State of the city 2010 address | Covington

The economic recovery may be wavering, but our commitment to moving Covington forward has never wavered. The city of Covington is looking ahead, not just to next year, but six years out, to ensure we have the strategies in place to achieve the community’s vision and remain fiscally healthy amidst the economic turmoil.

September 16, 2010 4:01 pm

Editor’s note: The following is the State of the City 2010 address presented to the Covington Chamber of Commerce Sept. 9 by Mayor Margaret Harto and City Manager Derek Matheson.

Mayor Margaret Harto:

The economic recovery may be wavering, but our commitment to moving Covington forward has never wavered.

The city of Covington is looking ahead, not just to next year, but six years out, to ensure we have the strategies in place to achieve the community’s vision and remain fiscally healthy amidst the economic turmoil.

This past year, your City Council:

  • Passed a stronger panhandling ordinance resulting in near eradication of panhandlers in the city.
  • Thanked city volunteers at the first ever Volunteer Appreciation Night.
  • Connected with residents through highly successful events including Covington Days and National Night Out
  • Moved the downtown plan process forward, from concept to policy and, soon, to zoning, development regulations, and design guidelines. The two major issues the council needs to resolve before it adopts the zoning are medical facilities in the town center and the number of parcels a developer must aggregate to redevelop in the Covington Firs neighborhood.

Derek Matheson:

Well, it comes as no surprise that the past year has had its challenges. Despite these challenges, the city has made substantial progress in areas like downtown development, transportation improvements, parks and recreation, and connections between the city and the public we serve.

Development

Our Community Development Department has seen an uptick in development activity compared to last year. True, some businesses have left, but we also welcomed new ones and saw long-dormant development projects come back to life. Examples include the 2Seven2 Bar and Grill, AutoZone, IHOP, the Coho Creek subdivision by Kentwood High School and the Cornerstone subdivision by Cedar Heights Middle School.

Projects in neighboring cities like Black Diamond will bring more activity to Covington’s businesses, as Covington serves as the retail hub for southeast King County and has seen faster retail growth than any other city in the state over the past five years, according to the 2010 Washington State Retail Survey.

Shoreline master program

Continuing on the development theme, the city has been working to update its Shoreline

Master Program to comply with a state mandate. Shorelines that meet the state’s threshold for regulation are Pipe Lake, the lower reaches of Jenkins Creek, and the lower reaches of Big Soos Creek. The update process provided for extensive public participation, including an ad hoc advisory committee. The city’s draft program is under review in Olympia and will come back to the city for final action toward the end of the year.

Public Works Department

From capital improvement projects to stormwater management, the Public Works

Department has been bustling with activity.

  • The “Costco Road”, a $13.8 million project that also included improvements to Kent Kangley Road and Covington Way, drew to a close in 2010. The project provided better access to a number of downtown parcels – both developed and undeveloped – and improved the visual appearance of the area.
  • When complete, Kent-Kangley Road from Wax Road to Jenkins Creek, a $2.5 million project, will widen the roadway, add sidewalks, allow for U-turns, and improve signalization in the east end of our downtown area, which has been a known bottleneck for some time. It’s funded almost entirely by grant money and is nearing completion. Like the Costco Road, it improves the city’s visual appearance, as well, with curbs, gutters, sidewalks, street trees, street lighting, and underground power.
  • Our next project continues the project I just mentioned. It improves Kent Kangley Road from Jenkins Creek to 185th Ave. SE. It’s estimated to cost $14.7 million, so it will take some time to cobble together the grants necessary to design and build it.
  • In addition to city projects, the Washington State Department of Transportation included Kent Kangley Road, which is also state Route 516, in its summer overlay project. The work should be complete by the end of September.

Diesel Multiple Unit

Phase one of our Diesel Multiple Unit feasibility study is complete. DMUs are self- propelled railcars that are proposed to connect Covington and Maple Valley to Sound Transit’s commuter rail service in Auburn using Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s existing Stampede Pass line.

The collaborative effort among the cities of Covington, Maple Valley, Black Diamond, state Department of Transportation, and others shows that DMU is a feasible medium-to-long-term concept to address our traffic woes, and additional bus services is a feasible short-to-medium-term concept.

The next step is phase two, an implementation strategy, that will look at how to bring additional bus service (in the near-term) and DMU (in the long-term) to the area.

Improved transit service not only would alleviate traffic congestion and parking issues for commuters who drive to local rail stations, it would promote the kind of development we want to see in our town center and throughout downtown Covington.

Impact fees

Continuing on the transportation theme, the council made changes earlier this year to the way it collects traffic impact fees from developers. Impact fees are the mechanism by which developers pay for improvements that offset the traffic their developments generate. The city will move from a county system that divided the city into multiple zones, each with its own fee, to a city system with a single citywide fee that’s roughly equivalent to the average of the zone-based fees. The new system will offer more predictability for developers and easier administration for city staff.

Parks

The Parks and Recreation Department has been busy lately, too.

  • The City Council adopted a Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Plan earlier this year. The plan identifies and prioritizes park and recreation projects over the next 10 years.
  • The plan’s signature project is Covington Community Park, a proposed 30-acre park across from Tahoma High School. When complete, it will be the city’s first community park and will include amenities residents told us they wanted during an extensive public engagement process – amenities like ball fields; walking trails; tot, youth, and teen areas; picnic areas; restrooms; and more. Initial master planning and design work was funded by city utility tax dollars and grants.

Future work will rely almost entirely on grants.

Police

Public Safety continues to be the public’s number one priority, so our Police Department continues to ensure the city’s officers well-trained. Partially funded by grants, nine officers have gone through “active shooter training” and received new active shooter equipment this year.

Notable Ordinances

As the mayor mentioned, the council passed a new panhandling ordinance this year. The ordinance prohibits begging directed toward vehicles and begging on private property without the written permission of the owner. After counting as many as 15-20 panhandlers in the city this spring, it’s rare to see one now.

Additionally, the council amended the city’s fireworks regulations, to allow police to issue infractions (similar to traffic tickets) to violators. Previously, police had to issue criminal citations, which required a thorough police report and collection of evidence. Now, our officers can spend their time responding to calls instead of doing paperwork.

Budget

The city continues to hold its own during the recession and the painfully slow recovery in which we find ourselves. You’ll recall the city reduced its budget by $1 million last fall, mainly in the Community Development and Public Works departments where development activity – and therefore revenue – had decreased dramatically and where the city’s multi-year road-building push was winding down.

The city faces a much smaller shortfall in 2011. The shortfall is in part due in part to the economy’s impact on the city’s sales, utility, and real estate excise tax collections, and in part due to two liquor initiatives on this fall’s ballot, I-1100 and I-1105. The initiatives close state liquor stores and, in the process, eliminate the liquor profits and taxes that are shared with cities and counties. If passed, the two initiatives will cost the city $187,000 in revenue in 2011 and $242,000 in 2012.

The city faces a much larger shortfall in 2012 and beyond unless the economy starts to grow soon and rapidly. The longer our revenues bounce around the bottom, the more time our expenses have to grow, making the gap bigger each year until our revenues grow again.

The city’s management team is in the process of identifying strategies that will balance the budget in 2011 and start to balance it in 2012 and beyond. The council will receive the proposed budget on October 12, discuss and modify it in October and November, and adopt it December.

Communications

The city completed a citizen survey in October 2009. The survey gave us valuable information about how residents prefer to receive news about the city, how residents feel about the city, and what residents’ priorities are in terms of city services.

  • The city has initiated greater communications efforts so the public can understand better how the city uses the public’s money.
  • The city operates a very active Facebook page that allows for a dialogue between users and city staff. We use the page to broadcast alerts, get opinions and ideas about city projects, and more.
  • The city found a way to reappropriate funds used to maintain the current website to create a new website that will make it easier to provide the information our public and customers need and save money in the process. Work on the new website is underway.
  • The city continues to publish a monthly newsletter in the Covington Reporter and continues to provide information through the website, through e-mails, by personal contact, and more.

Special events/volunteers

The city recently received awards – for participating in excellent community service related programs – called the Communitas Awards.

The three programs that received awards are the Clean Covington Campaign,

Purple Light Nights, and our Public Works Volunteer Training Program.

The Clean Covington Campaign took a request from the City Council to abate graffiti and turned it into an annual program that includes graffiti removal kits, better education, and Clean Covington Day.

Many of you know about Purple Light Nights. It is a month long campaign that coincides with Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October. The Covington

Domestic Violence Awareness Task Force sells purple light bulbs and sponsorships of purple lighted trees.

This year, there will be a tree-lighting ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 2, in which the community tree at the Don Henning Roundabout will be lit with purple lights. Also new this year, the task force has created the Purple Light Nights Bite of Covington that raises money by selling tickets to use at some of Covington’s great restaurants.

The Public Works Department was honored for its commitment to work with volunteers who have had trouble in the past in an effort to help them learn valuable work ethics and skills during their rehabilitation.

Conclusion

As the city moves forward, we will continue to tackle the tough job of managing the budget in down times.

We will foster closer relationships with our residents and businesses to get their input on tough issues.

We pledge to provide the public with the best service we can within the resources we have available.

And, we continue to appreciate your involvement and support.