Olympia City Council Study Session on Municipal Court Transition - May 12, 2026
Olympia City Council Study Session on Municipal Court Transition - May 12, 2026\n\nThe Olympia City Council held a study session on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, from 6:00 PM to 7:32 PM to discuss the ongoing transition of municipal court services to Thurston County District Court following the 2025 Interlocal Agreement. The session included updates from Assistant City Manager Debbie Sullivan, Thurston County Court Executive Officer Frankie Peters, District Court Judge Sam Meyer, Court Commissioner Paul Wohl, City Prosecutor Bryanna Pinkston, and Public Defense Coordinator Diane Whaley. Councilmembers asked clarifying questions and received information on operational progress, parking ticket processing, financial rate studies, and plans to develop therapeutic courts for Olympia cases. No formal votes or decisions were taken; the session was informational to inform future negotiations for a new Interlocal Agreement beginning January 1, 2027.\n\n### Discussion Items\n- Transition Update: Frankie Peters reported that the transition from Olympia Municipal Court to Thurston County District Court was completed in six months from the signing of the ILA in August 2025, a timeline he initially estimated at 18–24 months. Key milestones included: onboarding 14 staff (from over 1,000 applications and 100+ interviews), transferring 2,500 case files (each taking 15–45 minutes manually), and expanding into Building One for probation and therapeutic court space. The court experienced a 30% workload increase but saw a 15–20% reduction in non-compliance, attributed to probation counselors' supportive approach.\n- Parking Ticket Processing: A challenge remains with parking tickets issued via the City’s T2 system. Currently, tickets are manually walked to the court and entered by hand, causing delays for citizens seeking immediate payment. The City and County are working with the T2 vendor to automate data transfer directly into the court’s JIS system, with an online payment module expected soon. Judge Meyer explained that parking tickets are infractions issued against vehicles (not persons) and can be contested in court, with options for mitigation or deferral.\n- Comprehensive Rate Study: Frankie Peters noted that a four-year rate study will be conducted by an external contractor (vendor to be approved by the County Board the following week). The study will cover all partner cities (Tumwater, Lacey, Rainier, Tenino, and Olympia). Initial data sharing is expected in July 2026, with final results by September–October 2026, earlier than previous years, to allow more time for budget discussions.\n- Therapeutic Courts Development: City Prosecutor Bryanna Pinkston outlined plans to create a therapeutic court for Olympia cases, given the current absence of one post-transition. Options include a mental health court (which could launch as early as January 2027, building on existing County programs) or a community court model (targeting summer 2027, requiring more groundwork). Challenges include staffing—the prosecution team carries heavy caseloads (400–500 active cases per attorney)—and the need to tailor programs to Olympia’s specific clientele, which includes many individuals experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, and substance use disorders. Pinkston emphasized the importance of victim accountability, noting that crimes like domestic violence and DUIs may not be appropriate for shorter therapeutic programs due to protection orders and deterrence concerns. In the interim, the County’s specialty probation, resource hub, and diversion services (e.g., Friendship Diversion) provide support.\n- Community Engagement: Councilmembers stressed the need for inclusive community input, including from the Social Justice and Equity Commission, Thurston ACP, and other stakeholders. Public Defense Coordinator Diane Whaley acknowledged that extensive engagement was done when the original community court was created years ago, but a new process is needed. City Manager Jay Burney noted that communication strategies will be developed to ensure broad outreach.\n- Facilities and Long-Term Plans: Frankie Peters reported that temporary renovations are complete. The County is preparing an RFP for a contractor to develop a downtown building for court services, with all county services expected to be relocated by 2029, prioritizing courts sooner.\n\n### Key Outcomes\n- No formal votes or decisions were taken; the session was a study session to inform council and staff for upcoming negotiations on the 2027 Interlocal Agreement.\n- Next Steps for Therapeutic Courts: Summer 2026 will involve observing existing County therapeutic courts, engaging community groups, and assessing resource needs. The goal is to launch an Olympia mental health court by early 2027 or a community court by summer 2027. City Manager Burney committed to ensuring staffing is not a barrier and will bring resource requests to council as needed.\n- Rate Study Timeline: The County will contract with a vendor by late May 2026, with preliminary data sharing in July and final results by fall 2026.\n- Parking Automation: The City and County will continue working with T2 vendor to automate parking ticket transfers and online payments, with a short-term manual process in place.\n- Community Engagement: The City will develop a communication strategy and identify a lead entity (likely public defense) to coordinate outreach and public updates on therapeutic court development.\n- Monitoring Data: Councilmember Gilman requested tracking of failure-to-appear rates and incarceration trends. Early data shows the daily jail population decreased from an average of 50–60 to 38–44, but prosecutors cautioned it is too early to identify trends.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, May 12th, 2026 study session of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with all council members present with Councilmember Barron joining us remotely tonight. So we have just one item on our agenda, and it is the discussion of the municipal court services transition to Thurston County District Court. And we have our assistant city manager Debbie Sullivan here to kick us off. Thank you, Mayor, for the record, Debbie Sullivan, Assistant City Manager. And tonight I am joined by Frankie Peters, the Thurston County Court Executive Officer, District Court, Judge Sam Meyer, Court Commissioner Paul Wool, Brianna Pinkston, the City of Olympia's chief prosecutor, and Diane Whaley, the City of Olympia's public defense coordinator. In 2025, the council made a thoughtful yet difficult decision to transition Olympia's municipal court to Thurston County. And in this transition, Olympia retained prosecution and public defense, while district court assumed all other court functions and programs. On August 4th, 2025, Olympia provided the required six-month notice to the administrative office of the court of the signed interlocal agreement between the city and Thurston County. Staff immediately got to work on the complicated task of transitioning the work to district court. This involved countless staff hours from human resources, IT, the Olympia Police Department, community planning, economic development, court probation, public defense, legal, parking, public works, and that's just the city staff. It was enormous. I think the only department I did not mention was parks. And the purpose of tonight's study session is to update you on that transition, the comprehensive rate study, forecast what's on the horizon for 2027, and discuss therapeutic courts. There are other aspects of the Plum Street site that continue to be in transition, including uh moving prosecution to City Hall and the Yeshiro Japanese Gardens. This uh those projects will not be part of tonight's conversation, but council will be briefed on those items at a future date. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Frankie Peters. Perfect. Thank you so much. And um, please jump in with questions at any time. Um, and we'll probably be passing mics back and forth. But I just wanted to say I really appreciate Debbie going through the list of everybody that was involved in this process because it was absolutely extensive. Um, I think we were happy enough that right at the beginning, Debbie ended up getting a meeting together with the entire city side. We sat in a big room and started going through a plan. Um, because that's the biggest piece that we identified early on, and I wasn't shy about saying it when we first had this conversation. I was like, that's a big lift. This is something if you told me this was gonna have to happen and you asked me for my timeline, I would have said a year and a half, maybe two years for us to be uh get accomplished, and we were able to pull it off in six months from the signing of the ILA to get services stand up. So I think that was a real benefit to the city and the county and our partnership and what we were able to provide. Um I mean, Melinda and Tom and Sean and everybody that were involved throughout this entire process were absolutely amazing. And Debbie speaks to the city's involvement throughout this process and should probably click over to slides as we're talking about this. Um about this process, and we did the same on our end. We ended up getting our IT, our human resources, our facilities, central services, um, everybody at the table so that we can start going through the plan because we recognize that this was too important for us to try to build the plan as we're flying it. We're gonna need to take those proactive steps to identify those gaps and start addressing those to the extent that we can, knowing that we have that six months to get everything stood up. There's gonna be some things that we're gonna continue to work on to um make sure that we're covering all those services, but let's get this all stood up and take all the steps we can to make sure that it's effective as possible. And that's where we kind of started off because I recognize that um the last time we talked was almost exactly a year ago. So a lot of this is what we've been working on following the signing of the ILA, making sure that we have the resources identified, who to talk to, when to talk to them, um, what gaps within the processes we want to make sure that we address. We're all doing the same what, but the hows are going to be different from every single one of the 172 courts you see across the state of Washington. So we have to go through and go, how is Olympia municipal court doing their business? How do we do our business? How do we make that work together? So that was a lot of the processes that we discussed as we started uh getting everything ready for the transition phase. Judges, anything on that. Do you want to kick it off with the new commissioners? Sure. Part of the I still have to get used to the microphone. Of course, when City of Olympia uh transferred over to Thurston County, we needed to hire a new court commissioner and someone you know well from the City of Olympia, Jacob Stillwell came from the City of Olympia to go work for the uh work for us at the county, and he's doing it, he's doing a great job. I guess I should also gonna point out that he came from the City of Olympia. He did to my left, Paul. Well, it says commissioner on there, by the way, but he's Brett Buckley's retiring. He's running for judge uh Brett's position.
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