Given the recent general election resulted in three new members of the Ferndale City Council, city staff held a council retreat to provide a overview of city finances, operations and departmental structure. The entire council, the mayor and city administrative staff met for over 6 hours in the conference room at the Police Department building on Monday, January 11th.
During the last portion of the meeting, councilmembers and administrative staff were asked to provide items on their wish lists for improving the city.
The initial list contained nearly 50 items ranging from implementing the Thornton Street overpass to improving citizen attendance at council meetings. That list was then whittled down several times yielding “Must Do,” “Should Do,” and “Could Do” lists as follows:
The “Must Do” List
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- Improve traffic handling on the northbound Portal Way interchange
- City Hall campus improvements, Council/Court Chambers renovations and making a decision on what to do with (what used to be a pizza restaurant) annex
- Thornton Road Overpass
- Lummi Agreement
- Connect Church Road with Slater Road via South Church Road
- Open Bender Park to the public, add a viewing tower
- Build a skate park
- Synchronize Main Street traffic lights
- Improve water quality
The “Should Do” List
- ADA-compliant trails in parks
- Build Portal Way sidewalks
- Build footbridges in the parks and a trail from the library to the Pioneer Park ball fields
- Fence-off the off-leash areas of VanderYacht Park
- Create a Ferndale youth corps for summer employment
The “Could Do” List
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Click for more information- Design and implement a Ferndale marketing plan
- Build sewer service extension to Grandview Road
- Create a partnership with YMCA for investigating options for a community pool/rec center
- Create a parks department
- Revisit HOAs and CCRs managing their own storm water ponds
- Create an open community space downtown
- Build sidewalks on Douglas Street where they are missing
These are wish lists in the most literal sense given that feasibility, financial resources and other aspects were not being considered for the purpose of the exercise.
City Administrator Greg Young pointed out after the exercise that there were only a few “big” projects and many more smaller ones. In past years there were usually several big projects that made the final three lists, according to Young.