City of Lake Forest Park

17425 Ballinger Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
www.cityoflfp.com
206-368-5440

Please disregard the earlier draft. This is the final copy.
February 2021

Mayor Jeff Johnson

Mayor’s Corner – Marching Ahead

Leaving February behind and heading toward spring, the COVID-19 vaccine offers a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. As availability of the vaccine increases, we can anticipate LFP will continue to fare well, comparatively, in terms of per capita hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus. Let’s continue to be patient, careful, and follow the CDC guidelines.

In an update on City Hall operations, the opening of City Hall to the public remains in Phase 3 of the State’s “Healthy Washington – Roadmap to Recovery.” Although City Hall remains closed to the public, services continue to be provided through in-person and hybrid work models. The Administration continues to closely monitor the ongoing pandemic and is prepared to reopen City Hall to the public when it is safe to do so and as allowed by the State.

Thank you to all the departments and their staff teams for keeping the City running throughout the pandemic. Thank you to our LFP residents, too, for your input during the Town Center Code update process.

--Mayor Johnson

Stride BRT is coming to north Lake Washington

Sound Transit Online Public Meetings

Sound Transit will be hosting online public meetings for each city along the project corridor in the coming weeks. The online public meeting for Lake Forest Park is Tuesday, March 9, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Join the project team to learn about the design in your neighborhood, ask questions and share your thoughts. To sign up, visit sr522brt.participate.online. The meetings will have Spanish and Mandarin spoken interpretation, ASL interpretation and English closed captioning; the recorded presentation from the meetings will also be available on the online open house webpage.

Independent Force Investigation Team Program

On January 28, 2021, Resolution 1799 was reviewed and approved by the Lake Forest Park City Council. The resolution allows Lake Forest Park to enter into an interlocal agreement with multiple police agencies in North King County to establish the Independent Force Investigation Team – King County (IFIT-KC).

The interlocal agreement follows the requirements established by Washington State Initiative 940, passed in 2018, which was created to establish higher training requirements and police accountability standards. Part of the initiative was to require a completely independent investigation of police deadly force incidents, following the rules of Chapter 139-12 WAC.

The law also required at least two non-law enforcement community representatives to be part of the investigation team. The LFP city administration conducted a selection process that included a formal application and interview of applicants. Ten individuals were selected to serve on a roster, which was also presented at the Council meeting. The IFIT will operate independently of any involved agency's administration to conduct criminal investigations of police use of deadly force incidents. If an independent investigation is required, individuals will be selected from the roster to serve on the IFIT.

For more information, please go to: https://www.cjtc.wa.gov/letcsa/frequently-asked-questions.

Washington State Capitol

Council Corner – Sound Cites Association Public Issues Committee

It is my pleasure to serve the community of Lake Forest Park as the representative to the Sound Cities Association (SCA) Public Issues Committee or “PIC.” As a standing committee of the SCA, the PIC is made up of representatives who collaborate on current critical regional issues facing 38 Puget Sound member cities totaling more than one million residents.

The PIC is the body that makes recommendations to the SCA Board on policies and committee appointments. Each member city has a voting member and an alternate, and each city has an equal vote on the PIC.

The PIC considers regional issues such as homelessness, equity and inclusiveness, police reform, pollution, growth management, utility rates, solid waste, upcoming ballot measures, taxation, and many other important regional topics.

In addition to being the body that recommends policy considerations for the SCA Board, the PIC also affords local elected representatives the chance to share ideas, issues, and solutions with their fellow elected officials from other cities in the region.

Current policy considerations by the PIC include the very full 2021 Legislative session under way in Olympia, which includes 15 Police reform bills on Police Operations and Tactics, Use of Force, and many other central law enforcement topics. Also under consideration by the Legislature are revisions to the Open Public Meetings Act and consideration of making county Arts Levies approved by a vote of the Council, rather than a vote of the residents of any particular city.

Additional current topics for consideration and discussion by the PIC are upcoming ballot measures such as King County’s Best Starts for Kids renewal levy; the King County Regional Homelessness Association formation and funding; rental assistance distributed by King County ($34 million to date); and Vision 2050 (the region’s growth management strategy, overseen by the Puget Sound Regional Council).

The Sound Cites Association Public Issues Committee meets virtually the second Wednesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. and is open for all to attend. To find the latest agenda and meeting participation information, click here.

--Council Vice Chair Tom French

Six effective recipes for safer cleaning

Tips for Safer Cleaning

While many of us are home these days, updating how we clean can be good for our health, household, and the environment. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Avoid buying household products with “DANGER” or “POISON” on the label.

Save money and a trip to the store by making cleaners with ingredients you already have at home. These recipes are safer than many conventional cleaning products, which often contain harsh, toxic chemicals. Doing an internet search for “homemade household cleaners” should result in a host of recipes.

If you are looking to purchase safer cleaners and household products, the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County has lists and tips to choose safer household cleaners and products.

Do you have any cleaning products you no longer use? Do not dispose of them in the garbage or down the drain. Take them for safe disposal to our North Seattle Hazardous Waste drop-off site; hours and location are available here.

North Sound RADAR Program Update

In 2019, the City of Lake Forest Park joined the cities of Bothell, Kenmore, Kirkland, and Shoreline in an interlocal agreement to form the North Sound RADAR program, used in the event of behavioral health crises. At a recent City Council meeting, Police Chief Harden, Lieutenant Rhonda Lehman, and RADAR Program Manager Brook Buettner gave a presentation on the North Sound Response, Awareness, De-escalation and Referral (RADAR) Program, including the process officers use, how the RADAR Navigator response looks, and some success stories.

The North Sound RADAR Program combines information sharing across law enforcement departments and outreach by mental health professional navigators participating in the program. When law enforcement officers encounter someone with behavioral health symptoms or developmental disabilities in the field, RADAR Navigators can provide crisis de-escalation, outreach, and referral to services. Navigators focus on moving people into community-based, long-term systems of care to reduce reliance on the crisis and criminal legal systems and improve people’s lives.

In 2020, the RADAR Program served 21 people in Lake Forest Park, in a total of 32 meetings with Navigators and responding police officers. The average engagement was 45 minutes long. Of the individuals served by the RADAR Program in Lake Forest Park in 2020, 14 percent were living homeless, 19 percent were military veterans, and 57 percent reported a disabling behavioral health condition.

The racial demographics of individuals served closely mirrored the racial makeup of the City, with 88 percent of individuals served being White, 6 percent Asian, and 6 percent Hispanic.

RADAR Navigators found that young people, now learning from home, often had increased behavioral health symptoms, with little access to their usual supports. Navigators have provided support, education and tips for parents and have worked with families to access remote mental health services. In several cases, Navigators worked with families to be more effective advocates for their children in the mental health treatment system.

During visits to peoples’ homes, RADAR Navigators have also provided referrals on everything from medication access to low-income housing repair programs. For our neighbors living homeless, RADAR has provided shelter and basic needs referrals, along with a few basic comfort items in the moment.

Western red cedar

Douglas fir cone bract

Green Giants

Timothy Hohn, LFP Tree Board

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we share our home with very diverse botanical giants. Most conifers are trees, although a handful are shrubs. An iconic trait of conifers is their reproductive cone, often composed of overlapping scales: large and woody in western white pine, medium size with protruding “mouse tail” bracts in Douglas fir, and very small, upright ovoid cones with few scales on western red cedar. With many shaped like the typical Christmas tree, conifers have produced the world’s tallest, thickest, and oldest specimens. Every type of coniferous tree represented in the Northwest finds its largest and often longest-lived individuals here.

We are lucky in Lake Forest Park to have such a botanical backdrop for our daily lives. How often do we pause to take stock of such a glorious natural legacy? Traveling to my family home in the Midwest, I feel unnaturally exposed within what seems the stunted stands of native deciduous trees. When I return to Lake Forest Park, it is like emerging from a tunnel into a dazzling dreamworld of green and verdant growth reaching toward the sky. Visitors often ask if our trees are remnant old growth and are stunned when I tell them our trees are youngsters, mostly 50 – 100 years in age. With care and preservation, they may live several hundred more years. More surprisingly still, big Douglas firs are outlived by Western hemlock and Western red cedar—some living perhaps 1,000 years or more. The grand and beautiful coniferous forests of the Northwest are a botanical treasure of immeasurable importance to the health and permanence of our life place here in the Puget Sound region.

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