Koenig/Graafstra: Added an executive session for the purpose of "property acquisition."

Tolson Action Item #3 was removed for consideration in Executive Session (Ordinance 839-04 Condemnation of LID 97-1 land)

Everett Mr. Mayor, did I hear you correctly that Action Item #3 was removed?

Tolson Item three's been pulled. I believe we're moving it back to executive session?

Graafstra Um, right. The consideration of the ordinance is not. I believe what's gonna happen is there's going to be a workshop dealing with that subject at the next council meeting, for a discussion concerning those issues [unintelligible].

Ryan Donaldson, VOA: two meetings - Thursday, 25^th 4:30 intergenerational meeting for teen/senior center, 319 Main St.

Champeaux Basketball, sports "stuff."

Criswell What was the reason number three was taken off the action items? [unintelligible]?

Graafstra The reason was so that Gary Bourne could be here and he could participate and provide more information to you. He's not available tonight.

Boucher None.

Seehuus None.

Flower This is one the same subject that Councilman Criswell brought up. I had invited a few property owners here tonight to discuss this condemnation ordinance. I see one of them in attendance right now. And I need to apologize to them for changing their schedule to come here tonight only to find out that this has not being handled th is evening. And I guess we're going to be handling this at a workshop setting for our next council meeting. I'd ask that the interested parties do make, come to be here. Thank you.

Everett I'd like to thank staff for putting together these personnel policy notebooks. We have personnel ordinances, personnel policies, general policies, union contracts and [unintelligible]. Very nice. Very helpful. Appreciate it. We also have a comprehensive update for next week's hearing. [unintelligible] Thanks to staff for putting this altogether. That's all I have.

Boucher None.

Most of you should be familiar with this site -- http://www.cityofsultan.com/test.html -- I'm hoping everybody's at least checked it out once. If you haven't, it's going to be right here…[unintelligible] brought the whole website with me. This is the new website. I don't think you've seen the old website. It wasn't too bad-looking but it really didn't work. So after all this discussion we came up with this layout. The colors are what everybody had asked for, sort of a blueish color. There's a banner up there, if you can see. And if you just refresh this thing, it comes up with a different picture. So every time you come to the site you get a different picture of Sultan.

Tolson Police Service levy. Chief?

Walser Thank you, Mr. Mayor. About a year ago, December of '02, we asked the council to approve a police special levy. That has not been followed through. We are back, asking the council to authorize a special police levy. I do not have as yet any figures and the authority to proceed with that. Basically in a nutshell, it boils down to survival of police services in this city as they are currently being provided. We are down three officers. We would like the funds to hire three officers, an animal control support officer [unintelligible]. Estimated cost to the taxpayer is about $10 to $12 per month. That's an estimated cost. I can crunch the final numbers for the council and obviously will, if we're authorized to proceed. We would like to do this for a May election. There's some school board elections, I guess, scheduled for May which would reduce our cost.

Tolson The time window that we have to operate with this, the latest we can do it is in September? To be on the 2005 election?

Koenig To be able to collect assessed taxes in 2005, September would be the last month we could do it.

Male Don't we have to get, approve it 45 days before the election date? Is that the minimum window?

Koenig You have to pass a resolution authorizing the levy 45 days prior to the election date. And file it the county.

Tolson Do we have [unintelligible] in May to September. There is a primary in September.

Graafstra You still have plenty of time to [unintelligible].

Walser We could fund in September. I was aware of an election coming up in May also. September's better, actually.

Tolson I think if we look at this timeframe-wise, to communicate with the general public and to really build the support that's needed, at the same time I was checking garbage rates and a few other things out of Duvall, I also checked their cost for their police force. They have a chief, a lieutenant and eight patrol officers and an office person. Their budget is $1.2 million. You can't use that in any of the negotiations, chief. But looking at the comparative expenditures, it was pretty interesting to see where things are at. Almost very comparable all the way, as far as the size of cities. So it gives us an idea of the need. And they are expanding their police force. They service a community of about 5,000 people and they don't have a major highway going through there.

Criswell 203 [unintelligible].

Tolson Well, they don't have 25,000 cars going through on 203.

Boyd And what was the comparison of the tax base between Sultan and Duvall?

Tolson The tax base, you'd be pretty surprise with that, too. Property taxes were almost identical.

Male How about retail?

Tolson We lag sorely behind. About $300,000.

Male Wow.

Tolson So that gives you an idea of some of the areas where we are impacted greatly in sales tax. They just put in a new sewer system as well, and a few other things. So I'm researching comparative cities to see where we are at. The thing that really has hit this community hard is the lack of a retail sales tax base. And I would say we need to address this at this particular point in time. The levy timeframe, Chief, is how long? The timeframe of the levy to be in place?

Walser Six years. Six-year levy.

Tolson Six year levy. And hopefully, at that time the city would have enough sales tax revenue generated from businesses that are currently planning to -- that have started up recently and are hopefully going to be making their home here, that we could eliminate the need for that. But we are looking at growth scenarios in our community, where we need more officers. We need more men on the street.

Everett I just wanted to add that currently the State legislature is looking at -- or has approved two proposed laws, and it's going to the governor for signatures, on elections; specifically municipal elections. That if it's a state ballot issue, I believe in even years, and we have a municipal issue -- the state pays the whole election cost. We don't pay anything. That's one to be revised.

Tolson Will that take place this year or following?

Everett And like I say, it's going to the governor for signature. There's two bills. I'll get that information to you. And then in the odd years, if a county has a county-wide issue up, and we have our municipal, the county pays the whole thing. The smaller cities [unintelligible]. And that's what's up for approval. I just thought I'd bring that up. If we put it on a primary and this law's approved, we might not be facing any election costs. So that's something to consider. I'll get that information to you.

Seehuus Mr. Mayor? Just speaking for myself, I'd like to see some numbers from the chief putting something together.

Tolson Sure.

Champeaux [unintelligible], we talked about, brought up a year or two ago, and we talked about when we're holding public meetings, and you coming up with options, one, two, three or A through E, and having the public kind of [unintelligible] which one would maybe work the best. Rather than just going with one option, if we had a variety of different options.

Walser Well, I've never done this before, so I'm open to all suggestions.

Tolson Coming at it from the perspective of if we hold off until September, I think that gives us the opportunity to pull that off, timeframe-wise. One other issue, too, that we need to become aware of as councilman as you look at the budget, Tim Eyman has another initiative that 's been presented. He's looking to cut back property taxes 25%. Don't know where we're going to come up with if it passes, but we just need to be aware of that.

Criswell And you said this levy is for six years, correct?

Walser [unintelligible].

Criswell Now, say at the end of that six years [and if] we still don't have enough money there, are you going to be willing to step forward and make the layoffs that you're going to have to make to make this work?

Walser In six years I will be retired. Guaranteed.

Criswell Oh, [laughs] we'll spend it now.

Walser To answer your question -- I'm not being facetious is --

Criswell What I'm saying is we [unintelligible] that whole scenario with the cop in the school or whatever it was, and if I remember correctly, at the time the grant ran out, you were asked if you were going to lay this person off or you're going to keep him, and you opted to keep him. And so we gained another policeman. It's kind of my question is, we keep getting these different programs, getting more police in here, and then when that program runs out now we're stuck with these extra wages that we couldn't afford to begin with.

Walser I'm not sure I'm following you. The cop-in-school grant did not run out. We have not refilled that positions. There's still money in the grant.

Criswell Well, it may not have been. I know you had a grant and that, one of the grants ran out, and the officer continued to be in service which [unintelligible] I'm not sure we didn't. But we still didn't have the money for him, so that put a bite on your, on your budget so when you did have some money free, that he couldn't -- I think it was that federal grant. I'm not sure just the particulars of it, but… What I'm saying is when the money runs out, do we lay off people, or -- ?

Seehuus Rob? Can I add something here? Depending on the duration of your levy, obviously you're going to be monitoring and tracking your expenditures and revenues, what's been going on. You should be able to at least look two years down the road and see where it's going and where it's headed. If you're not going to have the tax base you have two choices: You run another levy, see if the public will support it, or your make the cuts.

Criswell That's what I'm saying. We need some kind of insurance that people are going to be looking down the road two years and not just, "Okay, we get the money now. We're going to hire somebody, and we'll keep him here until it runs out and then, well, maybe we'll lay him off and maybe we won't." We need a [unintelligible] on that.

Seehuus I think that's something that we…

Tolson Yeah, I think we can take responsibility for that ourselves.

Seehuus [unintelligible] responsibilities? To do that?

Tolson Yeah. I think that's part of it. I think also, too, I don't think anybody four years ago would have guessed the economic downturn that happened in 2001, 2002, 2003.

Criswell No. That's not what I'm saying --

Tolson But at the same time --

Criswell [unintelligible] -- grants is where we've run into trouble.

Tolson Well, this isn't a grant. This is a levy and it comes back to the people.

Criswell [simultaneously speaking] It's a six-year levy, right.

Tolson Sure. And you have a time window. But at this particular point, we have to look at this from a perspective of we can't just throw the baby out with the bathwater here. We need a police force on the streets. We need coverage here. And if it goes out six years, and the people approve it,. we have that time limit to work within.

Criswell If you have the money for it. You know, put 20 cops out on the street, I don't, I don't mind. But what I'm saying is -- and I hate to be the devil['s] advocate here, but we're not, we don't have the money to support what we have.

Seehuus That's the beauty of the levy, though, Rob. We're asking the public for their support.

Criswell [simultaneously] But In six years, in six years --

Seehuus You just ask them again.

Criswell -- you're going to have to ask them again or -- ?

Seehuus That's right.

Tolson Yeah, right.

Seehuus And that'll be the question we'll be asking but not at the last minute.

Seehuus We should be monitoring those costs ourselves as council members.

Flower I also might add that in six years, Sultan will be a different city, we're going so rapidly. And this police force needs to grow with that potential.

Criswell That's fine --

Flower -- and we'd be remiss in our responsibilities to [unintelligible] inadequate police force to match that growth. We've got 400-odd houses going up on the Basin Road to be built in two years, and we're short of them now. How short will we be then?

Tolson And at the same time that just puts the burden on us as council to look at how we can promote business growth within the community, and smart growth, so that we really can look to the future. And I agree, Rob, that we can set ourselves up to fail, and set people up because people's lives -- you know, who put their live on the line -- they need to be treated the way, with the respect and dignity that they deserve. Nobody likes to be hung out to dry, saying, "Oh, by the way, you have 30 days and then you're gone."

Criswell Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

Tolson But within a six-year time limit, hopefully -- hopefully, we'll have at least our ducks in a row by then to address that. And we can put that before the council, too, to address that.

Criswell I heard that same speech four years ago. "Hopefully."

Tolson Well, it didn't come from me. But at least we can address it. I think we do -- we have to really rethink how we do government and how we support it in this community. We are upside-down in relationship to tax income as compared to property tax. And some of the cities -- almost every city that I've looked at that has a surplus, has greater retail sales tax income than they have property tax. We're almost on par with Stanwood for property tax. Their retail sales tax is astronomical. It's over $850,000. Every one of these places that's comparable in size has substantially higher sales tax for income. So we need to be looking at that and how we can encourage that. Then we won't have to worry about levies. We just have to worry about Tim Eyman.

Seehuus But until then, I think the key is information and asking the public what sort of police force they want.

Tolson Absolutely.

Criswell They all want --

Seehuus And you know, in my experience with eight years with the school district -- and Bruce can probably verify this -- all the levies and bonds and building things we've put out there, the key is getting accurate information to the public. We've stumbled a few times and then the public voted it down. When you're up front, you're honest, you lay it all out, put it there and the public says yes or not. Plain and simple. Or it may say scale it back a little bit.

Criswell You know, when I came here in 1969, if the school or fire department or anybody wanted anything, all they had to do was [unintelligible]. People in town supported it. And now, we really got to sell that to get it to the people, because they've had too much of this that it didn't work out the way they said it was gonna. So I think we really, really gotta [unintelligible] before we charge into it.

Seehuus That means we have to do our job better, too, as councilmen. Monitor these costs and track them, have some sort of game plan.

Champeaux And I think that -- [unintelligible]. But I think with this is a [sounds like, "fast"] thing to test the voters of the town if they want a police force and if they want [unintelligible] pay for it. Because we as a city, as [unintelligible], we do not have the tax base. We do not have the money to get the size police force that we need. We're already cutting back the building department, parks, and we're not able to do everything with the parks that we need to do. So how far are we going to scale back in those other [unintelligible] do keep [unintelligible] the police force on the streets. And this is a way that we can keep the police force on the street. And hopefully, then, get back in and maintain the parks the way we want to and do other things we need to do for the services for the public.

Boucher Fred, how soon can you come back with some, say, three options [unintelligible]? I assume a low, middle and high?

Walser I'm not sure about that. So I'm going to have see [unintelligible]. What I'm asking for is low. That's all. I mean, there is no middle and high. [unintelligible].

Boucher That's an option, though. Do you want that option?

Walser Well, it's decision time for the citizens of Sultan. We cannot continue providing 24-hour, seven-day-a-week police services with the current staff we have. It's not there. The only other option is to tell you point-blank to contract with the sheriff's office. And you will find that that is more expensive than what you are paying now. We have to look at it realistically. Crime is up 15.8% in 2002. Burglary rate is up 68.8% in this state. We are one of the few cities in Snohomish County that is experiencing a dramatically rise in crime. I believe -- I'm convinced -- that it is directly proportionate to the fact that we are unable to provide directed pol--non-directed police service, that is, preventative patrolling. There's only one cop out. I am the only officer working from 6:00 a.m. till 10:00 a.m. in the morning. I am the only officer on Saturday from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Colleen is the only officer I --

Boucher What I'm saying, Fred, is you gave us an estimate of 10 to 12 --

Walser of What?

Boucher Ten to 12 per month, is your estimate of cost?

Tolson $12.00.

Walser It'd be between $10 and $12.

Boucher It would seem…it would seem smart to perhaps have the $10-12 number out there, have the $12-14, have the $15-16 and put that to the public before the actual vote. And if the support is coming back to the council that, hey, we support our force, then I'll pay $15 more a month.

Walser [unintelligible] figures. I have never done this before, so you're looking at a neophyte. And I welcome all this kind of help, believe me. I don't want to give the impression, folks, that I am asking for things I don't honestly need. It's bare bones.

Seehuus Well, Fred, [unintelligible] the public hearings or forums, workshops --

Boucher What I'm saying is you're coming in with the low-ball figure, and you may have a figure that says a few more bucks a month which, collectively would make a big difference to your department as far as, all of a sudden we go from this amount of money to this amount of money. And so instead of just coming in with one option, which would be the lowest, have a low option, a middle option and a high option, and then the community, as we're talking about it in the public forum, might say, yeah, they might tell the council I'll pay $15, $16, $17 a month, perhaps. Maybe they won't. But at least give yourself an opportunity there.

Walser Yeah. I understand where you're coming form.

Tolson Chief, with that, what you could do is by comparables, you could look at where the city was staffed with police officers in 2000 based upon that level of service, and then offer where we're at population-wise now and I would project out. Because if you look at just to bring it up to the levels, we need to take into account where this city will be, literally, in three years, population-wise and what level of support that we need there. It needs to be known that although we receive property taxes from homes, say, the 400 homes that come in will receive approximately - what is it? $600 a year in property tax?

Koenig No. Well, it would depend on your assessed value.

Tolson Say $400 a year then?

Koenig Yeah.

Tolson Four hundred homes at $400 brings in $160,000 a year. And with $400 new homes, there is a need there for at least a couple of policemen, because you're basing that on probably 1,400 people, you have to bring in three policemen to cover those 400 new homes. At $85,000 per policeman is what you're looking at right now? $80,000? That's $240,000. We just lost another $100,000 from the city budget. So we will look at it in that kind of reality. If we have to provide service, it needs to be paid for, and we need to be prepared for that.

Walser Well, I'm willing to sit down with anybody that wants to sit down with me, and help me draw up a strategy for [unintelligible].

Tolson I think it'd be good --

Walser As I said, I'm new at this game.

Tolson I would encourage you, too, to make contact -- I would encourage you to talk -- I know you have already with Merlin [Halverson, Snohomish #5 fire chief] in regards to the levy that they ran and the people that they got involved with them. And if you could, come back to council….this next month. I don't know if we've got about two and a half weeks -- but let's say the first council of April, and make a full-scale presentation with three options. And begin to work with the general public with that.

Walser I'll do that.

Tolson Any further questions or discussion with this?

Seehuus I just have one comment. I'd be happy to work with you on it.

Tolson All right. Well, public comment?

1) The current Level of Service (LOS) for Sultan's police force as approved in Sultan's current 1994 Comprehensive Plan, is 1.7 officers per 1,000 population. (See acrobat file.) The recommended Level of Service (LOS) in Sultan's 2003/2004 Comprehensive Plan Update (Dec. 9, 2003), is 2.6 officers per 1,000. That means that if the 400 Barclays North homes are constructed on the Basin, as is currently being planned, Sultan's population will be approximately 5,500 and will require 14.3 police officers.