Tacoma City Council Study Session - July 9, 2024
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Tacoma City Council Study Session - July 9, 2024
The Tacoma City Council held a study session on July 9, 2024, at 12:00 PM in the Council Chambers, now configured with a new study session table. The meeting focused on debriefing the public hearing on proposed charter amendments, reviewing the process for advancing amendments, setting the interview process for a vacant District 4 council seat, and discussing a draft letter to the Washington Department of Ecology regarding the WestRock site cleanup. No formal votes were taken on the substantive items; the council will continue deliberations at upcoming meetings.
Discussion Items
- Proposed Charter Amendments Public Hearing Debrief: Chief Government Affairs Officer Sonja Hallum presented data from the July 2, 2024, public hearing. A total of 49 comments were received: 25 in person, 9 virtual, and 15 written. The most prevalent topics: form of government (41 comments, 37 supportive of a change to mayor-council or mayor-council-CAO, 4 opposed to any change), policing accountability (25 comments, 23 for ballot, 2 against), all charter review committee amendments on the ballot (21 comments, 20 for, 1 against), climate commission (13 comments, 12 for, 1 against), full-time council and staff (9 comments, 8 for, 1 against), term limits (8 comments: 4 no change, 2 reduce, 1 change to two four-year terms, 1 no strong opinion), fiscal impact statements (7 comments: 4 support, 3 concerns), and other items (neighborhood council, ranked choice voting, internet as utility, CRC selection). Council thanked staff.
- Proposed Charter Amendments Review: City Manager Elizabeth Pauli oriented the council to packet materials (Tab 24C with redline changes) and potential motions for the July 9 and July 16 meetings. She outlined three motion options for July 9: advance an amendment to the July 16 meeting for ballot consideration, refer to a committee or alternate process, or table/suspend indefinitely. For July 16, options include adopting resolutions for ballot placement (potentially on a different election date), reconsidering an item, and authorizing an individual or the full council to approve ballot order. Councilmember Walker suggested first voting on the merits of each amendment before deciding ballot placement, and that a companion resolution tracking all amendments (including those sent to committees) should be ready for the July 23 meeting. No motions were made during the study session.
- Council Appointment Process: Mayor Woodards outlined the process for interviewing six candidates for the vacant District 4 council seat. Interviews were scheduled to begin at 6:00 PM that evening, with each candidate given 2 minutes for opening remarks, up to 6 questions (each 2 minutes), and a 1-minute close. Questions would be emailed to candidates at 3:00 PM. At Councilmember Rumbaugh's suggestion, the order of interviews was randomized (not alphabetical) by a draw. Public input was to be collected online through Friday and compiled for council review. The council will go into executive session on July 16 to discuss qualifications, with a vote to appoint expected that evening, followed by a ceremonial swearing-in and seat-taking on July 23.
- State of Washington Department of Ecology Letter: Mayor Woodards presented a draft letter supporting a voluntary cleanup proposal from WestRock, Simpson Tacoma Kraft, and International Paper for the former WestRock site. The proposal splits the cleanup into two phases: the mill property and the sediment, aiming to expedite cleanup. The Mayor emphasized that the priority is thorough cleanup and that the Department of Ecology retains authority to certify cleanup and can issue an order if needed. Council members raised numerous questions: the liability of future owners, the port's involvement, tribal concerns, potential impact on fishing, and the process for public communication. Several council members requested more information from the Department of Ecology and other stakeholders before supporting the letter. The Mayor committed to obtaining answers and bringing the item back for further discussion at the next study session.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken on charter amendments, the Ecology letter, or any other substantive item.
- The council agreed to randomize the order of candidate interviews for the District 4 appointment.
- The council will continue discussions on charter amendments at the July 16 meeting, with potential motions to advance items to the ballot or refer to committees. A companion resolution for all tracked amendments is expected on July 23.
- The District 4 council appointment is scheduled for a council vote on July 16, following an executive session on qualifications.
- The draft Ecology letter will be revisited after the Mayor gathers additional information and consults with the Puyallup Tribe and other partners.
- The meeting adjourned at approximately [time not specified].
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to call to order the city council study session of July 9th, 2024. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Bushnell. Present. Councilmember Daniels. Here. Councilmember Diaz. Here. Deputy Mayor Hines. Here. Councilmember Rumba. Here. Councilmember Scott. Here. Councilmember Walker. Here. Mayor Woodards. Here. Mayor and Council members to study session material sent to you at 1052. All right. For those of you who are viewing us at home, you're wondering where we are. And we are in the chambers now with the new study session table. And all of our meetings will be taken here in the chambers except for some of our special meetings and in our retreats will be taken here in the chambers and they will be televised. So be sure to come down and check out the new chamber as we try to make sure that we are being as open and transparent and in sharing with you our conversations and dialogues around the work of the Tacoma City Council. So with that, we're going to dive right in today's in today's into today's agenda. And our first item is going to be the proposed Charter Amendment's public hearing debrief. And I'm going to call on Chief Government Affairs Officer Sonia Hallam to begin the presentation. Sonia. There we go. Sorry about that. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members. I do have a PowerPoint presentation. 30 seconds. So the presentation I'm going to give today is is going to be very brief. You all heard all of the comments. So I went through and with the help of Nicole, we counted the comments that were in person in and in writing and over the phone, the virtual. So we have some data to share. And I stalled long enough to get the PowerPoint up and running. So next slide, please. So the first slide to show you is the graph that shows the total number of comments that were received. So there were a total of 49 for the public hearing. Of those, there were 25 that were from people who were appeared in person at the public hearing, nine who appeared virtually, and then there were 15 written comments. There were 22 that were submitted, but uh the clerk's office went through and counted duplicates because some people submitted the same comment more than once. So of the 22 total comments that were received, there were 15 of individual comments. Next slide, please. So I went through the comments and put them in order of the ones that were most prevalent. So the ones that had the most comments related to the least. The first one, a no surprise as form of government, there were 41 comments. Of those, 37 were supportive of a change to a mayor council or a mayor mayor council uh CAO amendment and seeing that on the ballot. And I lumped together all of those that were looking to see the charter amendment versus those who were supportive of the council amendment, and those are combined, and that's what you'll see in the total of 37.
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