The Kirkland City Council held a study session starting at 5:30 p.m. followed by a regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. on May 7, 2024. The study session covered council operations policies (travel guidelines, special projects reserve, items from the audience rules, and council coin) and a proposed resolution (R-5631) on homelessness. The regular meeting included honors, proclamations, special presentations, a consent calendar, and business items on a sustainability ambassador program, miscellaneous code amendments, support for King County Metro's RapidRide K Line, and the annual striping program. All votes were 7-0. The meeting adjourned at 10:30 p.m. after an executive session on potential litigation.
I like public posts. May 2024. Tonight is a hybrid meeting. Committee members are welcome to join us either in person or remotely through Zoom or the telephone. Clerk, will you please call roll? Councilmember Tim Chisholm. Present. Council Member Black. Here. Councilmember Sweet. Councilmember Falcon. Here. Council Member Cascill. Here. Deputy Mayor Arnold. Here. Mayor Curtis. Here. All right. Our study session tonight is on two topics. The first is on council operations. The second topic is a discussion on proposed resolution R 5631, declaring the city's commitment to addressing homelessness through a person-centered approach. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at approximately 7 30. Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. So uh just brief logistics. We also have this meeting going on up in the council chamber. So if we were to receive an overflow crowd, we do have uh process for moving people up and having them be able to watch from the from the larger venue if we need to. Uh so we're gonna shoot for about 45 minutes for each presentation. Uh obviously subject to the flexibility of the council. Our first topic is council operations. This was as the council recalls a topic we were gonna take up in the retreat. We ended up having a very fruitful discussion on many other topics or so we pushed this to a study session. Uh what we're looking for here is council feedback on potential proposed changes uh to council uh policies and procedures, and we'll be bringing back action later, but tonight we're just really looking for that feedback. So uh to walk us through the beginning of this is Deputy City Manager Operations, Julie Underwood, and I'll be chiming in as well. Good evening, council. Um the first item to review with you. Well done. Is um a proposed uh policy for training and travel. Uh the council shall establish an annual training and travel budget for each council member. The amount allocated to each council member would happen really at the biennial budget process. Each council member has a discretion to use their individual travel and training budget, of course, as long as it complies with city policy and codes. Expenditures shall be deducted from the individual allocation, so we'll find a a way to track that. Remaining balances will be um, as I mentioned, tracked by the city manager's office and an individual council members' annual allocation once it's expended. Um council members may not seek uh reimbursement for any additional travel. So once that allocation is used, um, it is used for that year. However, expenses for the AWC action days in Olympia shall be uh separately budgeted for all council members, and we will not count as that part of the individual um allocation. Uh I know some of you wondered hey how have you done in your travel. So we provided here is about seven years of data as you can see. Um generally you underspend in both your travel and training budgets. We did bump up um travel and training you'll see in 2023 because we're coming out of COVID.