Everett Council of Neighborhoods

Council of Neighborhoods Meeting Minutes October 26, 2015 Meeting was called to order at 4:05pm. Agenda and minutes of the previous meeting were approved. Attendance: Nikki Oku, Roger Hoot, Kari Griffith, Carol Gogarty, Tom Norcott, Elly Smith, GeorgaDee MacLeod, Shelley Weyer, Art Olson, James Prissel, Andrea Tucker, Victor Harris, Ritch Carbaugh, Dennis Dudder, Ethel McNeal, George Lockeman, Vanessa Randall, Teresa Schultz Absent: Excused: Liz Hawkins, Michael Trujillo, Colleen Kain, Jim Greico Citizen Comments: None Mayor Stephanson: Mayor thanked everyone for their volunteer efforts. The annual holiday reception for boards and commissions members is set for Dec 8, after work. This week Wednesday the city council meeting is at 12:30. Mayor will give his 2016 budget address. Community Streets Initiative – Safe Streets – a lot of work is going on. Mayor hosted a meeting on Oct 13, countywide gathering with elected officials to discuss encampments and related social issues. Julie Frauenholtz has been hired to coordinate the 63 recommendations from CSI task force. On Nov 16 – Lloyd Pendleton from the Utah “low barrier” housing project will be speaking about how partners in Utah worked to house homeless people by developing low barrier housing also called Housing First. The Navy will be bringing three new ships to Everett, adding about 350 additional sailors in community. Sound Transit 3 – this will be an important initiative for everyone to watch. Mayor is worried Everett will be short changed in this latest round of the initiative. Light rail needs to reach Boeing/job center, and downtown, and college. This will come as a 2016 ballot measure for Snohomish, King and Pierce to vote to bring light rail to these communities. Sound Transit board decision on what to include on the ballot, Mayor will support or oppose this initiative, depending on what’s in the proposal. WSU University Center ground breaking took place on Sept 22. Lots of efforts to bring higher education to community. This will provide great access to higher education. Those interested in nursing or medical fields will be able to work with Providence and Everett Clinic to continue education. 18 months of construction is expected. On Oct 7, City Council approved south Everett forest preserve master plan. The site should open by June next year. Question -- Why no sidewalks on north side of Madison, from Morgan Road to Beverly Lane? This is a tough stretch for kids or other walkers. Mayor responded that not all areas that were annexed have been built up with sidewalks. Mayor will ask Ryan Sass about improvements. Michael Hill (in audience) asked about Eastmont area and possible incorporation. Mayor described history of annexation, possible interest in that area and then lack of support when votes were taken. Vanessa referenced an article in paper about fire dept funding. She heard a rumor about closing fire stations including closure of Madison location #5 fire station. Mayor explained that a consultant (Fitch) made recommendation about fire stations and current locations, location and number. As we plan for new stations going forward, advice included reference to response times and the need to build more robust stations where we don’t reduce response times. City Council’s public safety committee has been reviewing the Fitch report. There have been no actions on recommendations to close stations. But there will be public input if this ever is a closure plan. The 16th street station is in poor condition. Victor is interested in the upcoming forum in low barrier housing. He asked in comparison with Utah, Everett is not a state, why does it fall to us to take this step? Mayor responded that the Legislature needs to step up. Mayor commented we are trying to lead by example, need to expand low barrier housing but not Everett alone. Have about $700,000 available for low barrier housing. His goal is to construct 10 units in 2016, 10 more in 2017. Mayor agreed we need to do much more than that for housing. This funding is part of package to council, and includes enforcement and other measures like treatment for folks on the street. Need non-profits to manage low barrier housing not the city. Trying to start the conversation, start the process. Other cities around county are engaged and working on issues. City Council Liaison: Council President Scott Bader – Budget hearing looms large, and occurs after finance and budget subcommittee meetings have been held. Council recently passed city’s Comprehensive Plan - it now goes to PSRC next. AWC is having a session on low barrier housing, in Olympia on Dec 1. General government subcommittee will have session on low barrier housing on Dec 2. Public Safety committee will be meeting soon. Fitch study will be discussed again. Thanks for hosting the candidate night last week, was a good session. City & Community items: Lynn Sterbenz – Everett Emergency Management – Lynn has been with Everett Emergency Management for 4 years ago. She is now doing public education in community. She can do emergency preparedness trainings, drills and exercises, and is coordinating with Office of Neighborhoods, especially on communication hubs and caches. She wants to connect CERT volunteers more closely with neighborhoods. Fire dept and Emergency Management host the CERT course – an 8 week class including medical ops, search and rescue, fire suppression, disaster psychology. Free and informative course. Volunteers can take additional courses to help with Emergency Operations Center in a disaster, and be certified to participate in drills and training. Have about 350 people who have taken training who are certified to help as city volunteers. Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) facilitation is available to prepare your neighbors. Workshop is to share info about how to prepare for emergencies or disasters. Tom asked about map of CERT volunteers and where they are located. A map has been created and needs to be updated. Lynn will provide map to Wendy when it is completed. Elly said Lowell plans to focus more on emergency management and preparedness for their area. Andrea commented that Port Gardner looked at West Seattle Be Prepared, whose website is very thorough and they plan to invite a rep to speak. Lynn would like to attend Port Gardner meeting when the West Seattle rep attends. Glynis Frederiksen – Everett Animal Shelter – Glynis introduced herself to the group. She is looking forward to getting to know Everett neighborhoods. She volunteered in college at an animal shelter program, worked at Seattle Human Society, worked in Spokane, then King County in animal services. She is happy to come out to speak with organizations. Everett animal shelter serves over 5,000 animals per year, within city limits, and has contracts with 12 cities and unincorporated county, and serves the Tulalip reservation. Shelter has over 300 volunteers. ARF is a foundation that provides unique support for Everett Animal Shelter, pays for medical care for animals. Placement rate for animals is very high, the shelter has been successful at placement. Animal control services within city of Everett. Issues include barking dogs, chickens, cruelty issues. The shelter started pet licensing for city of Everett last year, helpful to consider it an “insurance policy” to return animals to their owners. Fees go into helping the shelter animals. Citizen comment - Problems with reaching animal shelter workers, hard to reach someone or get information, no one returns email or phone calls. General attitude needs to improve. Glynis is looking at how we improve on customer service. Andrea welcomed Glynis. She has seen the shelter services improve tremendously over last several years. It’s still hard to reach anyone by phone. Hope it continues to improve. Question about services for animals hit by cars, and medical needs for emergency vet care. City can’t subsidize pet care on emergency basis. Question about citizen advisory board, will there be regular meetings. Glynis plans to meet with advisory board and hold regular meetings. Niels Tygesen, Planning staff, made an announcement of two requests to Planning Dept change guidelines for use of properties currently in use as churches. Doing research now on the request. He will be contacting neighborhoods to discuss in upcoming comp plan changes. Some church sites are trying to find ways to make their properties more functional and are interested in adaptive re-use of churches within residential zones. Another proposal is for new uses or new definition of community centers which will be new language on the books. Faith Lutheran was trying to work out arrangements but current zoning code couldn’t make it work. Adaptive re-use as condos is being considered, but there are issues related to parking, traffic, etc. There will be Planning Commission workshops in November, and hearings in December. Teamwork: Wendy reported that the Diversity Board met last week, with several new members who are eager to get started on outreach with neighborhoods and schools on outreach to include all residents. She also expressed thanks for all the volunteer efforts at Monte Cristo. Mini grants funds are available for 2015 in addition to prior awarded dollars because some neighborhoods have not applied this year. Approximately $10,000 total is available to apply toward 2015 projects. Neighborhood Reports: Bayside – no meeting in October Boulevard Bluffs – No meeting no report Cascade View – no rep in attendance Delta – had police report, moving meeting location to Hawthorne Elem. They had presentation by Parks reps about parks comp plan. Glacier View – had a vote, two people took positions. Lowell school wants to lock up all the fences on West View drive for student safety. HSG – Tom thanked folks who helped out this year with the Candidate night. It went well, Friends of Library and volunteers put in a lot of hours and helped out HSG will hold a meeting in November with parks staff speaking about parks planning. Bridge restoration in Howarth Park is in the works but no info on trimming right now. The annual Christmas party will be held in December. Lowell – 6 attended meeting - no police report, parks staff Mark Harrison spoke and gathered input on parks facilities and also on programs. Two students from WSU majoring in neighborhood activities were present also. Roger gave a quick Map Your Neighborhood presentation. Northwest – no meeting, they helped with candidate night. Northwest will have Dec 5 holiday event, and Nov 19 meeting, the speaker will be from the Port, coming to talk about bridge from Grand Ave Park – and Everett Public Works will probably come in January. Pinehurst – meeting tomorrow night at Cascade High school. Neighbors had a radio check on Oct14th on ch 14. CB and handhelds. At 1400 hours. Port Gardner- 27 people attended, Potala Market and chef from new market spoke. Ted Wenta from YMCA also spoke. On Dec 17 they will have Van Valey House holiday party. In November they are having Parks at meeting as well as Snohomish County Health District. Riverside – 38-40 people attended. October meeting was spectacular meeting – the “bat lady” from Sarvey Wildlife Center, always brings a large turn-out including kids. Sgt. Braley attended with Lauren Rainbow, the new social worker at EPD. Charity auction in Dec, and annual auction in February. Recently had judging for Halloween decorating competition. 19th year holiday decorating contest. Meeting in November, Everett Library will be guest speaker. Active on NextDoor.com which is useful for crime prevention and tracking info. South Forest Park – Lisa from Port of Everett spoke. Attendance - 6 people. Port is expanding deep water for port for large containers. She also mentioned the bridge from Grand Ave Park to waterfront, a working bridge and a pathway for people. Weyerhaeuser building will be moved. New beat officer in neighborhood. Twin Creeks – Mayor was guest speaker, several crime related concerns were raised. Yakima handles medically vulnerable prisoners, Everett jail restrictions makes for difficulties with arrests. Valley View – met on Oct 22, good turn out, 15 people, including Councilman Scott Bader. Presentation from YMCA reps was well received, lots of questions and discussion. They are going to have a November meeting, but no December meeting. View Ridge-Madison – 15 in attendance, had police report, new young officer. Caroline Mason attended, Port Commissioner spoke also. Next meeting will be on Nov 4, with parks dept. and there will be an annual potluck in Dec. Top 5 Items to report:  Low barrier housing forum Nov 16 at 6:30pm Gen gov’t. subcommittee Dec 2 at 5:30pm  Sound Transit 3 – Nov 2016 on the ballot (contact Councilmember Roberts about this as speaker in next spring)  Invite Lynn Sterbenz to speak about emerg. preparations, caches and hubs  Glynis Frederiksen is new animal shelter manager  Planning Commission regarding church use amendments – call re: re-use of facilities Meeting adjourned at 6:10pm. Next meeting on Nov 23, 2015 Minutes prepared by Wendy McClure