Kirkland City Council Regular Meeting – May 19, 2026
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Kirkland City Council Regular Meeting – May 19, 2026
The Kirkland City Council held a study session at 5:30 p.m. followed by a regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. The meeting covered utility rate frameworks, the Cascade Water Supply Plan, affordable housing requirements, a housing dashboard update, an ESRI parking map pilot, and annual boards and commissions recruitment. Council also approved consent calendar items, adopted proclamations, and directed staff on minimum wage and wastewater rate letters.
Study Session
- Kirkland Utility Rates 101 Overview: Deputy City Manager Tracey Dunlap presented the fundamentals of the city's four enterprise funds (water, sewer, surface water, solid waste), which have a combined annual budget of $90 million. She explained rate revenue requirements, cost-of-service analysis, and fiscal policies impacting reserves and capital funding. Council discussed utility affordability, the Kirkland CARES program, and the need to coordinate with other utility districts serving the city. Preliminary rate proposals are expected in August 2026, with adoption in October 2026.
- Cascade Water Alliance – Cascade Supply Plan (CSP) Briefing No. 1: Cascade staff (Melina Thung, Brian Bartle, James Amspacher) provided an overview of the CSP, a multi-phase, $1.13–1.35 billion program to shift water supply from Seattle to Tacoma starting around 2040. Key elements include a 20–25 mile transmission pipeline, storage tank, re-chlorination facility, and eventual Lake Taps development. Council asked about water quality comparisons, partnership opportunities with other jurisdictions, and the impact on future water rates. An additional briefing is scheduled for June 16, 2026.
Honors and Proclamations
- Older Americans Month Proclamation and AARP Age-Friendly Certificate: Councilmember Falcone read the proclamation. Joyce Stone, Chair of the Kirkland Senior Council, accepted it and honored the late Kathy Iverson. Marguerite Ro, AARP Washington State Director, presented the Official Enrollment Certificate to the Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities.
- Mental Health Awareness Month Proclamation: Councilmember Arnold read the proclamation. Katelyn Mullikin, Youth Eastside Services Mental Health Counselor, accepted it and highlighted the Kirkland Teen Union Building (K-TUB), where she provides free mental health services to 30–40 teens annually.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Alycia Ramirez (virtual): Urged the council to raise Kirkland's minimum wage, noting that 40% of renters are cost-burdened and neighboring cities like Seattle and Burien have adopted higher wages.
- Veronica Shakotko (Master Builders Association): Requested the council consider four alternatives to the affordable housing fee methodology: exempting non-heated spaces, increasing the square footage exemption to 2,500 square feet, crediting replaced home square footage, and deferring fee payment until certificate of occupancy.
- Sushmita Srikant (virtual): Questioned the interview selection process for the Cultural Arts Commission after her application did not result in an interview, noting her community involvement and desire for transparency.
- Loita Hawkinson: Discussed the Neighborhood Safety Program (NSP) funding for Moss Bay and Norkirk projects, suggesting that projects funded above $75,000 should forgo the following year's participation.
- Alex Tsimerman: Criticized the city's treatment of him and called for responses to previous questions.
Discussion Items
- Affordable Housing Requirements in Low-Density Residential Zones (Check-In): Planning Director Adam Weinstein reviewed the adopted 2,000 sq. ft. threshold for in-lieu fees and presented alternatives. After debate, Council voted 4-3 (Falcone, Pascal, Prem, Tymczyszyn in favor; Curtis, Black, Arnold opposed) to direct staff to bring back code language increasing the threshold to 2,500 sq. ft., consistent with the Planning Commission recommendation. Council also supported deferring payment until certificate of occupancy and declined to change exemptions for garages or rebuilds. Staff will return with a surgical code amendment.
- Housing Dashboard Update: Senior Planner Scott Guter highlighted the city's housing dashboard features, noting that over 70% of permitted units since 2023 are multifamily (5+ units) and that middle housing permits have trended upward since 2020. A new collaboration with the University of Washington's Housing Futures Center will enable real-time permit tracking, freeing staff for performance-based analysis.
- ESRI Parking Map Viewer Pilot Project: Senior Transportation Planner Kimberly Scrivner demonstrated an internally built parking map using existing sensor data, offering live occupancy, ADA, EV, and bike parking symbols. The map is optimized for mobile browsers and will be launched this summer with QR codes and signage. Council praised the accessible design and suggested adding bus and transit information in the future.
- 2026 Boards and Commissions Annual Recruitment: Interview Selection Committee members (Deputy Mayor Black, Councilmembers Falcone and Prem) presented their recommended interview candidates and schedule. Councilmember Pascal moved to add Ken Oberman to the Planning Commission and Sushmita Srikant to the Cultural Arts Commission. The question was divided: the Planning Commission addition failed 2-5; the Cultural Arts Commission addition passed 4-3. The amended slate was then approved 7-0.
Key Outcomes
- Approved consent calendar (7-0), including payroll ($7,609,246.96), bills ($5,187,799.70), the Essential Facilities Standby Power Project award ($765,000 to Regency NW Construction), and multiple proclamations and reports.
- Directed staff to increase the affordable housing square footage threshold from 2,000 to 2,500 sq. ft. (4-3).
- Approved sending a letter to the King County Council regarding 2027 wastewater treatment rates, amended to urge a significantly lower increase rather than a specific 10.75% target (7-0).
- Approved Option C for the minimum wage study: allocate budget for a literature review of peer city experiences (including those that adopted or considered minimum wages) with findings in 2–3 months, and a deliverable describing a deeper-dive scope (7-0).
- Approved sending a letter to King County Council expressing concerns about proposed 2027 wastewater rate increases (7-0, as amended).
- Accepted the Interview Selection Committee's candidate list and schedule as amended (adding Sushmita Srikant to Cultural Arts Commission) (7-0).
- Assigned public hearing for modifications to Ordinance O-4905 (square footage threshold) to the City Council itself (7-0).
- Selected Deputy Mayor Black as official delegate for the May 28 Puget Sound Regional Council General Assembly.
- Received reports from regional and committee representatives, including updates on the Eastside Transportation Partnership, Taylor Fields ribbon cutting, Conversations with Council, Crisis Care Clinic siting success, and the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board grant program.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Um I'd like to call to order the city council meeting of May eighteen nineteenth, two thousand twenty-six, before asking the clerk to call a roll for tonight's regular meeting. I'd like to note that Councilmember Pascal will be joining us late for our study session. He expects to arrive around 6 p.m. City Clerk. Councilmember Tim Chisholm. Councilmember Arnold. Here. Councilmember Prem. Here. Councilmember Felcone? Here. Deputy Mayor Black. Here. Mayor Curtis. Here. Our study session tonight is on two items. We will hear an overview of the Kirkland utility rates first. Second, we will have our briefing on the Cascade Water Alliance of the Cascade on the Cascade Supply Plan. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7:30. Deputy City Manager. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, uh Deputy Mayor and Council members. This is somewhat unprecedented for the public's purposes. In his 15 years, um, he's in Greece on vacation. Um and so tonight I actually have the distinction of being acting city manager, but also doing the first presentation for the study session. And so um my apologies in advance, it's a little bit of a lecture. There are actually fair number of slides, but I will move through it quickly because some of that was really for um you to be able to take a look at in advance. And they're just um some policy issues, particularly in the middle of the presentation, that we wanted to highlight because it'll be coming back to you as we bring rates back. I also wanted to introduce Jenny Gauss, who is our surface water strategic advisor, but she's also helping shepherd the rate study while um Carly Jorger is on maternity leave and she's doing a great job keeping everybody aligned, and so you will be seeing more of Jenny as we bring these rate items further. Um to basically start, um, why we're doing this now is to basically provide you a framework in advance of a number of rate decisions that are forthcoming. Um, and we'll be bringing that to you over several months, also while we're starting to roll out the budget process. So we just wanted to have everybody to have a foundation and you don't talk about rates in detail every year the way you talk about other topics. So we just wanted to give everybody a good starting point. So I'm gonna do a little background. I'm gonna talk about the key pieces of the rate study, which are rate revenue requirements and the cost of service, and then we'll just give a high overview of the rate study schedule, which you'll start seeing in the coming months. So the basics regarding utilities is that most municipal utilities are enterprise funds, and what that means is they're intended to stand alone. They're not intended to be tax supported, and in fact, they are taxed like separate utilities. They generate a tax to the general fund. Um funds have to be used for the benefit of the ratepayers, and um you can't use utility funds for non-utility purposes. However, they can reimburse the share of central services, so HR and finance and the city attorney. Um again, they also generate revenue to the general fund because we tax them like we tax other utilities. So, with that as a basic context, we just wanted to run through really quickly a few facts about our utilities. We have four utilities that are operated by the city: water, sewer, surface water, and solid waste. And I'll talk just a little bit about each one. But it's important to know their annual budgets combined are $90 million, and so they are a very large piece of the budget, and it's something that doesn't always get the kind of attention that that the tax side does. So we for water, Cascade Water Alliance, who you'll hear from um later in the study session, that makes up about 38% of those costs, and the city does all the distribution and delivery um of that water. But the important thing here is that our water utility only serves the southern part of the city. It's about 55 to 60 percent of the city, um, roughly south of 124th Street and east of 98th Avenue. And the other customers are served primarily by North Shore Utility District, but there are also a number of other providers on on the edges.
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