We can conduct a business this evening.

Our first item of business is parks, property acquisition.

City manager.

Okay.

Thank you, Deputy Marinald.

So just wanted to make a comment about the special meeting tonight, as you said, is so that we could take action.

With the exception of this topic that we're about to cover, each of the other topics on the special meeting have come before the council before.

And if the council doesn't finish by the end of the special meeting, they can carry forward to the regular meeting.

So but as a reminder, we cannot add items to the agenda of a special meeting.

So if you finish a little early, just have a little bit of extra time for dinner.

So I just wanted to cover that in some.

But our first property acquisition does have a deadline, so we have to look for council action tonight, debate and discussion.

And so I heard I gave you that presentation as our planning and development manager for parks, Mariah Murphy, to make the presentation.

Welcome, Raya.

Oops.

Your mic is not on there.

Hello.

Okay.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

I'm excited to talk to you about a potential uh acquisition opportunity and abutting our Juanita Bay Park.

I have a map here on the screen.

So the highlighted uh parcel here is the parcel we're going to be discussing tonight.

Um it is one of two privately owned parcels nestled amongst our parkland.

So I have a pointer here.

Our park plan extends from the bay where the lake is here up Forbes Creek, and then kind of nestled around these parcels.

And then it actually crosses the Forbes Creek Drive here.

We have uh Juanita Bay East and then Crestwoods Park down here where we have Kirkland Middle School and then to orient you we have the the elementary school here.

Um so it's very well located.

Here's a closer image where you can see again the highlighted parcel that we are discussing tonight.

The property is on the market for or our offer to purchase the property is for 1.275 million dollars.

Um this is an acre and a half of uh mostly undeveloped, so there is a single family residence and a detached garage.

Um both buildings were built around 1930, mostly original construction, um, three bedrooms, one bathroom.

And uh the for the parks standpoint, the properties of value.

Um, like I said, it's one and a half uh acres, and it is bounded by mostly critical areas.

So we have a stream along the um western property line and the northern property line.

Uh so Forbes Creek abuts it on the north, and then there's an unnamed stream on the on the west.

Um, and so you actually have a lot of critical area buffers that extend onto the property.

Um sorry, um and then there are uh associated wetland complexes as well as well.

Um so this property is of high value to the parks department, both for its ecological um value and because it has several high retention value trees on the property.

Um there are several that are probably over a hundred years old, which um this next slide you can actually see in 1936.

You can see the shadows from two, a cedar here and a and a fir tree that you can actually see in this image.

Uh these trees have well over 26 inch DBHs and are located within the stream buffer, which gives them that high retention value that we assign our trees.

We do have plans for the property in the short term.

Um the seller will be completing limited improvements to dwellings to prepare them for leasing.

Um this will allow a limited um and short-term revenue stream to help cover the costs of maintenance.

Um reduced because it abuts one of our existing natural parks, Juanita Bay Park.

Um, so that does give it a higher priority again for acquisitions from the parks perspective.

Um there is obvious some obviously some tree maintenance that we'd like to do to again further protect those high value trees, um, and then we'd start leasing those dwelling units um early in 2026 and continue to maintain the property.

In the midterm, um we plan to build community gardens in the backyard.

Um here is a slide that shows the backyard behind the garage where there's a sunny open space that we would like to place our community gardens.

We'd start out with about 3,000 square feet of community gardens or 20 20 plots.

And the image on the left, there is McCauliffe Park, just showing an example where we do have an existing park with leases.

Excuse me, and community gardens.

Excuse me.

Should we take two minutes?

Do you want to take it from here?

No worries.

John, you can take it from here if you want.

Sorry.

Um responding.