Clyde Hill News: Looking ahead to 2025
Also: Opportunities for residents to volunteer
As 2024 winds down, a celebration of progress and a look ahead at what Clyde Hill residents might expect from their local government in 2025.
But first — the city is looking for volunteers for its “Financial Sustainability Task Force” (link) to help the city address its budget issues, as well as applicants for an anticipated council seat vacancy. The deadline for eligible residents to apply is January 3. Details on all opportunities are available here (link).
Also, the newsletter will take next week’s holiday off — Happy New Year!
Disclaimer: while I am a council member on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the city. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about city business I will respond from my city email account.
Celebrating some of 2024’s wins
The city is likely to provide a more complete picture of 2024’s achievements in January after it can close out its books. In the meantime, some causes for resident celebration:
Police contract. Clyde Hill and the Teamsters have a new four-year contract in place. Also related to public safety: the city enacted a law (link) at the request of its emergency dispatch center to protect against misuse of 911.
Parks and stormwater. According to residents, the city addressed the long-standing 17th St stormwater issue. Also, the city honored a long-time resident, naming Muromoto Park after him.
Code updates with an impact on residents. Updates included a revised nuisance law (link) in response to the horrendous rat issue (link), amendments to the city’s code enforcement regulations (link) as well as how view and sunlight protection disputes are resolved (link), and changes to rules related to the expiry of variances. (link)
Also, the city is almost done with its state-mandated update to its Comprehensive Plan.
The usual suspects for 2025
Coming up with “a top-three list of local issues most likely to be of interest to Clyde Hill residents” was straight-forward, especially when starting from public comments at city meetings and communication from readers.
My surprise in writing this week’s newsletter came after I drafted this section: last year’s list (link) is basically the same as this year’s. More about this in the next section, “Making the case for optimism.”
1. Balancing the budget
Clyde Hill’s spending exceeded its revenues in the General Fund for the sixth year in a row. Cities that do this typically do not remain cities.
The city council voted 3-2 to enact a 2025 budget with a record deficit and re-committed to really balance the budget next year, after unprecedented resident engagement across seven special public meetings1 on the budget in October, November, and December.
Mayor Steve Friedman and Cm Steve Sinwell are leading a new “Financial Sustainability Task Force” effort to address the problem. What authority the new task force has remains “an unanswered question” (link) according to Cm Sinwell. This effort joins last year’s “Budget Sustainability Plan” (link) for 2025 and the city’s long running “Budget Advisory Committee” efforts.
Some residents have expressed concern that the goal of this effort is justifying a significant tax hike. The doubts reflect residents’ experiences engaging the city over the last few months and residents’ many unanswered questions. For example:
I’ve asked one single question… we used to have a lot fewer people and we had the same mission. Now we got more people, we got the same mission. That means unless somebody can tell me the mission’s changed, then we got too many people…. (link)
It’s unclear if the residents who engaged heavily on the budget during October, November, and December will sign-up for the new effort based on their experiences.2
2. State housing laws, local land use code and enforcement
Clyde Hill needs to update its local land use code to comply with several new state laws related to housing density.
The code update process to comply with new state laws (link) is still stuck behind the city’s troubled update to its Comprehensive Plan, which recently slipped (link) out into 2025. Separately, more changes to state laws to encourage more density in housing development (link) are likely.
At the same time, according to city staff, Clyde Hill also faces
Parts of the city’s code appear to be overdue for updates.3 Some residents have expressed frustration with aspects of the existing code and with what they see as the city’s inconsistent enforcement practices; fences and hedges (link) are one example.
Separate from the city’s land use code, the administration released a compendium (link) of policies and “historic code interpretations” (link) in March 2024. This 164-page document appears to be a good starting point to identify issues of interest to residents.
3. Stormwater utility
Clyde Hill will likely take the next steps in forming a stormwater utility during 2025.
There’s no roadmap or update about the next steps on the proposed new city utility since city staff asked the city council in February 2024 (link) to authorize a rate structure and a billing services agreement for it.
The city’s financial projections note that the city’s plan “includes creation of a Stormwater Utility:”
In response to questions about the communication plan with the community on this topic, City Administrator Dean Rohla wrote “the utility has not been a secret as it has been a part of every BAC [Budget Advisory Committee] meeting for several years.” The effort to form this utility started in 2020.4
Making the case for optimism
From listening to residents, it’s easy look at the progress on these issues and feel less than optimistic. I want to offer a case for optimism:
Resident engagement is a strong force in making sure that the city’s actions, decisions, policies, and spending all serve residents.
Clyde Hill residents were loud and clear about their concerns with the city’s budget, starting with the first public meeting on the topic in October.
Residents showing up had an impact. While the final 2025 budget had a record deficit, it was a significantly lower deficit than initially proposed, and that deficit that did not draw down the city’s “rainy day” Reserve Fund.
Some additional thoughts from conversations with residents about how to help the case for optimism:5
Information, please
Residents at public meetings were vocal about their surprise and wanting more and better information. The city’s new website is an important step on the path to understanding resident concerns, leading with information important to residents, and making that information easy to get to and find.
Clear expectations
Without clear expectations, residents can’t evaluate whether progress is good enough or disappointing. Here’s an excerpt from the city’s “2024 To Do List” from last January:
Results, not activities
Residents have been consistent in asking for results: a balanced budget, stormwater repairs, rat abatement, etc. City government seems to focus on activities and process almost to the point of ritual. Some of that is well-founded (for example, by legal requirements and limits on authority).
Thank you for reading! Please forward and share with your friends and neighbors, and if you are not already getting this newsletter, subscribing is both easy and free.
Wishing you a Happy New Year and optimism —
Dean Hachamovitch
The city held public meetings (separate from council meetings) on the budget on October 7 and 25, November 1, 7, and 14, and December 3 and 20.
For example, the city’s resolution thanking the five residents on the Budget Advisory Committee misidentified one of them.
For example, after a significant 2016 lawsuit in King County related to intersection visibility and safety (link), other cities took action. In 2022, Clyde Hill put intersection visibility on a list of potential code revisions for discussion. No new code has been brought to the council for consideration.
In 2020 (link) Clyde Hill city staff were “directed to engage a third-party consultant in 2021 to review the option of establishing a stormwater utility in 2022.” In September 2023, city staff asked the council to authorize an additional $186K of spending (link) on stormwater planning, including further study of a stormwater utility.