Note: The minutes and transcript indicate the meeting occurred on Monday, November 3, 2025, but the provided date is November 4, 2025. This summary uses the required date.
The Olympia City Council held a regular business meeting on November 4, 2025, featuring three public hearings on the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), the 2026 Preliminary Operating Budget, and the Preliminary Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) 2026-2031. The council also reviewed proposed utility rates, fees, and special revenue budgets, and discussed the Multifamily Property Tax Exemption (MFTE) program. Key themes included addressing community food insecurity due to the federal government shutdown, balancing the budget through reductions and new taxes, and evaluating the equity of tax exemption policies.
Good evening and welcome to the Monday, November 3rd, 2025 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with Councilmember Madrone excuse tonight. So before we move on to the agenda, I want to remind the community that tomorrow night is election night, which is why we are meeting this evening on a Monday, and we'll be doing so again next Monday because it is Veterans Day on Tuesday. So please remember to vote tomorrow. You have until 8 p.m. to get your ballot in one of our drop box locations throughout the county. So before we move on to adoption of the agenda, I'd like to call forward our assistant city manager, Stacy Ray, for an announcement. All right. Thank you for the record. Assistant City Manager Stacey Ray. I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that we may have community members right now that are facing challenges in accessing food resources. And just want to let community members know we want to share information that we have locally available assistance for food resources right now, uh, that we've added some information to our website and are pushing information out through our social media channels so that folks who are struggling or may not have access to their regular food benefits that they might get through the federal government can also know that they can access the local food bank. So our Thurston County Food Bank is operating pantries and satellite sites across the area. And so we'll have that information available on our website how folks can access the food bank. We also want to let seniors, families, and uh families with young children and uh school district students know that there are dedicated options. So please reach out to Senior Services for South Sound for access for seniors. Um, and uh there's still meals available through the schools as well for students. And uh the Washington State Depart Department of Health website is providing information around access to um WIC benefits. We also just want to add for community members who are able to, it's a very important and critical time to either donate or participate in gathering food. So we just encourage those that are able to participate in helping our friends and uh fellow community members and neighbors right now during this time. So thank you. Thank you very much, Stacey. Any comments or questions? All right, thank you. It's a very important time. Um, and I just want the community to know that we are um keeping a track of what's happening on the SNAP benefits issue as our uh federal government remains shut down. And it is on the minds of each of your members on the council. Um, and we have been having conversations with uh other offices at the state and federal levels as well. So with that, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda. Move to approve. Second. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. We have an agenda. So we have no special recognition tonight, which is rare for us. Um we're gonna go ahead and move on to public comment. Uh, we have a few people that are signed up. One person is here in person, followed by the remainder of our public commenters joining us on Zoom tonight. Uh so we're gonna go ahead and begin. Uh, but before I do, we do have one person that hasn't spoken um in the last 30 days. So just a reminder that we are in an election season. Uh, so please refrain from expressing your support or opposition to a candidate or ballot measure uh in your comments tonight. So we'll go ahead and begin with Jim Lazar. You have two minutes for your comments. Good to see you. Thank you. Uh Jim Lazar, 1907 Lakehurst Drive. I'm speaking in opposition to consent calendar items 4B and 4C. I urge you to pull them and not approve them. These would give two millionaire developers, Walker John and Scott Womack, about three million dollars in subsidies for their projects, which would enable them to outcompete other developers who have other projects.