The Tacoma City Council met on June 18, 2024, for a study session primarily focused on reviewing proposed amendments to the city charter, following the Charter Review Commission's recommendations. The session included brief updates on the Alternative Response program and extensive discussion on several charter amendment proposals, with decisions to advance some amendments and schedule further deliberations.
The meeting adjourned at approximately 2:30 PM, with a reminder of the evening city council meeting at 5:00 PM.
I'd like to call to order the city council study session of June 18th, 2024. Clark, will you please call the roll? Council member Michelle. Council Member Daniel. Absent council member Diaz. Here, Deputy Mayor Hines. Council Member Walker. Here, Mayor Order. Here. Mayor the study question material is actually at 1111. All right. Our first agenda item today is going to be the alternative response quarterly update. And I'd like to call on City Manager Elizabeth Pauli to begin the presentation. And City Manager, how long do you anticipate your presentation being today? 42 seconds. That's helpful. Thank you very much. Please move forward. So, mayor and council, given the um the number of time-sensitive items before the council in this time period, we've been shifting some of the format of a number of your um standing updates, including this this one today for alternative response. And some of those updates are being shifted to written reports again while we're managing these heavy um heavy schedules. So we are not today providing a detailed presentation on quarter two alternative response activities. And I can see you looking around the room for our your the familiar alternative response faces. Um it's just me today. Um we know that council and community continue to have a high interest in these programs. So what we're going to be doing is um providing to you after today's study session, you will all get the standard um PowerPoint presentation by email. Um so you can look at the same um updates um that you are um have historically received. So you'll get that to read and review at your convenience. And those um slides follow um a detailed update on CSOs that went out in the June 6th. You may have noticed. Hopefully, you noticed in the June 6th City Manager's weekly report, but you can go back to that for more detail on a CSO app update. And then, of course, after you have an opportunity to um familiarize yourself with those materials, please follow up with questions and inquiries through um assistant city manager Melanie Harding. And we will follow today's session also be uploading the the PowerPoint for um access by the community. And that um mayor is our um presentation for today. If there are any specific questions about any either the um heel team, the hope team, or our CSL program, we can try to answer those today, but otherwise um please review those materials. That's the presentation, Mayor. Thank you. Great, thank you, City Manager. And um again, um appreciate the fact that we've got a lot on our agenda today. Um and so appreciate the fact that that we got this update and that we'll be able to get all of the um all of the details um in our in basket. So um grateful for that. Um our our second agenda item today, or look, I'm sorry, are there any questions for city manager? Yes, council member Rumba. Thank you, um Mayor, and thank you, City Manager. I just I think that I'm just curious because I did get an um I did get an email from Allison today about um the about reaching out, our alternative response reaching out and people denying you know, not wanting services. And I know that we had um several drug-related deaths last week, and I'm just uh first off just stating that because that's like the facts, but it's also that we're working really hard to reach people, and I know it's really difficult. And I just want to say that on the record, that I know that we're trying really hard to reach out to people and help them. And I know that the opioid money that we have, I hope that it can provide some of those beds and the needed help to get people, but I'm just curious if you have other ideas of how we might um structure or do what we're doing. Um, that would be an added thing that we're not doing if you if there's anything that you want to add to that. If you're if you're directing that question to me, I would say that um through all of our alternative response programs. We we are continuing to iterate as we go as we as we learn things, as again certain grants become available for aspects of programming that we may or may not have right now or may or may not be able to accommodate.