This study session convened at 7:03 PM on October 14, 2025, with all council members present. The council discussed four major items: the city's 2026 state legislative agenda, adoption of the 2025–2050 Fire Department Functional Plan, quarterly Capital Investment Program (CIP) project updates, and council talk time. Key decisions included approving edits to the legislative agenda, directing staff to incorporate planning commission recommendations into the fire plan, and scheduling a dedicated study session on the Evans Creek restoration project.
Thank you. I'm calling this meeting to order. This is a Redmond City Council study session held on Tuesday, October 14th, 2025, commencing at 7.03 p.m. All council members are in attendance. There are four items on the agenda tonight. City of Redmond 2026 legislative agenda, adoption of the 2025-2050 fire department functional plan capital investment program project updates for Q3 2025 and council talk time. The first item is the City of Redmond 2026 state legislative agenda. And Amy Side, Chief Policy Officer will introduce the item. Great. Thank you very much. Good evening, Council. So Amy Sai, Chief Policy Advisor. And with me online, I have Amina Tiore. She is part of the stellar team that Brianna Murray has for Gordon Thomas Honeywell. We are very well represented at the state legislature with their team, so really pleased that she's able to join us today. Brianna is out, and so she is uh pinch hitting. Um, hopefully with as much success as the Mariners have had with their pinch hitting. Uh so I'm gonna go ahead and start um Amina's gonna kick us off with a brief overview of the upcoming legislative session, and then I will go over the most recent changes to the state legislative agenda draft that you all saw, and then we'll take that opportunity for feedback and discussion. So, Amina, if you would like to lead us off with that. Of course. Uh thank you, Amy. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, you all may previously know me as Amina Abdallah. I am now Amina Tiori, as Amy indicated. I got married this summer. So it's um great to be here with you guys today. I'm going to provide a really brief recap of the legislative session, and then I'll pass it on to Amy to go over the city's legislative agenda. But just um really quickly, the 2026 legislative session will begin on the second Monday of January. So we're looking at January 12th of 2026. As a reminder, the legislature operates on a two-year cycle, and the 2026 session will be the second year of that cycle. And as a result, it is scheduled to be a short 60-day session. This year there isn't really a major legislative election. So the political makeup of the legislature is gonna be about the same as um last session. So Democrats will continue to control both chambers. As a second year of the biennium, all bills introduced in 2025 that did not pass into law will automatically carry over remain under consideration in 2026. And additionally, one of the biggest components of the 2026 session is that the legislature will make adjustments to the biennial budgets adopted last session, last session, which governs spending from January 1st of 2025 through June 30th of 2027. During the 2026 session, legislators will modify these budgets to account for changing revenue collections and pragmatic priorities. In the last economic revenue forecast meeting in September, we learned that the legislature has collected less revenue than expected, meaning they will face significant significant deficit in the operating budget during a mid-biennial adjustments. After the short 60-day session, all members of the House of Representatives and half of the Senate will be up for reelection. Traditionally, this means that in short legislative sessions, the legislature shies away from controversial issues that will go in effect slash become law while they're simultaneously campaigning for office. And as the general rule of thumb, short legislative sessions tend to have less controversial issues and tend to focus on making adjustments to policies that were enacted in the first year of the biennium. With that, I will pass it back to Amy to go over your 2026 draft legislative agenda. Great, thank you, Amina. Um, so to to recap that there's less money. It's a short session, and it's times are gonna be really tough and tight. So for I I have a screen share of your agenda packet, uh speaking to page seven, and I'm going to walk you through the changes since the committee of the whole meeting on September 9th. And this was in response to your terrific feedback. So again, thank you so much for having your guidance and the policy direction that I hope is manifesting in the latest iteration of this draft. Um, so the front page is not in track changes because it changed extensively in response to your feedback. Um, and so I'll go over those and then the rest of the pages will show actual track changes.