Tacoma City Council Study Session - July 2, 2024: Charter Amendments, Block Party, and Ballot Logistics
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Tacoma City Council Study Session - July 2, 2024
The Tacoma City Council held a study session on July 2, 2024, beginning at 12:00 PM and reconvening at approximately 3:00 PM after an executive session. The agenda included a review of proposed charter amendment 24C (Reorganization of Government), a sponsorship request for the South End Neighborhood Council Block Party and Resource Fair, and a presentation from the Pierce County Auditor on ballot procedures and logistics for the November 5, 2024 election.
Proposed Charter Amendment 24C – Reorganization of Government
- Discussion: City Manager Elizabeth Pauli introduced a clean version of charter amendment 24C, incorporating changes from previous discussions, including removal of a prohibition on current council members applying for new term limits, correction of a cut-and-paste error regarding landmarks, and removal of stray language in the humane society section. Councilmember Diaz (prime sponsor) and Deputy Mayor Hines confirmed the final version. Councilmember Rumba asked about grammatical edits (capitalization); staff confirmed final edits would be made before ballot submission. Councilmember Walker requested a redlined version to track changes. A key discussion arose regarding the inconsistency between term limits in 24C (two terms for mayor, three for council, no prohibition) and the standalone term limit amendment (CRC2) which includes a prohibition on current members. Deputy Mayor Hines explained 24C adopted the Charter Review Commission recommendation. It was clarified that contingent language in CRC2 would void it if 24C passes. The council agreed to move 24C forward to the next phase (July 9 motions).
City Manager’s Process Overview
- Discussion: City Manager Pauli outlined the process for July 9 and July 16 meetings. On July 9, the council will make motions to advance, refer to committee, table, or suspend charter amendments. A cleanup motion (option 4) will cover any items not moved. On July 16, the council will adopt resolutions to place approved amendments on the ballot and determine ballot order. Clerk Nicole explained the timeline for appointing For and Against committees: letters accepted July 17-22, special GPF committee meetings July 23-29, council adoption July 30, committees must submit statements by August 8. Councilmember Rumba raised concerns about requiring For and Against committee members to be Tacoma residents; staff to check statutory requirements. Councilmember Bushnell clarified that each individual must submit their own application.
Sponsorship Request – South End Neighborhood Council Block Party and Resource Fair
- Discussion: Councilmember Bushnell presented a Council Consideration Request (CCR) to allocate $10,000 in one-time funds for a block party and resource fair at 74th and D Street, an area that has experienced negative activity. The event aims to celebrate community renewal efforts (murals, tree planting) and connect residents with city resources. Funds would cover stage equipment, food, insurance, and giveaways. The sponsor agreed to provide post-event data on attendance and engagement. Councilmembers Diaz and Walker co-signed. No questions were raised; the item will appear on a future council agenda.
City Manager’s Weekly Report
- Discussion: City Manager Pauli noted two ceremonial items on the evening agenda: a proclamation of July 2024 as Pride Month and the presentation of the 2023-24 Mayor’s Youth Commission annual report. There are two opportunities for public comment, including a public hearing on proposed charter amendments.
Presentation by Pierce County Auditor’s Office – Ballot Procedures and Logistics
- Discussion: Pierce County Auditor Linda Farmer and Elections Manager Kyle Hay presented historical data on charter amendment voter drop-off and ballot design considerations. Key data:
- 2004 presidential election: 11 charter amendments, 75.78% turnout, average undervote of 13.5% (voters leaving the item blank).
- 2014 midterm: 46.5% turnout, average undervote of 5.5%.
- 2022 Metro Parks: 58% turnout, 5.8% drop-off.
- Ballot order: state measures first, then county, then city measures (bottom of ballot). The fire levy lid lift (already submitted) will be first among city measures. Because of numerous statewide initiatives and contested judicial races, the ballot is crowded. If the council submits too many charter amendments, a second ballot card may be required. The only prior instance was 2008 (ranked-choice voting), where 6% of voters did not return the second card. A second card would increase costs: approximately $14,000–15,000 for printing and additional processing time and labor. Voter pamphlet costs: per page cost is $1,894 (2023 was $1,700); shared pamphlet cost of $73,000, with Tacoma paying 15–20%. The auditor’s office can fit approximately 10 measures by reducing font size, but font cannot go below 8-point for accessibility. Councilmember Rumba thanked the office for the printed voter pamphlet. Councilmember Bushnell raised accessibility concerns with small text and voter fatigue. Councilmember Diaz noted that plan A/B ballot formats (with more text) could reduce the number of measures that fit. Discussion ensued on balancing the number of amendments against readability and voter engagement. Mayor Woodards emphasized that decisions on which amendments to advance should be based on merit, not solely on ballot capacity, and suggested that less urgent items could be deferred to a future election.
Key Outcomes
- Charter amendment 24C will move forward to the July 9 meeting for a motion to advance to the July 16 council agenda for final consideration for placement on the November ballot.
- South End Neighborhood Council Block Party sponsorship will be placed on a future council agenda for approval.
- The council received information on ballot logistics and will consider the number and order of charter amendments as they make decisions on July 9 and 16.
- Staff will investigate whether residency requirements can be applied to For and Against committee members.
- No formal votes were taken during the study session.
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to call to order the city council study session of July 2nd, 2024. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Council members are questioned. Council member D'Angelo. Council Member Diaz. Council Member Ramba. Council Member Scott. Here, what are here? Council members to study session material sent to that 1029. Let the record show that council member Diaz is online. Council Member Diaz, can you hear? I can hear, but actually whoever is clerk right now is really hard to hear. I don't know if they're not mic is maybe not turned on. She doesn't have a mic, that's why. Okay, okay. So thank thank you, Councilmember Diaz. All right. All right. Um did you read the study session materials? Did you read that already? Wonderful. All right. So we're gonna have a change in in uh in the order of items listed on today's agenda. We will first hear items one and three, followed by an executive session. Following the executive session, starting at approximately 3 p.m., we will reconvene to hear item two, the Pierce County Auditor Ballot Procedures and Listics. So our first agenda item is um proposed charter amendment reviews, and we'll start with 24 C reorganization of government. And so and then and then the second item will be review of upcoming council action on charter amendments. So I'd like to begin the presentation by calling on uh city manager Polly. Thank you, Mayor. So council or so council um members, in regard to the proposed um well in regard to proposed charter amendment 24C. The version that you have in your binders is the version that incorporates the changes that were discussed in your last section. So this is just a confirmation for you to tune into that um to that version um as the um most complete version to date of all the changes that have been discussed. What you're seeing is a clean copy of that um amendment. Um but as you'll recall, some of the changes included correction of language. We had some uh we had incorporated some language about landmarks um as an error in one section. Um we were clarifying that um the the removal of the prohibition of current council members on the term limits. Those are some of the changes that we talked about that are now incorporated in this last version of 24 C and the sponsors can certainly um speak to um to those changes as well, Mayor. Okay, thank you very much to the amendment. City manager, just to make sure that I'm on the right page. We're talking about the blue, right? You are talking about blue, it's called it's entitled um council proposed amendment version C under 20 CRC recommendation 24. Gotcha, thank you very much. All right, I will first call on um council member Diaz, who's the prime sponsor of this. Councilmember Diaz, would you like to make some comments about this about this final uh document? I know beyond what the city manager here is just a clean up version of what we're doing. Okay, great. Uh Deputy Mayor Hines, do you have something to add? Uh thank you, Madam Mayor. No, not at this time. I think I'm very happy that we've got a final clean version that's in front of everyone for us to look at.
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