City Council Agenda - 2026-02-03
CITY GOVERNMENT
The Mercer Island City Council will meet on Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center. As always, the public is welcome to attend. You can register to make comments, virtually or in person, by sending an email to cityclerk@mercerisland.gov.
The full agenda can be found here. My summary is available at the links below.
AB 6853: Sound Transit Link 2 Line Update
AB 6852: 2024 Financial, Accountability and Federal Audit Exit Conference
AB 6859: ARCH Housing Trust Fund Project Approvals
AB 6857: Forged Fiber 37, LLC Telecommunications Franchise Agreement (Ord. No. 26-01, First Reading)
AB 6839: Capital Improvement Program Overview
AB 6853: Sound Transit Link 2 Line Update
Sound transit staff will update the Council on the status of the “2 Line”, which will connect Seattle to Bellevue via Mercer Island by light rail. Currently, this opening is scheduled to occur on March 28th, 2026. Light rail service for Mercer Island has the potential to create dramatic change for us, and I look forward to learning more.
AB 6852: 2024 Financial, Accountability and Federal Audit Exit Conference
The State Auditor’s office will provide the Council with the results of their annual audits of the city that assess: 1) the accuracy of the City’s financial statements, 2) whether the City follows state laws and its own policies and procedures, and 3) whether the City has complied with federal rules. The written report will be released after Tuesday’s meeting.
AB 6859: ARCH Housing Trust Fund Project Approvals
The City of Mercer Island provides two types of support to ARCH (A Regional Coalition for Housing). We provide a formula-based contribution to cover administrative costs. And we provide a discretionary contribution to the “Housing Trust Fund” to fund actual construction. These are highly leveraged contributions, as our dollars are paired with those of other local jurisdictions as well as county, state, and federal dollars to create a significant pool of money to build affordable housing. Our annual contribution to the HTF of $35,000 is among the lowest of all ARCH members on a per capita basis. The City contributed $96,000 in 2018, $50,000 in 2019, $33,768 in 2020, and $35,000 in each year since 2021.
All HTF contributors must approve the allocation of funds for construction projects. The current year allocation is itemized below. Note that none of these projects are slated to be constructed on Mercer Island.
· Bellevue - Altaire – Hopelink/SRM ($4,400)
· Bellevue – Forest Edge – Imagine Housing ($4,400)
· Bellevue – Orchard Gardens – Habitat for Humanity ($5,900)
· Kirkland – Kirkland House – Porchlight ($1,700)
· Redmond – Family Village Redmond – YWCA ($6,600)
· Issaquah – LEO Trailhead – Life Enrichment Options (LEO) ($700)
· Bothell – Bothell Urban – BRIDGE ($16,900)
The image below shows the “affordability level” of each proposed project. “AMI” is Area (king county) median income.
In total, Mercer Island’s share of the total HTF contribution to this project is about 1%. The total HTF contribution for all seven projects for all ARCH members is about $4 Million, which will (when paired with other funding sources) cover $298 million of construction costs for 502 affordable housing units.
AB 6857: Forged Fiber 37, LLC Telecommunications Franchise Agreement (Ord. No. 26-01, First Reading)
This appears to be a routine ordinance to transfer right-of-way rights for fiber technology installation on the Island from Lumen to an AT&T subsidiary.
AB 6839: Capital Improvement Program Overview
During the last election cycle, there was a fair amount of community discussion about the adequacy of city internal resources to fund the proposed public safety and maintenance building. This session is an overview of the scale and uses of existing capital improvement funds.
Staff has asked Council to give guidance on the following questions:
1. What questions does the City Council have regarding current capital projects, including project sequencing, funding, or related considerations?
2. What about the long-term capital project plan?
3. Should capital funding be reprioritized to advance facility projects? If so, to what extent, and what process would the City Council like to use to review and adjust the project list?
4. What guiding principles should inform decisions about reprioritizing capital investments (e.g., life-safety, continuity of operations, regulatory requirements, asset condition, community impact)?
5. How should we engage with the community on these discussions?
While council is not being asked to vote on anything during this discussion, it may lead to development of a strategic direction for funding a new public safety and maintenance building.
Below I recap some of the key info about the capital improvement funds.
The city’s current amended 2025-2026 capital improvement budget is $111 million. This amount covers a wide range of applications including streets, parks, sewer, storm water, water, and city buildings. A recap of the budgeted amounts is shown below.
Generally speaking, the city finances most projects on a pay-as-you-go basis. For particularly large and long-term projects, debt financing is sometimes used to spread the cost over the generations of taxpayers that might benefit from the project.
Most of the money spent on these projects is legally restricted to fund certain types of projects by state law. The small portion that is not legally restricted is restricted by the city’s financial management policies that were developed a couple of years ago by staff working with me, Councilmember Weiker, and then-Mayor Nice.
Most of these funds come from the Real Estate Excise Tax (REET). Unfortunately, this money is collected on home sales, so revenues are quite volatile from year to year. Half of REET revenues can be used on public facilities or for streets, parks, or utilities. The other half cannot be used on public facilities and can only be used for streets, parks, or utilities.
You can email the council at council@mercerisland.gov, or email any individual councilmember at firstname.lastname@mercerisland.gov if you have comments or questions.