Everett Community Health & Safety Committee Meeting – February 4, 2026
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Everett City Council Community Health & Safety Committee Meeting – February 4, 2026
The Community Health & Safety Committee of the Everett City Council met on February 4, 2026, at 5:00 PM in City Council Chambers. Committee members present: Councilmembers Bader (chair), Tuohy, and Weir. The committee received two presentations and discussed future agenda items.
Discussion Items
1. Automated Traffic Safety Camera Program Update City Traffic Engineer Corey Hertz presented an update on the city's automated traffic safety cameras, including red light and school speed zone cameras. Key data:
- At Horizon Elementary School zone, crashes dropped from ~25 per year (prior to 2023) to 9 in 2024, with a projected 19 in 2025 (based on three quarters of data).
- Violations in the school zone decreased from 2,977 in May 2024 to 869 in October 2025, an expected 85% drop.
- Red light camera locations (16th & Broadway, Rucker & 41st, 112th & Evergreen, etc.) showed significant crash reductions, e.g., 7th & Everett Mallway from 11 crashes (2023-2024 combined) to a projected 4 in 2025.
- Program proceeds in 2025 totaled $2.23 million against $1.08 million in expenses, leaving $1.15 million for traffic safety investments.
- Planned investments: enforcement overtime, education campaigns, capital improvements (electrical service upgrades, new flashing beacons at Hawthorne and Challenger elementary schools, enhanced pedestrian crossing at 13th & Colby), and staffing (transportation maintenance tech, court commissioner).
- An ordinance update will be brought forward to align with state law changes (RCW updates in 2024-2025), allowing speed enforcement in additional zones (school walk zones, parks, hospitals, work zones, high-crash areas) and increasing maximum fines to $145 (adjustable for inflation). Hertz noted no immediate plan to expand the camera program.
- Councilmembers asked about time-of-day violation patterns (peak afternoon), the use of electronic speed warning signs, and the possibility of higher fines for repeat violators.
2. Car Licensing (Tabs) Information and Discussion Deputy Chief Hendrickson presented on traffic enforcement philosophy and data. He emphasized the department’s focus on the "Vision Zero" goal of eliminating traffic fatalities, with enforcement priorities on speeding, impaired driving, distracted driving, and reckless driving.
- Traffic stops increased 17% in 2024 and 12% in 2025. Fatalities dropped from 17 in 2024 to a preliminary 7 in 2025.
- Expired registration tickets increased 86% in 2024 and 13% in 2025. Parking enforcement tickets for expired tabs/plates increased 118% in 2024 and 18% in 2025.
- In 2025, 375 vehicles were impounded for missing plates or expired tabs, with outreach to occupants (CARES team) before impoundment.
- Councilmember Bader raised questions about revenue impact of unlicensed vehicles – staff noted the city’s Transportation Benefit District includes a $20 car tab fee for road repaving, so unpaid tabs affect that revenue. Jennifer (staff) said she would investigate further.
- Councilmember Weir asked about impoundments of vehicles used as shelter; Hendrickson confirmed outreach is done to avoid impounding occupied vehicles unless there is a public safety or health risk.
Future Agenda Items and Next Steps
The committee discussed pending items for future agendas:
- A tour of the Snohomish County Jail (requested by Councilmember Tuohy, left over from previous year).
- A presentation from the Snohomish Health District on health topics (possibly vaccinations in late summer/fall) and food vendor permitting.
- An update on transitional and cold weather shelter (timed for fall/winter).
- An ordinance on fentanyl exposure penalties (Councilmember Bader said staff aims to bring it later in February for three readings).
- Other items: CPTED tools for homeowners, Mayor’s Youth Violence Directive, transportation safety, crime statistics annual briefing, streetside vendors licensing.
No formal votes were taken; the meeting adjourned.
Meeting Transcript
Phone and go ahead and start the meeting here. I think we're ready to go. Uh uh Jennifer and Corey, I think you you guys are already okay and I think we're ready down here. Um now we're getting feedback. Let's see if we got that solved. We good. Okay, we're good. Okay, very good. I just want to make sure we were good. Okay, so we're calling to order the community health and safety council uh Everett City Council Committee meeting. Um Scott Bader, uh I'm chairing meeting today. Uh but we do have uh all three uh committee members and uh Erica, if you want to state your name for the record. Um Erica Weir. Right. And then online. Judy. Can you hear me? Just fine, Judy. Yes. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Dewey, yes. And Councilmember Weir, thanks for joining us here. Or uh we have two items on our agenda today. Uh automated traffic safety camera program update and uh car licensing tabs information and discussion as well. So uh we're gonna go ahead and start that in our first report. I think uh uh Corey, our city traffic engineer is gonna take the lead on that one. So whenever you're ready, I can stall further if you're thank you, council member. Uh yeah, just one moment here while I get it up on the problem. See if I get this. We're good. We're sharing. So oh, outstanding. Great. Stop. All right. Well, thank you, council member, for the opportunity to come speak to the community health and safety committee. Uh I'm Corey Hertz, City Traffic Engineer. Uh tonight I'm going to talk a little bit about our automated uh traffic safety camera, which uh includes some red light and school speed zone photo enforcement. So I think uh most of the members of the committee have seen uh a version of this slide before. Um our school speed zone is at Horizon Elementary. There's two cameras, one at the 400 block of Casino Road uh for eastbound and westbound at the 100 block near Casino Square. Here's the crash history. Uh, which uh one of one of the issues with crash history is it takes time, it goes down to the the police reports go down to the State Department of Transportation, they enter them. Um then that information is uh is retrieved by um our crash uh software provider uh MS2. So there's a little bit of a lag there, usually about four months behind. But um what we can what we can say is uh in Horizon Elementary School zones positive to date uh prior in 2023 and uh prior, we install uh we we had about 25 crashes every year for the previous five years. And uh we we made the system operational in uh in 2024 and crashes immediately dropped to nine. We have seen uh a slight rebound in 2025 crashes. Uh you see in the black that we've had uh 15 of them through three quarters of the of the year with uh uh a projected uh 19 crashes for the year.
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