Council has night filled with considerations

CHELAN – Motion considerations and administrative reports dominated a majority of the agenda during the regular council meeting, Tuesday, March 27. Prior to addressing the scheduled agenda, however, members of the public took advantage of the citizen comment portion, voicing individual thoughts and concerns to the council.
Brian Patterson, of Manson, came to voice his concerns on the Holiday Hills development, he explained. “In the public comment period of that development, I submitted some extensive comments,” he began, “I forwarded a copy of those to everybody on the council and to the Mayor. These (comments) are based on my 25 years of environmental consulting experience,” he added, “and I probably wouldn’t be talking about this if I didn’t have that experience.”  Patterson stated that he had some key concerns that “revolve around the state and environmental policy act (SEPA) procedures and requirements, the processing of the applications,” he explained, “and what I’m reading so far, the City is not meeting those requirements. In fact, the key notifications that the City has sent out on this project so far don’t meet the intent of SEPA and moreover legal requirements.” His concern began with the notice of application, the original filing in October of 2017, as well as the most recent notice issued this March. “I have two major concerns,” he expressed to Council, “my first concern is that neither of the notice of applications acknowledge the significant lead and arsenic soil contamination at the project site. It’s a well-known soil contamination has to be negated in accordance with environmental rules, and unfortunately under SEPA, the City doesn’t note this.” The public notification process, known as an Optional DNS process, minimizes the amount of public comment that’s allowed, he explained, “in fact, the SEPA does not allow this streamline process to be used, so my comment is that on that issue is to go back, acknowledge the contamination, address how it’s going to be mitigated and reissue a notice of application that allows the public to comment on that, which is a key part of the SEPA process.
Patterson moved into another concern, being the traffic assessment submitted by developers. “It’s fatally flawed,” he expressed, “the baseline traffic volumes that were taken from April traffic counts, and then assigned these with a seven percent increase to be representative of the peak traffic counts. All the information that’s out there, including Washington Department of Transportation information, suggests that a city like Chelan, summertime traffic increases twice as much as what we see in the month of April.” Concluding his concerns, he pointed out a procedural error in the March 7 notice of application. “It’s unfortunate, but the March 7 notice of application did not appear in the Department of Ecology’s SEPA website. It’s actually a rule requirement, it has to be in there,” he declared, “I actually pointed this out to the City the first day it was out, and they could’ve corrected it that day and it actually wouldn’t have even been a problem. But, as of the end of the comment period, it still is posted on the SEPA website. So, again, unfortunately the notice of application and public comment period that we just went through are completely invalid.” After Patterson had concluded his concerns, Mayor Mike Cooney expressed, “I think this is exactly why we have public comment, for information like that. We will make sure we have an internal discussion and we will follow up … thank you for those points,” he said to Patterson.
Phil Long with the Lake Chelan Research Institute took the podium next, explaining that he wanted to comment on a Lake Chelan Watershed Planning Committee meeting recently held. The meeting including an informational piece from Teagan Ward with the City of Bellingham, and the boat inspection program that they have. “They do a fabulous job,” Long began, “they actually have a fairly substantial budget, but their interest is in protecting their drinking water watershed that’s represented by Whatcom Lake.” Bellingham has a yearly budget of about $450,000, which is funded by the county of Whatcom, the City of Bellingham, their water and sewer district and approximately one-third of the cost is covered by permits, he explained to the council members, “they actually permit boats before they can even go on the lake, so it’s just a fabulous program.”
“What came out of the meeting and the discussion,” Long stated, returning to the intent of his speech, “is that we need a risk assessment for Lake Chelan, to see whether or not we need that level of protection. The aquatic invasive species are the responsibility of Fish and Wildlife Department and the State of Washington, and they’re doing a much better job now then they have in the past, but we still don’t have the literal boat launch by boat launch, boat by boat inspection that they have at Whatcom, which is pretty amazing. They go dawn to dusk, April to September … they can tell you where ever boat that goes to Whatcom Lake has been, where it was last in the water … they actually inspect kayaks as well as motorized boats … it’s a pretty impressive program,” he offered, “it didn’t happen overnight for them, it took a while to build out. They started in 2012 collecting some voluntary data from boaters and built out from there. But I just want to point out that the one thing we don’t want in this lake is Quagga and Zebra Mussels, you’ve probably all seen pictures of what they do to infrastructure.”
The night’s agenda included a single presentation amidst the various reports and motion considerations. “We just recently went through the hiring process for Operations Manager in Public Works,” began City Engineer Jake Youngren, “and it was a good process, and a very competitive process,” he explained. The candidate selected was Randy Baker, he stated. Baker, Youngren continued, just celebrated 32 years with the City of Chelan, “he started March 1, 1986,” Youngren added, then jokingly told Baker, “I won’t tell you when I was born.”
There might not be anybody that has more institutional knowledge than Randy Baker,” he conveyed, “I don’t know anybody who cares more about serving the citizens in the community, who cares deeply about customer service, and that’s a very high priority for Randy.” Baker is highly respected among his peers and throughout the departments, he concluded, “we’re really lucky to have him on board.” Adding a brief comment in the moment, Mayor Cooney stated, “we’d be remiss if we didn’t send our best to Larry Sweeney, who’s retiring today.”
Sharing a report on small works rosters, Public Works Director Dwayne Van Epps began by explaining what exactly the roster is, and why it is in place. “(A small works roster) is a provision in state law that allows agencies to go through a bidding process as a more streamline than a formal bidding process for projects under $300,000,” Van Epps explained to council members. This method has been used on a very regular basis for the department, he added, “and we have done that through a method allowed by all municipalities, by operating and administering that small works roster, where we advertise and solicit contractors with these different traits to sign up with us, so we can draw on that list of contractors for jobs that meet that criteria.” The Municipal Research and Services Center (MRSC) has built up a state-wide, shared roster as a service across the states, he explained, all the administration and solicitation for contract work is handled by MRSC, and all participating members can draw off from the shared roster. “Staff has gotten to the point that we believe the city would be well served by utilizing that service.” Going through MRSC would help in broadening the scope of contractors available for jobs, he concluded.
Youngren provided a motion consideration to council members, requesting the use of SCJ Alliance for design services after partnering the Historical Downtown Chelan Association’s (HDCA) Woodin Avenue Landing project with the City’s current Woodin Bridge project. “The idea with the design is that it would be a two-phase process,” he explained, “phase one would incorporate the critical element of the project that is the landing plaza and some stairs that tie into the bridge project, and that would be incorporated, hopefully via addendum, into the bid period for the bridge project. So, it will be bid with the project. Once the bids are received we’ll evaluate where we’re at.” HDCA Director Erin McCardle has requested approval from her board to reimburse 100 percent of the city’s cost for the design, he continued. “I think it’s really smart to use the same designer and dovetail them together,” advocated Councilwoman Wendy Isenhart. Council members unanimously passed the motion.
Chelan Council Meets every second and fourth Tuesdays, beginning at 6:00 p.m. inside Council Chambers. The next regular council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 10.