connections are essential to rapid recovery after disaster, but also make life better in neighborhoods day to day.  Sector meetings – discussion by Council reps determined there is interest in returning to smaller meeting groups. Wendy encouraged reps to take initiative in hosting smaller sector meetings.  School partnerships/Diversity Outreach – not much to report so far from members, but Diversity Board has voted to adopt neighborhoods as part of their workload for coming year.  Website Update – Tom, Andrea, Steve, Dennis, and James volunteered to assist Wendy with process. CivicPlus is vendor, a company which will be training city staff in February about tools to build the site pages and will provide ongoing tech support to city. New website will have better communications features including calendars, ways to sign up for information, etc. Wendy reported she would like to have more photos, news and items to post from each of the neighborhoods. Neighborhood Reports: Postponed due to time Announcements: Shakaroo on Feb 14th. It’s a fundraiser, puppy pageant, with pooch parade, $25 ticket. EPAC is location. Everett Animal Shelter is beneficiary. Mary Schoenfeldt moved to position with Marysville school district to help with disaster incident recovery. Top 5 Items to report: Supporting Lt. Bosman shared info about alcohol impact areas – call or email him with impacts Broadway Bridge will be closed soon. Huge traffic shift to detours. Waterfront project at Port is moving forward, was approved by city council BNSF Bridge berm update for closure of Bond Street ped access issue Mayor’s state of city address will be televised CERT training in spring –stay tuned. Meeting adjourned at 6:00pm. Next meeting on Feb 23, 2015 Minutes prepared by Wendy McClure