City’s Busy 2022 Delivered Results

What exactly did the City get done last year? A lot -- at least according to staff reports and Council checklist circulated at a recent Council retreat

BELLINGHAM, WA — The Lake Stevens City Council and staff had their annual retreat earlier this month, spending Super Bowl Weekend (well, most of the weekend — they got home before kickoff) at Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham in order to review 2022 deliverables and set the path for 2023.

The first day of the retreat focused on looking in the rearview and appraising whether the City was accountable to its own 2022 goal setting. J425 will walk through 2022 with the City in this article before turning to 2023 initiatives in a follow up.

According to internal documentation, council priorities reviewed for year-over-year progress included top items like the Sewer District merger — a draft of the final unification document was scheduled for completion February 15 — and Public Works Accreditation, which remains a big priority for Mayor Gailey and the Council.

We updated you on the value brought by this best-of-the-best certification process last year and given the projected 12-month completion time, expect a completion article from J425 sometime soon. You can read our earlier reporting on the process here:

Lake Stevens' Public Works Dept Seeks National Accreditation

The Council also checked off some of it’s gateway initiatives designed to make an inviting entrance to Lake Stevens at the nexus of SR-9 and SR-204 — both the SR-9 sound wall and the WSDOT welcome signage are deliverables with a big check mark next to them.

We’ll cover 2023 initiatives in an upcoming story. For now, here’s a review of the Council 2022 task list.