The Kirkland City Council held a regular meeting on October 18, 2022, beginning with a study session on the Parks Special Event Policy at 5:30 p.m., followed by the regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. Deputy Mayor Jay Arnold presided in the absence of Mayor Penny Sweet. The meeting included a special presentation by a local student inventor, a COVID-19 update, approval of consent calendar items and several ordinances, discussion on business license amendments, utility rates, 2023 state legislative priorities, and a fiscal note for a Park Lane study. Public comment was heard on various topics including Imagine Housing concerns and opposition to the Park Lane study.
2022. The mayor is unable to attend this meeting, so as deputy mayor, I will be presiding. Tonight's meeting is a hybrid meeting. Community members are welcome to join us either in person or remotely through Zoom or by phone. Before asking the clerk to call the role for tonight's regular meeting, is there a motion to excuse Mayor Sweet? So moved. Second. It's been moved by Councilmember Curtis. All right, moved by Councilmember Falcon, seconded by Councilmember Curtis to excuse Mayor Sweet from tonight's meeting. Any discussion? All in favor, signified by saying aye. Aye, hi. Aye. Any opposed? The motion is approved. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Nixon. Here. Council Member Black. Here. Council Member Curtis. Here. Council Member Falcone. Here. Council Member Pascal. Here. Deputy Mayor. Here. Thank you. Our study session tonight is on a parks special events policy update. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at approximately 7 30 p.m. City Manager. Thank you, Deputy Marnold. So as you said, tonight's event discussion is the special events policy. Before I begin, we just want to acknowledge that special events are complex. There are a lot of perspectives on all the issues we're going to talk about tonight, and there are many stakeholders involved the residents, the community businesses, and the people who visit and attend the events. So what we're looking for tonight is not action. We're looking for council input and direction, and also if there's additional information that the council needs before we can proceed to final action in the future. So with that as the perspective, I'm going to turn this over to Lynn's Wagstra, our parks and community services director for introductory remarks. Lynn. Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Deputy Mayor and Council. As you know, I'm Lynn Sfogstra, and I'm the director of parks and community services. We're talking about special events, and Kurt just gave us a wonderful introduction to that. Hoping we'll get the PowerPoint up shortly. One of the things that we thought we'd start with this evening is just a quick reminder as to why we do special events. There's a lot of reasons, but one of the primary reasons is the entertainment and engagement of the community. Events are often offered specifically for community building. Events are also offered to drive traffic to Kirkland businesses and for the economic impact. On that note, I'm gonna hand it over to John to cover the next subject.