This time last Friday, the island was working to cope with some significant interruptions in our telecommunications service. Fortunately, the outage - which resulted from a cut to an underwater CenturyLink cable - was relatively short-lived. But it was an interesting reminder of how we rely on these systems to support our daily communications, retail operations, and transportation networks.

Within the City, our phones were down, which led to some confusion for customers. But email and other systems were fine since these are served by a separate fiber connection. At City Hall, this meant that business went on largely as usual. But at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, the telecom outage was part of a chain of events that created some critical conditions.

The first "event" was the ongoing challenge of succession planning. During the past few years, many long-term City staff have retired after decades of service. These legacy employees develop knowledge and specialized skills that are hard to replace. While we celebrate their move to the next phase of their lives, their departure presents challenges. The City's Public Works Operations and Maintenance division is an important example of this. The current demand for these workers is high and the pool of qualified applicants is small. Many of our O&M positions require key certifications, and because we are a small organization our staff must be highly dedicated and able to respond to a wide variety of situations.

Recently, the City has addressed these challenges in several ways. Existing O&M staff were cross trained to take on additional responsibilities, key positions were filled by seasoned professionals from outside the City, and some positions were filled by entry level personnel with the right potential.

The outage last week was a major test of our O&M staff changes, thanks to the second "event," which was last Thursday's scheduled upgrade to the City's utility monitoring system. The City's plant and other facilities like wells and pump stations are controlled by a Systems Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. Last Thursday, as part of ongoing improvements, the SCADA system files were being migrated to a new processor. During these upgrades, some glitches are common and can take a few days to identify and correct. But then the third "event" - the island's telecom outage - happened before the SCADA upgrades were complete and tested. This meant that the City's utilities were left blind and unable to communicate with each other. Although the systems have redundant capabilities and can continue to operate without communications, major SCADA interruptions cause significant concerns.

During these conditions, it's standard practice for systems to be monitored and controlled manually until the SCADA system is restored to normal. To accomplish this, City staff volunteered to fill shifts around the clock to provide manual coverage. All but one of the volunteers have had their current responsibilities for less than a year. In another piece of bad luck, additional lightning strikes occurred over the weekend, further compounding system anomalies. To resolve these issues, staff worked with the City's long-term telemetry provider and a local vendor to correct problems, restore controls, and in one case rewire systems. By Monday afternoon, systems were nearly completely restored to normal.

Throughout the event, water continued to flow to customers, sewage was pumped along, and wastewater was treated at the treatment plant. No sewage spills happened, no one was hurt, and no damage occurred. Many thanks to all who played a role in that good outcome. The events last week demonstrate the importance of prior planning in order to have the right people, in the right place, at the right time. We are fortunate to have City staff and private partners who are willing to step up in times of need to ensure continuity of essential public services. Looking ahead, we must continue to make plans that anticipate the generational changes that are transforming our City's workforce.

At the study session this week, the Council received a briefing from WSDOT on the Highway 305 roundabouts, continued work on changes to the City's Ethics Program, discussed two types of affordable housing incentives (inclusionary zoning and multifamily tax exemptions) and reviewed a request from Friends of the Farms (FOF) for the City to provide FOF with annual funding to support the organization's work to manage the City's public farmland.

At the business meeting next week, the Council will hold public hearings and consider approval of new design guidelines and changes to subdivision regulations. The Council will also consider approval of an extension of some aspects of the development moratorium, which would otherwise expire in early October. The Council will also resume their work on changes to the Sign Code and consider a ban on fireworks, among other topics. Please see below for additional details on these items.

The City Council is getting closer to approving new rules for sign code. The Council will review a draft sign code ordinance during the Sept. 24 business meeting.

During the July 16 study session, the Council  identified a proposed set of rules for various types of signs in Winslow and other areas to address the proliferation of sandwich boards and other signs across the island.

• In Winslow and Neighborhood Centers: sandwich boards in the right of way (both commercial and noncommercial) are allowed but must be brought in at night. Other, non-durable signs (smaller signs with stakes) are allowed if noncommercial (nonprofit events, etc.) but are not allowed if commercial.

• Outside Winslow: sandwich boards in the right of way (both commercial and noncommercial) are allowed but must be brought in at night.  Other, non-durable signs are allowed for both commercial and noncommercial uses. Commercial non-durable signs will require a City-issued permit to control the number of days, display times, etc.

The  Planning Commission  will also review the proposed ordinance before final adoption. 

The City is seeking proposals for cultural projects and activities that will benefit Bainbridge Island residents and visitors during 2020-2021. A total of $300,000 will be available for distribution through a two-year funding cycle. 

 

Awards may range in size from $5,000 to $30,000 and may be used to support activities during 2020 and 2021. Special consideration will be given to organizations and projects that will use City funds to advance the community objectives identified within the Cultural Element and/or Economic Element of the City's Comprehensive Plan. Special consideration will also be given to organizations and projects that involve robust community participation; create access to cultural activities for underserved/underrepresented communities; strengthen organizational capacity; and foster opportunities for collaboration within the cultural sector.

 

Applicant and project requirements are included in the RFP, which is available on the City's website. To be eligible, applications must be submitted by 4:00 p.m. Monday, Sept. 30.