MEDICAL LAKE — The City Council held their final meeting of the decade on Tuesday, Dec. 17, passing two fee resolutions for the following year, authorizing a letter of support and approving an interlocal agreement, and wishing a two councilmembers farewell.
The council agreed to write a letter of support for a proposal to name State Route 902 the “Gold Star Memorial Highway,” at the written request of Rudy Lopez, director of the Washington State Veterans Cemetery and member of the Eastern Washington Veterans Task Force.
The designation would be similar to SR 904, which is known as the Michael Anderson Memorial Highway for the astronaut killed with six others on the Columbia Space Shuttle in 2003.
City 2020 administrative and utility fees were also briefly discussed and approved.
Administrative fees remained the same, according to City Administrator Doug Ross, with the exception of fees for fireworks stand permits, which dropped from $200 to $100 due to a state law limiting the amount cities can charge.
The fee change resulted from the owners of one firework stand pointing out the excessive fee to the city last year, according to Ross.
Utility fees will remain unchanged for the next year.
The council also approved an interlocal agreement for hearing examiner services between Medical Lake and the city of Spokane.
The need for such services is the result of proposed rezone requests and an increase in available water hookups that will likely result in additional development after the city completes an intertie with the Spokane water system in 2020.
All rezone requests must go before a hearing examiner.
“We haven’t had any of these requests in so long we haven’t had a contract with the hearing examiner,” Ross said.
Hearing fees are charged to the applicant, but appeals will still come before the City Council, he said.
Ross also announced that the city had received two additional Transportation Improvement Board grants.
The first is a $214,310 grant to install sidewalks on East Grace Street between South Broad and South Brower streets.
The second is a $199,092 that will be used to overlay Lake Street between Lefevre and Prentice streets, the first overlay since Lake was reconstructed in the mid-90s, according to Ross.
The grants require $20,671 in matching funds from the city.
“I think that’s a pretty decent leverage of our funds,” Ross said, adding that the project will likely be started in 2021.
Councilwoman Laura Parsons offered her farewells to fellow councilmembers, thanking citizens for voting for her, and thanking all the various city administrative and elected officials she had worked during a tenure as a city councilmember totaling 14 years, between 1998 – 2005, and 2012 – this year.
She opted to not seek reelection and instead won a seat on the Medical Lake School Board.
One-term Councilman Ted Olsen also said goodbye — via a poem.
Art Kulibert and Heather Starr will fill their vacated council seats.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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