The Edmonds City Council at its Tuesday meeting agreed to increase the number of hens allowed at a single-family residence from three to six, voted to ban dogs from Brackett’s Landing North Park and had a lengthy discussion about a staff request to use $250,000 of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to pay for consultant costs related to the Landmark 99 proposal.
A decision on the Landmark 99 funding is scheduled for the Aug. 22 council meeting.
Three department directors — Parks, Recreation and Human Services’ Angie Feser, Community Services/Economic Development’s Todd Tatum and Planning and Development’s Susan McLaughlin — came before the council Tuesday night to make their case for the $250,000 allocation. The 10-plus-acre site is home to the current Burlington Coat Factory and Aurora Antique Pavilion and the now-closed Mick Finster’s.
The asking price for the property– located at the southern end of Edmonds’ Highway 99 corridor — is $37 million. During its June 27 meeting, the council voted 3-1 with two abstentions and one absence to authorize Mayor Mike Nelson to sign an option agreement for the possible future purchase of the site, putting down a $100,000 deposit that is refundable if the council chooses not to pursue it by the end of the year. Some of the ideas put forth so far for the site include parkland, a community or civic center, a police station and affordable housing.
The $250,000 staff is requesting for the project was originally allocated for facade improvements to businesses impacted by the COVID pandemic. Staff admitted they have not advertised the facade program — approved by the council as part of the city’s 2023 budget — because they determined it would be difficult to administer.
Some councilmembers stated that using the $250,000 for consultant fees wasn’t an appropriate use of ARPA funds. These concerns were echoed by a few community members who testified during the meeting’s public comment period.
However, Planning Director Susan McLaughlin disagreed, stating that the objective for the facade program “was to revitalize, recognizing the impacts to the pandemic.”
“Staff fully believes that investing in the southern corridor of Highway 99 will truly lead to revitalization at a grander scale” than the facade program, she added.
McLaughlin then described how consultant dollars would be spent, including due diligence, master planning, development strategy and project communication.
Councilmember Jenna Nand said that although she is a strong supporter of the Landmark 99 project, she believes that funding is still needed for the facade program — adding that she could think of numerous businesses that could use the money. She suggested that if the city couldn’t administer the program, perhaps the money should be given to the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce for distribution.
Councilmember Will Chen agreed with Nand that the city shouldn’t use the designated ARPA funds for consulting fees. In fact, Chen said, it was too soon for the city to be spending any money on consultants and that should wait until the council decides whether to move forward with the property purchase. In addition, Chen expressed concern that the proposal was taking up considerable time of the three department directors and that impacted their ability to work on other key city projects.
Councilmember Susan Paine asked McLaughlin about the ability of staff to complete a master plan on the site before the end of year. McLaughlin replied that staff believes it’s critical to complete such a plan before further decisions can be made on the property.
The city has issued a community poll as a first step “in engaging people about what they want to see on the site,” McLaughlin said. It asks respondents to rank the top three desirable land uses for the property. As of Monday, 714 people had responded and the top four choices were housing, park space, a police annex and a community center.
The city also plans to do a mailing to those living within a half-mile radius around the site, she said.
Councilmember Vivian Olson stated that the project was a large undertaking for a small city like Edmonds and wondered if it would be better for the city to engage with nearby jurisdictions to partner for any future project there. Both Tatum and McLaughlin replied that they have done some initial outreach to other jurisdictions but stressed they believe there must be be a plan in place before any partnerships are formed.
“It’s really important to have an idea that’s really clear to attract partners,” Tatum said. “When you’re just kind of going fishing in the dark with a worm hoping to catch something, you don’t often catch something.”
Council President Neil Tibbott asked whether staff could make do with less than $250,000. “I think that $250,000 is a fair and lean estimate for the work that we think should be done to give us all the tools that we need to make decisions,” Tatum replied.
Councilmember Diane Buckshnis was the last to speak, stating she believed the council needed to be realistic about the heavy workload it has ahead for myriad other issues, from the 2024 Comprehensive Plan update to addressing Climate Action Plan implementation to tackling troubles at the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
“I think this is a very expensive and risky venture,” she said.
Buckshnis then made a motion that the council “walk away” from the Landmark 99 project, rescind the option agreement and request return of the city’s $100,000 deposit.
That motion was hotly debated, with both Councilmembers Paine and Nand arguing the Highway 99 area has been underserved and deserves the same type of investments seen in other parts of Edmonds.
Olson replied that the Landmark 99 project “wasn’t about investing in a community. This is a development plan, I do believe it’s too big, it’s too risky and it’s too distracting from our core city functions in terms of staff bandwidth.”
Chen said he wasn’t ready to walk away from the project yet, but he did reiterate his belief that no consultant dollars should be spent on researching the property. He also cautioned about focusing on low-income housing for the site, noting that such projects should be spread throughout the city.
Teitzel added while he agrees that the Highway 99 area is underserved, he believes there are other projects the council could implement in the area involving public safety, parks and green space that community members have asked for.
Tibbott responded that “there’s nothing of that size and that scale that would allow us to do a whole variety of things. Maybe small pieces here and there but nothing where we could have the kind of impact we’re talking about with this site.”
In the end, the council vote on Buckhsnis’ proposal was 3-4, wth Buckshnis, Olson and Teitzel voting in favor and Chen, Nand, Paine and Tibbott opposed.
The council also had a robust debate about a proposed code amendment that would close Brackett’s Landing North — which is a marine sanctuary — to dogs. This would only involve the portion of of the city’s waterfront walkway that runs along Brackett’s Landing North, located north of the ferry terminal. The rest of the walkway, from Brackett’s Landing South to Marina Beach, would rmain open to leashed dogs.
The code amendment, which was discussed at last week’s parks and public works committee meeting, was developed by Buckshnis. She explained that volunteers who maintain the City’s Dive Park — also located at Brackett’s Landing North — approached the city about closing the area because dogs were disturbing sensitive wildlife areas.
A major bone of contention among some councilmembers was whether and how the ordinance would be enforced. There is a $100 fine for violators, but some councilmembers said tickets are rarely issued. No one from the police department or animal control was present at the meeting to address those questions, and Olson proposed tabling the discussion until the council could get more clarity on the plans for enforcement. That was defeated by a 3-4 vote.
The council ended up passing the dog ban by a 6-1 vote. The sole opponent was Tibbott, who had attempted earlier to remove the language banning dogs from Brackett’s Landing North — essentially keeping the rules as they have been. That proposal failed on a 1-5 vote with Tibbott voting yes and Olson abstaining.
In other business, the council:
– Unanimously approved an ordinance that increases the number of allowed hens per single-family residence from three to six. This was also discussed during last week’s committee meetings.
– Received a 2023 second-quarter financial update from Finance Director Dave Turley. Buckshnis noted that the city is “outpacing our expenses over our revenues terribly compared to last year” and asked Turley if he had plans to address that. He replied that he is working on those numbers and will be submitting information to the mayor, who will be reviewing it as part of his development of a proposed 2024 city budget.
– Also approved by a 6-1 vote (Teitzel opposed) an ordinance to amend city code related to city attorney and city prosecutor hiring practices and performance reviews. The measure permanently creates a legal assessment committee — consisting of councilmembers — to assess city attorney and city prosecutor’s performance.
— By Teresa Wippel
I was disappointed that the ‘Landmark 99 Survey’ made the assumption that we would buy the land and asked how it should be used. There was no question asking if the citizens of Edmonds supported the idea of buying it to begin with. For me the answer is NO, and I certainly don’t support spending $250,000 on consultants. I wonder how much money in any given year we spend on consultants?
Did the city of Edmonds find a wind fall of 37 million dollars? Do not spend $250,000 to see what the land could be used for. Edmonds is trying to waste money again. Let a developer or owner decide when to develop the property.
It’s unfortunate that no City Police representatives were at the Council meeting to address their enforcement policy of “warnings only” for dogs on beaches. The “no ticket” policy should never have applied to dogs OFF LEASH chasing migratory birds at North Brackett’s Landing. My guess is this policy and lack of enforcement response to unleashed dogs on beach is the real problem that WILL NOT be solved by the new Ordinance. It is only penalizing law abiding citizens who keep their leashed dogs on the walkways in our Parks as they are supposed to.
If the City takes this same approach to other illegal actions not enforced in Edmonds, the next thing you know, they’ll be closing Highway 99.
So agree.
I wish we could have had some volunteers (park stewards or people who walk their dogs on leash) to do some education to the offenders prior to a full ban.
I would have like to have had the AC or the EPD weigh in on how many tickets they have written for off-leash dogs. Also, how will this be enforced?
Isn’t there a better use of resources?
And the dog-owning community needs to do a better job of reminding each other of the rules.
I will certainly miss the on-leash dog walk out to the jetty and back. But it’s like middle school, the whole class gets held until a couple of kids behave before everyone can go out for recess.
So, it’s six chickens with conjugal Rooster visits not allowed, no doggies doing “doodies” at Brackett’s Landing Park with no assurance whatsoever of enforcement, a Council committee to do annual performance assessments of City Attorneys with five year Contracts and no stated guidelines for what is or isn’t good performance and onward and upward with the 37M$ Landmark Purchase that 700 out of 42000 residents have done a biased survey in favor of. Yep, just another night of great governance in Edmonds.
Stay tuned for next week’s exciting vote on the administration grabbing another 250K of gift money from the fed.s to hire more consultants to investigate a purchase we may not even want to make in the end. Time to start measuring up that “affordable” tiny home we’ve been contemplating for our late retirement needs. I just wonder if we can have 12 chickens instead of 6, if we do that?
This disgusts me. Using funds that could actually make a difference for some lame city of goals big legacy project is an insult to every single Citizen in Edmonds. These funds are NOT the Mayor’s personal pot of money to play with and tag fact that he treats it as such is abhorring. People falling down and getting hurt walking on a downtown sidewalk means nothing to this guy, or the majority of Council Members.
This little town is going straight down the toilet.
People like these are who are ruining this once great Country. Egotism, greed, and power rules the day here. I can only hope Karma finds them all. I cannot wait to retire and get the heck outta here!
We will have to hire 24 hour security..you all realize that don’t you?
Great reporting as always. However, I would like to add a little more information about the landmark site community poll results.
After Director McLaughlin presented the “results” as reported here, CM Olson accurately pointed out that the response generating the most votes was actually “other”. When questioned, Director McLaughlin noted (somewhat hesitantly) that most responses in this category were for not buying the property at all. So why didn’t she mention that when she presented the results initially? A sin of omission or a sin of commission? This once again illustrates that city staff typically presents the narrative that best fits their purpose. They do not present an unbiased assessment and instead waits for City Council to ask probing questions if they indeed have the insight necessary to do so. So how can we trust city staff with leading this landmark site evaluation? It arguably could be the largest project the city has ever undertaken. Yet city staff admitted that they couldn’t even administer a simple grant program.
Thanks for adding that Jim. There was a lot of information presented last night and I have to admit that when writing at midnight I may miss some things in the recap. It will be interesting to see the full survey report after there are more than 700 responses — not to mention other responses to mailers in an attempt to capture thoughts from people who are not online. — Teresa
Folks, we need to stop calling this boondoggle the ‘Landmark Project’ and call it what is. The ‘mayor Mike Nelson Legacy Project’!
Joe, as I recall the public announcement for this project was made by both Mayor Nelson and Councilor Neil Tibbott (who was Nelson’s opponent in the last mayoral election, and current City Council President). They are both in support of this project, so why not we just deal with the substantive issues surrounding it, and stop the (tedious) name calling/partisanship?
Asking for a friend…
Excellent information. Thanks Jim. I voted “other” and “don’t buy”. And like others I didn’t have the option to skip choices two and three. So I had to vote for two things I don’t want.
And they didn’t list “other” in their report out as highest votes? That’s outright deception.
Darrell,
Yes, by having to “vote” for two options that you were not in favor of further skews the results because those two options are now counted in the survey. Complete trash. This is a textbook example of what NOT to do.
Nothing much to fear about any enforcement actually happening, Cynthia. You may have noticed that the Mayor was totally no comment when Vivian pushed him a little about being responsible for any enforcement happening. The Mayor did rush to his employee’s rescue when he thought she was being pushed too hard about enforcement issues. He ordered her not to answer any more questions. Diane, Vivian and Dave demonstrated some adults in the room type comments and votes, but the rest of it was pretty much the usual Mayoral dominated ; business as usual we’ve grown accustomed to here for many years now. I don’t really see it getting any better anytime soon regardless of who wins now in Nov.
The poll was extremely biased because it didn’t ask citizens if we wanted to buy the Burlington Coat Factory property at all, or would rather use the money elsewhere.
Jennifer, it wasn’t “biased”, instead it was a form of “push poll”, where the survey is conducted with questions that “push” a certain narrative, and one that is directed to an outcome that the surveyor desires (the desired outcome here being one where people implicitly accept that a purchase of the property is inevitable, and just move on to a discussion of usage).
Calling the survey “biased” is to miss the very basis for why it was issued.
I wish we were voting for all seven council positions in the General election in November because there are four council members I definitely would not vote for. Nor will I ever vote for them again. “The City” is basically lying about the results from the survey that was taken. There were far more citizens who ticked the box Other on the survey and wrote in we should not be spending money on acquiring the Burlington Coat Factory property.
The canard that “the Highway 99 community is underserved” is lacking any facts. Underserved how? Do they lack water, sewers, police, parks or fire protection? Are the streets in disrepair? What services from the City do they think “the bowl” gets that they don’t? Seems like an excuse to waste money in an election year like the Burlington/Gateway proposed $37,000,000 property purchase with probably three times that amount in post purchase development costs for a purpose that neither the Mayor or proponent Council members are willing to reveal. What is the true agenda? Do we have to spend $37,000,000 to find out? Why won’t Nelson speak out about his vision for the property? Cudos to Buckshnis, Olson and Teitzel for just saying no to this folly in the making. Shame on Director McLaughlin for citing as public support a phony survey that did not give “a do not do it” option. She cannot be regarded as reliable broker of accurate information on this project in the future.
While the Treasury Departments Final Rule Guidelines for “ARPA” did allow for expenditures for “affordable housing development” and “investments in parks and other public outdoor recreation spaces to address social determinants of health” (see final rule, pp. 389), under “Recommended Guiding Principles” it also states “(c)are should be taken to avoid creating new programs or add-ons to existing programs that require an ongoing financial commitment”. Clearly, the intent was to ameliorate COVID-related impacts, and not use the funds to embark on new, ill-defined development projects.
We don’t know what (if any) “ongoing financial commitment” there would be to this project, because nobody at this stage seems to know what the final product is to be, but using these ARPA funds for “consultant costs” in relation anything other than “affordable housing” or “investments in parks/public recreation spaces” would appear to be offside of the Act, and city staff’s arguments for such broader usage border on sophistry.
So tired of hearing the city only supports the bowl. I have yet to see any signs that say bowl residence only at Civic Field or the waterfront . I live in the bowl and have no side walks. Lets quite pitting neighborhood against neighborhood. We are one city
Mr. Hall, you live in an Edmonds’ neighborhood not fully covered in concrete? What a fortunate resident. Your life must be so miserable without sidewalks. Let’s keep pouring concrete so we can be Lynnwood Jr.
Before the meeting, I individually emailed each council member regarding the ban on dogs at North Brackett’s & the only one who responded to me was Vivian Olson (and more than once–we had a good dialogue via email). Wildlife experts apparently say that even leashed dogs mean that birds won’t land there, hence not having the time needed for them to rest. I wonder when this will take effect as I’d like to take my small dog (who thinks the jetty is her happiest place on earth) for one last sad stroll on the jetty. Since Edmonds never enforces no dogs on beaches, what makes any of us think this new ban will be enforced? As to Burlington site, isn’t there only one way in to that site, ie., when traveling north on 99? Not a good part of town from what I have heard & difficult access.
It’s too bad that some Council members will speak as if they know what they’re talking about. I’ve been observing the migratory Brant geese in Edmonds for many years and reporting the occurrence of tags on the live birds to USGS when the birds are in Edmonds. And the fact of the matter is whenever I didn’t see the flocks of Brant geese off North Brackett’s Landing, I’d find them just offshore of the dog beach at Marina Beach. They don’t come ashore at the dog beach like they do at Brackett’s Landing, but they are oblivious just offshore to dogs running free nearby.
In all the years of observing, I have never seen the geese spook due to dogs on the jetty walkway (but they will spook if an osprey or eagle flies anywhere nearby).
The geese react when people or dogs are along the edge of the water ON THE BEACH. That’s why the beach north of the bathrooms has always been closed to dogs (leashed or not).
The Mayor should not be DUMPING THE CITY ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS on the back of law abiding citizens.
You are so right my good friend. If you want something really bad, just figure out a way to be “the victim” and your chances of getting “saved” go up exponentially when you are surrounded by really good, kind and generous people. I’m not saying there aren’t some real victims among our ranks, both in and outside the bowl; but I am saying there are some folks who are really good at it and good at “working” it.
As you say, our immediate neighborhood has no sidewalks or curbs East of 8th. Street. Yet we aren’t running to the Council demanding that we get equal treatment to downtown up to 8th. Ave. and beyond. Our neighborhood developed before we had much in the way of building codes requiring any sidewalks or curbs.
When the town has festivals at FAC, we purposely try to provide as much parking as we can around our house because we have good onsite parking space. Most of us don’t have that luxury; so we have to be a little testy about parking in front of our mailboxes and having little room for our own stuff.
My comment above is in reference to Mr. Hall’s earlier comment; not Mr. Scordino’s comment above. Mr. Scordino is right on the mark regarding this enforcement issue. I consider both of these people my personal friends.
Regardless whether the City’s “public information gathering” survey [as to feasibility, purchase, or use of ‘landmark’ parcel] has expired or not, 700+/- responses in a city of this size and population doesn’t even pass the smell test for validity. Furthermore, reader responses to the above article seem to indicate that the ‘other’ category offered within the survey was largely responded to with the sentiment of: “Don’t buy this property”. This reader firmly believes that this purchase would be a poor decision by our city; leave the site for potential private sale and development at some point in the future.
Thank-you Edmonds citizens for weighing in with your thoughts, and thank-you MEN (Teresa) for the excellent summary of this Council Meeting. I am impressed by the many well-articulated responses related to the Burlington property and the very poor survey that was submitted.
This exchange by our Edmonds citizens clearly demonstrates to me why local quality news is important to our local democracy and informing people of what is going on behind the scenes.
I was impressed reading these responses! These folks are engaged. Regardless if you are for or against the items in the article, you are informed, engaged, and I hope, that the Edmonds Administration and Council is paying attention!
Keep reading folks!!!!! And keep engaging. This is your town.
Having watched the City Council meeting last night, I am appauled at the irresponsible handling of the entire Landmark project. From the covert actions of the Mayor in pursuing this purchase, to McClaughlin’s phony “survey,” and her outright lying about the legitimacy of using funds given to the City to help Edmonds businesses that lost revenue during Covid, to the proposal to fund this ridiculous project STARTING with asking $250K to figure out WHY we would even pursue the purchase while, when pressed, the Director’s assistant himself admitted there would most likely be further expenses in the pursuit of the viability of the project, to our COUNCIL members that weren’t willing to ask the hard questions and/or follow the folly of the “presentations,” it is thoroughly disgusting. Shame on all of you except for Buckshnis, Olsen, Teitzel who are intelligent enough to look beyond the pretty pictures.
Are the chickens coming home to roost?
…Just sayin’
Only the Hen chickens, Don. The old white Rooster chickens are forbidden from coming home to roost because they are too loud and annoying.
Dear Mayor and the Four Council members in support of this boondoggle, I have a condo downtown Edmonds I will sell to the city for 25-50% over the real market value. I will even give you a six month hold with a refundable deposit of $25,000. My location is not in the underserved 99 corridor so I would expect final negotiations to reflect I’m in the over served downtown area and I fully expect a discount for being a just a regular citizen that pays taxes and VOTES. After further thought I will reduce my offer to $10,000 refundable deposit for six month hold and 35% over market price to reflect my status of NOT being in the underserved 99 corridor. My offer stands until Election Day.
Mr. Giles: is your “letter” serious and if so, did you send it to the Mayor & council members? As Vivian Olson told me when I individually emailed each of them, she affirmed that method because there is no assurance they will read any of this. So if your letter is serious, suggest emailing it to the individuals you are writing to.
We have moved from having information not being made available or completely unknown to us, to now what seems like intentional deception (speaking of the survey here). I feel like we’ve moved to a new level on the discussion of the project where simply there cannot be any trust anymore with anything. Full disclosure, I live near this property and am also against the purchase, but was willing to see the conversation through. I am no longer willing to do that. This is a complete mess and embarrassment. I have to give credit to CM Buckshnis for at least asking the question I think many were wondering. One of my biggest confusions lies with CM Tibbot, who not only is blindly supporting this effort but also has done other questionable things like remove the council listserv during this critical time. It seems to me, that at the end of the day, CM Chen will be the deciding factor on this discussion. I hope that his strong sense of fiscal responsibility and understanding of the investments needed in public safety for our neighborhood will ultimately prevail. This effort takes away from all of that discussion and focus.
Tom,
Council member Buckshnis, as always, is listening to her constituents and focusing on municipal finance. She is correct that time is not on our side, that the update of our Comp Plan, our sewer treatment plan issues, climate action plan and our “terribly inadequate code” all must be addressed, now. Mayor Nelson’s last minute effort to win votes is spilling into, and exposing his failure as an administrator. Both Chen and Nand would like the ARPA “Facade Improvement” money to go toward….. facade improvement. Both referenced knowledge of many businesses that could benefit. Tibbott, on the other hand, has asked staff to come up with another pool of ARPA dollars staff could pilfer from to hire a consultant for the $250,000 they need to do their jobs.
You have said you think Councilmember Buckshnis should endorse Rosen. I don’t. I voted for Diane, and appreciate her integrity in supporting neither candidate. I’d like to see Rosen express his opinion about this project. If elected, would he allow staff to fail to administer a budgeted for ARPA program? Would Rosen support McLaughlin’s “survey” and lack of transparency about the results? How would Rosen handle these issues?
Joan, have you emailed Rosen directly? Sounds like a good idea. I think he looks at MEN but this is a very long comment thread for him to see your query
Yes, there’s probably much we won’t learn about Rosen until he’s elected. But undoubtedly we’ll learn much more by election day in November. Nevertheless, Joan, don’t we now know enough about Nelson to be confident that Rosen will be a better mayor?
Mr. Wambolt, if you look down on this thread, you will see that Mr. Rosen has responded. I keep suggesting to folks on here however, that they send their comments directly to the persons they don’t think they are hearing from. We cannot be sure that any of them will have time to wind through an incredibly long thread such as this one. Yes, it’s good to put our opinions forth here and is a vehicle to do that, but a more direct approach is needed. I believe there will be some kind of public meetings on the Burlington situation. Certainly hope so. Meanwhile, if you look, you will see that Mr. Rosen has responded.
Joan, I admit I was intrigued when I first heard about the opportunity to secure or control such a significant amount of land inside of Edmonds. Under other conditions I might even be supportive of advancing the exploration of potential opportunities. However, I am not currently a supporter.
We have a budget that is in trouble and getting worse. Our financial resources need to be conserved. We need to focus on the basics which are not adequately being addressed, like pedestrian safety, the maintenance backlog and road repairs. Those funds were identified to address a need that still exists. If staff was unable to administer the façade program approved by council, the accountability is on the mayor.
This would create an unacceptable demand on critical staff who must also advance the comprehensive plan, code update the city’s wastewater treatment plant issues to name just a few.
As for the research. I managed a research team of PHD researchers and have personally implemented multiple research methodologies. This type of research, analysis and reporting would never have left the building under my watch.
Finally a good straight forward position statement from a candidate for the most powerful job in our town. Thank You, for making this statement, Mr. Rosen. As citizens, I think we have a responsibility to call out what we perceive as good behavior as well as bad behavior on the part of our elected officials or candidates for office. People who are either all good, or all bad, are only in the movies generally speaking and we lose sight of that sometimes.
Mike,
I appreciate that you are following this thread. Thanks for your thoughtful and candid response.
I’m hoping you can clarify, specific to Teresa’s report on the staff presentation and Council’s discussion and/or your own review of the video, what you mean by “This type of research, analysis and reporting would never have left the building under my watch.”
Thank you Mr. Rosen for your critique. And you are completely correct about the state of our city’s finances.
Joan,
Absolutely spot on. I too was particularly disappointed with CP Tibbott suggesting looking at other APRA funds to support this study. It’s like the ARPA money has become a slush fund of sorts for the city. We need some fiscal responsibility from both the mayor and Council as a whole. Some individual council members get it, while others don’t.
Likewise about Mr. Rosen. If he wants my vote, he’s going to have to be a little more vocal for what he’s all about. Leadership is all about making big and important decisions. Sometimes they’re not popular, but necessary nonetheless. Both the mayor and Mr. Rosen are MIA, yet they both want to be mayor. Heaven help us.
Do any of our elected officials know the correct chronological steps of project management? It would be useful as they debate project needs, feasibility and costs. It helps to reduce “cart before the horse” discussions and debate that just wastes time. It seems that there’s no initial discussion of what if anything is needed and why $37 million is being bantered around like chump change. A simple google search of “project management steps” could be helpful in these discussions. And if anyone is game, you can become a “certified project manager”. Heck, you can even get a college degree in project management…
It would be helpful if the Council and Mayor could agree on what is the problem we are trying to solve by buying and developing this property? All good public policy decisions should start with this question. It sound like the Mayor and Staff have an agenda. They will direct those consultants, if hired, to issue a final report that supports that agenda.
Right on Maggie. The consultant will simply rubber stamp Mayor Nelson’s agenda.
I still can’t understand why the city is even entertaining Landmark. At the mayoral debate, the issue of the city’s near-unbreachable deferred maintenance backlog, and inability to cover repairs on existing buildings, was a point specifically raised in one question and acknowledged by all of the candidates, including Mayor Nelson. The debate is on My Edmonds News’ Youtube page, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04kPZhWVMWw scroll to 1:34 and you can hear the question and their responses.
Mr. Rosen has made a good first step to try to obtain our confidence in him to be everyone’s mayor, if he wins. Assuming Mr. Rosen wins, one of his first actions should be to thank the former mayors for their support and then tell them, “I got this now and you guys and gals can go beck to your gardening and playing golf.”
His next step should be to plead with Diane Buckshnis to come on board either officially or unofficially for six months or so to help him analyze where we are at financially and where we should go from here to right the ship and get everyone pulling in the same direction, as much as possible. He may have a chance to be our best mayor ever, but he needs to move away from the old power base that is alive and well; residing at the ECR.