This article has been modified to remove a statement that the council approved a Comprehensive Plan amendment removing a portion of the Five Corners neighborhood hub to protect Shell Creek. That amendment failed by a 3-4 vote.

a section of property After months of study, discussion and debate on three complex issues, the Edmonds City Council Tuesday night agreed to ask voters whether the city should annex into the South County Fire Regional Fire Authority (RFA), approved the city’s 2025-26 budget and passed an amended 2024 Comprehensive Plan update.

The vote was 6-1 on all three measures, with Councilmember Michelle Dotsch voting against.

The council also unanimously elected Neil Tibbott as council president and Susan Paine as council president pro tem for 2025.

On the issue of RFA annexation, the council first heard from South County Fire Chief Bob Eastman on a series of amendments to pre-annexation documents that had just been approved by the RFA Board of Commissioners that same evening. Among them:

– If voters approve RFA annexation, city fire station 16 (located at 196th Street Southwest) and station 20 (located in unincorporated Esperance but owned by the City of Edmonds) would become the property of the RFA, as noted in earlier documents. But if Edmonds chooses to exit the RFA, ownership of the stations would revert to the City of Edmonds at no cost.

– If after annexation, Edmonds wanted to restart its fire department, it could purchase the rolling stock (fire engines and aid cars) from the RFA at fair market value — with no concurrence of the RFA required to make the purchase. That requirement had been a point of contention because — as City Attorney Jeff Taraday explained during a recent council meeting — “there’s a significant wait time to order new rolling stock from the factory.”

Eastman then fielded questions from councilmembers. Councilmember Will Chen asked about the provision stating if the fire authority ceases to operate either property as an active fire station, title and ownership would revert to the City of Edmonds — but Edmonds would pay fair market value for the stations. City Attorney Jeff Taraday explained that latter scenario assumes that the RFA “has purchased land somewhere else nearby to operate the station that would serve Edmonds, and has built a new fire station on that property that would also be serving Edmonds. And so in that scenario, given the investment that they’ve made on the different property, they would not be looking to return the old property without payment.” The city would still receive its equity interest in the property, he added.

Chen also asked what process the city would have to follow to withdraw from the RFA at a later date, and Taraday said that all it takes is  adoption of a resolution by the city council. “It does not require a vote of the citizens. It does not require a vote of the RFA board. It’s entirely a decision of the city,” the city attorney said.

Council President Vivian Olson made the motion to direct the city attorney to draft a resolution placing RFA annexation on the April 2025 ballot, which was followed by additional council discussion.

Olson — who along with Tibbott served on the city’s negotiating team for the RFA pre-annexation agreement and related documents — addressed comments she has heard from community members opposed to annexation. She stated that despite statements to the contrary, Edmonds would have elected representation on the RFA board and that Edmonds voters would also vote for all RFA commissioners. She also addressed the desire of some residents to restart an Edmonds Fire Department — which the city disbanded in 2009 due to budget troubles and instead began contracting with what is now South County Fire. Olson said that with the city’s current $13 million budget deficit, “the upfront investment, whether that’s rolling stock and equipment and hiring personnel, is something that would be unwelcome right now.”

Her biggest concern, though, is the criticism that councilmembers haven’t fully vetted additional options for fire service, such as contracting with other fire departments or forming a new regional fire authority with other cities. “The other options take a lot more time and money in the short term, and I don’t believe, from what I do know, that they’re going to end up being better solutions,” Olson said. “And with our difficulties, the short-term expenditure is a bad thing.”

Tibbott also said he was supportive of the motion to place annexation before voters. “I’d say up until now, we’ve heard mainly one narrative from one part of our community, and it’s been centered around costs and how revenues are generated,” he said. “So I’m confident that that we would be well served, and now it’s just it’s a time for the rest of the city to have an opportunity to hear both narratives and have a chance to vote on it. So I think this is now a time for the voters to decide.”

Councilmembers Chris Eck, Susan Paine and Jenna Nand also expressed their gratitude to the work that had been done so far on the RFA negotiations and their support for the services South County Fire now provides to the city.

“The other options just did not make sense, financially or from a timing standpoint,” Eck said. “I too am very thrilled to continue to take the same level of care and service from South County Fire that we have all been experiencing these last few years.”

Councilmember Dotsch offered a different view, stating that while she appreciated the work of the negotiating team and also values South County firefighters, she had hoped the city would pursue an extension of its existing fire and emergency services (EMS) contract. That would have given officials more time to understand the RFA’s costs  — especially since the city learned the contract price would nearly double without annexation.

“We just don’t have the numbers to know how the cost and the contract got so out of alignment with what we just updated a few years ago,” Dotsch said. Equally concerning, she said, is the fact that the city is considering both an RFA vote and a levy lid lift in 2025, which would result in a “135% tax increase for our property owners. Is that reasonable amount to ask for? I guess, if it passes. It would be up to the voters.” She also said that by joining the RFA, the city would lose direct fiscal control, adding that “electing a commissioner is not the same as city bargaining power and oversight.”

The council’s passage of the 2025-26 budget came after months of work to address the city’s budget deficit. As part of its budget work, Edmonds implemented a new priority-based budgeting approach that was shaped by feedback through a community survey, focus groups and a community advisory panel.

The approved budget includes $9.8 million in cuts and revenue increases, including:

Staffing reductions — The city will not fund 43.5 positions, resulting in layoffs.

Furloughs — 53 city staff will be required to take 12 unpaid furlough days for $420,000 in cost savings.

Police department command structure — The city council directed the department to reduce its command structure budget by $551,000.

Fee increases — The council agreed to raise fees for parking permits, red-light camera infractions, credit card transactions and building permits.

In addition, the council has directed the administration to identify further cuts of $1.5 million in 2025 and $2 million in 2026. These reductions will be presented in March and implemented by April 1, 2025.

Councilmembers expressed appreciation to Mayor Mike Rosen, Acting Finance Director Kim Dunscombe and city staff for their work in preparing the budget during what all agreed was a challenging year. “I just hope that future councils take the lessons that we kind of had to bitterly learn this year forward in times of plenty, and are more circumspect with their spending so that we don’t have to resort to dozens of layoffs to balance our funds,” Nand said.

“The [department] directors have done a ton of heavy lifting through this process, and I know…that there’s great appreciation for the work that you all have done,” Eck added. “It is painful to have to make the staff cuts that have been made, and the community will most likely feel that difference in service and the experience, but these cuts were necessary.”

“I also want to thank the public who were very, very involved with this process,” Tibbott said. “This budget is an agreement with the people of our city regarding the way we spend public funds, and so we take this deliberation very seriously, and we couldn’t have done it without the kind of public input that we’ve received.”

Dotsch countered that the budget “just relies on a lot of unknown data, dollar variables to balance it, whether, with the RFA, with the levy lid lift, whether that’s one year, multiple years.” She added she believed the city “could have been a little more fiscally honest” about what happens if one or both of those measures don’t pass.” And she was hopeful the city would add metrics in the future to better determine “what does success look like.”

“I do support what has happened. I do support a lot of the work that’s been done, but in the end, I won’t be able to support this budget as is,” she said before casting her “no” vote.

The council’s adoption of the 2024 Comprehensive Plan update came after two years of work on a draft plan that includes the concept of developing neighborhood centers and hubs aimed at accommodating the city’s allocated growth targets. The growth scenarios are designed to account for and comply with the state’s housing bills and the mandatory Comprehensive Plan elements, and to align with multicounty and countywide planning policies.

The council Tuesday night worked its way through numerous amendments to the plan, based on feedback from the Edmonds Planning Board, the community, councilmembers and staff.

Among them:

For the Edmonds Marsh and salmon passage: Strengthening language about providing an open channel across the Unocal property for fish passage to Puget Sound and seeking opportunities “to restore, expand and ehance the Edmonds Marsh as an estuary.”

For the climate element: Removing language that states Edmonds is a leader in environmental stewardship and replacing it with wording stating the city’s mission is to lead in environmental stewardship.

For transition zones: Revising the policy to read that in low- and medium-density residential areas, the city encourages “walkability, a vibrant public realm, and appropriate city neighborhood character.”

For groundwater recharge: Revising language to state that the city would strive to “limit land use activities and materials that would negatively impact groundwater recharge, unless such activities protect against contaminating the aquifer.”

Several changes recommended by the State Department of Commerce in its review of the plan, including policies about reducing and mitigating wildfire risk, siting essential public facilities, ensuring private property rights, prioritizing capital projects, and stating recognized barriers to achieving more housing availability.

Retaining the Maplewood neighborhood’s designation as a neighborhood hub and modifying the North Bowl hub to accommodate concerns about building heights.

Revising a plan goal related to downtown Edmonds so it reads: “Strengthen the unique identity of downtown, including its low-scale building heights and pedestrian-friendly environment.”

Adding a new policy that “encourages neighborhood-oriented commercial uses including ground-floor retail, in neighborhood hubs and centers.”

Amending a policy related to House Bill 1110 requiring middle housing so it reads as follows: “Promote middle housing types to create greater equality and diversity, while meeting commnity standards, such as for setbacks, lot coverage, and tree canopy, consistent with requirements of HB 1110.”

Changing the future land use map, which will serve as a guide for creating city development codes to support the Edmonds Comprehensive Plan growth targets, in the area adjacent to the Edmonds Marsh that includes the Edmonds fish hatchery. The change retains the Master Plan Development designation from the city’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan update.

Near the end of the Comprehensive Plan discussion, Councilmember Dotsch moved to extend the review of the plan until the end of January 2025, but that died for a lack of a second.

The final plan passed 6-1, with Dotsch opposed.

— By Teresa Wippel