Ready to make a visible difference? Liveable Kirkland is heading out for our fourth (🎉) litter cleanup, and we’d love your help! We’ve officially adopted two stretches of road (one in North Juanita and one in Kingsgate) and it’s time to give them some TLC 🧹 .

We’ll start at 9a at both sites and will probably finish around 11. Don’t worry about gear; the City of Kirkland provides everything you need (pickers, vests, gloves, and bags). It’s a rewarding way to spend a morning outdoors with neighbors. Many hands make light work!

Sign up here to join the crew

If you’re not familiar with ToDo’s Bike Garage, it’s a weekly event hosted out of Chuck’s garage and featuring volunteer guidance and expertise on how to maintain and repair your bike. It’s been growing a lot. Last week was so busy we wanted to highlight it and Chuck’s hard work in building from scratch over the past year:

Many of us have heard about ICE activity in Kirkland this week.

Safe Haven - RISE, from October 2025 to June 22, has documented 144 incidents of ICE activity, including 51 confirmed detainments in Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish. Most, if not all, of these detainments have occurred while individuals were in their vehicles on public streets.

Safe Haven - RISE is an informal coalition of 160+ individuals and 35+ organizations that gathers to share information and mobilize resources.

We encourage you to attend their training to learn what you can do if you see ICE:

For more information and to get notifications, contact Guillermo Rivera at [email protected] or 425-209-0707.

Parking Pricing Study

During the Study Session before the main business meeting, Staff will present a report on parking data the city has collected, and a list of options for how parking prices can be updated. The city has been studying parking since 2022, but no pricing changes have yet been implemented. Study work included installing sensors below on-street spaces downtown and below the municipally owned Lake and Central and Lakeshore Plaza parking lots. The municipal garage (below the library) was also studied, though sensors couldn’t be installed.

The memo has several options. Multiple can be chosen, and the rollout could be in stages.

Option 1 would raise the rate of Lake & Central and Lakeshore Plaza from $1 to $2.

Option 2 would add a $3 rate to the parking at waterfront parks during summer. This parking is currently free.

Option 2A is the same as 2, but would only apply to Juanita Beach’s paved lot.

Option 3 would add a $2 rate to downtown on-street parking, which is currently free.

Option 4 would add a $2 rate to the municipal garage, which is currently free.

The memo states that the $1 per hour rate of the city’s downtown parking lots was set in the late 1990s. We note that one dollar in 1998 had a buying power equivalent to about two of today’s dollars, according to the Consumer Price Index. In other words, the current proposal for downtown lots brings us back to where we started. The memo also notes that there are private parking lots downtown that charge from $1 to $6 per hour, and many other cities have raised rates to both cover costs and help increase parking turnover.

Henry Grabar’s book Paved Paradise provides an accessible overview of how parking has shaped our cities, and why that’s usually a bad thing. NPR has an interview with the author available here.

Kraken Iceplex Lease

At the end of 2025, the Kirkland City Council authorized the City Manager to enter into an agreement with Slapshot, Inc (owners of the Kraken) which allows Slapshot to construct an iceplex with two NHL sized ice sheets at the former Houghton Park & Ride. As part of the agreement, Slapshot will also build a new community center at the site which the city will operate, and Slapshot will lease the land from the city.

Design and construction work has begun, but due to a change in contractors, the project is behind schedule. Per the terms of the agreement, the lease will not be closed until building permits are approved. The Kraken’s construction financing relies on the lease closing, so this setback would require the Kraken to front money outside of its financial plan. The Kraken is seeking modifications to the lease to avoid this problem, and staff is recommending that the City Council approve these changes. 

Due to this setback, the projected completion date of the Iceplex has been pushed from October 2027 to November 2027.

Separately, the City Council will also consider an Ordinance to declare the access road through the property as a public right-of-way, as required by WSDOT. The road was previously used for bus access to the park-and-ride. The edges of the property are subject to a limited access easement for WSDOT, so the City needs approval from WSDOT to allow cars to travel there.

School Zone Flashing Beacons

Costs have increased beyond initial estimates for the city’s School Zone Flashing Beacon’s project. Costs are higher than expected for two reasons: 

City staff are asking for direction to adjust the scope of the project to partially deliver the original scope while staying within budget. Adjusting the scope will mean:

Additionally, staff are recommending remotely connecting only 8 of the new beacon locations (prioritizing the existing camera locations) instead of the original 26.

Join Liveable Kirkland in a conversation about our city’s present and future! We have an active community on Discord and Facebook and we’d love it if you joined in too : )

(And if you add a picture you took to #photos on Discord it might get featured in next week’s issue!)