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Busy Night For Everett City Council

August 1, 2018

Everett Government

The Everett City Council had a full night starting with a budget committee meeting that revealed the city still has a shortfall of 1.15 million dollars in the projected budget for next year.

That shortfall remains even after plans to raise revenues and cut expenses by doing things including:

  • Charging a Registration Fee for alarm systems and implementing a false alarm fee
  • Establishing an Administrative Fee for hiring off duty EPD officers and vehicles
  • Charging a fee to use meeting rooms at city buildings and the libraries
  • Eliminate contributions to the city’s rainy day fund
  • Suspend LEOFF1 Police and Fire Pension Contributions in the amount of $3,514,000.00
  • Eliminate the security guards at the Wall Street Building
  • Eliminate neighborhood mailings

    There are many more steps to reduce expenses and raise revenue. The 2019 budget picture should become clearer next month with revised revenue projections for the year.

    The city council also received a briefing on amending the ground lease for the Events Center and restructuring the loan agreement with the Everett Public Facilities District that should lower the financial risk for the city and extend the time for the PFD to pay off bonds from 2025 out to 2041.

    Metro Everett

    “Metro Everett” is over one square mile, and includes the downtown business district, Everett station area, portions of the Broadway corridor and surrounding commercial and residential areas.

    The biggest portion of the evening was spent at a public hearing on parts of the Metro Everett Plan that dealt with Historic Overlays. More than a dozen speakers implored the city council to take another look at the boundaries of the Metro Everett area and move taller buildings further east of Rucker and clustered more into the downtown core.

    Speaker after speaker asked council members to look past the diagrams and at the actual neighborhoods especially in the area of Grand and Norton south of Pacific Avenue.

    Council members assured the crowd that they were listening and would review every comment and every written note sent to them as they considered Metro Everett. The final council action is set for August 29th with three more public hearings between now and then.

    distircts

    No word publicly yet on who is on the committees to write the ballot statements.

    Finally the council agreed to the names submitted for the pro and con committees to write statements for the ballot measure in November dealing with city council districts. The council did not announce those names publicly.

    When asked by city council member Scott Murphy if there was a public process to select the committees, City Attorney Jim Iiles advised Governmental Affairs Director Bob Bolerjack selected the people for the committees.

    Iiles said Bolerjack also selected the names for the Pro committee for the voters guide for the EMS levy lid lift proposition which council President Paul Roberts said included Murray Gordon, Randy Utt and one other.

    Iiles said Bolerjack was unable to find anyone to write a con statement against the levy lid lift.

    Beyond Bolerjack, it does not appear the city made any public appeals or issued any press releases announcing it was looking for public involvement in the ballot measure committee process.



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    My Everett News is a hyperlocal news website featuring news and events in Everett, Washington. We also cover City of Everett information and items of interest to those who live and work in Everett.

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