Updated Wednesday with a statement from Mayor Mike Nelson regarding the streateries vote.

The Edmonds streateries issue is finally settled. After a lengthy discussion, the Edmonds City Council Tuesday night voted to reduce the fee it charges operators of the city’s outdoor dining structures from a one-time lump sum of $4,000 to a $2,000 fee payable in $500 monthly installments for the next four months. The streateries will be permitted through April 30, and the streatery operators will have until May 15 to remove them from the public parking spaces where they are now located.

The council at its Tuesday night meeting also witnessed the swearing in of one new (Neil Tibbott) and two returning (Will Chen and Kristiana Johnson) councilmembers and selected a new council president and president pro tem. Vivian Olson was unanaimously elected as council president; Diane Buckshis was elected president pro tem on a 5-2 vote with councilmembers Susan Paine and Laura Johnson voting no. (Paine had also nominated Kristiana Johnson for the pro tem job, but she declined the nomination.)

Later in the meeting, during council comments, Olson thanked the council for electing her as president. “I intend that at the end of the year that you can all say that you are respected, that you and your ideas were included and considered, and that I made your job easier rather than harder,” Olson said. “And if I can accomplish that I will feel that I served you and the community well.”

The swearing in of the three councilmembers Tuesday night was ceremonial. The city clerk administered the official oath of office Dec. 27 to Tibbott, Kristiana Johnson and Chen. Chen was also sworn in in November to finish the Position 2 term — ending Dec. 31 — that had been filled by appointed Councilmember Luke Distelhorst.

Also on Tuesday night, the council voted to again delay a decision on whether to return to hybrid meetings, noting that there are still questions about the longevity of the COVID-19 omicron variant and also additional technology challenges related to staffing and equipment that must be addressed. After hearing findings from a workgroup of councilmembers and staff, one of the ideas discussed was to possibly move the council meetings to other locations that might be better suited, short term, for hybrid meetings. However, councilmembers and staff agreed that more research was required before pursuing those. There was also a related discussion about whether to reconsider the current system of accepting emailed public comments, with a proposal to possibly discontinue having a public comments email address. Councilmember Susan Paine noted that that email address in the past has received pornographic content and she also added that including all those written emails makes for repetitive and large council packets that use a lot of paper. The council agreed to revisit these issues at its Feb. 1 meeting.

And the council honored Susan Paine for her work as council president in 2021, noting her “sense of humor’ and her “steadfast dedication” in overseeing council business. Read the entire proclamation here.

Fine-tuning the streateries ordinance to reflect the council’s wishes took up most of the meeting. This was the third time in less than three weeks that the council had considered whether and how to extend an expiring ordinance governing the streateries, which have been occupying public parking spaces since 2020. During Tuesday’s meeting, Edmonds Development Director Susan McLaughlin stated many of the streatery operators were concerned about their inability to pay the $4,000 fee that the council approved in a Dec. 16 meeting, and reiterated that the fee was much higher than what other cities charge.

The fee reduction that the council approved on a 5-2 vote Tuesday night (Councilmembers Susan Paine and Diane Buckshnis voting against) was the amount that staff had proposed — $500 a month for a total of $2,000; the only difference was the shorter end date of April 30, as staff had proposed allowing the streateries to remain in place through May 31. The council chose not to address a staff request for a reduced fee of $1,000 for those streateries that occupy one parking space.

Under the approved ordinance, the first $500 payment is due Jan. 15, and any establishment not paying the fee will need to remove their streatery from the city’s right of way by midnight Jan. 15. The city will refund $2,000 to any streatery applicant who already paid the $4,000 lump sum extension fee required under the council’s earlier ordinance. Further, any streatery applicant who has paid the entire $4,000 but decides not to continue with their streatery operation, can obtain a full refind if they make the request by Jan. 15.

According to information presented during Tuesday night’s meeting, 10 of the 17 Edmonds streatery operators did pay the $4,000 fee by the Dec. 31 deadline. While the streateries permitting does expire April 30, operators have until May 15 to remove their structures.

The approved ordinance also states that the fee collected shall be used to rent parking spaces that will be made available to the public, “after subtracting an appropriate amount to cover streatery-related administrative costs.”

Prior to approving the amended ordinance — which was originally proposed by Kristiana Johnson at a $700 monthly fee but revised to $500 based on an amendment from Olson — the council also debated a separate amended ordinance that was proposed by Paine and supported by Laura Johnson. That measure would have charged a $200-per-month fee, with permitting to last until Gov. Jay Inslee lifts his order declaring a public health emergency. Chen at one point offered to support the lower fee if Paine would agree to include a May 31 end date but Paine declined, stating there were too many unknowns about the COVID pandemic to do so.

Laura Johnson repeated her assertion, made at previous council meetings, that the fees being charged to the streatery operators are “punitive.” Olson replied that using the term punitive is misleading, adding there’s an element of leveling the playing field since other non-streatery restaurants are already paying rent for their outdoor dining.

That point was reiterated during the meeting by Councilmembers Buckshnis and Kristiana Johnson, who noted that there are numerous Edmonds restaurants that offer outdoor dining on private property and don’t operate streateries.

But both Paine and Johnson continued to cite the quick spread of the omicron variant and the health threats that it poses, adding that outdoor dining is one of many tools in the public’s continued fight against the pandemic. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” Paine said of omicron, “and who knows what the next variant is going to look like.”

At the end of the meeting, Chen noted that the council was able to compromise on the streateries issue. “I know that we are capable of compromising and I think that moving forward, we collectively as a community, as a council, we need to seek middle ground,” Chen said. “The entire country is very divided and I hope that we are not being sucked into that kind of diviseness. Let’s pull together and find middle ground and work for our community.”

Edmonds Mayor Mike Nelson on Wednesday issued his own statement regarding the vote, thanking the council “for working together on a compromise, that our local downtown business owners can support, to continue to operate the streatery program at a more reasonable cost.” With a increasing number of COVID-19 cases, “providing options for outdoor dining remains critical for the safety of our residents and the economic viability of our local downtown core,” the mayor added.  “Having our city council and business community working collaboratively to keep the streateries open is in the best interest of our city.”

– In other business, the council took action on an item that was discussed during executive session: unanimously approving the prosecution of two appeals the city filed with the Pollution Control Hearings Board. The first concerns the Dec. 1, 2021 Puget Sound General Nutrient Permit issued by the Washington State Department of Ecology and the second is related to a notice of violation from the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency concerning an asbestos survey.

— By Teresa Wippel