It was certainly interesting to say the least. The big topics were the 90% design plan on the ELST and the 42nd St Opticom barrier in the Hidden Ridge neighborhood, to which an endless stream of neighbors spoke during the public comment period.
Whitten and Valderrama were the most outspoken individuals on the council with regards to their displeasure of King County’s disregard for city guidelines on the trail. Scott Hamilton spoke during public comment that he doubts the county was responsive to citizen input either (he stated there was zero response to his letter to the county). Valderrama made a motion to potentially abandon the inter-local agreement with the county over the trail issue if they couldn’t incorporate citizen/city input into the design plans. This was ultimately not a motion that passed, but instead the city will ask someone (they’d like to see Kevin Brown, who serves as the King County Parks & Rec Director), present for the March 3rd council meeting to explain why the county did not incorporate any suggestions/guidelines from the city or citizens. There was also discussions of getting legislative members together (namely Constantine, Lambert, & Hague) to discuss the trail. Scott Hamilton stated in his comments to council that the council ultimately has the upper hand as the permitting agency on the trail to the county. This will certainly be interesting to see if the council will hold the line or cave.
The Opticom barrier was essentially pushed back to City Manager Ben Yacizi to further investigate (and get tangible data) regarding cost and safety. The city’s engineer (Laura Philpot) stated that the city hadn’t put in any time or resources into any data on the topic. It was noted this is truly a public safety issue, and Whitten pointed out that this street alone had 20+ street variations to it. The council broke for a 10 minute executive session where legal council was given. The council conceeded all they could do was ask for more information (concrete data) and push the decision out to 2035, which was noted that could be altered. Valderrama & Whitten both really wanted to give the residents of the area some closure to the situation instead of letting it dangle further.