The Mountlake Terrace City Council spent most of its work/study session on July 16 receiving updates from multiple city departments regarding their operations and efforts during the first six months of the year.

Recreation and Parks Director Jeff Betz informed councilmembers about ongoing work to update the city’s master plan for Recreation Parks and Open Space (RPOS). The plan lays out a 20-year vision for goals and policies, it is required to be updated every six years and must be completed by the end of 2021.

The process will also focus on plans for Veterans Memorial Park, with redevelopment and improvements to the pedestrian path.

He said that the city would like to get the work process underway this year to allow for ample time to gather public input, which he called “the most important piece.” Plans for the outreach efforts will include a survey, focus groups, an online open house and community meetings as allowed by pandemic conditions. Betz said for now everything planned is either not in-person or would possibly be in small groups at outdoor locations.

City staff is recommending that the RPOS preparation and outreach work be contracted to Conservation Technix for $130,000. Betz said that the outside firm could help to reach a larger percentage of the community and thereby get more representative comments, compared to internal city efforts. The council will vote on the recommendation at its July 20 business meeting.

Betz informed the council that closures to parks and community recreation events had severely affected the departments goals and metrics. However, he said that parks crews had also been able to get a lot of maintenance work done in the absence of people.

Community and Economic Development Director Christy Osborn told councilmembers that her department’s numbers were “skewed due to fits and starts” during the pandemic. Development activities were affected because the city wasn’t accepting new applications for several weeks, but inspections continued unabated and still are conducted within 24 hours. Osborn said that there had been a lot of inspections for projects that people were doing while staying at home.

Public Works Director Eric LaFrance highlighted the department’s commitment to engage in preventative maintenance and operations to address issues before they become problems. He informed the council that fuel costs are expected to rise due to personnel being dispatched with only one person per truck, rather than the usual two, in response to  COVID-19 distancing measures.

LaFrance said that the Phase I of the Main Street construction project has reached “substantial completion,” and after final clean-up tasks are finished, he expects that a ribbon cutting will take place within the next couple of months. The department is also currently working on replacing old cast iron water mains on the west side of the city.

City Manager Scott Hugill said that the human resources department had seen a big impact on personnel because of layoffs and furloughs. Two positions were eliminated and 108 part-time workers were laid off, and an additional 16 regular benefit positions were furloughed in May.

He told councilmembers that the information technology department had worked furiously to convert old laptops and police department mobile computers so that they could be used by city employees working from home during health distancing measures.

City Clerk and Communications Director Virginia Olsen said that the information mailings for distribution with masks citywide are being finalized and will also include the next City Happenings newsletter. The city so far has conducted six mask giveaway events during the past 10 working days and there are four more scheduled next week. She highlighted the volunteer efforts of  Keep MLT Strong during the pandemic and said she appreciates the “great job by some of our residents.”

In other business, City Engineer Jesse Birchman provided the council with a review of two city maintenance and operations projects for traffic signals and also a contract for a reconstruction design project on 66th Avenue. The traffic signals projects proposed would allow for an adaptive system to improve flows and safety, he said. The pavement reconstruction and modifications project also involves a grant of more than $2 million from the Transportation Improvement Board for design and modifications.

He recommended to councilmembers that all three project agreements be approved at their next meeting Monday night.

The agenda for the city council’s July 20 meeting in available online. If the public would like to listen in via telephone, the call in number is 1-253-215-8782. To watch the meeting over the internet, follow these steps:  1) Go to https://zoom.us/join; 2) Enter meeting ID (859 4560 0390) and click “join” (you will be prompted to install the Zoom application if you do not already have it); and 3) Enter password (07 20 2020).