Edmonds City Council Regular Meeting Summary — January 27, 2026
Edmonds City Council Regular Meeting — January 27, 2026
The Edmonds City Council met at 6:00 p.m. on January 27, 2026, in Council Chambers and via Zoom. The council approved the consent calendar, continued the 84th Avenue Street Vacation public hearing to March 10, adopted Ordinance 4429 restructuring council meetings/committees/study sessions, and approved sunsetting Resolution 1543. A motion to remove the ECC 1.04 item from the agenda failed 3–4, after which the agenda was approved. The meeting was adjourned at 8:34 p.m.
Consent Calendar
- No members of the public spoke during the initial audience-comment period.
- Received for filing: written public comments for the January 27 meeting and signed affirmations of the Council Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics.
- Consent agenda approved unanimously, including: minutes from Jan. 13, Jan. 15, and Jan. 20 meetings; claim checks; payroll and benefit checks/direct deposits; Amendment 1 to the WSDOT ILA for the Highway 99 Stage 3 project; the Caspers Street speed-limit reduction ordinance revision; the Executive Assistant to City Council employment agreement; the Lynnwood Jail contract; the 2026 First Responder Flex Fund agreement; and authorization to call bids for the Wastewater Treatment Plant truck enclosure and air scrubber.
- Mayor’s Finance Update was acknowledged; council was referred to the prior week’s budget briefing.
Public Hearing — 84th Avenue Street Vacation
- City engineer Mike Dalila and acting engineering program manager Jennifer Lambert presented the staff recommendation. A portion of 84th Ave W near SR 104/Highway 99 was proposed for vacation; staff recommended continuing the hearing because deed/title sequencing, reversionary-clause research, appraisals, and noticing were still being completed.
- Applicant Sean Leiser spoke in support, presenting parcel history and arguing the vacation is in the public interest. He cited about 225 police responses in the last five years, over $150,000 in property stolen, and ongoing dumping/camping/traffic issues; he said the appraisal would be updated and redevelopment would add tax revenue.
- Public testimony: Several nearby residents supported the vacation, citing long-standing dumping and illegal activity. A representative of Campbell Volkswagen/Nissan said he did not want to lose the existing curb-cut access. A resident of the adjacent Edmonds Greenery condos supported cleaning up the area but was concerned about the possible commercial rezoning and property-tax effects. One speaker attempted to raise a separate Lynnwood wastewater-treatment cost-sharing issue; the mayor noted the hearing was limited to the street vacation.
- Council voted unanimously to continue the public hearing to March 10, 2026, when additional information and testimony will be taken. Council then asked staff for future schematic images showing access/turnaround impacts and raised questions about utility easements, long-term maintenance costs, emergency access, and precedent for future Highway 99 right-of-way vacations.
Council Business — Jacobs On-Call Services Contract
- Public Works presented a proposed $500,000 sole-source on-call engineering services contract with Jacobs for the wastewater treatment plant’s liquid side. The director said the plant lacks accurate as-builts and an updated operations/maintenance manual, and deferred maintenance needs to be addressed. No action was requested; a better council memo and future decision will follow.
- Council discussed funds from the wastewater utility/CIP, likely ongoing on-call engineering costs of roughly $250,000–$300,000 per year, and the need to clearly define the scope of work.
Council Business — Satisfied and Sunset Resolution 1543
- Sheila Cloney, president of the Edmonds Business Improvement District, presented the BID’s recommendation that the expectations in Resolution 1543 have been satisfied.
- Council unanimously approved the BID recommendation and directed staff to formally sunset Resolution 1543. Council noted this sunset does not dissolve the BID itself.
Council Business — Ordinance 4429 (Council Meetings, Committees, Study Sessions)
- A motion to remove the ordinance from the agenda failed 3–4.
- Council adopted an amendment changing the scheduled monthly study session from Thursday to Wednesday by a 5–2 vote.
- A motion to strike the study-session section (Section C) failed 3–4.
- Ordinance 4429 was adopted 5–2. It amends ECC 1.04 to revise council meeting, committee, and study-session provisions, including a standing second-Wednesday, 3:00–4:30 p.m. study session. Council President said she will seek council members’ committee preferences before making assignments.
Council Comments
- Councilmembers commented on Holocaust Remembrance Day, immigration/ICE enforcement and due-process concerns, the Seahawks’ Super Bowl berth, an Edmonds Arts Commission Wintergrass preview event, and an Association of Washington Cities visit. The student representative reminded the public of rights when encountering immigration enforcement.
Key Outcomes
- Agenda vote to remove Item 10.3 failed: 3–4; agenda approved unanimously.
- Consent agenda approved unanimously.
- 84th Ave Street Vacation hearing continued unanimously to March 10, 2026.
- Resolution 1543 sunset motion approved unanimously.
- Ordinance 4429 study-session day amendment approved 5–2.
- Motion to remove Section C failed 3–4.
- Ordinance 4429 adopted 5–2.
- Meeting adjourned at 8:34 p.m.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, and welcome to the Edmund City Council meeting for January January 27th. I will now call that meeting to order. Would you all please join me in the uh flag saloon? Which expands our nation under God, individual liberty and justice. Thank you. For the land acknowledgement, uh Councilmember Nan, please. Thank you. We acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Snohomish people, and their successors, the two tribes, who since time immemorial have hunted, fished, gathered, and taken care of these lands. We respect their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and we honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water. Thank you. Can we have a roll call, please? Councilmember Eck. Councilmember Chen? Councilmember Barnett. Council President Dutch. Here. Councilmember Olson. Here. Councilmember Payne. Councilmember Nand. You have a quorum, Mayor. Mayor Rosen. Thank you. Next item of business is approval of the agenda. It's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. I'd like to make a motion after this. Councilmember Olson. I'd like to remove or make a motion to remove the council business item three. Is there a second? Make her the motion. Further discussion on the motion to remove uh council business business item number three. Councilmember Nant. I am not in favor of this motion. We had four council members who were in favor of moving this forward to consent. However, um some of the dissenting council members did ask that this get put on council business. I don't think that further delaying um the majority of what this council's indicated that they would like to do in proceeding with um how we are going to approach our committee structure this year would be helpful or fruitful. We um with the council leadership, Council President Dosh and I have to go through and schedule items to come before committee, and right now we're scheduling under the old structure. And those items that we are putting on the extended agenda for future um consideration will not once this ordinance is passed, will have to be rescheduled. And I prefer that we create less confusion for our work in 2026, and we adopt the new structure that the majority of this council agreed with during our previous committee meeting, and then um start to schedule our council business that way. Thank you. Further discussion on the motion, Councilmember Payne. Thank you. And I apologize for being late. And we need to have our retreat in advance of any sort of set of study session items. We don't even know what this is going to be including. This is ad hoc committees are fine for, you know, you scramble them and then you let them go, but we need to have specifics that are directly related to our work plan before we start scheduling and changing our own code when we can go ahead and just schedule these meetings. I think that we need to have our retreat, decide our work plan, decide what topics, specifically topics that we need to apply to our study sessions. Don't object to study sessions. We can have those scheduled as needed. We don't need to change our code to do that.
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