Hello.

Well, let me get this meeting started.

We had a quick um change of events.

Um council member Nan um is not feeling well, and so she asked me to chair the meeting today.

So I will get our um the public safety planning, human services and personnel committee um meeting underway.

Um this is for September 15th, it's 4 30 p.m.

And present today we have council members Vivian Olsen, Michelle Dotch and Chris Eck here along with myself.

And I don't have the packet up quite yet, but I will get there.

Um but first up we have and is to have the proposed interlocal agreement regarding the Linwood Neighborhood Center um from the municipal court.

And with that, we have Omar Gamez here to speak to it.

Mr.

Gomez, Gamez, sorry, Gamas, I know who you are.

Good afternoon, everybody.

This is my first um presentation to the council in the meeting like this.

So uh bear with me if I don't have the proper uh uh words or ways of doing things, but uh we're just gonna go with it.

Um we're fairly involved here.

So you um it's it's typically first names, so or whatever you're most comfortable with at that point.

But please thank you.

Um and you need my join us too in case there's questions that I might not be able to answer that are um more on her uh line of questioning.

Um she might be joining us here in a second.

Um so uh basically uh the the little history behind it, um we've had community court at different locations.

Um we've had it at the Swedish hospital at one point um that was free to us and it was within the city of Edmonds.

We then moved it to um the health clinics on 99, um, and then our neighborhood center um when we had it for a couple months there as well.

So um since that closure, we've been uh really actively looking for another location that would um uh meet all of our needs that we were looking for.

And it took us uh a while to find the right um space.

Um and I think we're finally almost there.

Um, and then that's the Linwood uh neighborhood center.

Uh we twered it, a couple of us went and met with them.

Um it has everything that we were looking for, uh, not just location, but also what it provides to the community and to a lot of our folks that um are needing to access resources, and that's already a place where a lot of those rose resources already exist.

Um, and that's what it's for.

You know, it's meant for a place of gathering and for them to connect um with the child care there, they have um health services, all of those different things that they may be able to also tap into while they're there, right?

Um the location is beautiful, it meets uh, you know, like I said, all of our needs and and mostly location-wise, right?

Um it's a lot easier to get to for a lot of our folks, um clients and attorneys and everybody involved uh right off of 99 on that main corridor with a lot of buses, you know, um and transportation and stuff like that.

So um that was our our main um, you know, uh key point.

Um so for that, you know, we did a little bit of research and um you know, other cities and counties around the state already have something um set up like this where um you know they offer these uh court events at um either city libraries or things like that, but uh sometimes they're not in their actual city, right?

In their jurisdiction.

Um so with this, we did a little bit of research, like I said, and um, you know, it does require some kind of agreement between the cities because we are now telling our folks to, hey, next quarter day you're gonna go into this location, which is just right side uh outside of our of our city, but it does uh kind of um step foot on that um jurisdiction uh of Linwood.

Um so with that we just want to make sure that uh both cities are in agreement that it's okay for that to happen just so we don't have any legal issues down the road uh with any defendants and stuff that might try to use that, you know, like well uh I don't have to go there because it's not admitting that kind of thing.

Um we're not um asking, you know, any um anything from Linwood, that there's no um payments going through from city to city or anything.

It's already um, you know, their own nonprofit agency that runs it.

So um, you know, there's no uh money being you know um involved there within the cities or anything like that.

So it's just basically more of a formal agreement between the cities that it's okay for us to operate uh within their um you know city umbrella kind of thing, but not anything to do with them.

We don't need them for anything.

Um just just to give us the blessing of having it there.

Okay.

Does anybody have any questions for Mr.

Gamus?

Okay.

Um my only question is oh go ahead, Vivian.

Okay, this was before I could go second.

Um I just wanted to um ask because um there was sort of an illusion that maybe there was another agreement with the Linwood um neighborhood center that um is this um gonna be an expense that um council's expecting to come back, or um is this just another way that the neighborhood center is serving in the community?

Or if you don't want to.

I was just gonna say this is this has to do with some of the legal issues that might be drawn up on a case if jurisdictionally were hearing cases in another city versus ours.

So this is truly just to help with issues that may occur down the line if somebody says, I don't need to abide by that order because the judge didn't have an agreement that they could be a judge within that city.

So this really doesn't have to do with any of like using it as a vendor space or any other conditions that the city might have with the neighborhood center.

This is just to deal with criminal cases going before a judge in another city.

That's truly what it is.

I I do appreciate that.

There was um something in the agenda memo or um document, I don't remember which, but it sounded like there might still be another separate agreement with the Linwood Center.

And I didn't, I was just curious um whether there was going to be a cost impact to the city that we'd be seeing in the budget.