The Kirkland City Council held a special meeting on December 9, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. in the City Council Chamber to consider six major agenda items. All votes were unanimous (7-0). The meeting was called to order by Mayor Kelli Curtis and adjourned at 6:36 p.m. Key actions included authorizing the Kraken Iceplex and Community Center project, adopting a Homelessness Continuum of Care Action Plan, approving year-end budget adjustments, updating the Capital Improvement Program, approving sports field lighting at Lake Washington High School, and adopting Critical Area Code Amendments.
Thank you. Good afternoon. It's early. I'd like to call to order the city council special meeting of December 9th, 2025. And before we get started, I just want to thank everyone, staff and council for their hard work over the last few weeks and days. City Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Tim Chizon. Here. Councilmember Black. Here. Councilmember Sweet. Here. Mayor Curtis. Here. Councilmember Falcone? Here. Councilmember Pascal. Here. Deputy Mayor Arnold. Here. Well present. Thank you. All right. Our first business item is Kraken Ice Plex and Community Center Project Agreements. City Manager. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Deputy Mayor, members of the Council. So we're going to turn this over to our Deputy City Manager of External Affairs, Jim Lopez, and our City Attorney Darcy Eilers. Uh, two quick things I want to say. Um, first is we did not intentionally invite the Kraken themselves to be at this presentation because we wanted the council to be able to evaluate all the agreements and ask us any questions. Um but we want to know we would not have been able to make this without them. And so we just want to especially thank Lad Slopes from the Kraken and their attorney Jennifer Cohen. Um they've been extraordinary partners for the last six months, and it's been a real pleasure to work with them. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to our presentation team, and they have a lot more to share with you. Thank you, City Manager, uh, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council. It's uh my uh privilege to be before you tonight. Um multi-year body of work, and uh it's a great privilege to be next to our city attorney Darcy Eilers and our economic development manager, Jen Davis Hayes, who joined me in this presentation. We're back, as promised, uh, to provide you what would with what we feel is a mature group of um agreements that uh embody the council's interests in this deal, and we are prepared to talk about them in in detail. We are going to focus on three things tonight, but please know we're here for questions about any of the elements of any of the agreements or the deal. We thought it would be fun to start with the notion that it takes a village to build an iceplex. And this is uh a good effort at all of the folks that have um participated in this endeavor, including um the Seattle Kraken team and our office architectural team and uh consultants. But heartfelt and deep thank thank uh full nest to our staff. They're listed here, and um it's been a wonderful example of something that we really pride ourselves on here at the city, which is cross-departmental collaboration. And it's these groups are uh invigorating, the folks are so smart, and the the way people interact uh is really inspirational to be a part of. So uh heartfelt thank you to all of the folks and before you move out of this slide. I also want to note that um John Delanoy, our outside of counsel from Pacifica is online tonight. He wasn't able uh to make it in person, but is available online and and we had a uh major uh assistance from Pacifica, a number of attorneys there. John Delanoy, Deanna Gregory, our bond counsel, she participated, and Zach Tomlinson is one of our one of their procurement um uh specialists who helped us uh sort of frame this partnership, and so I want to express my uh thanks to them. And I'm so glad that John's here tonight to um help us uh bring this to you as of as our you know presentation for potential final approval.