SMOKEY POINT — “This will be a last look at 2014, but more importantly, it will be a look ahead to 2015,” Paul Ellis, the new city administrator for Arlington, said as he delivered the State of the City address Jan. 13 to the Arlington-Smokey Point Chamber of Commerce.

Ellis attributed the levy lid lift, that voters approved last spring, with helping the city correct its course.

“It’s helped us improve our reserve fund and work on equipment replacement,” Ellis said, noting that the city is on track to end 2015 with 50 percent of its adopted reserve fund balance, with the fund at its whole amount by 2019. “It helped raise our bond rating from A-minus to A-plus, which gives us a better rate when we borrow money.”

Ellis credited Rotary and local businesses with donating and constructing Haller Park’s new playground, which he touted as enhancing the area’s quality of life.

“That playground was the start of us reclaiming the park,” Ellis said. “It had become a place where people didn’t feel so safe. Now, it’s a place where families want to go.”

Ellis cited the park’s 24-hour live security cameras, which can be monitored by citizens on the city’s website, as garnering positive feedback.

He went on to credit the retirements of finance director Jim Chase and city administrator Allen Johnson last year with underscoring the importance of succession planning among city staff.

“I assumed Allen’s role at the start of the year, and Chris Young moved into my old spot in community and economic development,” Ellis said.

Roxanne Guenzler has stepped up to serve as the interim finance director, but Ellis recommended to the City Council Jan. 12 that they contract with Prothman to facilitate the recruitment process, with the goal of selecting a final candidate by the end of May.

Looking ahead, Ellis listed his primary short-term goals as completing an activity-based budget process, improving communication between the council and city management, creating a problem-solving team composed of senior management and directors across the city’s departments, updating human resources’ policies and procedures, replacing Chase and “instituting collaborative service delivery between departments.”

Ellis reported that the community development department is occupied with a major update to the comprehensive plan, which occurs every eight years. Among the factors considered in the update are the city’s population projections, job creation and zoning, the latter to “make sure there’s enough retail and industrial space.”

The Arlington-Marysville manufacturing industrial center represents years of work between Arlington and Marysville to integrate their roads and infrastructure, to pave the way for an area between their cities to be converted to intense industrial use. Ellis pointed out that the county rewarded those efforts by awarding them with an official manufacturing industrial center designation in 2014.

“Arlington has always been a very strong manufacturing community,” Ellis said, citing its average of 1.8 jobs per household. “Now we’re working on getting a state MIC designation, which is the only way we’ll be eligible for federal money.”

Another project that both cities are working toward is a regional library.

“The Arlington Library is too small to serve its community, and while the Marysville Library is bigger, it still can’t serve the whole city,” Ellis said.

Ellis proudly touted Arlington’s streamlined permitting process, which he asserted had trimmed processing times that had been six months or a year down to two weeks or 30 days.

“For the second year on sewer and the third year on water, we’ve been able to rescind utility rate increases,” Ellis said. “It’s cheaper for us to produce than it is to pay the PUD.”

Not only are water line upgrades on tap for Arlington this year, but the Burn Hill reservoir is no longer needed. Ellis noted the cost savings of no longer maintaining that reservoir, and praised city utility and transportation staff for finding matching grants and other funds outside the city budget, without a dedicated grant writer on staff.

Among the road projects slated for 2015 are the addition of parking spaces around the utility building next to Haller Park, the connection of 67th and 74th avenues for freight mobility, and improvements to Smokey Point Boulevard and various residential streets.

“We’d put equipment replacement on the back burner for a few years,” said Ellis, who expects the city to purchase four new patrol cars this year, in addition to the four new patrol cars purchased last year. “We’re also replacing our ladder truck and fire engine this year. Under the new equipment replacement plan, each department will put some money of their own into scheduled replacement funds.”