We might have it out.

Great.

Let's start the meeting.

Welcome everyone.

Packed room.

We are very happy you are here, taking the time to be here and share your thought.

Your voice matters.

Can we have a roll call, City Clerk, please?

Yes, thank you.

Mayor Malikutian?

Here.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Here.

Councilmember Barkava.

Here.

Councilmember Newman House.

Councilmember Robinson.

Here.

Councilmember Sumatoria.

Here.

Thank you.

Councilmember Breyer has not joined us yet.

I'm sure she will join us shortly.

Councilmember Robinson, would you please lead us in the flag salute?

Yes.

Please stand if you're able.

There you go.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much.

We do have four proclamation.

We love the advocacy, but we will ask you to make your remarks to be limited to a total three minutes per proclamation, regardless of the number of speakers.

The first one is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

It's going to be read by Councilmember Sumataverio.

Bolivar Choi.

If you are in the audience, please come and sit on the table, and we will hear your comments after Councilmember Sumaterial is going to be done.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Whereas the City of Bellevue takes pride on recognizing May 2026 as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, AA and HPI Heritage Month, honoring the many generations of AA and HPI individuals whose cultures, contributions, and legacy have shaped Bellevue and enriched communities across the nation.

And whereas since its official designation in 1992, AA and HPI Heritage Month has provided an opportunity to celebrate the vibrant and diverse AA and HPI communities, representing a wide range of countries, islands, languages, and living experiences.

And whereas this year's recognition highlights the continued leadership, resilience, and contributions of AA and HPI individuals who are shaping our communities, strengthening our economy, and advancing opportunities for future generations.

And whereas AA and NHPI communities have faced and continue to confront discrimination, exclusion, and xenophobia, yet remain powerful force of advocacy, cultural expression, and progress in Bellevue and beyond.

And whereas Bellevue is home to a thriving and growing ANHPI population whose achievements in education, science, government, arts, commerce, and civic life continue to enrich and strengthen our city.

And whereas the city of Bellevue remains committed to fostering opportunity, equity, and inclusion for all residents, while uplifting the voices, leaderships, and contributions of our ANPI neighbors.

Now, therefore, I Claire Sumatibaria, on behalf of Mo Malakutan, Mayor of Bellevue, Washington, and the City Council do hereby proclaim May 2026 as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Metro.

In Bellevue, and encourage all residents to learn from and celebrate the leadership, resident resilience, and cultural heritage of the AA and HPI community, both past and present.

Thank you, please.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Thank you to the recognition for the AA and PI Heritage Month.

I'm honored to accept this programming on behalf of CIC and the many AA and HPI families we serve.

Accepting this proclamation is meaningful to me.

As CIC, we work alongside immigrant and refugee families every day.

And many of the people we serve are AA and HPI community members, building a new home here.

Culturally, this programmation is a public affirmation that our language traditions and stories belonging in Belleville, and that our community contributes matters.

This programation invites us to keep building a city where people can access services in the language, feel safe and public space, and say stay connected through community.

Belonging isn't isn't just being welcome.

It's being able to participate fully and feel respected.

Invite us to ask whether our city space and services truly work for everyone.

It also reminds us that belonging is built through relationship and co-laboration.

This programation is a starting point.

It can guide us year-round actions, not only during this heritage month.

As CIC, this programation connects to the kind of work we do year-round, such as the upcoming community health and resource fair on Wednesday, June 24th at North Belleville Community Center.

This event will bring the city and the community together.

I warmly invite the mayor and the council member to attend.

Once again, thank you to the city of Belleville for this special proclamation.

Thank you so much.

If you hang out around after all of the proclamation, we take a picture with you.

Okay, thank you.

I would thank you.

I would be remiss to not invite our former colleagues, former council member Lee to join us and say a couple of words.

Please welcome to the table.

We would love to hear your voice as a first person from the Asian community to be on the Council of Bellevue.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Mayor.

I really appreciate this opportunity.

As you know, this country, its greatness is in its diversity.

We are a country of immigrants from all over the world.

As we have especially the city of Bellevue, we become more diverse than many, many other places.

So in order to recognize our cities, our country's greatness, we have to remember its history.

And the history now includes all of us.

We are all making history in the past and now and in the future.

So I appreciate having proclamation, recognizing the multicultural community we have, and each culture's contribution to our country and our city.

It's a very important things to do.

So I thank you, and I think well, again, as former mayor and council member of City Bellevue, I know this is a truth, this is a fact, and I appreciate this continuation of doing this, recognizing all cultures and diverse cities.

So thank you very much for continuing.

History is important.

We need to know what it is, we need to recognize it, and we need to enjoy it, appreciate it, and build on it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being here.

And please join the picture when we are done with the all of the proclamation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The second proclamation is National Public Works Week.

Councillor Briar is going to read that.

I'm going to invite Lucy Lu from the Bellevue Utilities Director of that department, Mark Poe from Bellevue Transportation, Deputy Director, Shelley McVane, acting Bellevue Parks and Community Service Director, and John Reshaw, our chief financial officer to be here.

Councilman Brior, please start.

With pleasure.

Whereas public work services and the dedicated professionals who provide them are essential to the health, safety, and quality of life of Bellevue residents, businesses, and visitors, and whereas public works professional plan, design, build, operate, and maintain the infrastructure that keeps our city running, including streets, sidewalks, trails, parks, traffic signals, water maintenance and quality, wastewater collection, stormwater and surface water systems, public buildings, vehicle fleets, and solid waste services, and whereas the systems form the foundation of a safe, sustainable and resilient community, supporting daily life and long-term growth while protecting public health and the environment.

And whereas the 2026 National Public Works Week theme, rooted in service powered by community, recognizes the essential role public works professionals play in serving the public, strengthening communities, and delivering reliable services that residents depend on every day.

And whereas public works professionals serve at all levels, from maintenance crews, operators, frontline staff and engineers working together to build, maintain, and improve the infrastructure that supports Bellevue's continued growth and success.

And whereas the City of Bellevue recognizes and thanks the dedicated teams in transportation, utilities, finance and asset management, and parks and community services for their vital role in delivering high quality public work services that keep our city safe, connected, and thriving.

Now, therefore, I, Noreen Breyer, on behalf of Mo Melikutian, Mayor of the City of Bellevue, Washington, and the City Council do hereby proclaim May 17th through May 23rd, 2026 as National Public Works Week.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Please.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

On behalf of the dedicated public works professionals, across utilities, transportation parts and community services, and finance and asset management, thank you for this proclamation recognizing National Public Works Week and the people who help Bellevue run every day.

Our public works professionals are committed to delivering services that support health, safety, and the quality of life in our community.

This includes crews working outside every day year round, and all of the teams working together behind the scenes to provide this needed services to Bellevue community members.

Utility staff make sure Bellevue community members have access to essential services that we all rely on every day, providing safe and reliable drinking water, maintaining wastewater and stormwater systems, protecting our environment and waterways, and supporting garbage, recycling and compost services that promote a sustainable Bellevue.

Our parks and community services staff create and care for the spaces that bring our community together.

This work includes maintaining parks, trails, open spaces, recreation facilities, and community gathering places that support health, wellness, and connection across Bellevue.

Thanks, Lucy.

Good evening, Council.

Transportation staff work every day to support a safe and efficient transportation system for everyone, regardless of how they choose to travel throughout Bellevue.

From long-range planning and capital projects to traffic operations, proactive maintenance, smart technology systems, and customer service, our work help people move safely throughout the city on a daily basis.

Finance and asset management teams help ensure city operations run smoothly behind the scenes, from maintaining public facilities to managing the city's fleet, technology and communication equipment, these professionals provide the operational foundation that allows city staff to serve the community effectively every day.

What makes public work successful is the collaboration across departments and disciplines.

As we contemplate this year's theme of rooted in service and powered by community, we all want to thank the council again for recognizing the contributions, professionalism, and dedication of Bellevue's public works employees, and for helping celebrate the people whose work support our community every day.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And we all also, as a body, appreciate everything you guys are doing for our city.

Thank you.

If we can hang out for a picture, that would be awesome.

Our third proclamation is National Police Week.

Councilmember New in House will read that.

I am inviting Captain Benjamin Jones from Bellevue Police Department to sit on a table.

Welcome, sir.

And you can have your comment after Councilman Newaz is done.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

It's an honor to uh read and present this proclamation again this year.

Whereas in 1962, President John F.

Kennedy designated the week of May 15th as National Police Week to recognize the service and sacrifice of law enforcement officers across the nation.

And whereas since 1786, more than 24,000 law enforcement officers of the United States died in the line of duty.

And whereas this includes Officer Jordan Jackson, Detective Thomas Ray, two members of the Bellevue Police Department whose lives were tragically lost in the line of duty, and whose names are engraved on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DC, where 191 additional fallen officers will be honored this year.

And whereas the service and sacrifice of these officers will be recognized.

Excuse me, will be recognized during uh National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund annual candlelight vigil on May 13th, 2026.

And whereas members of the Bellevue Police Department serve as guardians of public safety, protecting the rights, the lives and property of community members, and demonstrate professionalism, integrity, and commitment to building trust through community engagement, through education, and through partnerships.

And whereas May 15th is designated as Peace Officers Memorial Day, when flags should be flown at half staff in honor of fallen officers and their families.

Now, therefore, I, Councilmember Jerry Newmanhouse, on behalf of Mo Malikutian, mayor of the city of Bellevue, Washington, and the City Council do hereby proclaim May 10th through the 16th, 2026 as National Police Week in Bellevue, and encourage all residents to honor the service and sacrifice of our law enforcement officers, past and present, and to recognize their role, ensuring a safer and more resilient community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

On behalf of the Bellevue Police Department, I'd like to uh say we are very thankful for the support that we get from the city and the support that we give from our community.

I want to first start off by uh just recognizing my fellow officers, officers that uh put their lives online every day to ensure the safety of this great city.

For many of us, the National Police Week is a time of reflection, a time to think about those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice who gave their lives in the line of duty.

We remember and honor those for the Bellevue Police Department that includes Detective Tommy Ray, who we lost in 2002, and Officer Jordan Jackson, who we most recently lost in 2022 every year, every year, Bellevue Police Department sends officers to participate in National Police Week in Washington, DC.

This year's a little different.

This year we are sending officers, a contingent of officers to participate uh in the police unity tour in a way for us to honor Officer Jordan Jackson.

This is a 250-mile bike ride that ends in Washington, D.C.

And what makes this special is that the mother of Officer Jordan Jackson will be meeting our team at the finish line to greet them to celebrate this event.

This is just one small way that we can honor the memory of our friend.

Thank you again for your support, and thank you for this proclamation.

Thank you.

Can you wait for a couple of minutes?

We have another proclamation to take a picture of you.

Absolutely.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Uh our last proclamation is Older Americans Month.

Councillor Baragaba, we'll read that.

I will invite uh Shilpa Mehta, member of the Bellevue Network on Aging comment uh C tier and say some comments after Councilman Bargawa.

Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Whereas President John F.

Kennedy designated May as Senior Citizens Month to honor older adults across the country, and in 1980, President Jimmy Carter renamed it Older Americans Month, and whereas each May, older Americans Month recognizes the valued, valuable contributions of older adults while reinforcing the importance of community connection and inclusion, and whereas the City of Bellevue honors and values its older adult population, individuals who serve as leaders, caregivers, volunteers, and mentors, helping to build a more vibrant, resilient, and intergenerational community.

And whereas older adults continue to shape our community through their experience, knowledge, and civic engagement, demonstrating that aging is a time of continued growth, purpose, and contribution, and whereas Bellevue is committed to fostering a city that prioritizes accessibility, belonging, and opportunity for people of all ages and abilities, and whereas the City of Bellevue works in partnership with local organizations and community members to provide services, programs, and resources that support older adults in remaining active, connected, and engaged in community life.

Now, therefore, I, Vishal Bargaba, on behalf of Mo Malakuchin, Mayor of Bellevue, Washington, and the City Council to hereby proclaim May 2026 as older Americans Month in Bellevue and encourage all residents to recognize the resilience, resilience, wisdom, and contributions of older adults, and to celebrate aging as a valued and dynamic stage of life.

Thank you so much.

Please go ahead.

Good evening, and thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members, for this opportunity to recognize and celebrate national older American month, Americans Month here in Bellevue.

My name is Shopa Meta, and I'm a member of the Bellevue Network on Aging.

I'm here with my Bellevue Network on Aging members in appreciation of this proclamation.

Every May, the federal administration for community living leads the nation's observance of older Americans Month.

Each year, a theme is selected to highlight a key aspect of healthy aging.

This year's theme is champion your help.

Focuses on prevention, wellness, and personal responsibility as cornerstone of healthy aging.

It encourages individuals to take an active role in managing and advocating for their health, assessing preventive care, making informed decisions.

This year's focus also highlights evidence-based approaches, self-management, caregiver support, and community partnership that empower people to lead healthier and more connected lives.

Here in Bellevue, the city plays an important role in promoting social inclusion and well-being for older adults.

Programs offered at the North Bell V community centers and other recreation sites provide a wide range of opportunities, including health and wellness activities, cultural and performing arts, social engagement, lifelong learning, community dining, trips, and access to information and referrals.

This community in the centers work in partnership with older adults to support independence, healthy aging, and a strong sense of belonging.

The City of Bellevue continues to demonstrate its commitment to ensuring older adults remain connected, engaged, and supported, declaring May 2026 as Older Americans Month recognizes those ongoing efforts and joins Bellevue with communities across the nation in honoring the lasting contributions older Americans make every day.

Thank you again for this recognition and for your continued support of Bellevue's older adult community.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We will come down to the picture with you all right now.

Okay.

I think the little thing is until I believe when that's around the thing.

I think for the one to the one, um, seven.

I don't know.

Um, um, um, um, um, we'll see.

Um, I think I'm a little bit more fun.

Oh, well, we'll go on the month.

I'm looking at the I think those.

Um, following them.

I think I've got them.

Um, I'm thinking of the side of the first time.

I think that's what I think for one of the things.

Yeah.

I think we can have a good time.

I think we'll continue.

I think we can have a bit of a little bit of the people.

I think we'll do something.

Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda.

It's been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by council and you and house.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

There is no opposed.

The motion passes.

City clear.

Uh are there any speakers signed up for the oral communication?

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, tonight we have about seventeen pre-registered speakers.

So I will go over a few of the rules here in a minute, but first I want to mention that the council does appreciate members of the public engaging and contributing their perspectives and supports everyone's right to express themselves.

But comments shared during oral communications represent the views of individual speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the council or the city.

So a few of the rules.

The total time for oral communications is for a period of not more than 30 minutes, and all topics must relate to City of Bellevue government.

People speaking to items on tonight's agenda will be called first, and then if time remains, people speaking to items not on tonight's agenda will be called.

The presiding officer is authorized in both of those categories to give preference to those who have not spoken to council within the last 60 days, or who will be speaking on topics that will come in front of the council within the next 60 days.

Speakers are allowed to speak up to three minutes, and a maximum of three speakers are permitted to speak to any one side of a particular topic, and we will hit our maximum according to the pre-registered list on a couple of our topics tonight.

One final remember or reminder that in compliance with Washington State campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities during elections.

No speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure or may support or oppose a candidate for election.

And if you do begin talking about those topics, we will ask you to stop.

So with that, I'll call our first speaker who is Ray Lee.

Welcome.

Council members, thank you so much for um allowing me to speak.

I'm actually going to cede my spot to my um friend who is a community member.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening.

Thank you so much.

My name is Nedine Hu.

My last name is H.E., and I'm here representing the Democratic Socialists of America.

And this is the statement from the Seattle DSA.

The Seattle Democratic Socialists of America and the East Side Branch thereof urge the Bellevue City Council to reject ordinance 6917.

This ordinance is a troublesome restriction on the political speech of our members and other citizens who are critical of local federal politicians and other elected officials.

Political speech is especially protected under the First Amendment, and restrictions on it must withstand the highest level of scrutiny.

This ordinance plainly fails that test.

We also believe that this ordinance reflects poorly upon the council.

It could be seen as either doing the bidding of particular politicians or worse, as a self-interested move that prevents Bellevue residents from expressing their political opinions to members of the City Council if they happen to be in a group of three when they encounter the city council members in their own neighborhoods.

Even if that scenario sounds absurd, there will be a chilling effect on people who read the plain language of the ordinance that bans congregating even without making audible or amplified noise.

When you enter public office, you give up a significant part of your right to privacy so that the public can hold you accountable and have their say.

These are cornerstones of operating in a democratic society, and is even more important for higher offices that represent more constituents, and especially those who cut off other means of expressing public discontent, such as ending town halls.

Making peaceful protest a crime is unacceptable.

And then my own contribution is that Palestine is itself a free speech issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker on the list is Tony Andrews.

Welcome.

Good evening.

Um, uh, thank you to the mayor and to the council for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'm Tony Andrews, and I've been a Bellevue resident for 14 years.

Tonight I want to speak in opposition to the proposed ordinance number 6917.

The first amendment is one of the cornerstones of our democracy, and I believe this ordinance would have a chilling effect on our rights of assembly and free speech.

The proposed ordinance purports to address a specific scenario, but is written in such a broad way that almost any activity involving three or more people in a residential area could be criminalized.

The ordinance cites the Supreme Court case of Frisbee versus Schultz as a precedent.

But if you look more closely at that case, the residence or dwelling of any individual in the town of Brookfield, unquote.

The proposed Bellevue ordinance expands the Brookfield ordinance in two problematic ways.

First, the proposed Bellevue Ordinance defines protest as quote, any protest, demonstration or picketing activity, including but not limited to marching, congregating, standing, posting, parading, demonstrating, picketing, or patrolling of persons with or without signs, and with or without making audible or amplified noise, unquote.

Under this definition, three people standing silently and without signs near a residence could qualify as a protest.

Second, I want to talk about what is meant by a targeted protest.

In the Brookfield ordinance, this is captured by the phrase, before or about the residence or dwelling of any individual.

And the Supreme Court interpreted this to mean picketing at precisely one residential location.

Here again, the proposed Bellevue ordinance takes a broader and more vague approach, saying that targeting can be identified by, quote, posting of persons focused course or route in front of, around, or directly adjacent to the residents, unquote.

This seems to suggest that a protest, which again could be almost anything that even just passes by a particular residence, could be said to be targeting anyone living there.

Bellevue is home to many prominent individuals, and the proposed ordinance seems tailor-made to allow them to criminalize, criminalize virtually any activity in their neighborhood that they oppose.

The ordinance would apply almost anywhere in Bellevue, including dense urban areas where large marches and rallies are likely to occur and where many people reside.

I urge the council to reject this effort to suppress our constitutionally protected rights.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Allenhorn.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Mayor and Council members, my name is David Ellenhorn.

I've lived in Bellevue for most of the last 40 years.

Many of you may know my wife Julie, who just retired after 17 years of service to the city.

I want to thank you for bringing ordinance 6917 forward.

The ordinance will prevent intimidation of people in their homes, and I strongly support it.

I'll be clear about who I am.

I'm an active member of the Jewish community, a lifelong Zionist.

My son, a Bellevue High graduate and UW graduate, is now an Israeli citizen.

I'm proud of him, and I'm proud of who we are.

But this ordinance is not about my identity or anyone else's.

It's about something far more basic, whether people in Bellevue have the right to feel safe in their own homes.

Opponents of this ordinance are misrepresenting what's at stake.

And there is nothing political about showing up at someone's house at three in the morning and screaming, pounding on drums and terrifying a family inside.

That is not speech, it's not protest, it's targeted harassment designed to intimidate.

Speech loses protection when it becomes a threat to public safety.

And I'll tell you honestly, I'd rather be in that theater and assessing whether there's a fire and directing people out safely than be in my house at three o'clock in the morning wondering what some angry crowd is going to do next.

That's fear, it's intimidation, and no one in Bellevue should have to live that way.

We all know from history, from current events, from our own community, that this kind of behavior escalates.

When harassment is tolerated, violence follows.

Just last week I met Congressman Smith's wife.

She's lovely.

Why should she have to be in fear in her own home?

I'm one degree removed from people who died in Israel on October 7th.

And 20 years ago, my friend Pamela Wector was shot in the back of the head by a terrorist less than 10 miles from here in an office I visited regularly, killed because she was Jewish.

I share these stories because they show that this is real and impacts real people and is what happens when intimidation is allowed to grow unchecked.

Bellevue must not allow that pattern to take root here.

This ordinance doesn't silence anyone's political views.

It draws a bright, necessary line between legitimate protest and targeted harassment of citizens.

That line protects everyone, regardless of their politics, religion, or their identity.

Bellevue is better than the behavior we've seen, and you have the authority to ensure that our city remains a place where people can be safe in their homes.

I urge you to pass this ordinance.

The next speaker is Joseph Osteller.

Before Joseph starts, I don't have any problem with sign.

Just don't block the person behind you.

Thank you.

It's fine.

Just don't take it too high.

Joseph, please.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council.

My name is Joseph Osteller, and I'm a member of the Seattle Against War, grassroots anti-war organization in South Seattle.

While I'm not a Bellevue resident, I do work in Bellevue, and I'm a resident of District 9.

And this is where my representative lives in Bellevue out in Newcastle.

I'm here today with many concerned community members from even beyond Bellevue City limits because ordinance 6917 will have a huge impact on District 9 constituents and our community members' ability to exercise our free speech as we try to reach Representative Adam Smith.

The language of this ordinance exactly circumscribes the protests that we have held a handful of times at the representative's house.

Unlike the cited Supreme Court case of Frisbee versus Schultz, however, which would involve a private citizen, Representative Adam Smith is a public servant who is supposed to be representing us.

The council might know him, but for anybody that doesn't, Representative Adam Smith, for over 30 years in office, has been responsible for U.S.

tax dollars going towards unjustified wars, extending all the way back to Iraq, as well as continuing to rubber stamp the 20 billion of direct military aid we have contributed to the Zionist entity committing a genocide in Gaza.

We as his constituents have every right to ask him to use his position on the House Armed Services Committee, which approves the Department of War budget to stop our tax dollars from funding war and instead go to health care, jobs, and education.

We have been to his office, which he's never in.

We have been to his town halls, which he screens and censors us.

We have been to his speaking events, even though he doesn't publicize them so that we can't go.

He has left us, he's systematically closed off all avenues for us to speak to him directly and to have our concerns be heard.

The escalation to be at his house is because he leaves us no other option.

The ordinance would be another fence put between those in power and those who are impacted by his decisions.

I will also point out, in case it's not obvious, Adam Smith's district spans all the way down through Kent, which is one of the most diverse cities in Washington, and yet he hides up here in Bellevue and is using you, Bellevue City Council, to help shield him from accountability from all of his constituents, which is a pretty massive district, and again, one of the most diverse districts in Washington.

Talking about immigrant families, talking about working class people.

All of those people want to challenge Adam Smith on his warmongering and war profiteering.

And yet, we're being silenced continually.

So he may be, he may go on national TV and oppose Trump's war on Iran, but until the flow of arms and funding ends, he's only proving that he's a practiced performer.

Adam Smith prefers wars that don't reveal the lies that U.S.

intervention somehow provides stability to the world.

His funding sources, APAC and Palantir, his PAC have a dedicated voting record.

The only way we win any concessions is through protests.

Mr.

Ost.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker, actually, I will mention that that was our third and final speaker in opposition to item 12A this evening.

So we won't be able to hear any more comments on that uh side of that topic.

So the next speaker is Laura Bachman.

Welcome.

I'm not talking about free speech.

I'm here to talk about land use.

Much more exciting, isn't it?

All right.

Anyway, my name is Laura Bachman.

I'm here representing the owners of Overlake Farm.

And we're here to voice our support for the legislative rezone of the uh portion of the Overlake farm property that is consistent with the future land use map.

Um that was approved through the comp plan, the 2044 companies.

And in addition, uh I'm here to say that we support the council providing direction to city staff to further study the PUD code amendments, which would enable uh uh larger properties to uh consolidate development and with modest height increases in order to result in better tree preservation and open open space preservation.

We've been working very successfully with city staff for many years on these topics, and um these uh uh issues today are the culmination of a lot of that work and trying to find positive ways to amend the code to make uh uh development possible in unique uh property sites.

So that's all I've got to say.

More time for others.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carla Capone.

A couple of our microphones have gotten a little bit out of position.

So if you can adjust the microphone when you sit down, that would be great.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Is that better?

It's much better.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

All right.

So when it's election season, I see campaign yard signs everywhere I go.

I can't escape them no matter where I drive to.

They're in my neighborhood on street corners and neighbors' yards at the entrance to the neighborhood.

Sometimes as many as 15 of them will be posted on a single corner.

I can't pick up and remove them because that's against Bellevue City Code.

Despite a Bellevue ordinance, which states these yard signs are to be immediately picked up and removed after elections, they are around for months.

Um I personally consider the site of these signs as blight.

Uh, but you know what?

Um, my opinion on them is just that an opinion.

As elected officials and as candidates, you have the right to campaign and express yourself.

That right is not contingent on my opinion of whether or not I consider your signs to be blight.

That right is enshrined in the constitution, and that right is the bedrock of our democracy.

Um, can you imagine Washington DC passing an ordinance that says people can't gather outside of the White House and express their demands and grievances?

The Hatch Act does not describe gatherings outside of political candidates' homes as protests.

When the purpose of gathering is to express opposition that to this political candidate.

Rather, it is called campaigning.

Can you assist?

Would you please assign?

All right, so imagine you launch your next election campaign.

So, Carl.

A spiteful neighbor could literally call the police to have your supporters of before I ask you to be escorted out.

Because they are standing in a group of three or more with signs in the front of the home.

This is your second warning.

It is an attempt to silence the centers and obviously.

Can you please know if you call law be out of the way?

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

What's that?

Thank you so much.

Wow, I have to have the next speaker on our list is Ian Morrison.

Uh, she kind of stayed.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

Ian Morrison with McCullough Hill here on behalf of Overlake Farms to say thank you.

First off, um, we are here speaking in support of the staff recommendation on the PUD amendment.

This is something coming for you for additional council direction.

This is the culmination of many years of excellent work by the by the council and by staff to bring into fruition um some of the policies that were adopted in the last comprehensive plan, particularly policy, land use policy 41, which talked about providing opportunities for increased density and height to accommodate clustering, efficient site planning, and significant preservation of trees in open space and parcels of over 10 acres.

And you're gonna hear later from staff, and staff has been in an exceptional partner with um groups like Overlake Farms, which is a 20-acre farm property that, as you just heard from Miss Bachman, is on the agenda to be upzoned with a modest upzone to low uh low density residential.

It also is one of these great example sites of this PUD, this planned unit development clustering that policy 41 was envisioning, which is how do we protect and preserve open space and trees, significant open space and trees by clustering development in ways that we protect and enhance the city and the park.

And you're gonna hear great recommendations from Nick Whipple and others about how do we do that.

We suggest, and there's a letter that Overlake Farms sent you that one of those ideas is creating incentives for significant preservation of trees in open space in these sites of over 10 acres to provide modest height increases so that as you can see, and there was a letter sent to you, you may get a small apartment building that would allow for more preservation versus an expansive vertical or horizontal space that would take up more of the open space.

And what we think here is as staff is gonna talk to you later tonight, and we strongly support the staff's recommendation.

Is that clustering theory should be considered and studied, and one of the things that I'll just make explicit is overlake farms would ask that the council gives clear direction to staff as they evaluate these options that you think about height increases, including up to about 65 feet, which is a very efficient wood frame type construction as one of the incentives for significant preservation in trees.

So I want to leave you with thank you to staff for the work that they're done.

We're excited to be at this phase after many years in working in the comprehensive plan and getting to this PUD amendment, and we would ask that at least there's direction from council given to staff to study things like 65-foot height increases for significant tree preservation on sites over 10 acres or more.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is John Meyer.

Welcome.

Thank you very much.

Um just a brief comment.

I'm speaking in favor of the ordinance 6917.

I live in Adam Smith's neighborhood.

Um I have witnessed the mobs that come up to his house.

Uh I'm all in favor of political discourse.

I belonged in divisible.

I I've attended protests myself.

Uh, in those protests, they always talk about de-escalating to be respectful of other people.

The mobs that come up to Adam Smith's health are anything but they come with masks, they've vandalized his house, they've set fire to flags, they intimidate the neighborhood, they wake you up in the middle of the night with bullhorns.

I don't think any of that is reasonable political discourse.

And it's very intimidating.

I've gone up and spoken to these people at one of the events.

I was threatened.

Um I think anybody who believes that this is just a free speech issue might have a different feeling if it was their house that was being targeted.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh, before the next speaker, would you please bring that sign down a little bit because it's blocking the view of people behind you?

Yeah, I appreciate you.

Thank you.

A little bit more toward yourself.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Pamela Johnston.

Thank you, Jacques.

Welcome.

I don't do want to bring up great.

Hello.

Okay.

So I'm here to talk about land use, Pamela Johnston, bridal trails.

And I didn't know that we were going to change every single code, every single zone to be higher and deeper and more complex.

We seem to be going along.

We did.

Middle housing, HOMA, high density, all these things keep going and going.

It's just too much.

We need to have something significantly better for people to understand the stuff and to understand.

We focus on the recommendation to council and to the planning commission.

We don't focus on the education of the people.

We need education, not recommendations.

We need to know the good and the bad sides of everything.

It hurts listening because if you just know what the recommendation is, you can just go with that and you're fine.

Politically, you're cool.

Because well, planning commission said it.

The staff said it, we're all on one team.

Yay, team.

Um it brings about a lot of yes men into the process.

And on the overlake, farms issue.

We talked about it at council.

Council was going for 3.5, and then they said, oh, 7.5?

We'll go with 7.5.

Now it's 15.

This is ridiculous.

We have the wedding cake transitioning things into other things.

What's the transition here?

One per acre to 15.

And I gave you guys this listing here because if we look at what the EIS was studying, I think that we made a huge mistake because I want you guys to look at what is called low density.

What is called low rise?

Low rise is not a hundred feet, it's not 85 feet.

What's low scale?

What's this stuff is all in the section of just residential?

We already went through turning stuff residential into residential mixed use.

It's just going and going, and we never said we're gonna like change everything to be denser on every spot here.

Did we really test that in the in the FEIS?

I doubt that we've tested all this doubling up density.

We need to separate capacity from what we actually believe is gonna happen and what needs to happen.

If we look at the neighborhoods, how many we each need to accommodate about 300 homes, not this kind of density in one little spot.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, the next speaker is Al Diedeman.

Whoops, sorry.

Evening, council members.

I'm here to share some thoughts about your study session later on today about sewer rates.

Sewer affordability is an issue.

People are seeking ways to reduce the cost of proposed King County double rate increases.

Unfortunately, unlike water, many sewer utility customers lack options and can't reduce the King County wastewater charge by reducing the volume of the water they discharge the sewer.

The King County sewer rate pays for the cost of operating, maintaining, and modernizing the regional sewer system.

The city of Bellevue passes on this King County sewer charge by a customer utility bills.

In addition to the base sewer rate and who sewer customers by King County, an additional capacity charge to cover the cost of projects needed to serve new growth.

Many wastewater utilities are shifting away from fixed one-price sewer bills towards volume-based rates plus a small fixed charge.

This shift is prompted by improved equity and cost recovery, reinforcement of conservation-oriented price signals, and enhanced affordability for low volume users.

King's County's wastewater bill still reflects a fixed charge and lacks the public transparency in the formula they use to determine their billing rate.

As a result, people struggle to understand how they might reduce their King County bill.

King County found funds wastewater improvements by selling revenue bonds.

Most of the bond financing is 15 to 35 year debt.

Yet the physical impact to ratepayers of shifting to a shorter or longer term bonds has not been presented.

What is the race change if different assumptions are used for interest rates or debt periods?

Customer price response will impact local growth and utility revenues.

Has King County Wastewater done any modeling on sewer price impacts to customers, particularly low-income customers and non-residential customers.

Could the ever increasing size of transmission pipes and treatment be deferred using available technologies at a cost considerably lower than the proposed expansions?

In summary, King County wastewater should be asked to increase their rate formula transparency and to evaluate all non-regulatory projects for physical impacts using affordability and a cost effective to rate pair analysis.

Technical alternatives are available now to slow the expansion and the cost of wastewater treatment.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We do have time for one additional speaker, and that would be Barbara Hughes.

Like Miss Hughes is joining us online.

Ms.

Hughes, can you hear me?

Miss Hughes, can you hear me?

Yes, can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Your time begins now.

Okay, thank you.

My name is Barbara Hughes, and I'm a resident of Bridal Trails Bellevue.

I wish to express my concern regarding the proposed development at Overlake Farms as the density level now appears to be significantly increased to what I'd previously understood.

Building height to be 52 feet.

This is likely five stories high.

In fact, we heard tonight possibly 65 feet, so I guess six stories high.

Is the plan to now allow 600 units on this 40-acre site?

I guess if it's a 20-acre site, which I heard tonight, that'd be 300 units.

That's significantly different to what we've heard before.

90% hard surface area is not compatible with the rural neighborhood character of bridal trails, nor with the stormwater runoff.

I'm extremely concerned regarding trees being removed, which will lead to an open heat island and be bad for the environment, including the animals and folks of bridal trails.

This property is close to bridal trails state park, and densification of overlake farms will negatively affect the wildlife in that area.

Noise will increase, light pollution will increase, and the ecosystem of the state park will be impacted by wildlife moving in due to being disturbed at the building site.

If this level of densification is allowed at Overlake Farms, which is north on 140th Avenue Northeast, and a similar level of densification is allowed at Evans Plaza site, which is to the south of 140th Avenue Northeast and bridal trails, then there will be significant impact on the traffic density on 140th Avenue Northeast, which is a small one-lane each-way road with many smaller roads entering it from the small neighborhoods that surround.

The small neighborhood roads have no alternative other than to use 140th, as that is their only entrance and exit.

The level of densification being proposed is going to have a significant impact on everyone living on or off 140th, and the high volume of traffic will reduce the air quality in the bridal trails neighborhood.

140th is already extremely busy with school buses, Microsoft traffic, and I'm not sure if it's Amazon or not, but one of the tech companies is running their commuter buses up and down 140th Avenue Northeast.

It wasn't designed for this volume of traffic.

Whilst there is a limited bus service north of 6001 village, there is no train service in this area, nor is there proposed to be any train service.

I am disappointed that there has not already been significant neighborhood outreach around this proposal.

Most folks in bridal trails have absolutely no idea of what is proposed or how it could impact them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have reached the maximum time limit for oral council mayor.

I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much, and thank you again, everyone, for being here and sharing your comments.

The council is listening, and we will follow up if and when necessary.

Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

I move to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

It's been moved by deputy Mayor and seconded by Councilman New and House.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

I think we can start our.

I don't think so.

Yeah.

I think we can start our first study session.

City manager, please introduce that to us.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Deputy Mayor and Council members.

Our first study session is on the 2027 sewer rate and capacity charge proposal.

And it also includes a 20-year forecast discussion.

Bellevue, as you know, is part of a larger regional wastewater treatment system that is owned and operated by King County.

And each year the county sets the rates and capacity charges that are passed on to the local system and to our customers.

Tonight we are joined by the King County Wastewater Treatment Division Director, Cameron Garal, and our Utilities Department Director, Lucy Liu.

They will share the proposal with you.

And following Cameron's proposal, Director Liu will cover a potential letter that the city would be participating in to provide feedback to the Sound Cities Association related to the sewer rate proposal.

And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Cameron or Lucy.

Lucy's going to start.

Okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Carson.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members.

As background, King County is a very important regional partner for Bellevue Utilities.

The county provides wastewater treatment services that protects public health and the environment.

And most of Bellevue's wastewater is treated at the South Treatment Plant located in rent in one of three regional treatment facilities operated by King County.

The costs that is paid to King County is the largest bill Bellevue's sewer utility pays.

These costs are passed directly through to customers and make up nearly 60% of the typical residential sewer bill and more than one quarter of the combined utility bill for water, sewer, and stormwater services.

Affordability is a critical priority for the Bellevue community.

And given the impact of rising sewer costs on Bellevue customers, we appreciate King County's continue efforts to identify opportunities to contain cost and help mitigate future rate pressures as much as possible.

Each year, the wastewater treatment division updates the rates charged to member agencies.

And those rates are reviewed by the Regional Water Quality Committee, where Deputy Mayor Hamilton represents the Sound Cities Association.

And the rates are ultimately approved by the King County Council.

Additionally, Councilmember Newenhouse serves on the Sound Cities Association Public Issues Committee.

And Councilmember Robinson serves on the Sound Cities Association Board, both with a lens on the importance of rate setting considerations.

And before I turn it over to Director Girl, um I want to know that Bellevue staff recommends that council consider supporting a regional letter drafted by the Sound Cities Association to the King County Council regarding the county's proposed 2027 sewer rate.

The letter reflects the regional position regarding affordability with key recommendations to consider as community members continue to face increasing utility costs.

The letter will be voted on at tomorrow's SCA public uh issues committee meeting, and I'll review the key messages uh contained in the draft letter after Director Grill's uh presentation.

And so with that, I'll hand it over to Director Grill to walk us through the county's proposed 2027 rates, uh future forecasting and what this means for our community members.

Thank you very much, Lucy.

I think that's this one.

Is that right?

Uh before I get started, uh my name is Cameron Grohl.

I'm the Wastewater Treatment Division Director.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you here tonight.

I just want to note for the record Bellevue is very well engaged in these subjects here.

I appreciate uh uh Deputy Mayor uh Hamilton's service on the Regional Water Quality Committee.

Um, two of your Bellevue staff, Jacqueline Noth and uh Matt Hobson, are the both the chairs of two subcommittees for our Metropolitan Water Pollution Abatement Advisory Committee.

We appreciate their extra service there.

And I appreciate the gentlemen that offer the comments during your public comment.

Later on, I'll talk a little bit about our long-range planning process, and I think there's opportunities for some of that material to find its way into uh welcome yours.

So tonight's agenda I'm gonna give you a quick update on the Col Creek project.

There's many things going on in Bellevue.

That's one highlight.

Uh we'll talk about the executives' rate proposal, um, look at the rate forecast and financial analysis, also talk a little bit about our capacity charge.

That's the system uh buy-in charge.

We'll talk a little bit about our affordability and transparency efforts, and then as I mentioned, that regional wastewater services plan update.

Okay, oops, I went too far.

There we go.

Okay, Colcrete.

Um, this is a project that's um in an environmentally sensitive area in the city of Bellevue.

We're upgrading a regional sewer line that I believe was built back in the 1960s, back during a time when sewer lines were built in ravines that had streams in them.

We we don't follow that kind of practice anymore.

Um, but that's of course where the water flows, so that's where the engineers um built that original line.

This is about two miles of pipeline that needs to be either replaced or rehabilitated.

Um, it's the first project of its kind to win a salmon-safe certification.

So this is an unusual thing.

We want to do more of this.

We appreciate the city of Bellevue being a really good partner for us in pursuing that certification, which means that that the design and the function of the sewer pipe will be friendly to the salmon in that stream and that um uh that find their way into a larger ecosystem.

Uh we got uh started uh with work going on uh in the city here uh last year.

Project team uh meets very regularly with the city staff to provide updates, so there's very close coordination.

And then our community services team are coordinating with a lot of your folks that work on public information to make sure that Bellevue residents have the information that they need.

Uh this project will involve some tunneling.

It's not that the scale of some of the large tunnel projects that you hear about in the news.

It's more called what they call micro tunneling, but still it will have a footprint and it will allow us to be, I think, uh the most light touch uh on the ravine areas that will be worked in.

So looking forward to giving you more updates in the future as that project proceeds.

Let's talk a little bit about the executives' proposed sewer rate forecast.

This is a lot of information on this chart here.

You've um if you've seen my presentation in years past, this is a chart that we produce every year.

Now we're we're looking at doing a uh uh sewer rate that not only goes out 10 years but goes out a full 20 years.

So you can see there's two rows here with our uh the sewer rate, the rate increase, and some of the other relevant um information.

Uh the rate that's proposed this year is high.

The rate increase is high.

We don't like that, um, but it is the rate that we had uh forecasted last year when I when I was here previously, we'd we said that we'd be looking at a higher increase starting in 2027 and going out a few years, and unfortunately that is still true.

Uh that rate increase prioritizes regulatory compliance.

Um, a lot of our work is governed by state and federal regulations, and maintaining that compliance is an important thing, not only for the environmental benefit, but also to avoid fines or or other legal action, which is costly and uncertain uh for the system.

We're all still also still investing in high-risk asset management projects.

I know Bellevue takes managing your own local assets very seriously.

You've recognized that in the public works uh proclamation.

Um, and so we're prioritizing preserving those assets, uh, repairing those assets, renewing those assets, but we are deferring uh to keep the rate pressure as moderated as we can, some of the lower to mid-range risk assets out into the future.

One of the regulatory projects that is a big focus for us is completing the rest of the combined sewer overflow projects.

We have a federal consent decree that governs our performance on that.

That was recently modified to extend the deadline out to 2037, but we do have a lot of expenses to get a lot of projects to complete and expenses to incur to get to that milestone.

We're also prioritizing continuing to provide the operational and staffing funding to support those projects and our ongoing uh needs.

We're also maintaining prudent financial approaches, so a cash funding approach that accounts for depreciation and keeping keeping a comparatively high level of cash funding, especially for asset management projects within our portfolio.

Keeping prudent financial policies helps us with our bond ratings.

It was mentioned earlier that we issue municipal debt.

That debt is the lowest interest possible because we keep high bond ratings.

This is the driver for that, and and uh this bar graph really tells the story almost as well as anything else that I know of.

So you can see the legend on the top with the different uh categories.

These are the different categories of capital investments that that we need to make to reach those goals that are described for the system.

You can see the uh it's kind of like stacking Lego blocks, and we have what I've been calling a stacking problem with too many blocks leading to very, very high uh stacks there.

The blue blocks, if you will, on the bottom of those bars are the projects that we want to do.

Those are the asset management projects, both for our plants and for our conveyance system.

We want to have a steady level of investment on those assets.

The orange blocks are the system capacity, making sure we have uh sufficient size plants and conveyance to accommodate the needs of growth.

Those are things that are either required by contracts or desirable.

The green in the middle is the regulatory demands, and much of that is that CSO compliance.

That's really what's causing the challenge that we have in front of us here.

I'll just say that our focus in the next several years is going to be on doing what we can to either further defer or modify the timing on some of the requirements in the green blocks that you see on this uh chart here, or seeing if we can modify what we have to do.

So it's either what we have to do or when we have to do it that we'll be talking about with our regulatory partners.

That uh is something that won't change overnight, and so we do appreciate your patience.

We'll be happy to keep you updated as we go on.

Those are my comments on kind of that first decade, so the left half of those bars.

Looking at the second half, so going out from uh 2036 through 2046 or 37 through 46.

That's where we have different colors, but the same basic idea there.

We know we will need to make continued investments in capacity.

We know we will need to make continued investments in asset management, and we will have some operational enhancements with a larger system as well.

But we don't know is what regulatory demands will be placed on us.

I can almost guarantee you today they will not be zero, but we're not showing anything that we don't know about.

In the red box, inset box, we've listed some of the potential drivers for those regulatory uh demands, things like nutrient regulations.

Some of that has been in the news.

It will likely continue to be in the news, and it's been in litigation for the last several years too.

We're trying to work with our partners at the Department of Ecology to have a more predictable and a frankly uh more reasonable path uh for nutrient uh compliance.

Then we have contaminants of emergent concern, things like PFOS.

Do we have to manage that at the end of the pipe?

Is it which is expensive?

Can what we what can we do working together for source control to reduce the demands on the treatment system?

And then there may be other CSO investments for uh that we uh I won't put on the bar chart today, but they may be out there.

So that's really the set of drivers for our capital forecast, and that's what's driving that rate.

Here's a couple of examples of the kinds of aging assets that we have in the system.

The system was originally built in the 1960s.

The plant that uh Lucy referred to, the Renton plant is the first plant built for our regional system, and that's what handles Bellevue wastewater.

It celebrated its 60th anniversary last year.

It is 61 years old this year.

And we have large interceptors that serve plants like that.

You can see the picture on the left is a large interest, the south interceptor, it's a large interceptor located under I-405.

That is a concrete pipe.

I believe that pipe is eight foot in diameter.

You can see the rebar that is now exposed inside that pipe.

Unfortunately, wastewater is a very harsh set of chemicals.

It is hard on concrete, and so we need to make sure that we've got solid pipes that work well.

The Heathfield Forest Main, which is in the city of Bellevue, and your local residents there have grown tired of some of the problems at the Heathfield uh uh pump station there, is also an area where we are uh monitoring carefully and and making sure that we have a robust system.

It has not always been that way, so it's a good example of the kind of thing that we need to make sure that we continue to invest in.

So, some of the key takeaways that, at least from my perspective, the executive's recommended rate has a 12.75 percent increase for that year.

It's a big increase.

I will not not be shy about that.

And then the next several years are also double-digit.

We are trying to achieve, as I said, regulatory compliance.

We need to make sure that we can work with those regulators to bend that curve down, but we also maintain compliance while we do that.

We're also making high priority investments, as I mentioned, in asset renewal and replacement capacity.

We did look at some alternative scenarios, uh, scenarios that would shift project timing out into the future.

Those scenarios were considered.

Uh, the Regional Water Quality Committee got reports on that.

New PEC got reports on that.

Uh my takeaway from looking at those scenarios is that deferring some of those projects, as was illustrated in those scenarios, adds risk without much benefit.

The uh rate benefits for ratepayers are very modest.

We're talking perhaps a dollar a month uh lower cost, it is pretty modest.

Uh those rate benefits would also be very temporary, and unfortunately, it would lead to higher long-term costs as well.

So uh we can share with you with this council the curves that we developed when we looked at those.

As I mentioned, looking at regulatory requirements is going to be our focus for the next several years.

You can see a few of the examples of those regulations or permit requirements that we have.

We are uh evaluating tools under the Clean Water Act, and there are some encouraging signs that there may be some tools that we could pursue, uh working with legal council, but it will require successful negotiations.

Uh, the process may take time.

Uh, we appreciate the city's uh efforts both working with us on a daily basis, and as I understand, uh we've been working for this last few years and talking with you about when you go to Washington, DC, uh hopefully you can echo some of these messages for both funding needs as well as uh regulatory help uh from our partners there.

We're also working on a variety of internal cost containment efforts within our division.

Yesterday we had a about a five-hour meeting within our division to identify some of the practices we want to bring to bear on that cost.

Happy to keep the council and MUPAC apprised of those as we go.

So this summary slide gives you a few of these different things.

I mentioned engaging with state and federal regulators.

The second bullet talks about an independent third-party review.

That is also something that we proposed, and the county council endorsed.

That is now uh we're going to give NTP to a that's noted to proceed to a consultant that will not report up through my chain of command.

They will report to the county legislative branch.

So they report to the county auditor's office at our suggestion.

So the auditor will have an independent ability to oversee that consultant, draw the conclusions from that consultant.

We will provide information to them, and then their results will be shared with the region as we always do.

We're continuing to improve our rate setting processes.

It's still not satisfactory to our partners.

They want to see more detail.

They want to have more transparency.

We support that.

We are also incorporating affordability into our long-range planning process.

That's the regional wastewater services plan update, which I'll spec I speak about in just a minute.

I mentioned this federal support.

And then I want to note that Bellevue was a strong participant in last year's Utility Rate Summit where we're looking to build on that and working with the Sound Cities Association to identify next steps that we put in place this year and into the future.

This is our calendar.

We've exhausted almost everything on this except the processes that we're we're now in May and June.

So we had a meeting just a few days ago at the Regional Water Quality Committee that was on May 6th.

We've got another meeting in June there.

The County Council has a budget and fiscal management committee that is really responsible for the rate ordinance since it is an element of our budget.

They will be meeting starting later this month and into June.

And then the county council approval we expect no later than about June 30th or July 1st.

We also do a capacity charge in King County.

This is a system buy-in charge.

So if you are building a new home somewhere in our service area, expanding a business somewhere in our service area, adding to the footprint there, and it requires wastewater services.

The philosophy here is that growth pays for growth.

So this there is a system buy-in charge.

We call it a capacity charge.

This year, that increase that you can see last year, and then the proposed for this year would go from 77.99 to 7894, so slightly less than a dollar increase there.

That reflects the cost of that system buy-in charge, and then we've given you a forecast looking out a few years.

We are improving and revising the actual methodology ordinance using a consultant called RAFTELUS.

That methodology is now before the county council to more of an industry standard.

It will be a lot easier to understand and administer.

So we're looking forward to seeing the council do that.

That legislation right now is pending at the council.

In fact, I think we have a BFM has a hearing tomorrow.

We also keep up with in between the five-year updates with an annual construction cost index inflation factor, and then we will update this after that regional wastewater services process is done.

And let me talk just for a couple minutes about the RWSP update.

This is our long-range plan.

So, like any other utility comprehensive plan, I'm sure Bellevue has uh forms of these plans.

We want to keep that up to date.

And we have been behind.

The last major update was in 1999, and so it is very much due for that.

And this is a plan provides policies that now go out.

The horizon year for the current plan goes out through 2030.

So we have a deadline sitting in front of us right now.

So we're in the process of doing that update.

That update would go for the next 30 years, so roughly 2030 through 2060 or so.

What are the kinds of things that will be examined in that plan?

You can see the treatment plants and process, all the conveyance improvements, things like infiltration and inflow.

That is an issue that I know Bellevue staff are interested in.

This is the essentially extra water that comes into our system that we have to account for by having a sufficiently sized pipe or sufficiently sized pumps or and plant facilities.

We don't want that water if we don't have to have it.

We want to find ways to prevent that water getting in the system, and we want to work with all 34 of our partner agencies to see what we can do together to do that.

I mentioned CSO, Biosolids.

King County's actually been a national leader in biosolids, but we took we'll be taking another look at those policies, policies for water reuse, and then you can see the rest of the list there.

We will have a robust process that is getting started working in tandem with the regional water quality committee.

Um they say if you want to go uh uh fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together.

We are going far with this plan, and we are working together with the RW uh QC.

So here's some of the reasons that are motivating us to undertake that.

I won't go through all of these.

I've kind of touched on most of these in my comments already, but you can see, just like any other large comprehensive plan update, there will be policy options to consider, there will be costs to evaluate, and there will be an environmental document uh to uh to complete as well.

Uh I won't go through this, but this is really the timeline.

The the sort of pinkish boxes in the middle are the areas where a lot of the work is being done.

We'll see public engagement uh start up.

You can see the sort of vertical dashed green um line is where we are today.

Uh so public engagement is going to get started ramping out towards the end of this year.

As I mentioned, we will be.

Our plan is to do a draft and final EIS that will allow us to put out a draft plan for public review along with that draft environmental document, allow people to comment on the environmental effects on the plan itself, and then kind of like with the sewer, right?

There will be an executive preferred plan that will go to the county council, and we will take public comment as you do on your long-range plans as a part of that approval process.

You can see we've got kind of a several year timeline, uh, which ends in the county council adopting that plan in 2029.

This plan is unique in that it also then has to be submitted to the state to the State Department of Ecology for their approval as well.

So it has to meet the minimum requirements that are in state law related to a general sewer plan.

So that is my presentation here tonight.

Thank you for your attention.

Um, bit of a mouthful, um, and I appreciate your attention.

I'm happy to answer your questions.

Thank you so much.

Do you want to say more?

Um, how about if I have to ask any questions of uh Cameron and then I will follow up with some additional information for your consideration?

So do you want to first ask questions and then you continue?

Yes.

Great.

We can definitely do that.

Thank you so much, Richter, to be here.

Thank you, Lucy.

Uh I think all of us here and in the audience agrees that the sewer system has to be reliable, and we all all need to protect public health and Puget Sounds, but also the rates uh pat that we are seeing is very difficult for our resident and businesses to absorb.

Uh let's just start going through the Dayas.

Uh, Deputy Mayor Via Start with you.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you for the presentation, uh, Director Gurral.

Uh, thank you for being here.

I appreciate you being here so that we can share our thoughts and those of our community members with you directly as our community members begin to plan for what inevitably will be significant utility cost increases over the next few years.

It is all the more important for us to have this access to you and by extension executives ah ali.

Through the SCA, I have had a chance to serve on the Regional Water Quality Committee.

The RWQC provides a valuable opportunity for cities like Bellevue to be at the table and help guide the rate setting process and promote needed adjustments to the regulatory strategy.

This opportunity tonight gives us a chance to provide you with important context as you read and digest the letter that will come from the 38 SCA cities that represent over a million people in our region.

I would support such a letter and encourage my colleagues to as well.

I believe it is one of the most effective ways for us to express our thoughts and feedback to the King County Council regarding proposed 2027 sewer rates.

As a member of the RWQC, it has been clear to me, become clear to me that speaking with a shared voice has been very effective in ensuring that our regional elected officials understand the breadth and impact of these sewer rate increases.

As we continue to move forward, I would like to see continued focus on affordability metrics and finance and rate structure issues as all of our discussions will center around these areas.

As I'm sure you are aware and alluded to, uh WD WTD is not likely to be winning any popularity contests anytime soon.

I wish you had a different story to tell about sewer rates, but I appreciate getting the truth about the reality that ratepayers are gonna face.

You and your staff have been great partners with RWQC and with the city.

So I appreciate that.

I do have a couple of uh quick questions for you.

Um, I'm just curious when setting rates, how does WTD weigh affordability against regulatory obligations, the backlog and its capital campaign, system growth and risk?

Yeah.

Thank you for the question.

Uh the affordability um is something we take very seriously here, and um as we've talked about in previous years when we've brought um these rate uh forecasts to you, we've had a chance to improve the quality and the length of those projections, which helps us look down the road.

And I think we've seen this problem in front of us, so it is now here squarely here as we as we thought.

I wish we had better metrics and better mechanisms.

Um, this is a line of business that I think is not not as robust as some other public policy areas.

Um, and it is a strong focus of ours to improve those metrics and improve those tools in the toolbox.

As was mentioned, we are a wholesaler.

Um we work with 34 different agency partners like the City of Bellevue, who have a direct customer relationship.

And customer assistance plans are one of those tools in the toolbox that are used differentially around our service area.

Some have fairly robust and meaningful programs, others are modest or none at all.

Um I hope we can work with our 34 agency partners to see a greater breadth of use of those kinds of programs, taking best practices from the ones that work well and seeing what we can do to replicate those across our service area.

Um the idea, the as I mentioned, the long range planning will has affordability now as a topic square in it.

Um we had financial policies before, which are good, but they didn't really directly address affordability.

So we're adding that um to the process here.

And then there's a lot of steps that we need to take, and in my opinion, take together, uh, work with the regulators, um, go to DC and be of one uh voice.

Uh do what we can for upstream work.

I mentioned the I and I.

If there's opportunities that we can do working with local agency partners to reduce the demand on the system, then everybody benefits uh from that kind of thing.

So it is a sort of all-in strategy for affordability, and we are facing these big demands uh that are coming out of if you remember the bar chart I showed, coming out of legitimate areas.

So uh I do know that you feel squeezed by this, that you don't feel like you've got a great deal of room uh to move.

I I share that concern, and uh I hope that by working together we can uh start to bend that curve, that rate curve back down.

Uh I don't like being up in those double digits.

Um I will just say for a piece of a context, we've been in double digits before.

If you look back in time, uh when large projects were built, rates increased by double digits.

We and when Brightwater, which is our third regional plant was built and it went into service in about 2011 or so.

Um, if you look at the the rate um history, uh, we did have large rate increases when we had that large construction demand.

But it's kind of like climbing a mountain.

We went up and then you came back down.

The problem we have today is that we're climbing up and then we're staying up.

And that is the real problem here, because we don't get that relief, and it's the compounding effect of those higher rate increases.

So that's my goal here, do everything in my power, and then work with you and our other partners to see what we can do to bend that down.

I want to see that mountain range turn back into foothills.

That would be the sign of success.

And I wish I could deliver for you quickly.

I fear I will be back in front of you with a work in progress report next year and maybe the following year, but I want to be able to report on some significant work that we've been doing to bend that curve and to uh bring more tools for lower income households within our service area.

Thank you.

Um just want to kind of dig into uh something you mentioned earlier about CSOs.

And I'm just uh wondering if you could talk about the combined sewer overflows, the CSOs.

Um our agenda memo states there are 39 of them.

Just wondering if you could just briefly uh tell me, tell us what they are, where they are, who built them and when, and why do they even exist?

They are an aspect of the way the sewer system in Seattle was built, and it's not unusual.

Uh cities that have been around for a while, uh, east coast, west coast are often built with combined sewer systems, which means the stormwater runoff coming from a rooftop or the street, along with the in the uh wastewater uh coming out of a home, the shower drain, the laundry, the toilet, all find their way into a single pipe system that comes to our treatment plant.

There are two advantages of a combined system.

It was cheaper to build at the time, building one pipe instead of two pipes, um, and we are treating stormwater that would otherwise likely go untreated at the treatment plant.

So there is some some good that comes out of a combined system.

The problem is that a combined system also was built with these overflow points.

So during periods of very heavy rain when that system would be overwhelmed with the rainfall coming into the system in order to avoid backups into homes and businesses from that system during those periods.

Overflow points.

They're like little relief valves were built.

Dozens of them.

We are responsible for the 39 you mentioned.

The city of Seattle has dozens more.

These were built deliberately into the system where untreated mix of stormwater and wastewater, it's usually about 90% stormwater, about 10% wastewater, would overflow into whatever waterway was nearby.

Lake Washington, uh, Duwamish River, uh, Elliott Bay, uh, other portions of Puget Sound.

Um, and so we have to control those overflows by either building storage capacity so that that water does not overflow and instead is stored temporarily until the rain is passed, or a rapid treatment system, and we've done both in our system.

Just kind of depends on the hydraulics and the circumstance as to which of those two is the better choice.

And engineers spend a lot of time trying to figure out which one is the better choice.

Um, our mouth of the Duwamish CSO program, which deals with five of those outfalls.

They are the five, three of the five are the largest of those outfalls, is uh one of the big projects that's in that green bar, that green portion of those bars.

Very expensive program.

Um it if you've taken our Georgetown wet weather treatment station tour, and if you haven't, let us know, we'll get you out there.

It's pretty fascinating.

Um, the project we'd build with the mouth of the Duamish will be a larger version uh of that.

And there's a lot of work underground uh for conveyance as well to manage that.

The flows coming out of these pipes are really large.

We're talking hundreds of millions of gallons, so it is by no means a small endeavor.

Um, and that requirement comes out of federal law, implemented through the State Department of Ecology, and that's where that consent decree that governs the timetable that we have to follow to get those projects in place.

We recently renegotiated it, got more time, actually got a little more flexibility, so it's a better consent decree, but it is still a set of looming responsibilities, and work is underway right now for those.

So that is an aspect of how the system was built.

The way our system is is paid for is that projects that are located anywhere within the system, the Cole Creek project is paid for by ratepayers across our service area.

So if you might live in Bothell, Seattle, Black Diamond, you're helping to pay for Cole Creek.

Consequently, you live in Bellevue, Woodenville, wherever that is, you're also helping to pay for those CSO projects.

Those ones are expensive.

Over time, this kind of is a bit of a my experience has been as a bit of a wash, but the CSO projects are really they're much larger.

And it's really putting a heavy rate pressure.

And I think we're hearing concerns, certainly from residents of Seattle who are paying those bills just like everybody else, but but from non-Seattle residents who don't have those CSO facilities in their cities, who don't have that same history.

And so that is a topic that I think we'll be examining in that RWSP update.

And we're looking forward to that.

In the meantime, that's that's the story.

Great.

Thank you.

Um a 215% rent rent rate increase over the next 20 years is going to be difficult for many in our community.

Um, as you had alluded to earlier, I would like to see us continue to look for ways in our current budget process to do what we can now to help community members who need and deserve help with increased utility crop costs.

Um I know this is challenging work, and I imagine the path forward is going to be difficult.

That's reality.

I appreciate all of the effort that has gone into getting us to this point, and I know there's a lot more to do.

I am optimistic we will get to the best place possible when we make the final decision.

So thank you again for being here.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Council Member Newenhouse.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thanks for being here.

Lucy, you as well, thank you.

Uh, appreciate it.

Um I'm just gonna get uh just to some questions uh quickly here.

Um, you know, you say on slide nine that uh alternative scenarios that shift project timing were considered.

Example deferred asset renewal um infrastructure replacement, but isn't that how we got in this predicament right now?

It's certainly a driving force, and I would say um perhaps it's easy for me to look in the past and and kind of you know be a little critical about work that should have been done years ago, CSO work that should perhaps should have been the years ago, and when it was cheaper, it's always cheaper today than trying to do it in the future.

I think there were meetings like this where they were dealing with high rates and the pressure to keep rates down, and so we're always, I think, faced with that challenge.

Um at least that's been true in my experience uh in public policy.

Um I do agree with your premise though that we should try to get on a more sustainable and and more responsible pathway for future generations.

If we can make the investments in asset management, um we will do right by ourselves today, um, but really it's it's our children and their children's children that will benefit from that as well.

Um, and I think I'm interpreting behind your question that there's we should be doing that.

And I worried uh council member that the regulatory obligations that are in front of us right now are essentially squeezing out those asset management investments, and I that's not a sustainable thing for us or for the region, and that's a call it a kind of a premise, if you will, for us to reapproach our regulatory partners to say we can't do it all.

We need to keep the system in a state of good repair.

Um we want to take care of CSOs, we want to fulfill our obligations, and that pressure is just the stacking is just not feasible.

Um, so that's our goal is to see if we can get some more flexibility um by working with them.

And to make that case that I think is inherent in your question.

Yeah, well, I I appreciate your comment.

We can't do it all, and it feels like we are, you know.

You know, we're as you mentioned before, the up and down, you know, scenario, where I'd like just to see, even if it is a steady increase, it's something that residents can manage, as the deputy mayor said, when they see a jump of 215%, you know.

Um, how do you budget for that?

And it's gonna put more pressure on the city.

I mean, we have a pretty robust uh rate payer relief program, but I fear we're gonna have to put more money and more resources behind that because uh seniors and um uh those on fixed incomes are not gonna be able to absorb those additional costs as quickly as as some others in our in our community.

Um, another question is how does uh the WTD uh identify the uh operational efficiencies and the cost saving opportunities, and how do you ensure that these are incorporated into the agency's annual rate setting as a long-term forecast then?

We have a variety of different techniques that we use, and we look at both capital and operational on a multiple times per year.

Um happy to follow up and share some examples of that with staff and share that that with you to go into more detail.

Um it's something we take very seriously, um, and I am concerned about especially operational costs hit the sewer rate the hardest, and as we have a more complex system, an older system, we can't assume that it just runs itself.

Uh some of our Brightwater was originally built with the assumption that it would not need staffing.

Well, it does need staffing, so that it can in fact meet its permit requirements and that we can manage that without problems there, and so we're trying to figure out how do we bring the staff that we need, do it in the most cost-effective way we can.

Um, and so my eye is really closely on those operational costs because I know at the end of the day they hit the sewer rate the hardest.

Yeah, the capital costs we can capitalize, and that will make it a little easier.

The project cost, the staff involved for the design, we can capitalize that cost, so it's a lesser uh hit to the rate immediately.

Um, so um I can tell you that is uh uh a focus of mine on a daily basis, and I'm happy to follow up with a few more details for you.

Thank you, and I appreciate that.

Um as mentioned earlier at the April uh public um uh issues committee or the or the pick through SEA, we uh we did discuss the draft sewer rate letter.

It's a letter that that that I support.

Um the the sewer rate increases impact, as you know, are more than just the city of Bellevue.

It's it's the whole the whole region, right?

And um I feel like the uh the SEA certainly can help help carry that message as well as what we're we're sharing with you tonight.

Um, but we're just you know like I said, just one city across King County, and we want to continue to address this affordability issue uh for for our residents.

I know and I appreciate you here hear that all the time.

Um so I appreciate you listening to us again and our concern about the ratepayers and the and the residents.

You have a tough job, and I'm not going to I'm not gonna sugarcoat that it's it's it's it's very challenging, and in some ways you're dealing with stuff that you didn't necessarily have any uh direct impact on things, it's just an accumulation of year after year and and um that accumulation of uh impact.

So I want you I do appreciate the work that you're doing and the and the heavy burden that you're having to carry here, but um, we also really need help to adjust these extraordinary high um uh uh ratepayer uh rates.

Um it's one of our our biggest concerns because it's not just this, right?

It's the accumulative effect of property taxes and groceries and everything else on top of this.

So now I don't expect you to be able to, you know, address all those things, but um uh but but but uh as much as you can in in this regard would be much appreciated by the city.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman, you're an house.

Uh council members want to bring you.

Um, I would think so much that we see.

I's almost a easy here to have this great presentation.

It's very detailed and with a lot of numbers and graphs, so it's gonna be very exciting.

Yes, sewer rate can be exciting to talk about.

Thank you.

Um, so you know, do that the presentation.

There's two numbers that's actually stood out to me that because sewer is already 47% off typical Bell View uh residential utility bill, which means our residents have to pay you have like paid that much to keep the lights on and a water running.

Have to set like essential needs, they've got for every day as a foundation of living, right?

And as the rate is gonna put double by 2033 and then triple.

I think these numbers, I to me, I agree.

I think it's alarming, and then it's a little bit scary because when you think about it, especially on the renters on fixed income and small businesses, um, owners and seniors and family that's already living in the very stretched and marginalized budget, so this could be a really big sticker shock.

So I really appreciate we proactively communicate with the resident and also thinking about sharing the information proactively.

Um I am supportive of the letter.

I think you know, some part of them is the right home, especially we really believe in health healthy infrastructure and clean water should be accessible for everybody in the community, not just the one who's able to afford it.

Um, and also I do think that I love the part where you talk about transparency and accountability.

Um, having the third-party capital review and moti rate option is really important because I think it's create that um the surprising element because year by year, surprising, it makes even more worrisome when we do the budgeting.

Um I have uh two questions to ask.

One of them is um what specific decisions within the WTD control materially affect the rate path, and which factors are strictly external.

Yeah, it's a good good uh good questions, and thank you for uh your comments.

Um, we do everything we can to um look at the factors that we can control.

I mentioned the five-hour meeting that we had um on Monday of this week.

Um, a lot of the ideas that were put on the board were things that are really related to our internal processes, uh ways that we can uh be even more efficient, maybe we can uh find uh either lower cost or higher value out of a capital project.

So we're going through all of the different ideas right now.

We did a dot exercise to say what what really had uh the most traction.

We asked ourselves, does it have an impact?

Will it help with the sewer rates and uh the capital costs?

Uh, is it something we can implement in a timely fashion?

Um uh is it does it have its own cost associated with it?

Would we pay a dollar today to save two dollars tomorrow?

That kind of thing.

So we're looking as closely as we can at all the different ideas that came out.

A lot of them were internal processes, um, and we will be energetic uh about um implementing those.

Um the external factors I would say are bigger.

Um, and I mentioned the regulatory um uh requirements as the single biggest one on that list.

Um we have uh I'd say it's it's it's not an external or an internal factor, it's a fact of life.

We have an older system, and I can't really take a pipe that was built in 1965 or 1975, and I need to make sure that it can still work and do its service uh so that it doesn't break and overflow into a creek or somebody's home.

And I'll mention again we've had problems in the city of Bellevue, the uh area around where our Heathfield pump station.

I am not happy with the fact that we've adversely impacted those homeowners multiple times.

It is a good example of an older part of our system that has weakness from age and in some cases from design issues.

So we're trying to do our best to reduce those impacts, um, build the right thing that lasts longer.

Um there's experience we can bring to bear on those choices.

Um, and so that is back within our choice, like what pump are we choosing here?

What design are we choosing here?

Let's use the one that works.

Um, and and uh so we're making I think better decisions and and uh again, future generations will see that that benefit.

Um I hope to continue to work with the city here, and I you mentioned uh kind of public informational.

I'll add something.

This year we did something a little bit different.

We've reached out to the um uh public information staff at our partner agencies, both in January and and again in I believe it was just recently in April, to provide to the local city and district staff information that you can use with your communication with residents directly.

So helping you to make sure that you got the right information, making sure that you know we help you in that process.

It's a complex process to reach residents, and we want to help.

And because we don't have that direct customer relationship, we're reliant on that strong partnership.

There's been a request for a direct message that maybe there might be a picture of me with a target on my back or something like that in the flyer that would go in the bill.

Anything that would work to help get the information out there, we support.

So we're trying to do those kinds of things as well that are complementary to some of the daily work that we do.

Thank you.

Again, that's a truly partnership.

I have more question, but I will email the rest.

I just want last one last question before I move about senior residents with disability because I think Lucy shared with us there's a 70% discount program.

And do we know what's the rate of the usage of this program?

Um there's about a thousand uh households that are participating in our long-term rate assistance program, and I will share a little bit more information on the different programs to help with uh rate assistance in once we finish with the QA portion.

Okay, perfect.

And then if you could share with me, I mean through email later that what is the biggest barrier that you know I think residents could not access that either it's language or um technology, what have you, right?

So that would be great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Councilwoman Robinson.

Well, I don't envy you.

It's you know, this is really tough.

It's really tough for the ratepayers, it's tough for for the people making the decisions, and um it's just it's it's devastating for some people to have their rates go up this much, and yet it's essential.

We just there's nothing we can do to avoid it, unfortunately.

Not today, anyway.

Um, so I appreciate you for having the courage to push this forward and do what we need to get done and be responsible about it because as it is the the whole um system is decaying.

Um, so I appreciate the letter that we've come up with with from Sound Cities, and I appreciate staff's work on that as well.

And uh Jared, I know you also were a part of that, and so I support that letter.

Um, and I was glad to see that some of the language that I proposed is included in it, which is asking for help from our partners regionally and federally and from the state.

Anything that that we can have, some sort of an infrastructure bill to help pay for this because it's not just our region going through this, this is across the country, and it's it's hard.

The cost of living is so high right now, and this is just really hard to add to it.

So I'm wondering what specific state and federal actions around funding and rulemaking changes or updated metrics you think would most significantly reduce regional ratepayer burden and how cities can help.

Yeah, thank you for that question, and thank you for your uh support.

Um I'll mention um two things right off the top here, and uh maybe as I talk I'll think of a third.

But uh we were in DC for Water Week.

Um, this is an opportunity where we go with a lot of our partner agencies, our peer agencies to talk to our congressional delegations about the needs for wastewater systems.

Um we're fortunate to have really strong representation.

They get it, they support they are supportive of strong federal funding.

That funding uh is in basically two forms.

One is the funding that the federal government gives to the state revolving fund, the SRF programs, in our case that Washington State administers.

Um sometimes budgets get proposed at the federal level that would cut those funds dramatically, like by 90% or so.

Congress has typically restored those, which we've appreciated.

We want to bolster our members to do that same thing this year again.

So I think there's support, but we would uh appreciate your voice as N DC to echo uh that message.

The second one has a acronym, which I'm not sure I'll be able to fully uh account for.

It's called WIFIA, it's the Water Innovation Funding and Infrastructure Act or something like that.

WIFIA.

And we have a WIFIA master loan agreement with the US EPA.

Uh it's just under a half a billion dollars.

We've exercised about two-thirds, maybe three quarters of it so far.

There's another tranche or two to go.

WIFIA loans have in the past been attractive interest rates, uh, and when we can borrow money cheaper than market, then we don't have to charge that in the sewer rate.

It's simple math.

So having those uh available is really good.

Uh Wifi also uh interest rates for Wifi loans have worsened in recent years.

The federal government has raised those rates.

They're not quite as attractive, but they have attractive flexibility, so kind of like a home equity line of credit if you're a homeowner that you can draw on it when you need and at what you need, that's the way WiFIA can work too.

So we've been supportive of both SRF and WIFIA.

We'd appreciate your support on that as well.

USAPA is also right now seeking comment on something called a uh financial capability assessment mechanism.

And we'll be happy to send you the link, and um city staff may be aware of this already.

It's a mechanism that is used by USCPA to help assess financial capability associated with infrastructure projects and essentially an ability to pay for a local jurisdiction or a service area.

And it's fairly complicated, I won't go into it, but they are seeking comments on it.

We want them to have to land on the right FCA formula that reflects the needs that we have for our region.

So happy to share our comments to you, and if you can uh consider those and perhaps uh have a staff person put in comments through the EPA portal, that would be helpful as well.

Yeah, we can work together on our legislative agenda, so thank you.

Um, one more quick question, and if it's a long answer, you can email me.

Okay.

So I always hear about noncompliance being a real costly thing with our rates.

Only flush this, don't flush that.

Right.

And I'm wondering how much uh we might help the rates if we were to do some sort of a public education program that people would actually adhere to.

Love that idea, and in fact, that's another piece of federal legislation that is making its way through Congress a little glacially, but I think it's gonna get there.

It's called the WIPES Act.

So we've heard of uh what are really always non-flushable wipes, um, they are sometimes advertised as flushable, they are not, they create a big problem.

And you can just imagine thousands of these in the wastewater system, they don't break down the way toilet paper does.

Toilet paper is unique, and just here's a we're talking about sewage, so let's talk about sewage.

Uh that's what should go down the pipes.

Um that toilet paper is designed to disintegrate, and so it is an easier thing for us to manage in that system.

That's why it is built as is designed and marketed the way it is.

Wipes are not.

Wipes are almost the antithesis of that.

So the wipes act would force um proper labeling uh for wipes sold across the country.

We in Washington State, I believe, already mandate this, but we are supportive of national legislation because commerce grows goes across state lines.

People buy stuff anywhere.

So that's another good example.

And then more broadly, council member.

I think there's a real opportunity for source control is the typical industry term, but looking upstream, what can we do to not put something bad in down the drain so that we don't pay to deal with it at the end of the pipe?

Whether it's a wipe, kids putting toys down that ad happens.

We've got a whole collection of the plants, by the way, of matchbox and various other things that have gone down.

But I think about other chemicals.

Pharmaceuticals is a great example.

Sometimes people think, well, I'll just pour these extra pills I don't need anymore, I'll put them down the toilet.

That way they won't get into the wrong hands.

Bad idea.

And it doesn't go into the wastewater system.

Our plants are not designed to deal with those.

They flow right through.

And of course they can get into the environment then out into Puget Sound or into a lake or a river.

So a lot of public education, I think, is exactly what's needed.

And that's what we're talking about here internally.

We'd love to work with Bellevue, maybe put some of those tools to use in the very near term.

Thank you.

I hope staffs we can work with them on that.

I know we're doing other educational programs, so love to see that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Robinson.

Before we move forward, is 8 p.m.

We do have two more study sessions.

And you're the only one that give us a very long and detailed answer because everyone else give us this very like short answer.

So I appreciate you.

So I asked the remaining council member, please.

Maybe if you can, one question, and if you can have a shorter answer, and then you can follow up via email.

That would be the best approach moving forward.

So on that note, uh Councilmember Bargaba.

Okay, I'll try to keep it brief.

First of all, you know, glad that I'm not contributing to the wipes problem.

Our household is very compliant.

But we have sent you some toys over the years, which is it is what it is.

Um I'm also glad that we're talking about this on public works week proclamation.

So this is great.

Um, you know, I share the concern that many of our parents have raised about the rising cost.

It is a staggering number, our residents, we for our residents and as residents of this community are very concerned.

I am very concerned about this rising cost.

It is alarming, but I do appreciate the catch-up that you're doing, and this is something that is the right investment for the future.

So uh appreciative of that, but it is still difficult.

That said, um, I do think the idea that came up about resident communications, and I think it was Councilmember Sumanavere that brought it up.

I think it's really good, and we must try to give as much notice as we can to the community because this is not an insignificant increase in cost.

Um, I also support the regional approach and the letter that goes out and the advocacy that we can do in partnership to try and get um additional grants, monies, support for this infrastructure to not just pay for uh reduction in cost, but also try to see how we can address some of the upcoming regulatory risks that are further long term out that are sort of unknowns today.

Um, so the faster we can get ahead of that the better.

Um, and I have one question, but I'll just say this before my question is that I would really appreciate getting um updates or a way to stay close to what we're doing from a cost deduction standpoint because you talked about that uh through our capital improvements and you know you call this you said it more uh eloquently, but like value engineering systems down so that it's optimized for cost.

I think that's really important, demand reduction strategies and what we can do in partnership with you for demand reduction, and you know, looking ahead in regulatory risk, those would be three areas for me that would be really important to get uh close to on a very regular cadence.

Talking about the longer term, I have one question.

You know, we do see lower rates that are projected beginning 2036, yet there is significant uncertainty as you called out.

How confident are you that we can rely on this projection?

And what is WTD doing to improve the confidence of the capital needs forecast for the second decade?

Yeah.

I'm not confident at all at all about those uh uh out-year rates, uh, because of those uncertainties.

So I won't sugarcoat that.

Um, but we are trying to um both with our our work to extend that forecast to improve the accuracy of the information going into that forecast.

Literally, hundreds of projects that have to be evaluated individually to make up that forecast.

And then this long range plan that we're doing right now will actually help a lot because the whole focus of that is looking out over the next 30 years.

So I think we'll have an opportunity through multiple channels, the annual process, and this multi-year long-range plan to do exactly what you're asking for.

And so I would say my answer to the confidence, I think will improve in the next few years.

Yeah, no, I do appreciate that this is a long-range forecast.

Forecasting is not trivial.

It is what it is, but actually having that cadence of reviews and using this as a baseline so that we're not actually going over that baseline significantly becomes really important.

So you have to have a benchmark, even if the forecast is sort of unpredictable.

Thank you.

Thank you, Customer Bordeaux.

Council Member Broyer.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you both for the thorough presentation.

And for the sake of brevity, I'll just jump straight to the uh question.

Uh, what is WTD doing to improve longer-term capital needs and financial planning uh beyond 20 years to improve rate predictability over time?

Well, some of the same things, I think in the in the last question, um, we are trying to look at what those needs are.

Our asset management program, I'd say, is still a it's good, and but it's it needs to get better.

Um, we have I think something like 60,000 assets, and so we are in the process of doing an improved inventory, and we just uh have deployed a new software management system that will help us a lot uh in that process.

I don't know if the city uses maximo, but that's that's what we've just we we have a legacy system that we are replacing with that.

So that will be a good tool there, and then as I mentioned, that long-range planning process allows us to look comprehensively across all those different needs, and then it gets to exactly the premise in your question, improving the financial planning so that you can have more confidence and I can have more confidence in what those numbers actually are.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, and we go to you very soon.

I'm not even going to ask my questions for this uh time.

I just have one comment while I am hearing all of your detailed response to my colleagues, and is what we are hearing is, and I understand that, that some of these investments are unavoidable.

We have aging infrastructures, we have a regulation that we need to follow, and they're all costly, and we have to protect public health and the environment.

All makes sense to me.

But I think when years of deferred work and rising costs show up on people's bill, they deserve to know three things.

And I think you are saying some of them, but maybe not all.

They need to have a clear explanation of how we got here.

What we are doing to avoid repeating these patterns that 10 years from now, 15 years from now, some of the future council members are here, they are not facing the same repeating pattern that we are seeing.

And finally, what's what are and where real cost savings are still possible going forward?

Again, I think you have answered some of my concerns, and I think that's my whole point.

But we are all you, Lucy.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Um, so we've just heard from Cameron a lot about sewer rates rising, and and I just want to, and an importance of affordability.

And so in Bellevue, we are putting a very heavy focus on affordability, and now just take a few moments to highlight what we are doing in this area.

Um so we offer a range of uh utility bill assistance programs to help community members that are facing financial challenges, and these programs are making a real difference.

We have ongoing support for low-income seniors and residents with permanent disabilities.

Uh, customers who receive a bill uh directly from us, receive a 70% discount on their bills, and uh customers who are built through their housing provider receive a 70% rebate of their utility bills.

For those facing sudden financial uh hardship, our emergency assistance program can waive up to four months of utility bills.

And our new neighbors helping neighbors program offers up to two months of waived bills for households that are past due.

Altogether, as I mentioned, we have a thousand households that are benefiting from these programs last year, and we would invest about one million dollars annually in these programs.

Last year, we also launched a new online application portal, created in partnership with our IT team that's designed to be that has an accessible design based on research from the University of Washington School of Human Centered Design.

Our goal is to make it easier for folks to apply.

And looking forward, we will also continue to pursue external funding, including state and uh federal opportunities, both for Bellevue and through regional partnerships.

Further, for example, in the past few years, we were able to secure $7 million in connecting housing to infrastructure program grants to support affordable housing development in Bellevue.

And so we'll continue looking for opportunities, including opportunities to support King County, in seeking external funding and low interest loans as well.

And what I will so I just wanted to share that with you.

Um I won't spend very much time in the next two slides, which really just highlights the key messages in the SCA letter.

Um you'll see that they really are reflecting council's discussion tonight.

And so with that, Mayor, I turn it back over to you.

Thank you so much.

So I think overall, just a nod here that we are all aligned with the letter and we don't have we are encouraging that great.

Thank you so much.

Again, we appreciate all of your detailed answer that you gave us tonight.

We really appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much.

On that note, is 8-9, assume 8 10, but just come back by 8 20.

So till you give us some introductions at the manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, this second study session uh is seeking to initiate work on high density residential and plan unit development land use code amendments and legislative rezones.

These would be implementing decisions made in the comprehensive plan, largely, and to review the proposed scope of work.

We have from our development services department, Nick Whipple, our code and policy director, and Sean Edchill, our senior planner.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Nick.

Great, thank you.

And Deputy Mayor Hamilton, members of the council.

We're here tonight seeking direction from you all to consider initiating work on the high-density residential and planned unit development land use code amendment or PUD LUCA, and then associated uh legislative rezon.

So, want to be very clear we are at the start of this process tonight.

Um, we'll go through the timeline.

This is about a one-year process for us to begin engaging with community.

Um, tonight we are just seeking um some direction from you all on getting this work underway.

So, for our agenda, we'll provide an overview of the scope and then this is really addressing kind of three key areas.

So, Sean will walk us through each one of those areas.

We'll talk about our engagement approach that we have planned for this, and then our schedule.

And um pardon our uh planner speak.

Um, we will try to avoid using acronyms, but we also just want to provide this slide for um you all and for the viewing public.

Um, these are some acronyms that you'll find in the memo as well as in the presentation.

Um, so you can always reference back to slide four if you'd like to take a look at these.

Um, but we'll we'll make sure we spell them out as we're approaching the words.

Uh so first our scope overview.

As I mentioned, um, three major components that we're trying to address with this uh package here.

So the first being that high-density residential land use code amendment.

Um, as was noted in the opening, um, there was a new land use designation that was established in the comprehensive plan, and that was established in the future land use map.

The future land use map is a policy map that's adopted with the comprehensive plan, and it tells us what do we want the intended use and development on that land to be.

So what we need to do is develop zoning to implement the policy decision that happened as part of that complan adoption process.

So that first initiative is to create this new district so we can begin to implement the comp plan.

The other areas are planned unit development or PUD land use code amendment.

This is looking at a way to retool this as an opportunity to support more affordable housing, more tree retention, more open space, just get better use out of the tool.

Sean will talk to kind of its current use and where we see some opportunities.

And then the third and final item that we're seeking initiation on is those legislative rezones.

So the comprehensive plan, as I noted, has set new designations for certain areas.

We'd like to begin looking at rezones for those areas.

Not asking you to rezone properties tonight, but asking you to direct us to begin the work that it takes to then process a rezone, engage with the community, study, understand the impacts, and then bring forward a recommendation on what the zoning should be.

So that includes the high density residential rezone as well as the overlake farms rezone that you heard comment about tonight.

So with that, Sean will walk through each one of these scope items and then we'll turn it back to you.

Thank you, Nick.

Good evening, Council members.

So, as you kind of saw within the overview, we're going to be splitting this up into three distinct parts.

The main reason for this is just given the dense character of this land use code amendment.

We want to make sure that we are covering everything clearly for everyone tonight.

So, starting with our first part of Luca, the high density residential component was added into the comprehensive plan in 2024.

While the designation exists in the comprehensive plan, a new land use district must be created in our code to implement those goals on the ground.

This district is designed to provide for the residential scale and density similar to low rise mixed use developments.

To visualize where this fits in our city, this graphic illustrates the transition in scale.

High density residential tends to be larger and denser structures, in contrast to our current highest density, medium density residential scale, which serves more as a transition between middle housing and low rise mixed use districts.

The current maximum building height is 40 feet under the MDR or medium density residential.

And it has a maximum of 30 dwelling units per acre under the high density residential that is expected to increase to 60 units per acre.

The technical work for the high density residential portion of the LUCA will focus on three areas.

Implementing development standards in the land use code, such as building height, setbacks, and floor area ratio, developing transition standards for adjacency to lower density districts, and reviewing all cross references to ensure code alignment.

The second component of this LUCA involves updating the planned unit development code or PUD.

A note here this is an update to existing code rather than the creation of a new district, as we are seeing with the high density residential.

Planned unit developments are a flexible planning tool that allow for clustering housing units to protect tree canopies and open space while encouraging diverse housing types.

Despite its potential, the current planned unit development framework hasn't been significantly updated since the 1990s, and it is rarely used.

Approximately 10 PUDs have been made over the last 20 years.

Currently, planned unit developments are the most common when dealing with critical area and buffer protection, where there's clear need for a reduced scale and heightened environmental protection.

So our goal here is to make this a more viable tool for broader application.

To update this tool, we are proposing several key updates.

We want to expand flexibility for sites over 10 acres, replace subjective hurdles with more objective standards, and integrate incentives specifically for affordable housing.

This will increase include increased flexibility in setbacks, lock coverage, and building placement.

These changes directly support our broader city goals.

This alignment helps us provide opportunities for increased density and height while preserving significant trees and open space consistent with our housing strategy and land use policies.

Our final item tonight involves the legislative rezones necessary to put these new tools to work on the ground.

While greater context is available for your review in attachment A, we are providing graphic close-ups tonight for your benefit.

This graphic highlights the specific locations where we propose to apply the new high density residential district.

We are looking at portions of crossroads and factoria neighborhoods to accommodate densities up to approximately 60 units per acre.

For context, the crossroads rezone will occur around crossroads mall, largely impacting parcels currently occupied with multifamily developments.

Likewise, the factoria rezone will occur around Factoria Mall.

These areas are strategically located near established commercial centers and transit access to the surrounding residential communities.

To help this document to help explain this document to those who may not have been part of the comprehensive plan process, the future land use map is a long-range policy map, as Nick had already mentioned.

It doesn't change what is allowed on a property today.

It signals what the city intends for that property into the future.

While the future land use map might show crossroads or factoria under high density residential in certain parcels, the current zoning map, the currently applied regulations might still state that it's under a land use district lower in density.

The rezones are that you explain what these colors mean when looking at a map with all these colors, I have no idea what I'm working at.

Absolutely.

So the highlighted parcels that are shown in the darker brown there are the ones that are planned to be rezoned to the high density residential.

The darker purples that you see there are good points of reference on the crossroads sub-area image, that is where crossroads mall is located.

On Vactoria sub-area, that is where Factoria Mall is located.

So these are being proposed in parcels that immediately surround these spaces that are intended to have much greater densities.

So these rezones are occurring now as we enter into the implementation phase.

So it's going to help to ensure that the vision of the comprehensive plan puts what the council has agreed we require forward instead of keeping the comprehensive plan a stagnant document.

Moving to bridal trails neighborhood, this shows the proposed rezone for a portion of overlake farms to low density residential.

You'll notice the arrow indicating the specific site.

Because this area has more than 10 acres, it has the expanse necessary to coordinate with and be supported by our updated planned unit development code.

This serves as an excellent point of reference to for how the planned unit development updates can protect the area's significant tree canopy while allowing for thoughtful development near the surrounding residential neighborhoods.

As we move forward, community input will be vital.

We will meet all process four requirements, including public hearings, but we also plan to go further with direct engagement for residents and neighborhood associations supported by infant info sheets and city newsletters to ensure that the public is well informed throughout the process.

This slide outlines our tentative timeline for this work.

Moving from initiation tonight, we intend to begin technical drafting and public hearings through the end of the year.

Finally, looking for council action hopefully by mid-spring of 2027.

This brings us back around to our request tonight.

We ask that you consider initiating work on the high density residential and planned unit development, Luca, and the associated legislative results.

Thank you for your time tonight, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much, Negan Sean.

Sean, this is your first time here in the second time.

Welcome back.

And thank you, Jake, and the whole team.

This is a very, very important, I think, follow-through from Complan.

We did a lot of policy in Comp Plan update, and now these policy decisions are going to be or not.

You're going to implement them, and that's what DCs are.

Councilman Bargabo, we are start with you.

Yeah, I don't have a lot of questions.

I just have one clarification to ask.

There was some comment around the increased density and the comprehensive plan versus what was studied in the EIS.

Can you just clarify that this is what was studied in the EIS, the increased density?

Is there any misalignment here?

Yeah.

So the comprehensive plan update was supported by a pretty robust environmental impact statement that did analyze a lot of the density increases that are reflected in that future land use map.

So there is good coverage there.

This process though will also have some environmental review associated with it as well.

So any gaps that may have been missed as part of that comprehensive plan update, environmental review process will be filled as we begin this process here, assuming we get council initiation on this project tonight.

Thank you, that's good.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Brior.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just for clarification, uh, we have an inter, excuse me, environmental review that took place.

And uh for clarity's sake, does the infrastructure uh support this density that we intend on uh creating?

Uh so the density that's created through the high density residential district is an area as well served by transit.

Um, those are areas that um uh yes were suitable for that type of designation, um, similar as we were looking to update the land use designation at Overlake Farms.

Um there was some evaluation of whether that density could be supported in that location, and that was also kind of the similar policy kind of conclusion there, based on the environmental review.

Okay for the clarification.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Robinson.

Thank you, Mir.

Um, I am really excited about Overlake Farm potential.

I think that's going to be a beautiful new neighborhood in a city that's hard to bring new neighborhoods into.

And um, I love the kind of the trade-off with the height and retaining the tree canopy and uh the um nature areas.

I think about the property terra power property on 156th, and long long ago, there was kind of a deal made with that community that they would allow that property to develop if they retained all the green space that they have.

And as time goes on, every time that property sells, the new owner comes and says, Do you mind if we develop?

And we have to kind of decide whether we're going to keep that promise that we made to the community back then.

So, how does this if we uh decide to retain these trees in exchange for height?

Future generations, how do we maintain that or do we have any provisions for retaining that as we move forward?

Yeah, so um what council will be asked to do is set up a tool um that can be available to the property owners to take advantage of.

Um, similar to the TerraPower, I believe that was permitted through a PUD process, a planned unit development.

And with that, that's a binding decision.

Conditions will continue to apply to that development.

And so a similar kind of situation would happen if Overlake Farms decides to avail themselves to this PUD process, then they would be bound to the conditions of that approval.

It is a process that does have its own public process associated with it, including a hearing and a hearing examiner decision.

And so there is still a lengthy process yet to come as it as that uh property looks to redevelop if they decide to do a PUD.

But that would be basically locking them in.

If there's um if the council wants us to look at flexibility where maybe there's increased height if they're retaining an exceptional amount of trees, that should be reflected in the code so that they have that guidance to kind of move with, and um any approval would basically condition that site where you know if you got 60 feet, 40 feet, whatever the height is, and you were required to retain a certain amount of trees, um, that that would be kind of the requirement that applies to that site.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Smoduverio.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, Nick Pashon, for this presentation.

Uh, I fully support this work because I think we need more housing, and also we need different more type of housing.

Um, and it's gonna really match.

Um, I think the POD update is really long overdue.

So I'm glad we proactively thinking creatively.

One, um, two things I do want to hold along against, not against, alongside of the support is um, I think please really like we need to focus on the density and infrastructure, have to move together as we build in more housing.

Um, I think the feedback from the community, it really matters.

Um, I would say that like earlier we talked about the sewer rate increase driven by there's growth in the residential area.

So when we zoning more units per acre, I think we need to also think about ahead how our roads how infrastructure and exactly like um council member Robinson talked about open space and the tree retention to be really nurturing the characteristic our community while offering more options for housing too.

Um another one is I think because as this is helpful focusing more on crossroad and factoria, um I want to kind of just bring elevator because I believe Crossroad is not just a neighborhood, it's a community.

So there's a lot of immigrant-owned business there.

So when we're doing the zoning, please keep in mind about how to protect the small business and also having very clear communication engagement.

Um, and also I really appreciate you putting extra effort on engagement process thinking ahead already.

Um I'm grateful for that.

I just have one question about the PUD object objective standard.

Can you help me to kind of understand that?

Um, when we say in the memo, it says replacing the subjective compatibility with clear and object.

Can you give me like a like a small example about like, for example, if a developer couldn't reliable get approved under the old framework, like how would the new framework change that?

Yeah.

I think what uh the benefit of trying to clarify some of the language is just removing the amount of discretion that the community and the applicant have to contend with.

Some of the criteria that we have today sites that the building designs should be compatible with the architecture and style of the surrounding neighborhood.

And so a lot of people will pick out oh uh let's leave that pink house out.

We don't want to match that one, but let's match kind of these five other houses and just creates a weird um process where you're having to be very subjective, and and what is that sort of compatibility with the style and the character.

Um, those are terms that are not well defined, they're not clear to understand.

So trying to move to something that's a little bit more um clear and objective, um, has been kind of our practice over the past couple of years.

Um it really just creates that predictability and it helps streamline the process a bit too when people just understand from the jump, um, what are the requirements that they'll be subject to.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Smodaverio.

Councilman Newenhouse.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thanks for the presentation.

Thanks for being here today.

Um, you know, as I as I think about some of the comments we heard earlier and past presentations about fatigue, tax fatigue, and other types of fatigue, uh ratepayer fatigue, I think density fatigue is encroaching when it comes to um residential or or or neighborhoods.

I'm all for moving this forward and and and having the planning commission do their review and work on this.

But what I would also say is let's keep in mind to the Planning Commission what has made Bellevue special, what hasn't made it a very livable city.

It's not always density.

I think residents are very much aligned with putting the density in our key growth areas throughout the city, and I consider factorial one of them.

Obviously, Bell Red, Wilberton, downtown, uh crossroads as uh Council Member Sudaduaria.

That's kind of a unique community there, um, a tight-knit community, however, also a community uh that does not have a neighborhood association as far as I know.

Um so while I appreciate that's part of your outreach plan, um, I worry about there being a unified voice in crossroads about what they want to see in their in their neighborhood.

Um, and speaking of the outreach piece, I would really like to see a more robust plan here, and you can share that with me after afterwards.

I know you're I read in the memo, you got you know, five modes or five different levels of of way you're going to roll out notification and engagement, etc.

But I'd like to see the the details on this, please.

I really want to understand um how we're reaching out to residents and businesses, how we're communicating this, um, uh, and how that we get them in and engage so that they fully understand uh what the planning commission's work looks like um and and their role in this and and that we really want to want to hear their voice.

Um I think that's uh uh really important as it has been with anything uh but uh before us.

But um again, I want to go back and um really make sure that we uh that we think about what has made Bellevue special.

Okay, I think that's a core question that should be top of mind for every planning commissioner as they go through this process.

Um I would also encourage you to engage with the Bridal Trails Neighborhood Association as soon as possible.

I think you heard a lot of uh um uh comments around the overlake farms.

Um so that I agree with uh councilmember Robinson.

I think it's uh it's a very um uh interesting and perspective.

Uh looks like a great project, but I want bridal trails neighborhood association also to be able to weigh in and and and talk about that project as well and how it fits into their neighborhood.

So I think having that conversation and bringing them into the fold is uh always a good uh always a good um way of operating.

So those are just my um my top of mind uh uh comments and um uh look forward to uh initiating this uh this work going forward.

So thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilman Newenhouse.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Uh thank you, mayor.

I will be brief here.

Uh appreciate the presentation.

I think this is exciting work that is gonna lead to impactful outcomes.

Uh, the Luca and rezone effort is critically important to help us achieve our housing production goals and deliver on the vision of the comprehensive plan.

We made it clear in the comp plan update that we want and need to maximize housing variety and achievable density, provide opportunities for increased density and height on larger sites to support clustering, efficient site planning, and preservation of trees and open space.

This effort is how we bring that vision to reality, and I would like to see us push ourselves to realize the full vision that this of this effort, our comp plan is a bold modern roadmap for how Bellevue continues to remain a vibrant city now and in the future.

This effort, which I'm very much supportive of, needs to be similarly bold and modern.

This is an important next step in delivering on our promise of increasing our housing supply and improving affordability generally.

The much needed updates to the PUD framework will also help ensure that we are building more affordable housing, which we have been very clear continues to be a top priority for the city.

I would like staff to explore how we can make the best use of the PUD tool to support tree retention, open space, and affordable housing.

I'd like it to include evaluating incentives for taller buildings and potentially allowing heights of up to 65 feet as suggested during public comment on sites of 10 acres or more where there is a clear benefit provided in exchange.

In those cases, greater tree retention and more meaningful open space could be important components of that trade-off.

I would like to see the final recommendation from the Planning Commission help us to stretch to the top end of our housing goals.

There is significant amount of work, amount of growth in our housing pipeline, but now is not the time to let off the gas.

We have a long way to go, and we have to keep pushing.

I think the scope of the effort is appropriate.

I especially like seeing an emphasis on clear and objective standards.

A sensitivity to adjacent low density districts, streamlining of the review and permitting process, and the focus on the range of environmental standards that we must prioritize and incorporate.

I think the engagement plan looks good, and I appreciate you already planning to go above and beyond the standard to make sure we hear from as many community members as possible.

I'm ready to move forward.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for being short.

Thank you so much.

I think every council member address all of my question.

So can we have the motion, please?

I move to direct staff to initiate work on the high density residential and planned unit development LUCA and direct the planning commission to review and process the LUCA.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is the moved by Deputy Mayor and seconded by Councilmember Bouillard?

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the motion passes.

Thank you so much.

Now we go to our ordinance.

I will invite Terizna and Diane come to the table and introduce the topic to us.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor.

Deputy Mayor and Council members.

Tonight, City Attorney Tannis and I are presenting counsel with an ordinance to establish new code for criminal conduct for targeted residential protest.

This proposal places reasonable limits on protests that target specific occupants or residents located in residential land use districts.

We believe this is balancing and reconciling the rights of protesters to express their views and the rights of residents to enjoy privacy and tranquility in their homes.

The action that we are seeking from you this evening is to consider adopting ordinance 6917 defining the criminal conduct of targeted residential protest.

This is what we plan to cover this evening.

We will review the purpose and objectives of the proposal and also the legal context and basis for the components of the new draft code.

So I'd like to start with why we're proposing this code.

This has resulted in people being captive audiences in their homes and being subjected to offensive speech.

These have uh definitely negatively impacted the targeted individuals.

Our existing code does not address this situation and leaves the city with little authority to mitigate the impacts to the targeted residents or broadly infringe on First Amendment rights.

This is a narrow proposal aimed at balancing the rights of protesters with the rights of individuals to enjoy privacy in their homes.

With that as background, I would like to turn uh turn this over to City Attorney Tannis to provide the legal background and the details for the proposed code.

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members.

Um as uh City Manager Manager Carlson talked about, we have uh a balancing act that we are trying to do here.

We have two fundamental rights that we're looking at.

One is our First Amendment rights, certainly protects the right of individuals to peacefully communicate and express themselves and their ideas and opinions.

This right is fundamental to how we do our business here.

It's fundamental to our democracy and our values.

And then we have the other right, which is the right to have to enjoy privacy and tranquility in your home.

This uh right is a compelling government interest.

Um it's uh interest of the highest order, according to the US Supreme Court.

Okay.

So in our code development, um we consistent consistently refer to these two fundamental rights.

Um we also did quite a bit of research looking into what other jurisdictions who that have similar ordinances, what they have in their books.

So the case law that we refer to and rely on is Frisbee versus Schultz.

This is uh a case out of the US Supreme Court that looked at whether or not a targeted protest ordinance adopted by the town of Brookfield in Wisconsin was lawful.

I know there's a lot of words here, but I'll walk you through.

Essentially, the court said people have the right to express their views and peacefully protest in public forums.

Streets and parks are public forums.

Any regulation that infringe upon that right within public forums must be serve a compelling government interest and be narrowly tailored.

It also said that protection of privacy and tranquility in one's home is in fact uh something that is a government interest of the highest order.

So it is a compelling government interest.

A ban on targeted protest, protest that's narrow, uh, it's when it eliminates no more than the offensive speech that's focused on a captive home audience, does not ban all residential protest.

When the ordinance is narrow and content neutral, such as the one in Brookfield, uh targeted uh residential protest, restricting that protest is lawful.

So, as I mentioned earlier, we looked at similar ordinances across the country, and there are uh a number of them across the country on the same issue, and um all of them rely on Frisbee and look to Frisbee to make sure that the ordinance that they have in their books are constitutional and lawful.

So I'll go through the components of the ordinance here, which uh would create a new section in Bellevue City Code under 1006 130.

The ordinance would uh define a new criminal conduct for targeted residential protest.

Protest is defined uh based on the activity itself, so it could be protest demonstration picketing with or without signs, with or without making amplified noise or audible noise.

Targeted is really narrow in how we've defined it.

It's posting a person's focus route or course in front of, around, or directly adjacent to a residence.

We have put in place a minimum number of persons that would that this ordinance would apply to, and that would be four.

The residents that it would apply to would be a permanent building being used as a permanent residence, a non-transient, in the residential uh land use district.

So it would not apply to commercial districts or mixed use, it would strictly apply just to residential land use districts, and it would be classified as a gross misdemeanor.

Gross misdemeanor carries up to 364 days in jail and $5,000 fine.

Here I want to provide a bit more information as to how we develop the various different components of the ordinance.

Again, the overall intent that we have is to be able to balance and reconcile the First Amendment rights and right of residents to enjoy privacy and tranquility in their home.

So any protest, you know, it sounds broad, but it actually addresses the actual impacts of the activity on captive audience.

Captive audience meaning that you're in your residence and you end up having to be forced to hear unwelcome and offensive speech.

This is a narrow uh location uh in that it bans protest activity that really impacts the residents of that home.

Again, treating them as captive audience in their home.

The group size of four people, this uh protest activity tends to be more impactful when it's a group of people as opposed to individuals.

We picked the number four because it aligns with other group criminal activities.

So this is in criminal mischief statute as well as failure to disperse statute.

Um they include four people as the the number of people that uh would constitute this criminal activity.

Um, I mentioned permanent residents, so it would not be any uh not any transient or short-term uh residents, and then residential districts only, again related to the impacts because you are more impacted when you're in your home in a residential district, uh, more so than you would be in a uh a commercial district, for instance.

We made this, we classified this as a gross misdemeanor crime again for consistency with other similar crimes.

Um, most subfelony crimes are gross misdemeanors, crimes that interfere with government operations or against a particular person are gross misdemeanors, so we felt like this is the right classification.

There's also a two-year statute of limitation for um it allows for longer investigations, so again, feeling like the the gross misdemeanor is the right category here.

So, with that, I'll go to the action slide, which is to have um council consider adopting this ordinance, and we're available for questions.

Turn it over back to you, Mayor.

Thank you so much, both Diana and Trisna, and thank you for everyone who provided feedback clearly the topic that many people in the community care deeply about.

We have heard from some of them, and we receive a lot of email.

Some strong feedback from residents who care deeply about protecting free speech and the right of protest, and we also heard from people who are concerned about privacy and peace in their neighborhoods, and both of those values matter, and I think we are going to a sort of discussion.

Council Member Robinson, we are start with you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so I'll say I do support this ordinance.

I truly believe in freedom of speech and have supported it my entire career in office.

I hold regular office hours, I try to make it up easy for people to uh tell me their opinions or their thoughts on the work that we're doing, and I appreciate the opportunity to hear from the community.

Just because you're in public office, I don't believe that that means that you have to suffer fear and intimidation, and it is scary, and I've had it happen.

I have been targeted at my own house.

And it's not fair to the neighbors either.

And my fear is that people won't run for office if they have are subjected to this kind of treatment and fear and intimidation.

And I've I worry about elected officials not living in our neighborhoods.

They want to be isolated.

And so for those reasons, I do support this ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Bargavo.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I do have two uh pretty quick questions, just clarifications.

One is the definition of the protest that you've used.

Um, not audible, no signs, etc.

How do we come up with the basis for that?

And I'll state my second question up front as well.

Is just the narrow definition of the geographic scope and adjacency to the residence, et cetera.

How does that play out with the residential use ban together?

Just those two things are not totally clear to me.

So I'll start with your uh second question.

Um the residential ban, we really took cues against again from Frisbee in terms of being as narrow as possible.

We want to be able to um balance two fundamental rights that could pull against each other.

So we wanted to keep the location to be able to apply it to not to anywhere.

Um so wanted to be able to um uh but be narrow enough that it isn't throughout the neighborhood because we cannot ban protest in residential areas altogether.

Um that would not be narrow enough, and it would certainly be infringing upon the first amendment rights and would not be uh would not hold up.

So we wanted to be able to make sure that we are addressing the activity that would uh essentially put occupants of residences as captive audience to speech that is unwelcome to them and that they find offensive, so keeping that um location narrow, but also the the district narrow enough so that we can balance the two those two fundamental rights.

Um and then I think you maybe I should you'd mind me your first question.

Just the protest definition that you've used, yeah.

Yes, the protest definition, it is um we were trying to address all of the different activities that we have seen um play out, so it could be people in a group just simply standing, making gestures, doing what um maybe perhaps uh wearing uh clothing or masks or uh the the fact that they're in a group, I think is the one that uh is more impactful than um having uh Carla.

I have been giving you warning the whole night.

I kept you in the room.

The next time I'm here, you distrop our meeting by saying anything, you would be escorted out.

So that's your last warning.

Thank you, please go ahead.

So, again, trying to um make sure that we address the impacts and um the group dynamics is what we were trying to address, and the activity could be a range of different activities, so we wanted to be able to capture all the various different permutations of that activity, okay.

Thanks, Mr.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Samada, where are you?

This is a really hard topic, I think.

I uh I want to be honest, I think this one said me pretty hard because I I I believe really deeply the right to protest because I moved to this country because there's the meaning of freedom that we can freely express our concerns and then the differences because this is a country honor that, but I but I would say not but and I think I still remember when I was first got appointed in the seat, somebody called my personal number, and my little kid pick up the phone.

That was scary.

But as a mom with three young children, it is a very scary place to be, even if somebody just calling me.

I cannot imagine if they show up at my door.

So I I think to me, I just believe that the home should be your sacred place.

That's where you protect the people you love the most.

And as public official, we put ourselves out there.

I believe that our society can make the judgment call if it's not the right place for the office.

So I think it's just so hard.

I think these two values are so important to me, but also I understand both perspectives so deeply because it just is such a struggle.

Um I think for the sake of my children, I would say, I would say yes to the vote, to be honest, but I do have a clarified thing.

I do want to ask because in the ordinance and also in the presentation, there's a different discrepancy between three or more people and then the ordin ordinance.

I think four.

Can you kind of help me to clarify that?

Yes, it is uh a little bit confusing.

So the ordinance uh the definition of what would constitute um targeted residential protest is when an individual is participating with three other individuals.

So the group would constitute would amount to four, at least four people.

So that's the um if that clarifies that.

Yeah, it does.

But thank you for sharing that, and I do want to let the audience know thank you.

I mean, sharing both sides, and I think that's important to see the difference.

Maybe I'm hoping that we can build a bridge together to able to communicate.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Councilman Bruyard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you for the presentation.

I'd like to begin by saying I absolutely do not support violence, intimidation, or harassment directed at any individual or family.

Um I personally understand the importance of protecting safety and privacy as an elected official.

I've been subject to such behavior, stalking, getting followed home, having folks stand outside my house.

Um, and I don't think that anyone should feel trapped in their home because of this type of behavior, but um I am, however, uh in opposition to this uh because I do believe that the ordinance is too broad in nature and may risk infringing on folks.

Um and so I think for that reason I will likely be opposed to this.

Thank you so much.

Councilman Newenhouse.

Thank you, um Trisna and Diane, thank you so much for your your work on this.

Really appreciate this, and I really also want to just echo my uh colleague saying thank you for all the emails uh on both sides.

I think it gave all of us a deeper understanding and um uh different uh maybe a deeper sensitivity to all the different sides of this of this ordinance.

Got two questions before um deliver some uh comments.

One is following up on council member sumidwarya uh comment about the three or more persons.

So, how does that align with case law?

Um, what's the legal rationale for that for the three or more?

We looked at uh state statutes, as I mentioned earlier, for criminal mischief and failure to disperse.

Those are also group criminal activities that would be so we're just defining group as four people, yes.

So if uh uh if an individual participates with three others in committing those crimes, then they would be um they could be found guilty of those crimes.

So we looked at that as the as how we would define group.

Um again, this is uh a difficult balancing um of two fundamental rights.

So we wanted to put um uh a narrowing element to this instead of having just a single individual or two, and okay, um, we uh we decided to go with something that is already in state statutes as our guide.

Okay.

So you feel it aligns well with case law then.

Okay, great.

Second question is how will officers in the field, how are they going to determine whether a protest is targeted?

And especially regarding the the posting of persons.

Well, number of persons I think we've addressed, but the focus course or the route or the language, which the language piece I have a bit of an issue with when you say offensive.

I mean, that can be defined in a lot of different ways in terms of what is or what is not offensive, but it goes to the the maybe the difficult position we're putting an officer in.

So how can we more narrowly, or what is there going to be training?

How are we gonna roll this out so an officer can properly identify if targeting is truly happening?

Absolutely, and that is a very good question and uh an issue that we also have identified.

The implementation of this ordinance is gonna be very important.

We have um uh as if adopted by uh by you all tonight, we will be putting an implementation plan.

It would require some uh policies and procedures to be developed in order to be able to train and properly um uh educate our officers so that they can use this as a tool in order to um to do what it's intended to do.

So um there is still work ahead of us in order to um put in effect the the intention of this ordinance.

Okay, thank you.

I think that's really important and something to uh to address as as soon as possible.

I am in favor of of this ordinance, um, uh like my fellow uh colleagues here who have shared and thank you for sharing.

I too have been a target, doxxed, et cetera, um, which can be pretty scary when you've got a family at home.

Um, you know, I never I've always considered myself a very staunch defender of of free speech, um, but in in some cases um when it's targeted, um uh you know that's where you kind of draw the line.

Um, you know, I think everybody should have that ability to express their own views on public issues, and the First Amendment obviously is foundational uh to who we are as a community, and the ordinance I think explicitly preserves the right to protest in neighborhoods on sidewalks and in public spaces.

And I think what this ordinance does, and I think you've you've you've uh really positioned it well, Trisna, is that it's something that's so narrowly focused that is a because it's a growing uh practice of targeting a specific home in a specific family uh with a coordinated protest directly outside that home.

And when that happens, the people inside are a captive audience, not by choice.

Uh, they're unable to leave at that point.

Um, they're unable to avoid a confrontation, they're unable to find privacy really in that one place that I think we all want privacy and and quiet and calm, and we cannot have that there.

Um we've we've seen situation to escalate across the country, um, and now we're seeing it in Bellevue.

Um, I think the Supreme Court decision's been very clear.

Government has a compelling interest in protecting the privacy and tranquility of the home.

I think this ordinance follows that guidance really closely.

Um it is narrow, it is target, and it is designed to balance those two important rights that we have the right to speak, but also the right to be left alone in your own home.

So it's not a ban on neighborhood protests, it's a reasonable limit on targeted protests directed at a single resident or residents, I should say.

It ensures that people can still march, they can still demonstrate, and still make their voices heard without crossing that line into personal harassment.

That I think is an important distinction.

I think Bellevue's always valued both three free expression as well as community safety.

So I think this uh this ordinance honors both of those things, and um uh I would urge my uh colleagues to support this ordinance and affirm that Bellevue uh we can both protect free speech while also protecting the sanctity of the home.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Great, thank you, Mayor.

Again, I'll be very brief here.

Um, thank you to our city manager and city attorney for all the care that has gone into crafting this narrow ordinance that addresses an issue that while rare has impacted our community and others around the country.

The US Supreme Court has weighed in on this issue and has made it clear that narrowly tailored restrictions on focused residential picketing are constitutional, and that protecting residential privacy is a significant government interest as people are considered a captive audience in their own homes.

No one should be subjected to coordinated intimidation, focused group picketing and the disruption of residential privacy.

Our ordinance is completely agnostic with regard to the content of the speech as it should be.

A frustration over perceived lack of engagement or accessibility or complaints about how some folks are characterized are not sufficient reasons to disrupt someone's residential privacy.

This narrowly crafted ordinance imposes a basic standard that really should be common sense and common courtesy.

It's my hope that the ordinance makes it clear for folks what is acceptable and what is not.

As the Supreme Court noted in Frisbee v.

Schultz 38 years ago and upholding an ordinance similar to this one, when the picketing is narrowly directed at a household and not the public, those involved do not seek to disseminate a message to the general public, but to intrude upon the targeted resident and to do so in an especially offensive way.

The argument that this kind of behavior should be allowed and that this ordinance is unconstitutional falls flat.

I'm 100% in favor of moving forward.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I appreciate the discussion from my colleagues.

Of course, this is a very sensitive issue, and I believe the ordinance is trying to strike the balance, a reasonable balance between protecting free of speech and protecting residents from targeted activity directed to their homes.

I think that balance really, really matters, and I think the ordinance is, I think the ordinance is narrowly focused on trying to achieve that.

Can I please uh have the motion?

I move to adopt ordinance number 6917, defining criminal conduct, adopting a new section 10.06.130 of the Bellevue City Code related to targeted residential protest and setting an effective date.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Ashley, I'm sorry.

Can I add something?

I'm sorry.

Um I see the balance in there.

Is there any way if, like, you know, if there is any question in place, maybe the um the community group, they are not agreeing with how it's identified.

How can they um I guess giving feedback of like not protest, but like re like you know, saying no, like it's not how is there like a conversation they could have?

If like so, for example, I'm gonna give examples.

Somebody come to my door and I said this is the case that happened, and the community group doesn't agree that what how I'm defining the targeted group, how are they able to like advocate for themselves?

That's my question.

Hopefully, I'm answering your question.

Um, Councilmember.

Uh so this goes to what Councilmember Newenhouse talked about in terms of implementation plan.

We do plan on getting um pretty rigorous in how we implement this.

This is a very um complex and also very sensitive um issue, and we want to be able to get this right.

It's really important for us as a city government, but also all of us that work for the city, it's very important for us to get this right.

So we want to make sure that we um we follow first we develop uh policies and protocols and then we follow those policies and protocols.

I know from a PD perspective, uh, from the police perspective, it is not going in there and and starting to arrest everybody.

Um they are gonna start with um information and conversation uh following their um set protocols for handling um police business.

So I wouldn't presume to kind of dictate that, but I know that's their mode of operation, is not to start with at the highest level.

They want to be able to um provide that education first and have those conversations.

Um I think it's really important for them to have this community dialogue.

Um, but the implementation plan is what we will be developing, and we'll make sure to um do what we can to get this right.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think I just want to make sure it's a fair and just process and also every every person, policeman, individual who's protesting, the person in their home, everybody's safe.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Robinson.

Yeah, Councilmember Summer De Maria asked a good question.

I'm wondering where the burden of proof is on this.

The burden of proof if uh somebody is arrested and referred to prosecution, then it is um our burden of proof to be able to show that there is um in fact the defendant committed the criminal activity, um, just like any other um crime in the city.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nay.

The motion passes.

Thank you so much.

Uh we do have uh, come out and talk to us in a town hall.

We do have a in governmental affairs monthly update as of April 30, 2026.

I recommend you guys go and read that.

And on that notes, we adjourn.

I would like to note her behavior and her refusal to follow any of your discussions with a formal complaint.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

I hope you enjoy having sided with war criminals.

So you don't care about internet.