On Tuesday, September 1, 2026, the Redmond City Council Committee of the Whole – Planning and Public Works convened at 4:30 PM to discuss 11 agenda items. The meeting included seven action items directed to the September 15 consent agenda, a new business item approving a fire grant, feedback for a September 22 study session on the Housing and Human Services Action Plan, and two informational items. All action items were recommended for approval without objection.
Tuesday, September 1st. Welcome back from the break, everyone. Uh, back to our regular regularly scheduled programming. We have a very busy agenda tonight. We have 11 items, so I'm gonna remind everyone to keep your remarks brief. And if you have a lot of questions, please um indicate to staff that you will be emailing your questions uh for follow-up. And we're gonna go ahead and kick it off tonight. We're gonna start with um items from other committees since this is on tonight's business meeting for new business, and we're gonna look at the FY24 assistance to firefighters grant program. And I will hand it on over. Excellent. Thank you. Uh good afternoon or evening, everyone. Thank you for allowing us to be here to participate in tonight's meeting. Uh, we're here asking for uh that you authorize the mayor to execute the first amendment amendment to the fiscal year 24 assistance to firefighters grant uh for joint peer support training program. Uh this grant provides the opportunity for Red and Fire to participate in a joint training uh to build out our peer support team uh with regional collaboration. So we are uh uh included in this grant today uh already is agencies uh from Bellevue, East Side Fire and Rescue, Kirkland Fire, and Shoreline Fire Department. Both Fire Department was originally a part of this grant and pulled out because they have a um they're in the process of a regional fire authority with shoreline fire, so it didn't make sense to have both of them in there with them removing themselves. It gave us the opportunity to come in and be part of the grant, um, which we look at as a huge thing as a regional uh uh provider of uh responding to critical incidents uh altogether uh and able to support each other. Uh this HG grant provides for instructional expenses expenses uh and OT that will allow members to attend 24 hours of initial training for new peer support members, uh 8.5 hours of online continued education for peer support members that exist today that are already in play, excuse me, and eight hours of training for regional practitioners um related to critical incident debriefings. Uh so it takes our team that currently exists today, makes it far more robust in numbers, and also uh provides for additional training, continued education for for those that are already members. Through this grant, over the next year and a half, Redmond will have the opportunity to provide uh uh 18 new members, initial training, uh 24 members that are exist existing peer support members, online continued education, and then additional 24 members are probably a combination of the two. Uh the critical incident debriefing training. So the that initial response right after the big event. This all goes in in concert with you've heard about our MHP program with Brooke Lunquist and Rader. This is a team that she oversees but operates with her in those uh during those times of need, whether it's uh for Redmond Fire Department, uh citywide across departments, and certainly regionally to uh play with these other agencies that are involved. Uh Redwind's financial responsibility for this training will come from previously budgeted monies in the peer support budget and will include a total of $7,653 uh in expense to us. Um everything else will be covered by the grant. We are asking that council authorize the mayor to execute on the amendment, uh ask that action be taken tonight and approval during the business meeting this evening. Uh and again, we apologize for the short notice. The this kind of came about quickly for us. It gave us a great opportunity to get involved. And the reason for the quick turnaround is that the the next session of training for the initial is uh September 14th. Um, and we don't want to miss that opportunity. So um thank you for hearing me out. I'm happy to take questions if there are any. Thank you. Any questions from council? I'm gonna go to Menka online and then um sorry, Councilmember Sony online, and Councilmember Kurtzer in person after that. Um hi everyone, sorry I have to attend this meeting um you know online because I'm in India due to a family emergency. Um I just have one quick question. I as you like you know, uh, because this um there are different agencies, those who are participating in this, and my question is suppose if one of the agency is not able to continue forward, is there any failure or the drop out? Is the cost to Redmond is going to increase? Currently, I believe it is coming with a share of 7,653. Uh, if this happens, is there going to be an extra button on city of Redmond for this particular share? Yeah, it's a great question. So we would uh as uh uh one of the uh the agencies within the grant, we would want to continue the grant to move forward. Uh if that was to happen, which is highly unlikely, but if it was to happen, we would probably split that additional uh that uh approximately $7,000 that that agency had removed themselves from. Um I I don't see that happening. They've all committed to this uh uh willingly and with a desire to build out a program uh that that honestly looks much more like our program looks. Um and I think that they're uh the likelihood of that occurring is is uh very very uh slim.