Tacoma City Council Study Session - June 24, 2025
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Tacoma City Council Study Session - June 24, 2025
The Tacoma City Council held a study session on June 24, 2025, to discuss a media and communications strategy update, the state legislative end-of-session report, the adoption of the 2025 Climate Action Plan update, and comprehensive plan motions. The council also approved executive and closed sessions.
Media and Communications Strategy Update
- Director Amy Clancy and Digital Manager Goldin Doles presented the second quarterly update. Key metrics from April 30 to June 4 on the new Tacoma.gov website: 350,000 total page views, 126,000 new users, and over 200,000 user engagements. On Facebook, content views increased 19% over quarter one to 1,300,000, with 663 new followers and a 57% increase in reactions, comments, and shares. Instagram content views grew 94% to 320,000. YouTube content views increased 54% to 54,000. The city is expanding to Blue Sky, Nextdoor, and exploring podcasting. Council members praised the work and suggested ideas like user-generated photo submissions and utilizing existing community podcast studios.
State Legislative End of Session Report
- Senior Government Affairs Advisor Alex MacBain and lobbyist Brianna Murray reported on the 2025 legislative session. The state adopted a biennial budget with $9.5 billion in new revenue over four years, including increases to the capital gains tax, B&O tax, and excise taxes on zero-emission vehicles. The city's top priorities included fiscal sustainability (property tax cap reform), emergency shelter funding, and the Fishing Wars Memorial Bridge. The property tax cap bill did not advance due to a potential veto. For emergency shelters, the city received a commitment of $3 million from the Department of Commerce. The Fishing Wars Memorial Bridge was not funded. Other successes: South Tacoma Fire Station funded, Pew Avenue flood reduction project funded, ADU property tax exemption for Pierce County passed, and sidewalk utility study funded. Council members thanked the delegation and staff.
Council Consideration Request - Adoption of 2025 Climate Action Plan Update
- Council Member Walker presented a resolution to adopt the 2025 Climate Action Plan Update, which will be considered for adoption on July 8, 2025. The plan addresses climate threats such as air pollution, flooding, rising sea levels, and urban heat islands. It integrates climate considerations across city departments and aligns with the Pierce County Sustainability 2030 plan. Council Member Rumbaugh asked about trees and staffing; Walker noted that trees are included in the plan and that staffing is not part of the plan itself. The resolution was received with appreciation.
Comprehensive Plan Motions for Council Consideration
- Deputy Mayor Daniels and Council Member Scott presented a unified amendment to the housing chapter of the Comprehensive Plan, merging proposals from multiple council members. The amendment adds concrete actions to advance housing progress, emphasizing that housing is foundational to economic development and community safety. Council Member Bushnell presented a separate amendment modifying plant strip requirements for electric fences, allowing more flexible landscaping buffers, and reducing buffer requirements in certain commercial zones from 5 feet to 3 feet. Council members expressed appreciation for the collaborative work.
Agenda Review and City Manager's Weekly Report
- Deputy City Manager Kim noted a ceremonial proclamation for City of Destiny Awards Day on June 26 and potential modifications to the Comprehensive Plan legislation. He reminded of two public comment opportunities at the evening council meeting.
Key Outcomes
- The council unanimously approved motions to convene an executive session (up to 45 minutes) to discuss potential litigation and evaluate a public employment applicant, and a closed session to discuss labor strategy. The study session will adjourn after executive session, then proceed to closed session. The climate action plan resolution will be considered for adoption on July 8, 2025. The comprehensive plan amendments are expected to be voted on at the evening council meeting.
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to call to order the City Council study session of June 24th, 2025. Clark, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Bushnell. Present. Deputy Mayor Daniels. Here. Councilmember Diaz. Yeah. Councilmember Hines. Absent. Councilmember Rumba. Here. Councilmember Sidalgay. Councilmember Scott. Here. Councilmember Walker. Here. Mayor Woodards. Here. The study session material sent to 1113. Thank you. Our first agenda item today is a media media communication strategy update. And I'd call on Media and Communications Director, Amy Clancy, for introductions and to begin the presentation. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thanks for having me. Good morning or good afternoon to all of you. And Golden Doles is joining me today. Brian Cox is not here today because he's out on a shoot at the Humane Society. So that's what he's working on. Since you asked us to give you a quarterly update, this is our second one, and I just want to reiterate how glad I am to give you an update because I think it's really important for you to know how we're sharing information and what its impact is on the community. So let's go ahead and start with slide number one. Okay, go to the next one. Yep. Perfect. Okay, we'll start with uh Tacoma.gov as you know, it launched on April 30th, both the website and the domain. And all the numbers I'm sharing with you today are quarter two, but from April 30th to June 4th, so they don't include the majority of June. Um so far we've had 350,000 total page views. These numbers are the same, but Golden presented to you two uh weeks ago. Uh 126,000 new users have visited the site, and our user engagement is over 200,000, which is how many times people clicked on something, watched a video, filled out a form, that type of thing. Um also I'd like to report that our intranet, you know, oftentimes people say, Well, how come you don't email this out? Why have you not shared this information with us? Intranet is designed so that people can get the information that is City of Tacoma specific for employees only. And as you can see, we've had over 180,000 page views with over 6,000 unique users. How is that possible if we only have 4,000 employees? Some of the the pages in our intranet are available to the public, so that's why the number is different. The top performing page is the home page, and the top performing post will not be a surprise to anybody. It was when we asked for City of Tacoma employees to send in their pet photos for National Pet Day. And so that had 536 page views, and in that time uh we published 24 news posts. So we do try to refer people to the uh the hub as often as possible for anything that is City of Tacoma related. So with social media, as we've talked about before, um, we are implementing new strategies to drive and increase engagement, and we believe it's working, and you'll see from the numbers coming up.
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