Thanks. >> It was delicious. >> Good evening. Welcome to the City of Woodbury City Council meeting today, February 11th, 2026, 7:30 p.m. We are meeting here in council chambers, so we here live. We also do um share these uh via uh video. SWCTC or True Lens Media does all that. So, they're broadcast live as well. Um you can watch the live meeting if you find the agenda online and click under the green button. We do take questions uh or comments during the meeting both in person and we do watch it um and monitor that online as well. Um I do we in order to make a comment I do need a green sheet. I have two people wanting to speak at the open forum portion. Um, so we will take those uh shortly. Actually, it's just it's almost one of the next things to do. But first, we start with the pledge of allegiance. So, please stand and join me. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> I'm not a flag expert. >> No, I was also doing that. It has to be the tallest one. Yes, they have. >> I think we all notice the same thing. >> We'll have to fix [clears throat] it. >> I'll take care. >> Let the engineer do it. >> The engineer. The engineer can do it. Okay. >> Do you need a task force to do it first? [laughter] >> Okay. Thank [clears throat] Thank you, Chris. We want to We want to fix our flag. Um Ashley, would you please do the roll call? >> Council member Morris >> here. >> Council member Santini >> here. >> Council member Stafford >> here. >> Council member Wilson >> here. Mayor Bert >> here. We are all here so we can connect tonight's business. Chris, look how fast you did that. Oh, there. And that's the problem. >> That's the problem. Okay. [laughter] >> You could just stand and hold it. The whole meeting maybe just so it's higher. >> You're the one here. You do it. >> Uh we have that we have no special orders of business tonight. We do have the open forum though. So I do have these two open form uh people that would like to speak. So let me just share um what we say about the open form. This is the portion of the meeting where we allow three persons to address the council on subjects which are not part of the meeting agenda. So just double checking for those who speak not already on the agenda. It's something different. Um signup sheets are good. Again, somebody can be doing this online and Ashley will monitor for that as well. When you uh come up and I'll call you up one at a time. Please provide your name and your city where you live for um city of residence for the record um and then speak. We allow you three minutes. Now, we have a new we have a fairly new system. We got a clock going over here. Ashley will begin it. And down there in front is a green, yellow, red button. And I think the [clears throat] yellow goes off. Yellow goes off with one minute left and then it'll go red. So, that just helped you kind of stay on time. Um, since we do not know what you're here to talk about, we do not have prepared answers. So, we will listen to you attentively. Then, we'll get back to you uh with a with a response, whether it's phone call or email or or whatever we need to do. Um, typically we'll get that back within a week. So, with that, I would like to invite Steve Simon up. Um, I just have to comment. We've got a really cute um, email address. Am I allowed to say it? >> Simple Simon. >> Simple Simon. >> Um, I like it. >> It's simple. >> Simple. Yes. [laughter] So, um, >> okay. Oh, thank you. >> Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. >> Someone else >> in color. Okay, >> thank you. >> So, [clears throat] yep. Name and city got and then begin. >> So, good evening. I'm Steve Simon. I live here in Woodbury. Uh, I've been a resident of Woodbury for nearly 30 years and a resident of the Interlockan neighborhood for a little over six years and I serve as the treasurer for the Interlockan Neighborhood Association. I'm also on the board. Um, for 30 years or thereabouts, this association and its predecessor has existed to help keep our neighborhood safe, keep residents informed about items of interest and concern, foster a lively social environment, and to keep our neighborhood looking great. It's a voluntary organization run by volunteer board, and of the 187 houses elig eligible to participate, we typically have about 145 that participate every year. uh they they pay a voluntary fee and so we collect around $24,000 a year uh in fees for our association. >> We use those us to uh create a membership directory, periodic newsletters, a few social activities, but the great majority of that uh money is spent on what we call beautifification of the neighborhood. This is where the great majority is spent. We hire professionals uh to plant flowers and other plants, to trim them, to fertilize them periodically. We pay a lawn service to mow along the parkway on Interlockan to fertilize and to prevent weeds. We have a sprinkler system set up [snorts] that allows us to water the flowers and plants and we have electricity at the monuments on either side of uh the entrance to uh Interlockan from Valley Creek uh that are lit up and then so we have electricity for those and we have the sprinkler system for all of our um our plants since the beginning back uh in 1990 or thereabout back in the early 90s when we started this organization. We've had an agreement with the city whereby uh we're allowed to run water, electricity um to those from the monuments to the island in the middle and to the other side and then down the island so we can put the lighting up that we want to put up and to water all the flowers etc. Um now we certainly understand the need for the water treatment facility. No argument there. Uh but that project resulted in our water and electric lines being severed and we were told it was the city property and that if we wanted to have them rerun, we would have to do it at our cost and we would have to figure out how to make it happen. So we did incur the cost and we did perform the labor. One of our board members actually went down there and laid pipe under the street with the guy running the project to make sure this could happen. So we now have water and electric restored on both sides of the island and to the island. So we can run our sprinklers and we can we can have lighting. Uh for many years we've received feedback from residents and visitors, some who might even be on the council that it's a very very beautiful place. It's a great entrance. It's a really really welcoming place to drive in off of Valley Creek onto Logan. Um however we so we do take great pride in that. uh in the attached slide deck that I gave you, you can see on pages one and two, there are examples of what we've done on the northeast monument in the past and what what we've done to prepare for it now. It's been basically shut down all of last year with weeds and everything growing over it while they were doing the project. So, we've done a lot of preparation to make sure we can make that look presentable again. Pages three and four show the opposite side of of Interlockan and the same kind of a thing, but the monument on that side. Pages five and six show the information um for the north end of the island on interlocking. Subject of this discussion is look at page seven uh what we've done historically. I'm sorry on page yeah on page seven is what we've done historically and then pages eight and nine is the current state of that island. >> Just you know I see the red light but you have another minute or whatever. I'm not going to cut you off because you're a nice job of being pretty succinct in explaining. >> Yeah. >> Um I can assure you Thank you. I appreciate that. I can assure you that the phone calls that our board, including myself, have received from residents pertaining to the current state have not been positive. Um, and so the question is, and and I I could I know we were out of time. I I got a bunch of people who weren't able to make it. I do have some of our neighbors here who all showed up to to say, "Yeah, they don't they they don't like that look either." Um, I' I've got some text messages, one of whom said, "I've lived here since 1990. That's the worst this front entrance has ever looked." Um, people said we should build a tent over it. Some people suggest we might want to add a gas station because of the look of it. So, it's it's pretty horrendous. And so, the question is >> ugly. >> What does the city plan to do, if anything, to help us beautify that monstrosity? If you look at both sides are beautiful, the middle of that, every time they do something to finish it more, it's worse. They they had posts around it so that people wouldn't run into it with their cars. Then, they painted the post bright yellow. Then, they put a big silver box over the top of it. Then, they put a big pole on top of it. And like I said, I understand there's a need for that, but um all the neighbors are coming across as the board and saying, "What can we possibly do about this? It looks horrible." So that's my presentation. >> Thank you. I just have one question. So just for clarity, you're not This is not part of an HOA. You actually do this voluntarily and get this many neighbors to pitch in. >> It's it's a voluntary HOA. >> Yeah. Wow. That's nice that you get that many people to cooperate. That's wonderful. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate all the pictures and we will get back to you on that. >> Thank you very much. Okay. Next is Bill Erlick. Hello, Bill. And just again state your name for just for the record in the mic and your uh city of residence. >> Sure. Bill Erlic and um I'm a resident of Woodbury for 36 years and I'm here to follow up from the meeting that we had with you regarding the ICE detention center that you stopped and we're so appreciative of that. Um, I sent a follow-up email on February 1st to find out is there any way to ban them or do something more permanent so that we are can rest assured that it's not going to happen in the city. Um, I know I hear on the news about the state of Washington banning these facilities, the state of Mississippi banning these facilities, uh, Oklahoma. So, I don't know if there's anything in the works to to make it a more permanent solution and not just a oneoff. Um, and in addition to that, the facility, the hero center, if there's any restrictions or any um power you have over that facility to help regulate what happens there as well. >> So, I I sent my email on the first I I got a response back that you all got the email. I don't know how long it takes to to respond to that, but that was the reason for my my coming here today. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, I'll just add that we have gotten hundreds of these responses and most of the time we do have a staff member who reviews them and for the most part the comments that come in look like statements are being made and we accept any statement that wants to come in. We don't always answer those. So, if there was a very specific question uh and and that we missed it, we'll go back. I think I'll just direct staff to go back and look at this particular one and see if there was a particular question that came out specific question. >> We'll just we'll we'll double check that um and then and then answer that. But just I think for the record for those that may be listening, I'm going to say very broadly. I'm not going to get into a lot of detail, but um it is uh it there is do a do a civics lesson. There's a thing called the supremacy clause that the federal government has in the US constitution. So it does limit some things we can do. There are cities that have put in things that maybe just been been done to put something out there, but it may not have any legal standing in the long run. It's performative. Thank you. That's a good word to use. It's performative. So um we have been aware of that. So as we have thought about all the actions we could take, you know, that's under consideration as well. That said, uh more than anything, our staff works very very hard to know the lay of the land in our community, know facilities that might be available, the land that may or may not be available, and has worked very hard to prevent this from coming. And we feel very good about where it stands. >> Yeah. And we we all appreciate that and and understand that. >> Yeah. And I would just like to state that one of the things we did learn after the last meeting when we communicated this is that we did get written documentation from a contractor for the federal government that was looking at doing this work that this is off the table. They have no interest any further in pursuing this. Okay. So based on that we feel pretty confident. >> Okay. >> We keep hearing too about draw downs that are occurring and with more and more of that happening there's there seems to be from my perspective no need for this whatsoever. So that I'm going to leave it there because I don't want to be saying anything else wrong and I think we'll get back to you with a more detailed specific answer. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Um okay, I think next is our consent agenda. Um all items listed under the consent agenda are considered by to be routine by the city council will be enacted by one motion and affirmative vote by roll call of the majority of the members present. We do not have a separate discussion on these items unless a council member or someone in our audience or listening uh so request that we remove it and then we do remove it and we'll consider it a separate subject of discussion. So, out of courtesy, I always turn to the audience and say, is there anything you want removed? And hearing none, we check online. There's nothing online. Council members, anything to be removed? >> Hearing none. Um, would someone like to put forth a motion? >> I'll move to approve consent agenda items 6A through 6E. >> Second. >> Motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, the roll call, please. >> Council member Morris. Hi. >> Council member Santini. >> I. Council member Stafford, >> I. >> Council member Wilson, Mayor Bert, [clears throat] >> I. Those consent agenda items pass. We will now move on to um our public hearing tonight. We have one project under consideration in the public hearing. I don't have any green sheets right now. So, because of that, I'm going to bypass reading the very long paragraph. If somebody wants to come forward and say something, then I'll I'll review what those guidelines look like. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Um, with that, the hearing is now open and I'll turn to Janelle Schmidtz who's going to share more about this project. >> Thank you, Mayor Bert, members of the city council. Mary Bert has submitted an application for a preliminary plat and final plat to be called Country Estates Second Edition. She's also requesting, as I just mentioned, the final plat. >> I just want to make sure it's clear that there is no BT, not B. Thank you for that clarification. didn't even occur to me. >> The property is located east of Woodlane Drive and north of Woodlane Bay in the southeast part of the city. The property is zoned R2 single family estate and guided as rural estate on the land use plan. The preliminary plat requests to subdivide an existing 9.3 acre parcel into three lots each of each of which would be slightly larger than 3 acres. The property was originally platted in 1988, which involved the subdivision of a 26 acre parcel into three lots with a private road, Woodlane Bay. One of those parcels, the 9.3 acre, is now seeking to be further subdivided into three three acre lots. The R2 district requires a minimum lot size of three acres to be served by private, septic, and well. No zoning flexibility is requested as part of this application. The lot width, depth, and setbacks are all being met. In terms of site access, uh Woodlane Bay is platted as a public right away with the original country estate subdivision. However, the road itself is um private. It was designed um in the to private standards and is maintained privately by those that have access to it due to the limited number of driveways. And again, this has been in existence since 1988. The engineering department did review the roadway uh as part of this application and determine that it should remain a private drive due to the cost to upgrade it to city standards um and maintain it with limited driveways being added at this time. Um, as you can see from this aerial photo, the site is heavily wooded. Part of the subdivision, um, as part of our subdivision code, uh, no more than 30% of significant trees can be removed without replacement. The applicant is only proposing to remove trees that are within the kind of buildable area for the home, the driveways, and the setpacks. And you can kind of see they are, you know, sort of shaded on here with a septic system sort of outlined as a proposed septic location for each of the three lots. And the applicant again um with that proposal is is not proposing to go above that threshold of 30%. So there would be no tree replacement required. The planning commission did review this at their February 2nd meeting and at that time they recommended approval and we have commissioner Jake Guzek here to give their report. >> Hello commissioner. Welcome one of our new commissioners. Correct. >> Yes. >> Yes. Welcome. >> Yeah. Um good evening mayor, members of the council and staff. Um it's pretty straightforward um discussion at planning commission without any request for variances or um zoning changes. Uh we only had a couple questions. Uh one of them revolves around the trees. How many are being reviewed removed? Um as community development director Smith mentioned only those that are necessary to build the the homes are proposed to be removed. U we also discussed uh drainage and utility easements. Um asked if engineering had reviewed to see make sure there wasn't any drainage ways that needed to be included in the easements that were laid out. And we did add one condition. Um, lot three on the very east side there has an existing driveway from a neighbor that's encroaching. And so that uh we requested that be resolved before final plat is approved. So either the property owner needs to come to agreement with um I forget the exact wording but either the property owner is >> number seven. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So either [snorts] that needs to be removed or an agreement needs to be made between the property owners. So that's not an issue moving forward. >> Okay. And there are no current homes on this 9 acre. >> There are no homes on this um 9 acres. The applicant um one of the applicants is in the audience. Okay. Um the son of the applicant, I should say. Uh they are proposing to purchase lot two and build on lot two at this time. >> Okay. That's the one with the pool. Nice. >> Okay. I don't have any further questions. Anyone else? Okay. >> Um, and I don't have any green sheets on this. Anything online, Ashley? >> No. Okay. So, I make a motion that we close the hearing. >> Second. >> Motion a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. Okay, we're closed. And now, council members for your questions or comments. >> I have a question. Mhm. >> I don't like to bring up old things, but I do remember uh a few months back there was a lot on maybe military in Woodlane somewhere in that area >> and they wanted to subdivide their lot, but [snorts] we had a 3 acre minimum and and so that one wasn't able to go through because of the wetland. Correct. And so there there is no wetland on any of this that would protect that. Mhm. >> These are three acres free of wetlands. >> Okay, got it. Thank you. >> Good question. Anything else? >> I really didn't. >> Yeah, it I mean >> seems fairly straightforward. >> Very. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, in a septic >> their own private road. >> Is there Maybe I should ask that because that was something that came up recently with one of these on a current road with some people. Is there do you know if like there's a road agreement almost like an association? >> Yes, there's a maintenance agreement because there are um you a couple of driveways um on there right now. This lot has a driveway as well as this one. So, and there's an agreement. So, these new lots would need to be partying to that. >> Gotcha. Okay. >> Anybody else? Any? No. >> Oops. I'll make a motion to approve the country estate second edition preliminary and final plat project numbers 32-2025-00595 and 32-2025-00596. All subject to the conditions outlined as listed in the council letter 26-25. >> Second. >> Motion a second. Any further discussion? >> Just one more question. Just just a quick one. There was a neighborhood meeting, I'm assuming. Yes, it was. >> And I saw that two people, I'm assuming it's the two people that were there. Any concerns on their part? >> Um, I'd have to look back to the council letter. I don't think there were concerns as much as questions. One moment. Um, questions were regarding the timing of the project and the location of the project. >> That was it. That was it. Okay. >> All right. No further than um, roll call, please. Ashley. >> Council member Santini. >> I. >> Council member Stafford. >> I. >> Council member Wilson. >> I. >> Council member Morris. Mayor Bert. >> I. That passes. So, who's is it yours? Congratulations. Have fun constructing. Yeah, it sounds like a lovely uh location. Yeah, very good. Um, okay. We have no discussion items. We'll move on to staff reports. Wow, this meeting, Jeff, we talked about getting done before. >> Wow. >> See what time is it? You okay, you have a you've got nine minutes, which is more than enough time for your staff report, but you you can go faster. >> Start the clock. [laughter] Actually, >> all in favor of that. Yeah, >> I mean I do have a pretty lengthy report. I'll get through it pretty quickly here. Thank you, Mayor Bert. Um, a couple events and then a couple of other things. Just want to give a shout out to Woodbury Green Talks. Our third event this year or or for this initiative is going to be held on February 25th at Central Park in the amphitheater. Our lovely new amphitheater. Uh, the subject uh on the 25th will be get energy smart starting at home. So, I think um everybody can appreciate how our energy bills go up, especially this time of year and in order to kind of cut down on some of those those uh cost with little things you can do around the house. Uh so, a really um applicable uh topic for everyone. So, encourage you to attend that. Um that's free uh come one, come all. Uh next uh that same week on February 26, which is Thursday of that week, >> we have our annual state of the city hosted by Mary Bert. Uh Mayor Berts. [laughter] Mary Bert. >> That's the person who owned the land in front of us spelled with an E. Bert T. Okay. >> Mayor Bert. [laughter] Uh at Central Park as well, 6 pm. It's free. It's open to the public. We would like to know how many people are going to come. So, please go to our website and RSVP. But, uh, should be a fun night. Uh, there'll be time for, uh, uh, meeting the council, uh, socializing as well. Um, so, just wanted to give the public a reminder about that fun event. Um, couple other things. Uh, I want to just note to the public that we are move we are do currently doing our community survey. We do that twice uh, or once every two years. Uh it started in early January and it's uh 5,000 randomly selected residents. They receive uh mailing. So we hope to get um respondents back through that way. Uh respondents have until Wednesday, February 18th to complete the survey. So for for folks who are um watching this at home, if you did receive one, uh please send your feedback, your response to the survey by the 18th. It's really important that we get that. If if folks that didn't get randomly selected still want to provide their impact input, we love that as well. Uh we do have another way to get that feedback. It's through uh pocal us. It's a long website address, but just go to our website. You can get that information. It's uh the survey is a little bit different, but we still utilize that feedback uh to help uh guide policy. >> Uh so really important. be clear, it's not part of the statistical evaluation that the >> correct. It's kind of cut off. It's delineated from that data, but still important regardless. Ultimately, uh the the council will receive a a presentation or report about the results of the survey uh in April. Um next, just want to uh give props to our wonderful public safety department. Uh two noteworthy awards. Uh, East Ridge High School recently declared a day in January as is Officer Ashley Kawar Day. Uh, so congrats to her. Ashley uh is back on the streets and we have Officer Stafle now. Um, uh, clarify. She's on patrol. She's not on the streets like wandering around. [laughter] >> That is a important clarification, Council Morris. And I'm glad you made that. >> But pretty cool. uh not too many uh school resource officers have their own day. So, it speaks volumes to her and how she what she meant to Eastridge. Uh also want to give props to uh fire marshal Kevin Lynch Lynch. Uh back in uh January, Kevin was awarded the chamber um of commerce uh public safety worker of the year, which is a pretty impressive award for all the great work he does in his field. Um, next I two other quick things or three actually. Uh, not really awards but recognitions. I want to give a recognition to Council Member Morris. It's his birthday today. I think he uh turns 37. >> Happy birthday [laughter] anniversary. >> I'll even take that. And also uh my understanding it's council member Santini's birthday tomorrow and I think she turns 29. So, congratulations for that. >> That's [laughter] correct. >> Uh, last but not least, I want to recognize um, Ty Okada. This has been a reoccurring thing at our council meeting, but for a good reason reason. Uh, Ty is a the safety on the Seattle Seahawks and congrats to the Seahawks. They uh, you may have heard they won the Super Bowl. Uh, so congrats. Tai is a a Woodbury born and raised East Ridge grad and I would say most importantly the son of our wonderful Michelle Okat our public our parks and recck director. So congrats again to Ty. We're going to try to get him to a council meeting at some point. >> Yeah. >> So that's all I have and I think I have four minutes left. I mean I can take questions or >> tell jokes. >> I could but I'll I'll save the community from that. >> [laughter] >> I mean, you you did miss the the fun part in there like the the last 10 years we've been working on this ladder truck and we got the ladder truck. Same thing. This is like a big we have on the ladder truck. We want to >> Well, [clears throat] >> that's our next council outing. It's going in the bucket. >> Chief Posal did say that in an upcoming meeting we're going to see some new equipment. We'll have a chance to review. >> It's on your uh updated uh workshop list already. >> Yeah, >> we get to play with the new truck. And why don't we do you're gonna have to climb the ladder and place the flag on the truck. And why don't we have a naming contest for that? >> Yeah. >> Lot of great ideas. >> Big red >> like for the street sweeper things, right? >> And the plows >> and the zam. I don't know. >> I think we're running out of time actually. [laughter] >> We are to open it up. >> Um I would like to make a motion that we adjourn this meeting. [laughter] Motion a second. All in favor? We are adjourned. Thank you. Good night.