# Setting the Stage for Public Safety and Planning On a sunny September afternoon, the Bellingham City Council convened as Committee of the Whole to tackle two significant agenda items that would shape the city's future: formally adopting the library's long-term facilities plan and confronting a looming budget crisis through a new public safety tax. With all seven council members present in chambers, the meeting reflected both the routine work of municipal planning and the urgent fiscal realities facing the city. ## A Blueprint for Library Growth: Facilities Master Plan Gets Its Due The first order of business was approving a resolution to formally adopt the Bellingham Public Library Facilities Master Plan, completed in 2022 but never officially endorsed by council. Elizabeth Erickson, a planner with the city's planning department, explained the administrative necessity: as Bellingham prepares its comprehensive plan update required by the state, the streamlined document will rely on reference plans rather than repeating detailed information. "The Bellingham Plan itself is going to come forward to the City Council as a very streamlined document," Erickson explained. "So when you see it, it'll be much shorter and much easier to use, much more accessible. But that means that we're really relying on these reference plans." Library Director Rebecca Judd then walked the council through the master plan, using the same presentation slides from 2022 with minor updates. The plan emerged from extensive community engagement — 18 stakeholder interviews, 13 focus groups, and 980 online survey responses — and a comprehensive analysis of the library system's level of service standards. The numbers tell a stark story about the library's capacity challenges. Currently operating at 0.53 square feet per capita across three locations (Central Library, Fair Haven branch, and Barkley branch), the system falls below even the "low/minimal" service standard of 0.6 square feet per capita. With population growth projected through 2042, the gap between current capacity and service standards will only widen without strategic investment. Council Member Michael Lilliquist raised important questions about equity and access. "Some of these quantitative measures, I don't think are nearly as important as other kinds of measures," he said. "Square footage per resident is an abstract, citywide number... It also has to do with availability of those resources and whom they're available to. What parts of our community are maybe geographically far away from a facility? And who are those people who are geographically far away?" Lilliquist's concerns touched on the geographic disparities revealed by the plan's service area mapping. The analysis showed clear gaps, particularly on the city's north side, where new housing developments are creating demand for library services. Judd reported significant progress since 2022: a new branch opened at Bellis Fair Mall addressing north side needs, and major renovations are underway at the Central Library. But challenges remain, including planned drop box locations that have been slow to implement. Council Member Daniel Hammill highlighted the connection between library services and broader community needs, noting that the plan should guide investments that maximize public benefit. "We know that with larger facilities we can provide more public benefits in terms of programming spaces and meeting and study spaces," Judd explained. "And we know that if we're trying to ask the question of what moves the needle on these level of service standards when we have the opportunity to invest, making those investments really count is what moves the needle." The discussion reflected council's appreciation for the library as one of the most utilized municipal services, consistently ranking in the top 10 libraries statewide for circulation per capita. Hammill and Council Member Edwin "Skip" Williams both emphasized the importance of planning ahead for the booming north end of Bellingham. The resolution passed unanimously, 7-0, setting the stage for the library plan's incorporation into the comprehensive plan later this year. ## Confronting the Budget Crisis: A New Public Safety Tax The afternoon's weightier discussion centered on an ordinance imposing a new one-tenth of one percent sales tax for criminal justice purposes. Deputy City Administrator Forrest Longman laid out the stark fiscal reality: Bellingham faces a $10 million general fund deficit in 2026, and this tax could provide $3.9 million in revenue to help close the gap. "The state of our reserves doesn't really give us another year to adopt a large deficit budget," Longman said. "We need to resolve our deficit. So if we don't have the revenues, we will have to close that $4 million gap with reductions to expenditures, which is the reduction in services." The tax, authorized by new state legislation, requires cities to attest that their police departments meet specific training and policy requirements. Bellingham is nearly in full compliance, missing only one requirement: 25 percent of commissioned officers must complete Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training. The city has arranged for trainers to come to Bellingham to meet this threshold before the October deadline. Chief of Police Joe Watson explained the value of the CIT training: "Crisis Intervention Training is to really focus officers on real-time de-escalation and skills in that realm. Also part of that is kind of getting our community partners in the room and making sure our officers know what their resources are here in our own community." The discussion revealed the complexity of municipal finance and the difficult choices facing local government. Council members grappled with the tension between asking residents to pay more in taxes while facing services cuts if the revenue doesn't materialize. Council Member Hammill provided crucial context about what's at stake. "If we don't do this, we're going to lose bike patrol, which is [a] more popular, well-recognized community asset," he said. He described riding with bike patrol officers who dealt exclusively with substance use disorder cases during their shift, highlighting the front-line reality of the city's drug crisis. The numbers Hammill shared were sobering: Bellingham is down to about 1.5 overdoses per day that officials know of, down from about six daily roughly a year ago. "Council will recall in May two years ago, we had 130 overdoses, several which resulted in death, including several youth, whose parents came here and talked right at that podium right there to us about the dangers of fentanyl," he said. Council Member Kristina Michele Martens supported the tax while acknowledging the difficulty of new taxation. "It's always difficult to look at new taxation, especially in the state of the economy and I want to recognize that," she said. She emphasized that the funding could support not just law enforcement but broader public safety programs including diversion and reentry services. Lilliquist pointed out that the legislation allows the tax revenue to support a wide range of public safety efforts, from law enforcement to domestic violence services to programs aimed at reducing crime at the front end. "What I like about this possibility is that it's for the suite of things we're doing in public safety," he said. Council President Hollie Huthman expressed concern about voting before all requirements were met, preferring to wait until the training was complete. However, the tight timeline — the ordinance must be delivered to the state Department of Revenue by October 17 to implement by January 1 — drove the discussion toward moving forward with first and second reading. Concerns about public education and transparency emerged throughout the discussion. Huthman noted that while she understood the implications of not passing the tax, "I don't know that the general public is quite as informed about what that means." She preferred more time for community education before the vote. Williams supported moving forward while emphasizing the need for public education: "I totally agree with everything you just said, and I believe that we need to move forward with this as fast and as deliberate as possible. But what goes hand in hand with that... is a complete education of our community about how this budget deficit is going to impact all of the services that we provide." Council Member Jace Cotton successfully amended the ordinance to require that reports to the Association of Washington Cities also be distributed to the city council, ensuring ongoing oversight. Council Member Hannah Stone attempted to add language acknowledging that work remained before final passage, leading to a procedural discussion about how to structure the motion. Ultimately, the council agreed that third and final reading would not occur until all training requirements were met. The ordinance passed first and second reading 7-0, with third and final reading scheduled for October 6, contingent on completing the CIT training requirements. ## Revisiting Past Decisions: The Annexation Reconsideration In old business, Council Member Hammill made a motion to reconsider the council's August decision to deny the Britton Road Northern Heights annexation proposal. This unexpected move sparked intense debate about process, fiscal responsibility, and strategic growth planning. "I've received more information, more data from a variety of sources that has led me to believe that it would be in the best interest of the city and the city council as decision-makers to reconsider this," Hammill explained. He cited questions about projected housing density, noting discrepancies between city planning estimates of 100 new units and proponent claims of 200-400 units. The discussion revealed fundamental disagreements about growth strategy and fiscal priorities. Council Member Lisa Anderson opposed reconsideration, arguing it wasn't fiscally responsible given the budget crisis: "We are in a budget crisis and it's not... even if we don't accept it as an annexation, we just delay it. If we accepted it, we know we're going to be about a half-million dollars a year [cost]." Anderson also raised environmental and transportation concerns: "I don't think this meets our climate goals. We don't have transportation out to that area... It's gonna be car transportation out there for them to get to work, to get to a doctor's appointment." Council Member Stone echoed these fiscal concerns, emphasizing the resource implications: "When we're facing right a budget shortfall... and we are already falling short of some of the obligations that I believe we've made to the residents of our community who've been here for a very long time and those who are part of recent annexations." Supporters of reconsideration, including Williams, argued for taking a more comprehensive approach. "What we had to vote on was the annexation of a part of our community that had been planned, that had been processed, but the conditions that we're facing now have changed a little bit," Williams said. "How does any annexation of any part of our urban growth areas... fit into the overall plan that we are trying to develop?" Lilliquist raised questions about cost estimates for infrastructure, particularly a fish culvert, suggesting the engineering estimates might be significantly inflated. He also noted that the annexation, while not ideal from a smart growth perspective, was "on a transportation corridor, it's on a bus line, it's less than a mile and a half from two grocery stores." The motion to reconsider passed 5-2, with Stone and Anderson opposed. Hammill then moved to amend the original denial motion to direct staff to bring back the annexation proposal for consideration in late 2026 or early 2027, after completion of the city's annexation plan. This amendment also passed 5-2. The back-and-forth revealed the complexity of annexation decisions and the competing pressures facing a growing city with limited resources. Chris Behee from planning and community development explained that the city plans to update its annexation strategy following adoption of the comprehensive plan, providing a more systematic approach to growth decisions. ## Labor Relations and Minor Corrections In the final business of the day, Cotton shared a draft letter supporting caregivers at Evergreen Supported Living who have been working toward their first union contract for over a year. The discussion focused on ensuring the letter was addressed to both sides of the negotiation, encouraging resolution while supporting workers' rights. Cotton also flagged minor technical improvements needed in the city's unfair and excessive fees ordinance, noting definitional clarifications that could improve implementation. Stone and Lilliquist indicated they had similar technical amendments to propose, suggesting a coordinated approach to bringing forward improvements early next year. ## Looking Ahead As the meeting concluded, council moved into a brief executive session to discuss a potential property acquisition. The afternoon's work reflected the ongoing balancing act of municipal governance: maintaining essential services while managing growth responsibly and addressing immediate fiscal pressures. The library master plan adoption represents the kind of long-term thinking that successful cities require, even as the public safety tax discussion highlighted the immediate pressures that can force difficult choices. The annexation reconsideration underscored how past decisions remain subject to changing circumstances and new information. With the budget presentation scheduled for September 29 and crucial decisions looming in October, Bellingham's city council faces a consequential period that will shape the community's trajectory for years to come. The challenge ahead is clear: maintaining the quality of life and services that residents expect while navigating financial realities that limit options and force hard choices about priorities and growth.