Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday.

Okay.

Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025 study session of the Olympia City Council.

For the record, we have a quorum with Mayor Pro Tem Wynne and Councilmember Madrone excuse tonight.

So we have two business items on our agenda.

The first is a briefing on the it is inner city transit bus routes, followed by the Flock Automated License Plate Reader Camera briefing.

So just for some clarification, we have uh quite a large turnout, which is unusual for a study session of the city council.

Um this isn't a business meeting, which means that there is no public comment on the agenda tonight.

Uh this is strictly a session for the city council and the staff uh to exchange information and answer questions uh that the council may have related to the issues on the agenda.

Um believe it or not, I do want to mention that the briefing on the flat cameras actually was scheduled prior to uh recent events in our community.

So we had already planned to be discussing this item tonight, which is why it was already placed on the date of December 2nd.

Uh but since that time, obviously we've had to pivot and incorporate some information related to recent events and um and make that a part of tonight's presentation.

Um you're likely to hear uh some findings about how the technology is used, uh, particularly as it relates to the City of Olympia, and ultimately a recommendation from the police chief.

So uh with that, we'll get started with our first agenda item, which is inner city transit bus routes briefing.

Um, and I'm gonna turn it over to our director of transportation, Sophie Stenson, to kick us off.

Great, good evening.

Thank you.

Um, it's great to have our friends from Inner City Transit here tonight.

This is a briefing on their planned system redesign.

Um, so Nick Demaris is here, Rob Lafontaine and Emily Birdkamp are here.

Um this is all towards um a May 2026 um plan for inner city transit to expand its fixed route service in the community.

Um this growth is consistent with uh proposition one, which was approved by voters in November of 2018.

Uh for us in Olympia, this is important and very consistent with our plans.

And I just want to hit on a few points.

Um expanded transit service helps us meet our uh reduced emissions and vehicle miles traveled reduction goals, which are really important towards our climate goals and transportation goals in Olympia.

Umit is key to our ability to serve all the new housing.

We're very intent on building in this community and the density of our neighborhoods and commercial areas.

Transit's key to helping people access jobs and education.

Um and inner city transit's long-range plan uh is very consistent with Olympia's pending update of our comprehensive plan transportation chapter.

They both work in concert to build the transportation system we want and need in this community.

Um and just lastly, it's really important to remember that transit helps community members who choose not to drive or are not able to drive, helps them to have mobility.

Um, and that's a really important function in a community that's more equitable.

So with that, I think I'm turning it over to Nick to take it from here.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, and good evening, everyone.

Uh, I'm Nick Demaris.

I'm the communications marketing guy.

Uh happy to be uh at InterCity Transit.

I've been there about three years.

Actually, next week it'll be three years, which went incredibly quickly.

Um, and really excited to be able to talk tonight about our system redesign.

Uh I've got to start off though with an apology to Councilmember Vanderpool.

I think this is probably like your tenth time hearing my presentation uh or some form of my presentation.

Uh nobody has to listen to me talk about transit that much, and next time you have to do it instead of me.

But um, hopefully we'll add a few jokes as we go through and some new content.

Uh, but really uh appreciate the opportunity to chat with folks uh about this.

I also know uh based on the crowd, I don't think everybody's here for our briefing tonight, but um uh no, certainly a couple, especially Daniel.

Um, but uh I do hope that there's this information is important uh to get out into our community and you'll find it all valuable as well.

Uh I find the Venn diagram of people who are willing to show up at a city council member meeting uh and people who care about public transit and community mobility is pretty overlapped.

So uh excited to be able to talk about that.

I'm gonna handle the bulk of the presentation, but I've got my wonderful uh sidekick partner in crime, Rob Lafontaine is our planning director uh and really the architect of a lot of our system redesign uh here to answer any questions.

And then Emily Birdkamp, uh, our general manager, and uh we are so lucky to be able to have her uh in our community and leading such an important agency.

Uh Emily's been here for a whole long time.

I use a lot of we language.

I've only been here three years.

Uh but when we talk about proposition one and some of the past, Emily was here, she lived it, uh, and can hopefully answer any questions that we may have uh and we uncover as we go through.

So why don't we start off with the next slide?

Perfect.

So a quick review.

How did we get here?