City briefs | 2014 public records requests

Published 10:18 am Tuesday, January 20, 2015

2014 public records requests numbers

The City of Mercer Island received 275 general records requests and 440 police records requests in 2014, said Ali Spietz, city clerk.

In 2013, the police department received 47 requests, said Kelly Donnelly, MIPD evidence technician and records specialist. The city received 237 requests last year.

In the property room in 2014, MIPD collected 798 items of evidence and 80 items of found property, and took in 23 items for safekeeping, Donnelly said. The two most commonly submitted items of evidence are photographs and fingerprints.

The most common types of records requested are building and land use permit records for Mercer Island properties and police reports, Spietz said.

Council planning session set for this weekend

The Mercer Island City Council will hold its annual planning session on Jan. 23-25 in the Calkins Room at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center at 8236 S.E. 24th St.

Topics include parking options, budget allocations, police issues and downtown development.

On Friday, the Council will meet from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., on Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., if needed.

There are no scheduled items for Sunday, but the Council plans to hold this time open in case items arise.

The sessions are open to the public.

For a copy of the agenda, please visit www.mercergov.org/councilmeetings, contact the City Clerk’s Office at (206) 275-7793, or visit City Hall at 9611 S.E. 36th St.

City’s open space plan update ready for comments

For the past 10 years, Mercer Island has been restoring its open space, removing ivy, holly and other invasive plants and planting native trees and shrubs. Now the city is in the process of updating the plan that guides this work.

The past decade’s achievements have included reducing the total coverage of invasive plants by half, according to a new study that assessed hundreds of study plots. In an additional 142 plots, the number of native conifer trees regenerating in the forest averaged 78 trees per acre versus almost zero 10 years ago.

Climate change is likely to increase stress on native trees, said Alaine Sommargren, natural resources specialist. While the Pacific Northwest is expected to escape the more severe climate change anticipated in other parts of the U.S., increased summer drought could harm drought-sensitive native trees such as western hemlock and western red cedar.

The public is invited to review the draft plan and provide comments until Feb. 17. A public meeting on the updated draft plan will be held Thursday, Feb. 5, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center.

County radio network upgrade on Council agenda

At the City Council meeting on Jan. 20, after the Reporter deadline, the city was set to adopt an interlocal agreement with Eastside Public Safety Communications Agency (EPSCA) to implement a new Public Safety Emergency Radio Network.

The new system, which will require a County-wide ballot measure to fund and take five or six years to complete, is said to be more technologically advanced and interconnected.

EPSCA was formed in 1992 through an interlocal agreement between the cities of Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Mercer Island and Issaquah to create an emergency radio sub-region system in East King County. That system is approaching 20 years old, and vendor support will be eliminated in 2018.

More repairs are required as the system ages. It does not provide the desired level of coverage in certain parts of the County and its capacity is taxed during major events, according to the agenda bill.

King County anticipates proposing a levy lid lift to fund the new network, which will cost $225 million. The funding measure will be on the ballot in April, if the transition is approved by each of the member cities.