I'd like to call to order the study session on September 30th 2025 to order.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Bushnell.

Present.

Deputy Mayor Daniels.

Absent.

Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Hines.

Councilmember Rumba.

Councilmember Sidalgay.

Here.

Councilmember Scott.

Absent.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Woodards.

Here.

The study session material sent to you at 1103.

All right.

Our first agenda today is a briefing.

I'm from the Tacoma Municipal Court, and I'd like to call on Tacoma Municipal Court presiding judge Krupa to begin the presentation.

Judge, thank you so much for joining us.

All right.

Well I hit this just once, right?

There we go.

Okay, thank you so much.

All right.

So I'm here today because I want to talk to you about some recent uh disclosures that are uh important about the structure and the operation of our court.

Um and you know, to do that, um, first I need to talk a little bit about the historical background.

So our court was formed in uh 1962.

Um before that we were called a police court, and uh Tacoma formed this court to take advantage of the uh municipal uh well it was called the Justice Court Reorganization Act, which was designed by uh the legislature, the state legislature to sort of modernize the courts.

So what happened back then in 62 was the city of Tacoma decided, hey, you know what we're gonna do and what this law allows us to do is to become a municipal department of the Pierce County District Court.

It wasn't called that back then, but that's what they did.

So Tacoma opted to have a municipal court, but that court would operate as a municipal department of the district court.

And frankly, uh the big news is that that's actually been the case for over 60 years.

Uh we didn't know that, or we kind of knew that, but we weren't sure what that meant.

And so uh it changes some fundamental things.

So let's go to the next slide, please.

So, like all uh briefings, we need to uh talk about the law.

So Alison, could you hit the next slide, please?

Thank you.

Okay, and I'm gonna talk about uh these three statutes.

Uh basically, um, what I talked about when I said Tacoma form the court as a uh municipal department of the Pierce County District Court.

Municipal departments are governed by uh RCW chapter 346.

So we're called a 346 court.

Um we're the only three forty.

Oh, we're the only three forty-six court in the state of Washington.

Okay.

So uh next slide, please.

Now, as I told you, uh there's some big things that being a 346 court and being a municipal department of the Pierce County District Court uh entail.

And one of those is that each of us, myself and the other two judges, are judges of the district court.

So, yes, I'm a municipal court judge, I'm called the municipal court judge, but under the law, I'm actually a judge of the district court.

So I'm a municipal court judge designated as such through the uh Pierce County District Court.

Next next slide, please.

Okay.

Now, another important thing that you need to be made aware of is that there's uh state statutes that uh govern this whole scheme as well.

Um is uh RCW 3.34.010, and that uh notes that Pierce County must have 11 district court judges.

Three of those are us, the the municipal court judges of the city of Tacoma.

And that's provided not only by the uh RCW but also by the Pierce County Code.

Um this is something that uh your predecessors will worked on.

Um so that's the law.

There needs to be that's state law, and there needs to be 11 judges in Pierce County, and three of those need to be Tacoma City judges.

Next slide, please.

Uh just so you know, uh, the salary you still pay our salary.

The county doesn't pay our salary.

Only Tacoma judges vote for us and our employees, in other words, my staff, all the personnel of the city of Tacoma Municipal Court are designated employees of Tacoma.

So they are not Pierce County employees.

Next slide.

Um but here's where the problem comes up, or the issue I should say, issue.

Um, and that is uh that the uh court can only have one presiding judge.

And the important thing about the presiding judge is under a general rule and under the statute that uh uh is cited up there, that presiding judge is solely responsible for the supervision of the court's daily operation and all personnel and all personnel employed under that judicial branch of government.

So what that means obviously is that the city of Tacoma, me, Steve Krupa, can't be the presiding, can't have its own presiding judge, okay.

The presiding judge is Claire Sussman, who's the presiding judge of the Pierce County District Court.

So we'll talk about that a little bit more.

Next slide, please.

So what are the issues there when you have a county judge as the supervisor?

Well, first of all, what we noticed is well, this has been the law for 60 years, but there were no rules about that.

There were no administrative or supervisory structure about how this would operate.

So we operated basically as two separate entities for 60 plus years, and we operated great.

We'll talk about that again in a little while.

But there needed to be some rules, some structure to make it uh pass muster, basically.

Okay.

Of course, again, we we we can't have a presiding judge.

Also, our rules, as you know, Tacoma Court has its own rules.

Those rules uh needed to be looked at because we really can't have our own rules.

Like we can have our own rules, but they have to be through the district court.

The next question, of course, is the operations and procedure of the court, because of course uh ultimately the operations and procedure are supervised by a county judge.

So we figured, hey, we better figure out how we're gonna fix that.

Next slide.

Okay, I want to make sure that you guys understand this because this is really really, really important.

While this was sort of not well, not sort of, while this was not adhered to for 60 plus years, while nobody really kind of dug this up and figured this out.

No due process rights of any of our uh clients we call clients, we call our defendants that come in our court clients, but nobody's due process rights were violated.

There's no evidence that uh I went through this, I talked with the city attorney about it.

We can't see any way that anybody's due process rights were violated.

And remember, of course, as as you all know, the Tacoma Municipal Court remains a separate branch of government.

It always has been.

It's just that the rules or the law behind it make it sort of structured differently.

Okay, next slide, thank you.

All right, so what what do we do?

Well, what we did was we got together with the district court judges of which we are apparently, well, not apparently, but in fact, and uh we decided well, how are we gonna fix this?

And the way we're gonna fix this is make some new rules and change the rules that we have.

So that's what we did.

Uh we created through the Pierce County District Court a municipal judicial committee.

And in doing that, what we did was we delegated the day-to-day operations of the municipal court uh sort of like presiding judge responsibilities to municipal committee chair.

So while I appreciate that you introduced me, mayor, as the presiding judge of Pierce County or of Tacoma Municipal Court, from now on, please call me Mr.

Committee Chairman if you but anyway, that's my new title, municipal court committee chair.

Okay.

And what I will be doing on a monthly basis is conferring and reporting to Judge Sussman of the Pierce County District Court.

So while she has tasked me to run the day-to-day operations of the court under GR29 and the law, I need to make sure that she uh knows what's going on, and I will do that.

Um we had our own GR 29.

Again, GR29 is the rule that says we can have a presiding judge and what the presiding judge's responsibilities are, and of course, we had to revoke that.

But essentially, the bottom line is that the day-to-day operations uh will be uh the same.

Uh the committee chair will function as a quasi-presiding judge for the municipal court.

And then, of course, we wanted our own rules, and uh we think our rules are great, and so did the district court, our our fellow district court judges.

So we adopted with some slight changes our remaining uh Tacoma Municipal Court rules.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so what are the practical effects of this?

Well, really, the practical effects are there's gonna be no change to daily operations.

Everything is gonna stay the same as far as the day-to-day operations of the Tacoma Municipal Court.

One of our things that uh is near and dear to our heart and and part of our uh compassionate accountability mission is our therapeutic courts.

There's gonna be no change to our therapeutic courts.

Um there's gonna be no change, as I said earlier, to the daily supervisory authority.

Our supervisory chains, our uh chain of commands, if you will, all continue to function.

Um, but they are gonna have oversight from the Pierce County District Court presiding judge, and that's in accordance with the law in GR29.

All the personnel, all our personnel remain employees of the city of Tacoma, as I said earlier.

So all our contracts, all our policies, all our regulations, those all remain in effect.

And then finally, the supervisory chain, as I said earlier, remain in effect as well.

So a big big disclosure, but from a day-to-day point of view, things are pretty much gonna stay the same.

Next slide.

So, subject to your questions, that ends my briefing.

Yeah, it's me.

All right, thank you, committee chair.

I'm getting used to it too.

Um that'll open it up for any questions from my colleagues.

And I see that here.

I see council member uh uh Walker followed by Councilman Romba.

Thank you, presiding officer.

I think presiding officer Heinz.

Um thank you for the presentation, and um appreciate just the reiteration of that you know, businesses has continued through all of this, it's really technicality.

Um, and I don't think this is anything that has changed, but it has been a question that I've been wondering about and maybe fits in a little bit differently because of the relationship with Pierce County.

Um drug court is Pierce County drug court.

How does that fit in with the work that you all do?

And do we send people anyone in Tacoma that was referred to drug court would go to Pierce County Drug Court?

Is that true?

Sure.

Well, the we don't have a drug court in Tacoma, and again the the drug court program in Pierce County is is a felony drug court program.

So the Pierce County Municipal Court remains a court of limited jurisdiction, so those aren't the clients that we see.

Okay, great.

So are there other examples like that that are um part of Pierce County courts that are impacted by this at all?

It's uh it sounds like no, but just wanted to kind of clarify how the the they interact with each other.

Um and that's a question that um remains to be seen, but basically um the district court, the county district court is gonna have a county committee and take care of their county cases.

They have exclusive jurisdiction over the cases that occur in the county.

We have exclusive jurisdiction over the cases that occur in the city.

Another thing, of course, is that they also do smaller civil cases.

The City of Tacoma Municipal Court does not do those cases, so things are pretty much gonna remain the same.

The the changes are kind of in the command structure, if you will, um, because now the ultimate supervisory authority for what goes on in the municipal court rests with the district court judge, presiding judge.

Great, thank you.

You're welcome.

All right.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Walker.

Councilman Romba.

Um thank you for explaining all that.

Um I'm just gonna call you Judge Krupa because I think I'm just gonna be like that's just too much for me right now.

So um, my question, I have two questions.

I know.

Um you have there's that um resource center that's part of district court.

Is that ours to use as well for the people who go through therapeutic court?

Or is the district court one set up because people have to come in there for work things and I'm just curious how that resource could be used by our participants of municipal court, therapeutic court and community court?

Sure, and that's a great question.

We have always used that.

They've always been kind enough to share that resource with the municipal court, and that's gonna continue.

And in fact, I think the bonds there are gonna get stronger.

Um we may be thinking about other ways that we can work together with district court since we are of the municipal department of the district court to make our court even stronger.

But yes, that's always been the case that we've been able to use the resource center, and this kind of just cements that uh opportunity.

And I know that district court, I'm gonna get this wrong.

Do they call them parole officers?

I can't remember.

What do we call them?

What are we doing?

Probation officers.

Thank you very much.

I didn't want to, I'm sorry, I apologize.

Um that's not a that's not something that we could utilize as part of municipal court, or is it something?

Well, that's another thing that remains to be seen, and that is also a great question.

If you all recall, I talked with you about the Tacoma Municipal Court needing a probation department.

It's been a it's been something that's been on our radar since I got there.

We got some funding to put that together.

Decisions were made before before I became presiding committee chair to decide to create our own uh probation department.

But now that it's clear that we're part of district court, we're gonna have to rethink that because yes, that we need a we need probation.

We call it a different, we use a different terminology for that.

Uh we we call it client support services.

Um but that's something that I am going to talk with Judge Sussman about, and of course the other members of the Pierce County District Court and y'all uh to figure that out.

But that's something that we really need and we really want.

And this is the same thing.

Yeah, because it would be great if that was like a shared resource that we wouldn't have to pay the full price for.

Maybe we could do something where we share it costs with Pierce County.

I'm just I'm just trying to figure out it's expensive to run courts.

And so, and I think that this is a necessary thing to do to have this um because I think people have more success if they have somebody.

We know the reason that um therapeutic court is working, is because um it's the wraparound services with the case manager, and there's a place they have to come.

And so when you have a probation officer, someone that's there to support them, I think that there's a lot more success.

And um, and there's not the same level of recidivism is what I see.

That's a thank you so much for that insight.

That's uh important, and it's kind of it's what I've been talking about, and what my benchmates have been talking about, and I've talked with all you guys about in the past.

I should tell you that we uh the city did share probation with district court.

I think it stopped in the 90s and it was a funding issue.

Okay, but yeah, hey, that might that's gonna be something that's gonna be part of the big conversation that we're gonna have.

Okay, I think you for answering all my questions.

I appreciate it.

All right, do we have any other questions?

Councilmember Hines.

I'll make it just really quickly.

Uh, thank you, Judge Krupa for the presentation.

I guess what what are the responsibilities of the presiding judge?

Because now this is gonna be so because now we're moving from a place where the presiding judge is someone the city of the voters of the city of Tacoma choose to be in charge of the municipal court to someone who doesn't have to live in the city, it's elected by the county.

So, what are the rules and responsibilities of the presiding judge?

And that and therein lies the the problem, if you will, and we'll we'll I'm just gonna call it a problem, which you've hit right on.

It's odd, very odd, that uh the GR29 responsibility is for the supervision and daily operation of all personnel of the court.

So in this case, as you correctly point out, that's a county employee.

Well, not a county employee, but a county elected official, a judge, you know, a county branch of government supervising a Tacoma municipal court.

And but this was a decision that was made by the council in the city years ago.

It's just something that kind of nobody thought about.

This committee chairmanship post kind of takes care of that, but it only takes care of it on the day-to-day thing.

The ultimate authority, correctly, as you I think have picked up on rests with her.

Is it the best way to do things?

Probably not.

I I think that's probably a conversation that you all have to have.

Yeah, I I think it's probably among many conversations with the county going ahead, but I miss I you could easily not easily, but you could see a situation where presiding judges is someone who does not live in the city of Tacoma and would pull resources from the city of Tacoma to meet other needs because they're in charge of the aren't they in charge of all the staffing and things like that?

I mean, could they be able to redistribute or so let's dive?

Or I guess my better question is what we are paying.

So, you know, as you are very clear, the city of Tacoma is paying for our municipal court, right?

We pay for it, we pay your salaries, pay all the staffing.

Right.

So, what kind of control would a presiding judge who is maybe from the county have over allocation of dollars that we are paying for our municipal court system?

Because if they are in charge of all the staffing, could they move staffing or reconfigure it in such a way?

Or is it are we see what I'm saying?

I do exactly see what you're saying, and that's a very significant and important question, and I think that that's a question that Mr.

Boccia will probably be in a better position to answer.

Uh technically, I think the answer is that a presiding judge under the GR29 and under the law would have that responsibility and could do things.

One of the things to understand is that the presiding judge also uh has to do things subject to the judges underneath him or her, and so your three judges.

And so your three judges.

And they think we're doing a great job, and they don't want to change things.

But yeah, it's something that needs to be looked at.

Oh, perfect.

Because I I have I have another question, but I'll I'll I'll I this I'll wait to ask it, but I guess in other case questions.

In other counties that have this kind of operation, does the city do the city just contract with the county to do this?

Or versus having their own.

So if we want to get into I'll I'll get in a little bit to the history of 346 courts.

There are no more three forty-six courts.

Okay.

We're the last man standing, if you will.

Yeah.

The the last uh 346 court before before us was the city of Spokane.

So big bigger cities back in the day decided to go this route.

So Seattle went this route, Spokane went this route.

I don't know about any other cities.

Um but uh they went this 346 route uh to take advantage of that act, the 1961 act, and they thought it would be good for their cities.

They've since changed you know, uh I don't know why, but I probably recognizing the questions that you brought up.

They thought maybe we create our own court.

Municipal courts that that run their own courts are called 350 courts because it's under RCW.

So um but yes, we're we're sort of uh I don't want to use the term dinosaur.

Yeah.

And again, I I just want to stress again that things have been working in uh you know, you see their thing, and no animals have been harmed in the making of the Israel.

Yes.

We've been our our clients have been served, things have been working fine.

Uh they just uh needed to be more up to snuff, if you will.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Those are my questions, Madam Mayor.

All right.

Do we have any other questions?

All right.

Thank you very much, Judge.

You're welcome.

Um I am going to um entertain a motion to go to convene to executive session pursuant to RCW 42.30.1101 II and I to discuss potential litigate potential and pretending litig litigation not to exceed 15 minutes.

So all those in favor to convene to an executive session signify by saying I.

Aye.

Those opposed.

The motion is declared adopted.

We will move into executive session.

We were recessed for executive session, and when we come back, we will continue with the rest of our agenda.

Um Councilmember Sidalge, please move to the team's link for executive session.

We stand in recess for 15 minutes,

I'd like to call back to order the council study session for September 30th, 2025, and we're gonna move on to our second agenda item, which is our media and communications quarterly strategy update.

And I'm gonna call on Media and Communications officer, Office, Director, Amy Clancy to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

I just want to say off the bat, I really enjoy this opportunity to show you what we're doing.

But we're definitely uh engaged, we're in the game, and we want you to know what we're doing.

So we'll start first of all with something that I heard you talk about in the very first OSAC meeting.

Cohesive, consistent branding.

And one thing you might not know is this is something that I've been working on since I got here, but I obviously needed to communicate about it better because if you didn't know we were doing it, now is the opportunity to tell you.

We need to make sure that the look and feel of everything we do, our logo, our colors, our fonts, our reports, our PowerPoints, everything needs to clearly be identified as City of Tacoma, projects, people, everything else.

Um, you may not know that when I got here, this is what I was looking at.

These are all the many different logos, and it doesn't even include all of them.

Um, often that represent general government projects, groups, divisions, uh, departments, and while some of these will continue, there is an effort by the end of this year to move toward this, so that everything can be easily identified as the city of Tacoma.

We do way too much good work by good people for people not to know what it is we're doing.

So, for example, um, this is what we're moving towards.

You can still have your identity as the division that you are, the individual group that you are, but you need to be identified as part of the city of Tacoma.

So that includes on our brand resources page on our SharePoint examples of logos that you can use that you can't use, and you don't always have to use this color if you've got a dark brown background.

We do have an option for a lighter logo, but it also includes if you're sending a letter, an email, if you're going to rebrand a vehicle, we're right in the final process now of updating a report template.

So whether you get a report from PDS or ES or anybody else, that they will all look the same, and they will all be easily identified as City of Tacoma.

So let's get into our quarter three stats, and I'm not gonna read everything because you guys have a copy of the report and it's a lot of data, and I I know you guys have a really full agenda today.

But these are the quarter three numbers just from June 1st through September 12th.

Um our Tacoma.gov, our brand new web page.

During third quarter alone, we had over 800,000 total page views, 273,000 new users, um, and a 3.95 million event count, which means how many times people clicked on something, watched a video, filled out a form or whatever.

3.95 million.

Today marks five months since we debuted the new the new site.

And since then, more than 1.1 million page views have happened.

Um we have over 390,000 unique users who have visited the site.

And when you think that the city of Tacoma only has 225,000 residents, the fact that we have nearly 400,000 unique users shows that not only people in the city of Tacoma, but people beyond the City of Tacoma are coming to and using our website.

Our web stewards have also made 712 updates because we want to make sure that our info is current, relevant, and constantly being updated.

That's the beauty of a website.

We're still moving forward with increasing our content on the Tacoma Hub.

As you can see there by the data, 108,000 page views, nearly 4,000 unique visitors, which means that you know, if that means every person who works for the city of Tacoma is looking at it.

We hope that they're looking at it because this is where we want to be able to uh communicate with people internally.

And you'll see that the top visited site is the home page, and you can see there the top department visited and the top visit links.

Uh top three posts on the hub, United Way campaign, which is recent, um, the new centralized grant application process, which began in July, and the new travel policy update.

So these are examples of things that people need to know who work for the city of Tacoma, and people are going to the hub to see them.

I'm going to get into some social media analytics now.

I'm not going to go over everything just because there's so much information, but I'll give you the highlights.

And that was an increase of 26% over quarter two.

Quarter two also showed significant growth.

Are we always going to see this type of growth?

Probably not, but we're still growing and people are still following us.

We're still getting new followers.

We're still getting a lot of reactions, comments, and shares.

People are still clicking on the links.

And we had over 300 posts during that time on our Facebook page, which was a 23% increase over quarter two.

Our top three Facebook posts were the first one, the opening of the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, with 1,399 likes and loves.

Second most was the Lincoln High School Girls' Flag Football Team Recognition that happened right here in Council Chambers that had 657 likes and loves.

And the third was the Streets Initiative won dollars at work, phase two at East 64th Street project, which had 285 likes and loves.

Our top three Facebook videos all came from the Tacoma Report show, and these were stories that now I think I've explained before.

Something that will error on Tacoma Report or on TV Tacoma.

We'll also share that content on our social media so that as many people as possible can see it.

The number one Facebook video was the Twilchut Seat language signs that were installed.

It had 156 likes and loves.

Tiptoe at the Tide Pools was number two with 146.

And the number three was the stadium spur closures.

It had 74 likes.

I don't think people really like the fact that something was closed, even though it's being improved.

But what they do like is knowing about it, that they were given enough notice to potentially change their commute or whatever.

Instagram is also on the rise.

So our Facebook growth has slowed a little bit, but we're still growing a lot on Instagram.

Content was viewed 579,000 times, which was an 80% increase over quarter two.

We've increased our followers by 6%.

We have more than 26,000 likes, comments, shares, saves, etc.

174 link clicks.

And in that time, we did 242 posts, which is a 23% increase over last quarter.

And our top three Instagram posts, just like it was last quarter, a picture of an Orca.

People love the Orcas.

Photo of the Week, Orca makes an appearance at the Dune concert.

You'll remember the launch of the Dune concert series down at the dunes.

This picture was taken by a professional photographer, and we're now sharing content from other people when they submit it.

It was the number one photo of the week for quarter three.

Oops, should say quarter three.

Number two is the Pride Crosswalk, Pride Flag, the drone footage that Brian Cox took of all of you standing on the new Pride Crosswalk.

And number three was a drone shot of Mount Rainier.

Top three Instagram videos, the Pride Crosswalk and Flag Drone Footage, Pride Festival and Porch Fests are happening.

They both had 430 likes.

And Tacoma Police Officers received Medals of Valor, which had 413 likes.

So social media trends that we're noticing, and this is not a surprise to anybody, I don't think.

Our top three YouTube videos for quarter three was uh Pet from uh City Line River, um, Beginnings, the first 100 years of Tacoma's neighborhoods, which was something that was published in 2018, but that we uploaded again.

And also the interview on City Line with the cast of Greece at the Tacoma Musical Playhouse.

So our PIO, as you know, Maria Lee is very busy busy, and I know she's reaching out to folks all the time to get more information to pass along to the media.

Um the five most frequent media topics for quarter three are listed there: homelessness and shelter, housing planning and general development, business and economic development, police operations and crime, and home and tacoma and ADUs.

Um, in the last quarter, Maria handled nearly a hundred distinct media inquiries on a high volume of complex and sensitive topics, with a significant surge in activity during their early summer months and a notable upward trend in the pace of media questions resuming in September.

So the questions just keep coming.

TV Tacoma's done a lot of great work.

And prior to election day, TV Tacoma in partnership with the League of Women Voters broadcast candidate forums.

In August, TV Tacoma and MCO were honored with four government programming awards of distinction from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, otherwise known as NATOA.

And June 26th was the City of Destiny Awards celebrating Tacoma's top volunteers and service providers that's held every year at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall.

City Line also has, as you know, lots of great content, and we know that we do interviews regularly with you all to talk about the work that you're doing on behalf of the people of Tacoma.

For example, we talked about Tacoma Pride, which, as you know, is an event in July here.

We interviewed Riley Pay, who is the new play-by-play announcer for the Tacoma Raineers.

We did interviews about Tacoma Porch Fest.

Our council interviews are continuing.

We do we did in the past quarter more than 50 segments with local businesses, arts, nonprofits, and our partners in the community.

So that continues.

One thing that we're also doing, and you guys know this because you put together your own newsletters is email marketing and gov delivery is another big part of what we do.

We send out 131 e newsletters, e bless or notifications, deliver to almost 350,000 recipients.

The total number of subscriptions is just over 300,000, and the total number of subscribers is 115,000.

So those are people who subscribe to more than one newsletter, more than one notification.

And so that is important to talk about.

And what we're showing you here is a new newsletter that Public Works is putting together now.

And it's also something that people can sign up for on Gov Delivery.

Whoop, what happened to my there we go.

So that's something new that Public Works is putting together and getting out to folks.

And I just explained that in what's new.

Something else that we're doing that's new is we are sharing the city manager's weekly report on social media.

We've elevated it on the Tacoma.gov page because this weekly report that you all receive has always been posted on the Tacoma.gov website.

But not many people know it's there.

And it includes a ton of really important information from all the departments, a weekly summary of crime stats from the Tacoma Police Chief.

It includes a lot of the CAM reports that you folks are putting together about work that you have in progress.

It's what you're doing, what the city is doing, and it's all going to the city manager, but the public should also be able to see all this information because it's coming out every week.

Um, and we have already shared it, but now we're not only sharing it in a much more visible place, but we're sharing it on social media for people who might not have known it was there.

Um, just an FYI.

Um, we're now on next door, but Blue Sky is causing us to pause because of costs associated with adhering to public records and archiving requirements.

So everything we do we have to archive and save for public disclosure reasons.

And Blue Sky doesn't really have an option for that at this time.

So while we have the name reserved and we're ready to take that jump, we can't do it until we know that it's saved because we have to make sure we're following the law.

Um something that we talked about before, but we began soliciting photos of the week for Instagram to highlight the work of local photographers, whether they're professional or non-professional, and the entries are collected via website.

And something else that's new is YouTube Live.

So not only are you on our Tacoma.gov and TV Tacoma, but YouTube Live is also a place where your council meetings, your study sessions.

We're on YouTube Live right now.

YouTube is the number one platform for people between the ages of 18 and 34.

So we're trying to go where people are.

So what is ahead for quarter four and beyond?

We're going to continue the branding consistency.

It's really important.

Um podcast phase one is to get our study session meetings, our city council meetings, the OSAC meetings and all the meetings that you folks do all the time up on a new podcast platform.

We're right in final negotiations as far as contracting, and we're hopeful that that's going to happen really soon.

Phase two will then include original content that we're hoping will be something we can put out in early 2026.

Content that we share on podcasts is also content that we will share on uh TV Tacoma so we can again continue this cross promotion of everything we do.

We've also got political coverage coming up, and we are also now exploring AI options for Tacoma.gov, um whether it's uh a chat bot or other options.

Um we've got a new AI focus group that begins meeting tomorrow.

MCO has been exploring a number of different platforms.

Budget-wise, we don't know if it's something we're gonna be able to do right away, but now that we've got this great new website, the hope is that we can get some sort of chat bot that will basically use the website as the as the originator of the information, and rather just sending somebody to a link, it will give visitors the information.

So I'll open up for questions, but one thing I want to thank is the team members who are here.

Um some of them sitting behind us.

Thanks for being here.

Uh thanks to everybody for TB Tacoma, MCO.

One thing that not everybody knows is that we basically have one person who's responsible for multiple things.

And so when one person is out on PTO or sick or whatever, taking care of a family member, that their work is pretty much delayed for a while because we don't have backup.

We've only got one position that has a backup, and that's the PIO position.

But every other one, uh everybody's responsible for multiple things, and they're responsible alone for multiple things.

Where it's whether it's a TV show, um, social media, the web page and all digital content.

Um, so we're we're we're working hard, and again, I really appreciate these opportunities to come chat with you because I love telling you and showing you what we're doing.

Happy to take questions.

And Golden Doles, our digital manager is here with me because she has a lot of the in the weeds information.

Great, thank you very much for the presentation.

I'll ask for any questions and while you all are thinking about it.

I can't tell you how excited I am about getting us all to have the same look.

Um I I've been around probably too long where I love when every most people like things to be different.

I love where there's a consistent consistency.

And I love that you can pick up something and automatically know, oh, that's from the city of Tacoma.

I remember at some point um under a different administration, um there was um like all the PowerPoint presentations were branded.

So departments had to put their PowerPoint within this branded PowerPoint.

So there was consistency in in what you saw, in information that you got.

Um, and I think that's I think that's not only um it's not all not only look good, it looks good, but it also allows people to understand and read and and and be able to compare apples to apples sometimes.

So really appreciate your work on that.

Um there is one question, and it is from Councilmember Bush now.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you so much for the presentation.

Really excited to see all the engagement that's going on, and I'm happy to be able to see that also in my own feeds.

So it's been it's been great, and especially I love the Instagram and the work as and the you know, photo of the week.

I it's really fun.

Um, one of the questions I had is in regards to the email marketing gov delivery system.

Um, do we have metrics around the open rate for those?

Do we have ideas on how many are bounce back?

Do we regularly clean up that list?

Because it's my understanding if there's too many bounce backs, we actually get flagged as like a spammer and its potential to, you know, for us not to actually reach the the audience that we're trying to get to.

And take that.

Um, yes, we can definitely get a lot of great analytics and numbers and statistics from the gov delivery platform.

Um we can do those at an individual level, so whether it's your individual newsletter you sent out last month, or we can look at, you know, over time what the bounce rate is.

Um we do have different administrators that help us oversee all the accounts, so whether it be council staff if it's for your newsletters or if it's other department newsletters, um, we do work with with internal staff to do that.

And we can um auto-generate those reports that come to you right when right once the newsletter gets sent out within 24 hours, um, or there's like you said you can dive in and get some good analytics.

That's why we really like a tool like Gov Delivery where we can see that.

So, yes, we can see bounce rates, we can see open rates, um, we can, yeah, if there are subscribers that maybe no longer, you know, are receiving information, we can we can clean up those lists, and it is all available to our designated Gov Delivery admin person that we have here, and or people that we have across the city.

Great.

Thank you.

How often do we clean the list out for the bounce backs and things of that nature?

Some people are more active than others, we probably should right now or in the near future take a look at take a look at that and make sure we have the most an accurate uh list.

Sure.

But um, yeah, just something we can we can do at an individual newsletter level or again at the overall organization level.

I'm glad you asked about that because one of the options that we currently have with our gov delivery um deliveries is that people can opt for an SMS text notification that something is in their inbox, but each one of those SMS costs us money.

So with our budget currently the way it is, it won't, you know, we're re-evaluating whether this is the best use of our money to send a notification.

They're still going to get the information, um, but is the notification necessary?

So I don't I don't know what you know, this is gonna be the kinds of things that we're looking at with our budget the way it is, but we're exploring everything because um, as you well know, our our budget is um is tight, and we have to make sure that we use our money in the best way possible.

So we'll keep you posted.

Is have you guys had the opportunity to see if there's other platforms that might be able to provide comparable service at at a better rate or anything of that nature?

We're we're looking at a lot of different options, absolutely.

Yeah, we're we're shoppers.

Yeah, we we definitely are, and you know, that's one of the reasons why we're not yet in Blue Sky.

Blue Sky was a pretty hot thing, and a lot of people were leaving Twitter to go to Blue Sky, and I'm not saying that we won't ever get there.

But is it cost effective depending on how we need to archive in order to go to Blue Sky?

Um, it's leveled off as far as its engagement.

Um so we don't know, but we're not gonna make the decision until we know that it's the best use of our money.

Are we are we allowed to monetize any of this in order to kind of get back into the system to you know for the it's something we're exploring?

Um but the the question about monetization, whether it is um our social media are, and I'm just throwing things out, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but when we monetize anything, we have to make sure that the people who create the content are separate from the people who sell it.

Because otherwise they're come into question things like what is your motivation for posting this?

Are you posting this because somebody's paying for it?

Um, and as a government entity, we have to be really careful that we're doing things for the people of Tacoma.

Um, and so I'm not saying that we'll never do it, but it would include more people.

And um, you know, we're not in the position right now to hire anybody.

I'm not gonna rule it out because we're looking at every option.

But there are really complicated questions about what is the best way for a government to monetize its products, especially considering that we are a public agency and everything we do is for the people of Tacoma.

And so, how do we want to make sure we get that to as many people as accessibly as possible?

Absolutely.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you, Mayor.

I had a couple questions about this logo merge over concept.

Um I'm wondering if we I'm looking at the page with all the logos on it that you sort of collected from around the around the building.

Um, do we have the authority or do we have the will from TPU and the libraries to talk to them about conforming their logos to what we're thinking of?

Those are two of the ones that are not included.

Okay, so they're just on here for demonstration.

They're on there just to, yeah, for demonstrative purposes.

TPU has its own logo, the library is a separate entity for the most part, it has its own logo.

But anything general government, City of Tacoma, the goal is to move it over to um to this logo design.

You know, Tacoma Creates is a great program within CED, but a lot of people didn't know that that was a City of Tacoma program.

And they have been fantastic in all of their many social media posts to include this new logo and this new branding, and it's very clear when you look at it, these are City of Tacoma projects.

This is, you know, because of the money that's being collected that's being used for the arts, and this is the city of Tacoma.

So not every single one of them is going to make this transition, not everything that's on that list.

But it does go to show you that, you know, even with TPU, even with the libraries, um, we do need to get as much consistency and branding for things that we can control, and that's what we're concentrating on at this point.

Okay.

I just heard you say general government, but then I saw them on the screen.

So I wanted to reconcile that.

That was put together by continuous improvement in early 2024.

I got here in 2023, and I was like, hey, how many logos do we have?

And we worked on a project with them, and they put that together, and I was like, oh my goodness, it that's a lot.

It remains a good visual.

I'll just say it sure does.

That's why I shared it.

Um then I was curious, because it would seem to me, but I just thought I would confirm since you guys are the experts.

The new logos with just words next to the City of Tacoma logo.

I imagine those are gonna be a little bit easier as you're making documents accessible, because Word has ways that it can make sort of those become I don't know, audio for folks who can't read, can't see or whatever accessibility does.

I don't pretend to know how it works.

And everything we do in Golden can answer the ADA questions, but that's mostly for um like an email signature rather than have your own individual logo.

This is who we are, and it includes the City of Tacoma logo.

Do you want to ask the ADA?

Yeah, and as for the ADA compliance, we actually are working right now, um, starting the conversation with IT.

There are some new federal guidelines that are gonna be coming into effect in April of 2026, and so we want to make sure all of our digital platforms, um, whether it's a word documented PDF, um, of course, all of our photos and things that we have online are ADA accessible.

And so we will be going through, we've already kind of started identifying and doing an audit of all the different um tools and things that we need to do to test and make sure that everything is meeting these new standards, and like I said, working really closely with our IT department, and then we'll be working with all of our departments to make sure that everything that we do post online or digitally or social media-wise are all meeting those new standards.

Okay, we're doing that at work too, so that's why I was like, I'm gonna bet we're doing that here.

Um, and then the other question I had around that is would that then make these easier to translate?

Because then if we're doing documents in multiple languages, this is theoretically more translatable than like the Tacoma Creates logo, which is TNL.

I don't think that these actual uh division logos or division identifiers will be used in much other than um email signatures because the new report template, the PowerPoint template that we have, and the mayor um brought up PowerPoints.

We do have templates for those as well, so they should look the same.

Um they're all pretty, I mean, they're all definitely consistent.

These are mostly for when somebody signs their their email.

Okay.

Um and one thing I didn't mention, if I may jump in, what that's one of the reasons why YouTube is such a great thing when talking about the the translation services.

Um, for example, the mayor's state of the city this Thursday will be uploaded not only on TV Tacoma and the website, but it will also be uploaded on YouTube.

And YouTube has a closed captioning option, it has a translation option.

And so these are things ways that we can bring the content that we share to as many people as possible.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Diaz, Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to um take a moment to thank you for the update.

I think um, sometimes it feels like we have so many things on our plate, but it's super helpful to see those numbers and see them grow every time.

So I really appreciate that.

It's also a great reminder for our newsletter and things like that that those continue to be useful tools.

Um, because I know they are very time consuming both for us and for staff, but um appreciate um and just appreciate you guys coming every month.

And thank you to your team for being so flexible and willing to post things and I send weird video comment, and you guys turn it into something beautiful.

So thank you for always being willing to try things.

Thanks for sending and uh take pictures and and all the things that you do.

So appreciate it.

Any other questions?

I don't see any.

Thank you all for all of the work and for your presentation today.

Keep up the good work, appreciate you.

All right, come on down.

Our third agenda item is home in Tacoma.

Early implementation update, and I'm going to be calling on planning and development services long range um planning division manager.

It's a long title, Brian Boday.

It's got long, in it's to begin the presentation.

So, Brian, we'll start with you and you'll introduce your guests that are with you today.

Thank you very much, Mayor, and uh pleased to be here with you.

Uh Deputy Mayor, Council members, Brian Boudet with Planning and Development Services.

And uh, while you're used to still seeing my silly face, uh, even better, because today you get to see the entire rest of the management team from planning and development services, because uh as we come here today to talk to you about home and Tacoma, uh we have shifted from the uh taxing and uh takeoff stage.

Uh council adopted this at the end of last year and it went active.

We launched in February, and so this is really the first sort of status update of uh what's actually been going on since uh the launch of this new significant initiative.

So we're gonna uh talk a little bit about uh what home and Tacoma is.

You're well aware of that, and like I said, discuss a little bit about what's been going on over the this is essentially the six-month kind of check-in, so halfway through first year since uh launch time, and start talking a little bit about next steps and some of the uh issues that we've been seeing through the early stages of the implementation.

Um so one thing I do want to say uh is as council I think is well aware that home and Tacoma uh was never intended to be the silver bullet.

It's a it's a significant initiative that expands uh the ability for housing development in the city's residential neighborhoods.

Um, really intended to expand and create opportunities for more housing diversity, more housing uh inventory, and more housing affordability.

Um but it's part of uh what council has long led um for now more than five years, the affordable housing action strategy that council put together.

And so uh of the I think there's 27 different priorities or initiatives in the Affordable Housing Action Strategy, Home and Tacoma really represents just a couple of those.

Uh and so I think at some level uh a kudos to you all.

And I also want to send out thanks to the Center for Street Strategic Priorities.

If folks saw in the weekly letter this last week, there was new data that came in, update on implementation of the broader affordable housing action strategy.

So in addition to the home and Tacoma stuff, uh council's well aware of other uh items that you have put in place, modifications to the surplus uh policy, adjustments to the multifamily tax exemption, which we know we are seeing increases in the number of uh rent restricted units coming out of those policy changes, um, as well as the dedicated funding into the affordable housing uh the affordable housing fund.

And I think by that data, again, you can see nice steady increases in the number of dedicated affordable housing units that the city has been a significant part in uh implementing to help address the overall needs.

Uh but home and Tacoma, right?

Obviously, a big uh initiative.

Uh council modified this is about half of the city upzoned, uh, most of the residential areas in uh throughout Tacoma.

These three new residential zones generally allowing middle housing.

So this is all the way from single family and ADUs up to uh small multifamily, generally allowed in all the zones and and sort of tiered so that uh the more intensive stuff is near important community amenities and significant transportation facilities.

So not only transportation, but parks and schools and neighborhood commercial nodes and things like that.

So I think a really unique and innovative approach that that uh you all took and how to focus development in the right places.

Uh obviously increases in density, lot size reductions and um and bonuses in there specifically for affordable housing.

So, but this initiative wasn't uh all density everywhere or all housing at the expense of anything, right?

It was uh a balanced approach that council put forward, not only expanding what types of housing and how dense it can be, but also modifying the development standards associated with that, you know, to try to respond to communities' interests and make sure that new development that was put into the community uh reasonably fits in to the existing neighborhoods.

So modifications to setbacks and height limits, uh reductions in parking requirements, including the the map that you can see on here.

Folks will remember the conversation about the reduced parking area.

This is the area where there's zero parking required, again, around major transit facilities, uh modifications to design requirements, uh new yard space and tree requirements, including tree retention uh requirements and incentives, uh new allowances for uh subdivisions, unit lot subdivisions, uh, some allowances for non-residential unit uh uses, and also a number of incentives specifically designed to encourage the creation of uh ownership units, both at the ADU level as well as in townhouses and condominiums.

Thanks, Brian.

Um, Mayor, uh Deputy Mayor, Council members, uh, this is my first opportunity to be in front of you.

My name is Philip Gal.

I am the permit services division manager.

Um my division um provides permitting support and pre-application and project coordination support, so that's uh what my team is responsible for.

So I just want to talk a little bit about the launch support for home and Tacoma.

Um so we all know it launched in February of uh 1st of this year.

In order to prep for that, we made some changes uh to how we manage our permitting.

Um so we increased what had traditionally been uh residential review team uh that looked at one to two units, increasing up to buildings with six units on it.

Um we also um did some pre-launch support of home and Tacoma for customers to do some pre-application engagement with our review staff to understand how the new regulations were going to impact their opportunities to develop uh different uh a different variety of housing in Tacoma.

Um we also introduced in March of this year the ADU accelerator program, which is basically a pre-approved designs for ADU opportunities.

Um in addition to that, we also um provided just support materials, training materials, um, manuals uh such as the urban forest manual and the solid waste manual so that customers understand more clearly the types of uh things that they would have to look at as they consider this different um housing opportunity.

Next slide.

So, what have we seen?

Um we've seen a good variety of housing options, construction types since February.

We've seen over 150 applications since we launched in February.

Um 48 of those permits have been approved or constructed.

Um, and most of those permits that were issued were in the first uh first few months of our launch, um, which makes a lot of sense because uh a lot of our I think most of our permits go through the permitting process in about two to three months on average, so a lot of the permits that were applied for in June, July, August are probably towards the end of that of that review phase.

Um as you can see, there's a good mix of um uh construction types, predominantly mostly ADU single units, and that makes a lot of sense in the fact that those are the most uh more simple ones to put into uh existing developed lot.

Um also come with less frontage requirements, um, but what we have seen over the past few months has been an increase in multifamily uh development, and so we anticipate that as people become more comfortable with the design requirements and the new regulations that they will start to explore a greater variety of housing.

So we think that the early interest in Home and Tacoma regulations has shown a lot of momentum and is you know strong interest.

We do understand that there are some challenges with this increased development, and Robin is actually gonna speak a little bit about that.

Thank you, Philip.

Um my name is Robin Bolster Grant.

Uh good afternoon, uh, mayor, uh council members.

Um I am the division manager for the land use uh folks who uh do current planning uh as well as the uh natural resources program.

Uh I am uh also first time uh in front of you folks.

Uh and I will also say, although it sounds like an excuse, I have been with uh the city for about nine months.

Um so when I came on board, um we were talking about this program and uh and it launched uh early in in my tenure.

What we are seeing, and and I I refer to it as sort of the Jenga effect, um, this was an ambitious uh program, still an ambitious program, uh, the idea being to provide uh diversity uh of housing types, uh affordability, um, also while maintaining high standards uh in terms of design and neighborhood compatibility.

Um that led to uh a number of new design uh requirements and the Jenga effect is that they all are overlapping, and it takes quite a bit of planning, pre-planning on the part of developers, and understanding on the part of staff to see what the impacts are.

So this is new, we've all been learning together, but um everything from uh amenity space, the tree canopy, uh tree retention, uh, bike parking and orientation on lots uh has been a challenge, and some developers, particularly those working on smaller infill uh sites, um, are having a tough time, um, not all, but enough that we hear about it uh navigating these these interlocking uh requirements.

Um sometimes the uh design uh challenges um stem from unintended consequences.

Some of the rules uh have to do with alley access.

Well, what do you do if you have a property that doesn't have an alley?

Um requirements encourage walkability and enhance landscaping, but that can eat into your area for development.

So these are all issues that we're we're hearing from uh developers who are struggling to figure out uh configurations that make sense, um, and we are learning together.

Now we do have ways of addressing a lot of these challenges.

Um we um at part of Home and Tacoma introduced uh design variances.

If you have a lot that is for a variety of reasons, uh doesn't work well with the uh alignment of your building and alley access and pedestrian walkways, um, you can apply for a design variance.

Um the criteria is fairly reasonable.

The alternative that you come up with uh must be equal or superior to what is required in our code.

So that's at the administrative level.

We're also working on director's rules, which when we see uh the same issues coming up again and again, and many of those have to do with building orientation, front-facing garages is something that we have heard about uh a number of times, and that it depends on the the site.

If you have a narrow site or again a site that doesn't have an alley, all of these things uh take a bit more consideration and a bit more time.

But if we're seeing the same things, I think we have seen uh 10 variances come in uh since February.

So we know that some of these issues maybe require us to take a different approach, and maybe a director's rule is the more appropriate solution.

Um variances take more time and it costs more money.

So if this is something that we're uh understanding is okay, well, maybe we didn't anticipate that this was going to be such an issue for so many developers.

Let's come up with a rule that is that addresses the issue but doesn't quite hit the threshold for needing a total code change.

And so we have a number of those again, sites without alleys.

We definitely this is an area that has more alleys than any place I've ever worked in or lived in.

So I'm I'm kind of having to adjust uh the alley focus, but I get it.

Uh safety and and aesthetics to some degree.

Um but there still are a lot of sites that don't have alleys.

There are sites that are on cul de sacs.

There are a number of different, I mean, everybody that comes in the door presents a different challenge.

So part of the issue with time frame, although I think we're doing a really good job with our level of service, but it does require more back and forth between staff and developer.

Um there's also uh sort of maybe a almost a I want to say cultural norm, but that doesn't sound right.

Um we are used to offering help.

And somebody comes in and says, I've got this site, I don't know how I can fit all of these units in that make it pencil out.

We immediately, as planners want to jump in and say, Well, okay, well, let's look at that and let's try to figure that out.

Um that sometimes leads to planners designing projects or maybe having uh a greater role in designing projects, which is great, but it may also mean that our not all of our developers are having to learn the rules themselves, if that makes sense.

Um we see projects come in that aren't fully baked, and through no fault of the developers, we're the experts, it's our code.

So they come in saying, you know, here's a piece of paper.

Can you tell me how I can make this work?

Um we will always do that, but it has to be a little bit more structured.

So these are the the fixes, if you will, um changing the code at some point.

We are uh compiling uh a list of code changes that makes sense, um, where we just didn't anticipate things.

Um but I think in terms of what we are doing to make the customers' experience better, if you will, is to look at all of our materials, look at our tip sheets, look at our checklists, look at our online experience and the uh community engagement folks are uh on board to help us with that and break it down to make sure that we are being as clear using plain language, getting rid of as much jargon and acronyms as we can, which is almost impossible in the planning world.

Um and and be more um engaged at the front end.

I mean, we're always there, we're at the counter, um, but I think that this sort of um uh back and forth is is taking a little bit longer for some projects than than we anticipated.

Um the other thing that I think we could do is is improve some of our uh pre-application process uh right now most of that is done uh through emails and and and sending uh you know messages back and forth.

Um I would like to see, and um and when we get to Corey, he could talk about our enhanced middle uh housing program.

I would like to see more face-to-face virtual is fine, but I think when you have questions when you come in and you're grappling with all of these different design requirements, it really helps to have somebody looking at you and talking to you rather than going back and forth uh with emails.

And so we've talked about that with the uh not pilot pilot program uh coming up, and we will learn so much more as we see what the pinch points are, um, but there's a lot that we can do on both ends, um, but we're getting better all the time and and making sure that we are on the same page, we're looking at each other's work in terms of the planners uh to make sure that um that we all are providing a consistent message to uh developers out there.

And with that, I give it to you.

Thanks, Robin, and good afternoon, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council.

Uh my name is Corey Newton, I'm the site and building division manager for planning development services.

And I'm also gonna talk about some of the early challenges, but more specific to building and uh infrastructure engineering issues.

So a lot of the themes are gonna be very similar to Robin.

Um so from a specific, I guess, to configuration and usability.

You know, anytime there's a new coded option, there's definitely a learning curve.

The way I look at design work, it's kind of an iterative process, right?

So both between both staff and developers.

So a developer submits something, we're like, oh, that doesn't quite work.

We have to modify this, it goes back, that doesn't work for the developer.

And so it's a bit of an iterative process to work through a lot of the design challenges.

You know, uh, not not to duplicate everything Robin said, but you know, some of the early challenges have been around, you know, parking or driveways, um, basically space contraints, right?

So uh we're going from you know, uh one unit on a lot to a much higher density, and so that creates its own challenges.

But even with those challenges, we still have approved about 48% of the permits within two reviews.

Uh prior to Home at Tacoma, we were about 70% approved within our first two reviews.

That's really our goal.

Uh, and we're pretty confident in talking to staff that we'll get back to that level here in a couple months.

So a little bit about expanded development.

So if you think about it, if you go, you know, a larger project means more density, means more complex.

So if if usually you're putting one unit on a lot, and you have to go to 16 units on a lot, well, that just complicates everything, right?

And so where the design work may not have been as important in one unit, because of the expanded use of the site, you know, fitting utilities in the different, I mean, basically there's five utilities that you have to fit on one site.

And so fitting those creates its own challenges, which gets more complex, uh, and it's definitely uh a work in progress.

But so far, only about five percent of the projects that we're seeing are the larger multifamily multiplex types developments.

Most stuff has been our usual, about 68% has been the usual ADU single family, and about 21% is the duplex and townhomes, which is good to see.

And then just a little bit of a teaser here.

Uh on October 21st, yeah, exactly.

We'll be uh uh developing uh uh you know uh an enhanced missing middle housing permitting program.

I said that wrong, but uh the name keeps changing.

But uh on October 21st, we'll present that.

Um the city manager really challenged us to look at our process and see what we could do different.

And it was kind of a fun, you know, uh process or project to look at it and see what we can do different, both from a time standpoint, but also really how we can impact our community.

And so I'm pretty excited to come back and really talk about how we can do things differently.

Really, I think kind of revolutionary, not what anybody else is doing.

And so uh yeah, a little bit of a teaser.

We'll we'll see you guys in October.

And with that, I'll pass it over to Brian.

Thanks, Corey.

So as we uh close up and then open it up for questions, just a little quick uh overview of things as we look forward.

Uh Corey mentioned the middle housing permitting program.

So this is something new that PDS is working on, and uh, like you said, we'll be back here in what, three weeks to talk more about that and potentially launch early this next year.

Um as I as I noted, this is obviously just six months in, so we're still early in the implementation.

People are still figuring out what works and what doesn't work.

Staff and development community.

Uh we will continue to have uh updated reports coming back to council, certainly the the one year in, probably next March or April, we'll uh have even more information, I think, including probably some finished projects, which we don't yet have a lot of right now, right?

We're still in the sort of things are in permitting, things are issued, maybe under construction, but there's not a lot of on the ground uh examples yet to be able to uh to show how things are playing out.

Um in addition, we're talking about uh some residential code amendments.

Um Robin sort of indicated there's a couple different paths that things can go down depending on what the right solution might be to identified issues.

Some things can fit into the kind of interpretation and clarification bucket where a director's rule or something similar can can largely address those, but there are certainly other things that we run into where there are obvious policy choices that have been made, which may need to be rethought at some point, depending on you know how those examples are looking and what barriers we're seeing, and why you know are they the the one in a hundred barrier, or is it the one in five, you know, circumstance that's popping up and and variances are one of the indication of that.

So we are talking about, and this is certainly something for council to continue to ponder is sort of the right timing for initiating uh a project to potentially look at modifications.

Um you'll see in the in the bottom list there, there are a number of things that actually the state is mandating that the city consider um some of the middle housing came out of state law, the city generally went a little further than what the state mandated, but the state is continuing to work on housing affordability and development challenges, and so in this last legislative session, they adopted uh a whole slew of bills that will mandate the city make further changes to our zoning and development standards.

So you can see a couple of examples there.

Some of these are mandated to happen in 2026, some of these are mandated by 2027.

Uh, I think one of them is by 2029.

But these are all things that we're looking at.

So some things that we have to do.

So with that, uh appreciate the opportunity for us all to be here, give you again sort of the first inclination of what's being seen, what things are popping up, uh what kinds of what kinds of projects, uh, and we are here to answer any questions that you have.

Thanks.

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you for this information.

Thank you for being here.

I think this is super important for us to hear from sort of the front lines of these projects to hear what you're hearing.

Um so really really appreciate it, and um looking forward to that um October 21st.

Um what did we call it?

Pilot not pilot.

Appreciate that.

Um, so my question is actually on the state legislation, Brian.

Um, so on the residential lot splitting, I thought we included that in home and Tacoma.

This would be just an exercise to match it with what the state is asking for, or is it something totally different, or did I miss that?

Uh thanks for the question.

The so we incorporated unit lot subdivisions into home and Tacoma, which is also on that list there.

Uh there, when the state adopted that bill, uh, we basically have to go back and make sure that everything jives with all the individual components that the state did.

Lot splitting we didn't actually do, so that was a new initiative that the state put forward, uh, which is really the it's trying to make as simple as possible the ability to split one lot into two lots.

So, in some ways you could call it the smallest version of a unit lot subdivision or the smallest uh version of a short plat, but um has specific um mandates in there to really streamline the process for that smallest scale division.

So, thank you.

That's helpful.

So if right now I wanted to divide my lot in half, I could do that under what we have adopted, but this just makes it really specific.

Yeah.

Yeah, you you could have done that all along, divide two into one.

This is just saying we want to make that as streamlined as possible and simple as possible.

So you have to take out you know these various components of the traditional process to make that easier.

Okay, gotcha.

Thank you.

That's super helpful.

And then um my second and last question is just about process, um, both on these state legislation pieces and that residential code amendments package.

Where is that coming to full council?

Is that going through committee?

How are we making that happen?

So the the code amendment package is currently being also discussed as part of the planning commission's work program.

So these are modifications to the zoning code, so they would have to go through back through the planning commission process and then ultimately obviously come to city council for uh for your decision.

Uh and so, yeah, that's they would go through that process, yeah.

Okay, great.

And I know we're um talking about that work plan at IPS coming up, but yes, it sounds like it's proposed for 2026.

It is it is currently proposed for 2026, yes.

Great, thank you so much.

Deputy Mayor Daniels.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you guys for putting this together.

Um I just got a chance to look at the um the trash, the the uh solid waste guide.

Super helpful.

I sent that out to a couple of civil engineers.

I think that that's gonna help them uh be able to get through some of the basic challenges uh sooner than later, uh, than finding out, you know, um you know on the back end, like how just how the trucks actually work so that they can design to the you know what we actually have.

Um couple of questions I had.

Um okay, so you said we're gonna do some the residential code amendments.

I know you talked about there being kind of different ways that we solve some of the problems, ones that we have, maybe tent variances or um whatever things that can be done by director's rule.

Are there gonna be uh is there gonna be a formal process for that?

How will that work?

Because it looks like there's some that are going to be going to the planning commission in 2026.

Are those going to be split up?

Is everything waiting until 2026 or how will how will that process work?

I think we um uh definitely we have been compiling uh as we get data um separate uh a little bit from the the state uh legislation that may change some of these things.

But um we ask virtually uh every day when we're dealing with uh developers, talking to them, going to TPEG meetings, what have you.

What is what's slowing you down?

What are the problems?

What are the issues?

And so as we continue to compile that data, we figure are in the process of figuring out what is a structural problem here that we really need to fix with the with the code amendment, or um, can we just say this is how we interpret this provision uh and the director's rule is is more appropriate for that.

It's more immediate, takes less time.

Um, and then uh administratively, like I said, uh the the variance process is uh it's there for a reason.

It gives flexibility to folks whose particular situation, developer, homeowner um doesn't fit neatly into a box.

But when we see multiple variances on the same issue, that to me is a signal that we need we really need to look at that language, and it could be minor, it could be changing a shall to a should or do you know so I think um we have a list that we're uh actively compiling right now and and working with uh the long-range folks uh to move that to um uh something that we'll we'll take to again uh planning commission and and we'll end up with you folks um next year in terms of actual code changes.

But in the meantime, the the director's rules are available um for our developer folks to uh to look at and see where we've been able to make some some flexibility uh a little bit more concrete.

Is that did I answer your question?

I go around that I think maybe I uh I can add a little bit.

The uh I mean basically you get it you end up with two buckets, right?

You have things for which uh clarity or interpretation makes sense.

I mean the the director effectively has the authority to to implement and interpret the code, not change the code, right?

So if uh if the issue is that the code says five and everybody thinks it should say seven, well that's a code change that we need to happen.

Uh if there's other things where just there's a clear intent in the code and the language of the code is sort of tripping on itself where we know where we're supposed to go, those are places where the director's rules can happen.

And and my sense from a timing perspective on the director's rule, and correct me if I'm I'm I'm wrong, Robin.

I mean, there are a number of items that were kind of identified on there as potential director's rule.

I think those are all probably cued up within the next couple of months to be issued.

That's correct.

Beyond that, the bigger ones, like I say, where there's actually a code change where council put in place a specific requirement, and now we're seeing does that work or not?

Those are the ones that have to go back through the more full process.

And with that, I'll just I mean, kind of nothing needs to be decided right now.

But one of the questions that kind of is here for council, we're six months in, we're seeing things.

There certainly is some challenges.

Some of this is us figuring out how the code works and applying it correctly.

Some of this is the development community after many decades of building certain kinds of things on certain kinds of lots, trying to figure out how to do a new thing.

And it's more things on the same size uh piece of land, and there are inherently complications in trying to fit all the stuff in there.

So the question of okay, at what point do we have do we feel like we have enough understanding of what is and isn't working and identify the things that probably won't work themselves out and actually do need a change.

Is that now?

Is that at the year point?

Is it I mean, in the in the ordinance that was adopted, there was a mandated sort of review at three years.

But obviously there's the opportunity, and even with the state legislation we're seeing where there's gonna be some changes that are gonna be have to be made sooner than that.

So, like I say, an opportunity for council to really think about, you know, how much time does it make sense to sort of see what plays out before it's time to have a policy conversation about adjusting something that was a really big package, right?

So I think maybe my more specific question was you got to half of it, which was are the directors' rules, is that gonna be like on an individual uh project basis, or is that gonna be like a body of work that just some formally some way formally gets changed internally that I don't know how you let people know about that or if they they just come in and it is kind of changing that's really specifically what I'm kind of wondering.

No, it's a great question.

I and you can add on.

But the directors will get issued, they're not project, they obviously get triggered by a project in many cases or multiple projects, so the issue gets identified, but once the director's rule is issued clarifying that here's how we're gonna apply that portion of the code to make sure that it meets the intent, it applies broadly, they are posted on the website as well, so people can know about them.

Okay, and then where do they find that?

Is it like in is there like a section or something where they would like look to see kind of like what those would be where they can see here's the 10 directors' rules we've issued?

I don't know.

Well, I was gonna say I I think that's that's something that we could probably um make more explicit because I don't know that that is as readily available.

I at least uh for me is I I think it's um under the tip sheets.

Um public notices, yeah.

Okay, public notices I could see some improvement personally in in some of um the easy access to some of our information, and that's that's entirely been my experience trying to find things, it's not always intuitive.

That's not anybody's fault, it's just the organic nature of you know, new things, adding new things.

Um, but um we definitely could be a little bit more explicit and helping folks know that something's come out um when it does.

I'm trying to clear the lobby, so anyway, then I can help you guys do that.

Um I the last question that I have was um okay, so two things, just kind of speaking on clearing the lobby on the the face-to-face part.

I really like that that opportunity is there, and I think that there's a an ability to be able to clear up a lot really quickly when you are face-to-face.

But one thing that I know that um can be problematic in having either face-to-face or uh like a uh conversational style uh application is that uh getting different answers from to get different people or like having that accountability on the city side for feeling like you got an answer committed to it so that you can design to that and that it's not gonna change the next time you come in or talk to someone else, or like maybe you didn't interpret the interpreted the right way.

Like, how do you do that accountability piece with that?

Um great question, uh Deputy Mayor.

I think um what I'm used to doing in uh my previous lives is uh to have the reviewers that are involved, uh whatever the question is, or maybe it's the project as a whole, provide written comments that shouldn't go away.

Um, but then uh have an opportunity to get together to discuss the comments.

Um it's even possible, and I haven't uh floated this with anybody else, but those those meetings uh if if they're uh virtual um could be recorded.

Um that's that's what we did in Gig Harbor, much different context, of course.

But um, but yeah, the written comments don't go away, and you still have to uh own your your review, um and and make sure that any any deviation, and this is where we have to do the work on our side to make sure that we're uh consistent yet flexible, which is always an interesting balance.

Um, but if if anybody is uh interpreting something in a way that we haven't done before, that has to be um disseminated among all the other uh reviewers and planners, so we're not going out too far on a limb without checking in.

Um but there is some language that does give us the ability to say, well, this makes sense in this case, and that's uh that's something that I try to encourage is you know, have have the um have the courage to say I think that this meets the intent of what we've written here uh in terms of the code, it may seem like it deviates slightly.

I'm gonna make sure I always tell folks leave breadcrumbs, how you got to that decision, and then share that with everybody else, whether that makes its way into a director's rule or or something else.

Um, but we want to have the ability to uh find uh ways to say yes to to projects that make sense.

I would I would add that um if we're talking about a specific design, our the pre-development process that we have gives you that opportunity to present uh this is my preferred design, this is how I want to provide solid waste access, um, how many units I want the site layout with that with that level of of detail, it allows us to then give you the written comments, right?

So if the scope doesn't change uh substantially, the comments that staff provide should be um something that you can rely upon.

I understand that there's also um as you're you know looking at a property, maybe don't already own it, you're in a feasibility due diligence, timing becomes a challenge there.

You then there's holding costs and things of that nature.

So if you're asking about how does the code get interpreted, whether it's like in a general sense, the the the the coming in and having those conversations a little bit easier, having a specific uh you know, response in writing about how we interpret a code is probably easier.

Are you talking about a site specific one?

It is much more challenging to say, you know, I give you one comment, you take that back, you don't have the other five conversations you need to have about a project.

Absolutely, you can run the challenges, and I think that's where our we give you options.

I think it's just a matter of understanding what those options are and then knowing what's the best approach for you for your project in that moment, right?

So that's kind of a really a personal you know preference type of question.

So I appreciate that.

I guess I I thought maybe you were thinking because you guys do all of these things with all the options, and you do write, and you do have the option to come in in person, and so all of those are appreciated.

I thought we're you were talking about going only to face to face, and I was thinking what might be lost and going only to face to face is like that ability to track what you asked.

Um last thing, because I can talk to you guys all day about this, and I don't want to do that today.

Um but just enjoy how much I know.

It's just in general um about the variance side of things.

I I see possibly some difficulties on the equal or superior to link code where these are really design standards, and as it relates to design, I don't know that it's really clear in some spaces what does it mean to be superior and what what we were trying to solve for in some of these pieces?

Is it preference?

Is it uh aesthetic?

You know what I mean?

And so when folks are trying to either communicate what is superior, I I that that just gives me a little bit of hesitation and and what and how there to do that.

And I don't that's not a question for you to solve now, but that's just something that I'm thinking about how to make your job easier and how you can take away some of the pressure of what that means.

How can we provide clarity there?

So that's just a claim.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, Councilmember Hines.

Uh thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the team for the presentation.

This is great.

I won't ask too many more questions about the enhanced housing permitting program.

I know that's coming back in three weeks.

Very excited about that.

I think that sounds really good.

Uh, I think my question would be as we're thinking about the Jenga effect, I think it's got an example here of like then how much are the utilities walking side by side with PDS in that conversation?

Because I I I do I want to make sure that they're also part of this conversation, not saying, well, this is just how it is for our utilities to function, and you just have to conform around it.

Are they walking side by side in these conversations, Corey?

Absolutely.

I I have to give a huge shout out to all the I guess you utility providers that we've worked with.

This was a huge effort to change rules to come together for a project like this.

Uh Deputy Mayor Daniels brought up the solid waste design guide.

Uh, if you think about it, when you add, you know, uh shared services for these dense and dense buildings, you know, there's gonna have to be conversations, and there was definitely foresight uh to think that hey, we're gonna have to do something here, and so we develop this guide uh jointly.

It was a really actually a really good example of a project between uh ES and PDS to develop that uh collaborative approach.

So, yes, they have been working good.

Um, and we'll continue to have conversations with them uh when issues come up.

But so far it's been a really good example, uh good collaboration.

How about the non-gener government utilities?

Including them.

Uh so there's challenges with every utilities, right?

So anytime you have a development uh and different uh, I guess entities, there's different priorities.

Uh, but you know, as we work through issues, uh, we continue to find solutions.

So I'm I'm pretty happy with the progress so far.

Well, I mean, I think that's really I think that's good.

Um, because I think one of the things that has come out of a lot of these conversations, right?

And we talk about what what is the priority, right?

And I think a lot of our work is the priority is more housing for more people.

And so, you know, how do we kind of balance some of the other pieces that we try to do through home and Tacoma and not let one part of the organization drive everything else?

So I think that's just my question just to make sure we're all working together on this.

I think my other question is is there how are we keeping track of how we landed in this place in the in the end?

Right?

Because when I look at one question around the um the garage building orientation, right?

So one of the reasons why we've landed on that, and I have to tell people this is like, well, there's a bunch of council members with us when I started here who didn't like the wall of garage doors on the street frontage, right?

Like they didn't want to like walk a block and it's like garage door, garage door, garage door, garage or garage door.

Um, and so we've kind of tried to move away from that.

But I I do understand there's situations where you know, to get a building out of the ground, sometimes you have to think through that.

So is are we is there a way we're kind of c keeping this?

Like we understand or explaining why we've landed in certain places.

I feel like that sometimes is lost in this conversation when I when we look at like one project at a time.

Like so this project comes in, it's like, well, it only works if I have a garage door facing the front.

It's like, okay, well, in this situation, maybe we can make that work, but I don't know how we're doing that, Brian.

Or if we are.

Yeah, Councilmember Hines, the I mean, in that one in particular, uh, and I think at some level there was lots of conversation about this through home and Tacoma, and continues to be uh vehicles are big and they take up a lot of space.

Yeah, uh, and on tight sites, it's one of the most significant uh complications, there's no doubt.

Uh, and even in places where we have no parking requirement or use parking requirement, uh, generally people want to build parking.

Um the I mean, as you say, I mean, the arc of that policy conversation goes back probably 20 plus years.

Um, and out of numerous examples in the past where yes, you know, garage-dominated frontage is not good for multiple reasons.

I mean, it takes away the street parking, it's less pedestrian-oriented, less safe for pedestrians, bicycles, other things like that.

Uh we are a city that has lots of alleys at some level, that's the beauty of it, but we have lots of spaces that don't have alleys too.

So uh, you know, that that balance is a tricky one.

I will say, I mean, I think as Robin mentioned, I mean, this is one of those items that we know is high on the list that we are seeing on a regular basis.

And ultimately the question will be, you know, we we stand at a certain place in that policy choice through Home and Tacoma, and whether or not council wants to rethink what that right balance point is of how flexible to be is probably a conversation that that we will be having.

Yeah, I I think one of the nuances we've been trying to juggle with this for a while, right?

Is is some is great, a lot can be overwhelming, right?

And when you talk about adding more people more housing things to a new to a neighborhood, to a street, you know, how do we kind of balance some of these multiple these competing um needs and wants and desires?

So I appreciate all the effort here.

I'm very excited about some of the things here, but those are my questions.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines, Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I had a I think what's a quick question back on slide seven on the what are we seeing slide.

I feel like I heard you say that the number of multifamilies that have been applied for has increased since Homa Jacoma in February.

And I was just wondering if you can tell me in general if there was a backlog leading up to when home of Tacoma, like were folks waiting for it to be implemented to go.

Was that kind of cleared out before we before we finished?

So I'm just trying to get a sense of how much how much the influx in multifamily or in general is from us directly doing the work so that we can help tell the story of how it's impacted.

Thank you.

Thank you, House Member.

Um, I think Corey can chime in a little bit, but I think um it's it's a little bit more unique because these were multifamily um opportunities that didn't exist prior to Home and Tacoma, right?

And so in the areas where it's commercial zoned or mixed use, um you always had those opportunities.

You still have those opportunities, but um with the UR zoning changes that allowed you to now explore options that were not available to you last year and prior.

Um so I I do I would agree with you.

Some of those um applicants were waiting for these regulations to to relax some of the opportunities for them to explore different variety of housing.

So yes.

Thank you.

That's exactly the question I had.

You just articulate it better is there a lot of these things were just they were now allowed.

We it wasn't like somebody was sitting on their mixed use center thing and waiting for home and to come.

There's no reason to.

Not for the multi-family.

I think with some of the ADUs and some of those other opportunities, maybe so, but um with the multifamily not not so much.

So the high level we can tell people is it's working.

But I think to the prior question, not it's not coming exorbitantly, but it is working.

Yes as intended.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Bush now.

Thank you, Mayor.

I will be quick as I can.

Um thank you for the presentation.

It's a lot.

Um in the water we are seeing slide.

Um, is the numbers that we're looking at units by district, is that what's been completed so far?

Or is that still with everything in review and that's everything in review and completed?

Got it.

Okay.

So we just kind of just total units and you know, in the aggregate, so that you could at least uh see where things are happening in the each of the districts.

Got it.

I I would just be curious about the the unit type that's within those breakdowns also.

Uh I know that you have it separately here, construction types, but I think that looks like it appears to be like everything.

Yeah, I mean we had those these.

I can follow up and send that out if you're interested in that.

Great.

Thank you.

And then the final thing was in regards to the director's rule.

Um once the rule is established, that does that mean that uh folks don't have to go through the variance process once again.

That I don't know if that was answered.

That's that's the idea for some of these.

Um it it some of them aren't related to the variances, some of them are just um our um processing where it just something clearly the intent doesn't quite match up with what we're seeing, or there's there's some disconnect.

Um, but um, but the ones that we are contemplating now, I think would help alleviate folks from thinking they had to contemplating going through the design variance process would just sort of solidify this is our feeling, this is what the intent was, and this is how we made it without having to go case by case.

Got it.

And then just just as uh and you guys might already be doing this, but as um as these director rules are issued, uh maybe there's an opportunity to add like a carrot uh within the actual code section where it may apply uh that people can actually route to.

Um and I'm maybe you guys are already doing that, but just I just thought about that in terms of like how do we get that message out.

Obviously, we do the bulletins, not everybody sees it, but they might be reviewing the code itself and then notice that there's a direct rule carrot that they can route to.

Yeah, it's a good idea.

And I'll just quickly mention, I mean, the idea of a director's rule is that they don't exist forever.

You know, we're not looking at directors' rules from 20 years ago.

So these do turn into code amendments.

So once, you know, if it's been decided, here's an obvious clarification to be made.

Those are the kinds of things actually that council sees in the minor amendments or the code cleanups that you that you see come forward from the planning commission every year.

I don't see any more um questions, but um appreciate um the update and excited um to see that it's actually working.

Um and and and look forward um to our next update.

Thank you very much.

All right, moving on to our fourth agenda items.

Gonna be a big table.

Um, our fourth agenda item is the alternative response quarterly update.

And I'm gonna invite Alison, and Allison has a whole bunch of friends who are gonna come with us.

Thank you, Mayor.

I bring a lot of uniforms with me.

Okay, sit here.

I'll respond to my side.

There's enough room.

Chief, chief, there's there's enough room here.

She says there's enough.

Oh no, oh no, no, there's the no pull that chair.

Right.

Go ahead and sit down.

Look, sit down.

I think I'm directing a choir.

Stand up.

Sit down.

Okay, we're cool.

All right.

Um, I am going to call on uh deputy city manager Alison Griffith to begin the presentation.

And she's got several friends today.

I do.

Thank you, Mayor Alison Griffith, Deputy City Manager, uh, here today to introduce our regular update on the city's alternate response efforts.

As you noted, I have a number of people here with me today who will introduce themselves as they begin their portion of the conversation.

So let's see if from up here I can make this function.

Okay, good.

Um, council, my role today is to set the table for us and ground us in our common understanding understanding of alternative response work.

The slides I'll go over in a moment will all be review for council, but are important in framing the work.

The meat of today's presentation, which you will hear from each of these teams, is them sharing their wins for this quarter, the challenges they are currently facing, and what they're anticipating in the coming months.

Um they'll also share some of their key metrics for each of their service areas.

Uh as a reminder to council, the purpose of our alternative response approach has been and remains connecting individuals to the right response at the right time.

The basis of our alternate response approach remains our homelessness outreach work, our behavioral health or hope team, and our community services officers.

Uh in previous briefings, you've asked for a deeper understanding of how these services are accessed and how they work together.

As the team share uh information today, they'll be talking about instances of joint response.

But this slide endeavors to give you a sense of how calls come in and where they're routed.

Responses led by our hope team and or CSO teams, uh community service officers, excuse me for the acronym, generally come through our 911 dispatch center and may be triggered by an initial call to 988.

Well, requests for heal generally originate through our 311 system.

So you can see that down there uh at the bottom.

Frankly, council is where each of our kind of responses come out.

At the very top is which what contact centers those those calls are routing through.

You may remember this.

Uh we moved from Swiss cheese to bubbles uh during our last quarterly update.

And so you may recall this bubble diagram from our last presentation.

What this slide is attempting to illustrate for you is the interconnected nature of these services and where and how they overlap with our traditional police and fire responses.

Uh nonviolent uh criminal uh acts or suspected criminal acts can be referred to community safety officers for issues related to homelessness.

Heel will lead on response, but must necessarily work with our police department.

Uh and as you may hear, we'll make referrals to the Hope team.

Hope and the designated crisis response uh responders or what you see up there as DCRs may respond to incidents that initially involve police, fire or both or both traditional emergency responses.

And the level of uh behavioral health need helps determine which of those is the appropriate tool to dispatch.

Mayor and Council, with that kind of rounding, I will turn the presentation to Javon, who manages the HEAL team, and he can begin our quarterly update.

If you don't mind passing that down to him.

Thank you, Allison, Mayor and Council.

Javon Carlisle, HEAL team manager of the neighbor of Neighborhood and Community Services here to speak with you today on the occurring work with our homeless engagement alternative liaison or heel team.

I am joined with Vicky McLaurin, interim director of neighborhood and community services, who will be able to answer any questions after this presentation.

I would like to thank neighborhood and community services staff, especially the HEAL team for their dedication and commitment to addressing the needs of our community.

I'd like to start by highlighting some of the key accomplishments this uh of this quarter.

Cool.

The HEOL team has continued its commitment in connecting people to services while ensuring the community Tacoma's communities remain safe and clean.

Our partnership, our partnerships have grown significantly.

Working closely with Pierce County, the state, and especially comprehensive life resources, or CLR, has been instrumental.

Together, through the state's right-of-way program, we've helped place some of our most chronically unhoused individuals into stable housing.

Additionally, we have been able to continue our work with the Hope with our Hope counterparts in situations where we believe their expertise can be helpful in ensuring a positive outcome.

From June 1st through August 31st, the HEAL team placed 51 individuals in the shelter, highlighting our work with CLR.

CLR was able to place an additional 47 individuals in the shelter through the right-of-way program, specifically to shelter locations that the HEAL team does not have direct referral access to.

This includes Marine Howard in Lakewood and Oasis, as well as King Fisher, which just recently opened on 84th and Hosmer.

Progress does not come without challenges.

The closure of multiple shelters, such as RISE, Alzheimer, Shiloh, or Fort and Forging Path, in addition to the dissolution of key no-camping zones, has reduced the available shelter capacity that our team was able to uh take advantage of over the past several years.

Working with our partners at Pierce County and the state to identify, review, and approve new program sites can also be a lengthy, lengthy, and challenging process.

These are hurdles that we continue to navigate as we seek solutions.

Looking ahead, our focus will be on refining our operations to meet the needs of the city, its residents, and business owners all alike.

We also or will also continue to emphasize the city's compassionate approach in addressing homelessness, ensuring that while we protect public health and safety, we provide pathways to stability for those in need.

Lastly, the HEL team has recently committed to working five days in the community instead of the previous four.

This challenge and our or this change in our operations allows our team to increase coverage and consistency while also managing a more balanced workload.

We will also continue to monitor this uh change in operations moving forward just to see what's changed and what we could possibly re-evaluate.

We are currently operating as a full team of eight FTEs.

Uh on responsiveness, our performance has been exceptional.

Between June 1st and July 31st, or June 1st and August 31st, we closed a total of 1,742 311 requests out of the 1,762 created for two specific NCS categories.

Contact us homeless issue and homeless encampment and request for outreach.

The HEAL team has an average closing rate of 98.34% of those 311s being closed on time prior to the SLA close date.

One of the most notable changes or trends that we've seen is a pretty large increase in uh heavy drug use uh in and around encampments.

Uh another more uh noticeable increase that we've seen are individuals who are not exactly unhoused residing or more so hanging out within encampments during outreach or encampment removals.

Um let's see.

Sorry about that.

Uh thank you for listening.

I will now pass or hand over the presentation to City of Tacoma's TFD's uh Hope Team.

Thank you.

Hello, council and mayor.

Um my name is Alicia Morales, and I oversee the Hope team within the City of Tacoma Fire Department.

Okay, let's see if I can do this as well.

So yay.

Okay.

So jumping into key accomplishments and milestones.

Hope celebrated its second year of service on the 7th of September, and we have had very successful collaboration with NCS's heel team as well as the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department Street Medicine team.

Some programmatic challenges.

Cassie Hallstone is no longer with the Hope program.

She left in June.

And Hope, as well as other community service providers, have had service limitations and staffing shortages, which have impacted resource access.

Upcoming goals and priorities include updating our data tracking system and behavioral health agency licensure to support programmatic growth.

And then exploration of 988 endorsement and dispatch.

So January 1st to September 16th data.

So there has been a 51% increase in the number of dispatches in that same time period.

So from January 1st of 2024 to September 16th of 2024, as compared to this year.

Hope has gone on or HOPE has been requested 766 times.

We go on an average of three calls a day.

On the slide, you'll also see arrived on scene versus dispatched and non-arrival.

And for the most part, it's about a 25% of the time of requested being dispatched were not arriving on scene.

Current Hope staffing is one manager, myself, two crisis responders, one registered nurse, and one behavior health case manager.

From January 1st to September 16th, the Hope program has served 435 unduplicated people.

And we have enrolled 133 people into our program and closed 143 hours of service are below.

So we are still seven days a week, Sunday to Saturday from 7 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

Another piece of data I want to point out are the calls for dispatch.

So primarily Hope's calls for dispatch are coming from Fire EMS.

And then we also receive calls from the HEAL team or Tacoma Police Department or other law enforcement enforcement agencies within our service area.

So that could be Piallop Tribal Police, Pfeiffer FurCrest, law enforcement, and that makes up the 156 calls for service.

Thank you so much.

And I'm gonna pass it over to Captain Darlington with Tacoma Police Department.

All right.

Thank you, Alicia.

Good afternoon, Mayor Woodards, Deputy Mayor Daniels and members of the council.

Cory Darlington with community policing, and with me is Lieutenant Dustin Meyer, and we're going to give uh the update on the community service officer program.

So uh as you recall, uh, this was started last year, so we're about uh a little little over one year, about 14 months into the program.

Uh the wins uh include uh that we're currently fully staffed with five community service officers.

Uh the call pending time.

This came up, I believe, last time in a previous um presentation was uh lowered uh or we reach an average of about almost 12 minutes or 24 percent reduction in pending time for low priority calls for service.

Uh challenges include uh uh all currently all five CSOs are working on the same shift, which is day shift.

However, we have an opportunity to move a couple of CSOs to swing shift, uh which will increase uh increase their efficiency and number of calls handled.

Uh currently um another challenge is we have five CSOs but only four vehicles, uh but that'll be alleviated uh if we're if we're able to um implement that swing shift that I mentioned.

And then looking ahead, uh eventually, uh our goal, future goal would be to have CSOs working every day of the week from 7 a.m.

till 10 p.m.

Uh but to uh make that what happened to make that happen would require about eight to ten CSOs for that program.

And it may not be feasible at this time.

Uh moving on to some data, I'll turn it over to Lieutenant Meyer.

The um sheet here.

All right, this is a dashboard put together by our Chrome analysis unit.

Um so everything in blue outlined in blue.

That is uh sent to the beginning of the program, like uh Captain said about June of two 2024.

So total calls, um, you can see it's 2,264.

Uh in that time, there are a total of about 30,000 calls.

So CSOs were able to respond to about 6.6 percent.

Um thing to go over all the data on this sheet is Monday to Friday, 8 to 4 p.m.

And then currently the CSOs are working Wednesday to Saturday, uh 7 to 5 p.m., 7 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

So get a little bit more evening coverage.

Um the gray is quarter to date, the QTD.

Um in the yellow, you can see the CSO staffing's three.

Uh we just actually hired two more CSOs and they just finished training.

Uh so we have we're up to as of right now, as of the end of last week, we're up to five back to five CSOs.

Um and like what Captain had said uh previously, the the rec they have lowered the response time for patrol um calls that they can go to, they get to about 25% quicker when CSOs are working than compared to when they're not.

Um as when COVID hit, we quit manning the substations with volunteers, and you can see the CSOs work um the substations, and we've had just you know 655 uh walk-ups at the substation where they're able to give out information and 95 on the year to date.

And that was everything I had.

And I'm excuse me, council member Diaz.

I'm gonna borrow your mic.

So, Mayor, that concludes our uh presentation for the for today.

Um, but we are happy to take any questions from you or council.

Great.

I will open it up for I was gonna say council member Diaz has her mic on first, but it was really Allison at Councilmember Diaz's mic.

Yeah, all right, we're gonna start with council member Scott.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you all for the presentation.

I just had a couple of clarifying questions.

Um for the actually, I'll start with the uh CSO program.

So on the data here, it says that there are 200 2,264 calls and there are um 2,380 CSO units deployed.

Is that because you're sending like two officers to the thing, or like how does that number balance out?

So that would be the the difference on that.

Normally CSOs go to a call by themselves because they're low priority, low low risk calls.

Um collisions where we have to block different different avenues, uh different roadways.

Sometimes there'll be three or four figure that might be the same.

That's mainly the only time that two go and then yeah.

So okay, cool, perfect.

Thank you.

And then my other question was on uh the heel team.

So uh on the trend that um there's an increased number of people who are on who are not unhoused at encampments.

And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about um how that trend is like impacting the work you do.

Are you are they is there an issue that's caused by that outside of it kind of you know adding to the volume at the encampments?

Are you seeing like is that all specifically drug related?

Are you noticing there the maybe the dealers?

Are they users?

Like, what's the can you kind of give a little insight to to uh yes?

That is a good question.

Um so it it depends.

Uh I'll just say 96 and Hosmer.

We have individuals who are regularly uh in that shopping plaza or on the sidewalk who happen to stay in the apartments across the street.

Uh we do regularly get individuals into shelter, and then we also find them back out in the encampment, whether we just remove them from that specific encampment or the adjacent com uh encampment.

A lot of times, I'm gonna be honest with you, a lot of it is community.

Uh a lot of these individuals do have friends and family who are still out in the streets, and then they do find time to go see these individuals.

Uh, does it impact our work?

Uh not directly, but it is something that we've noticed in terms of just uh when collecting this information, just like, oh, I actually just got you in a stability site next last week and you're still out here, or you are are you still staying here, or are you still staying at stability site a vast majority of the time?

They are still staying in those shelter sites.

They just happen to be found in the streets while we're also doing outreach or in camera removals.

Uh so to answer your question, no direct impact, but it that is a trend that we are starting to see.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Uh those are only questions.

Thanks, Mayor.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Scott, council member Rumbah.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I want to thank you all for these updates.

Um, I I just had a question because we did get a person who wrote in and said they want to know um when the substations are going to be like people are going to be at the substation working, and it looks like there are people at the substation.

Could you just talk a little bit about what hours people are at the substation volunteering or like explain that to me and how many substations do we have uh yes, thanks for the question, Councilmember Rumble?

So we have five substations, but we do, as was mentioned earlier.

Uh we had to suspend the volunteer program uh due to COVID.

And uh we'll have to explore if we're going to bring that back.

There's some challenges there.

But to answer your question, we do have uh, as was mentioned in that one graphic, we do have community service officers assigned to the substations, maybe not full full time because they're out in the field, so they have to divide their time.

The you know, the the uh launching, if you will, from the substation, answering the calls, and so they're back and forth.

So we do have some coverage, may not be perfect, but we do have personnel at the substations.

Yeah, and then about the CSOs.

I remember last time you came and talked, we talked a little bit about um the kind of incidents that they went out on and some of the issues that happened with the individual who's the CSO, and I'm just wondering if things have gotten better for them.

Uh I'm not sure I understand that something happened.

Yeah, there was um conversations about some of the situations they show up.

People can be a little volatile and like um talking about community and how they were treating the CSOs when they showed up.

So I just was wondering if things were different now.

Um have a lot of people.

We've had excellent response from community members.

Uh so the CSOs are uh, as you can see on that one slide, they're handling uh low priority calls for service.

The the two main ones are motor vehicle theft and then theft from vehicle are the two biggies, if you will.

But as far as um how they're treated, we've uh we've had a good response from the community members.

Okay, I just wonder if they had to get used to the idea that there was someone who was going to show up to something that had happened.

I just remember us talking about it.

Some anecdotal information, and then you've probably heard the same things I've heard, and I still continue to hear that that often community members are surprised to get a response at all.

So they're very happy to receive a response for their we'll call it lower priority calls for service.

So that's a that's a good thing.

And so it's I think it's a win-win for the community member and then the CSO to know that they're valued and they they are serving community members in in that capacity.

Okay, and thank you very much for that.

And then a question regarding the heel team.

Um, thanks for council member Scott's first question.

I I had a question about the number of people, like people who were in the unhoused who were housed who might be visiting an encampment.

Um, the heavy drug use part.

Have we what are we doing about drug use in our city when we have an ordinance, you know, about other ways that we might deal with illegal drug use.

I'm not sure who can answer that question, so I thought I'd you know.

Well, I saw Javon's uh graphic.

Uh what came to mind um we've talked about this before, it's a vulnerable population.

So we have, you know, when we're talking about homeless, it's a whole it's a human human spectrum.

A lot of definitely needy people, if you will, and then maybe not so needy, but preying on vulnerable a vulnerable population.

So to answer your question, we do have we still have still have our set missions, special emphasis team missions running at least a couple of times a week to create that police presence, and we do make a few arrests for that are drug related, but uh from a police department standpoint point that's not with our primary focus.

The focus is to get to get help and give people an avenue, if you will, to uh to get out of that situation.

It was brought up earlier, therapeutic courts, although that term wasn't used, that's another way of dealing with that.

Yeah, but that's that would involve citing someone to get them to use the therapeutic court.

So, right, they have to be in municipal court.

Yeah, so I mean, I'm just I'm trying to figure out all the different avenues we have to help people, and so one of them is making sure there isn't a dealer who is providing um substances, but also other ways that we might help support people to take choices.

So I think it's a multi-pronged approach.

You know, recently, um, as you recall, maybe a couple weeks, maybe a month with uh that FBI investigation, the fentanyl dealers, a number of high-level dealers were arrested and uh held accountable.

Uh, what the heel hope doing uh in my opinion are uh they're doing a fantastic job to channel people or offer resources, and then the other component would be the the police enforcement component.

Uh so all those working together can make an impact uh that maybe you know again, not a perfect world may not be able to eliminate it completely.

I just felt like I needed to ask this question because that could have been the question that somebody wanted to know the answer to, and I appreciate you answering that.

So thank you.

Welcome.

All right, council member Diaz.

Or wait, is that council?

It's like I was like, is it you or is it Allison?

It's me, but one of my questions might be for Alice.

Okay, I'll ask the non-Alison questions first.

Um, one is a very rookie question for our TPD folks.

I'm wondering if the CSOs, as they're getting cars, they get somewhere between uh full police car and what they need, right?

They're not my question, my reason for the question is to say there's not they need, I would assume they need more than just whatever fleet we have that like someone in public works could go use.

Uh correct.

So they're currently when we were formulating the program, we weren't sure what kind of vehicles that they would need or want or what would be the most useful.

So they're currently driving Ford Maverick trucks with the City of Tacoma logo using the the correct format, which was presented earlier, by the way.

The branding.

So that's on their uniforms.

We've seen that before.

So anyway, they're using those vehicles.

We're just currently short of vehicle.

That's why uh we're hoping to uh split up, if you will, the five CSOs, a couple on swings and the rest on days, and that will alleviate that situation.

Okay, I guess I just asked that because I think sometimes people just assume like, oh, you've probably got a bunch of cars sitting around.

Why can't they use one of those cars?

So I just wanted to kind of nail down that they have specific things that they probably need in their car, or it's a branding thing or some combination of when it's available, just reasons, I guess is what I'm getting at.

I don't need to be able to do that.

But we we do have the cars designated for CSO use and and they're different than as you might imagine from police vehicles, police cars.

Uh okay.

Yeah, so they have a dedicated fleet for their for their use.

Perfect.

And then I also asked that question, just wondering is do they have unique branding to a regular police vehicle?

Like, would people see them when they're driving around?

Like I know I see the Hope team in the world, I see the heel team in the world.

So I'm just wondering if are they spottable or do they just look like another police officer car?

Oh, they're definitely spottable.

They don't have we don't have quite the fancy graphics as Hope does, but we do have a city of Tacoma logo on the uh the white Ford Maverick truck.

Okay, thanks for the super indulging the super rookie question.

Um and then I have a question that maybe is for Allison, maybe is for um Javon.

Maybe it's for none of the above, maybe it's appropriate somewhere else.

I'm wondering if when folks are responding to calls for service and then services done.

Who is in charge of any kind of need for cleanup?

So if it's not necessarily um folks working with folks in an encampment, but just like what is the line between alt response and like say tidy up to coma when there's like things that are left behind, if it's trash, if it's substance use peripheral, or like what who's on first is I guess kind of my question.

Uh I actually really like that you asked that question because we are still trying to figure it out.

Okay.

And this is more so uh we kind of know what we need to clean up as the heel team and with our contractors GEC, uh, but there still seems to be some confusion, and I don't want to throw anyone under the bus.

There seems to be confusion on what exactly is a tidy up focused cleanup rather than a heel-focused cleanup.

Great.

Thank you.

It's good to know that folks are working on that because I I wasn't clear, and so I think in the community folks aren't always clear if it's not a person that's there, but rather there's sort of I don't know, someone gets a personal or something, so there's stuff everywhere.

Who who do folks call besides 311?

Is that the best way?

Because sometimes folks in the community don't feel comfortable cleaning that kind of thing up, so I just was not clear what the best route is other than routing people to 311.

Yeah, um, I would say a lot of times they'll usually get directed obviously to 311.

Um a lot of times they'll get directed to the tidy up.

There happens to be an individual who might be perceived as unhoused, and then so they will immediately send it to us.

We check it out.

There is no one who is unhoused in sight, and so that's when we're just kind of like, well, tidy up, you could easily did this.

Um again, these are just conversations we plan on having in the future.

Um, but yeah, we we are working for a solution.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And I know it's clear here the alt response table keeps getting bigger and bigger.

So I think there's just more work to do for everyone.

So I I appreciate the the candor.

Oh no worries, thank you.

Sorry, did Vicky, did you have to?

Yes, I was trying to avoid to use um Council Member Sildelga's mic, but it didn't work.

Um so uh Vicky McLaurin, interim director for neighborhood and community services.

And so the best approach if someone has sees something um an encampment that's not clean, or if you're in question of like who should this be tidy up or NCS, I think that's something that they should still just put in 311 and we will work out that out internally.

That's not something that the residents need to worry about, but just 311 is the best approach, and we will get it uh removed or cleaned up regardless of where it's supposed to go.

Great.

I also wanted to council member Ramba's question regarding um the individuals and how what type of services they're receiving.

So you'll remember that the mental health and substance use disorder sales tax does allow for this type of uh services for individuals with substance use disorder.

However, we do have the Oklahoma settlement fund, and staff is currently working on a proposal of things that we should be, you know, gaps in services.

We have work, we're talking with um our jails, our police, just different, you know, hope um to see where that the fund should go, and we should plan to be before you soon to actually with our recommendations.

So we're working on it.

Thank you.

And then I had one more question, sort of around cleanup in general.

Um, are folks in the community supposed to be calling 311 regardless of where they see something?

So if they see something in a park or near a school dish school site site, is 311 always still the right answer for community members?

Yes, thank you.

Um yeah, 301's always the best uh best approach.

Um it's difficult.

One of the the things or challenges that we hear in the community is like I don't know is that wash.

property is that the parks, you know, who owns that property.

So the best approach is 311 and staff will will uh make the phone calls to get the uh appropriate person to remove it.

Perfect, thank you.

And then one more random question that I had for the hope team because no one's off the hook here.

Do y'all serve children or do you only serve adults?

Thank you for your question, Councilmember Diaz.

So the Hope program supports everyone.

So we were we've um had conversations with Tacoma Public Schools so that we can determine how to support, and then we're also connected with um kids mental health Pierce County.

Um so we support everybody across the spectrum, regardless of where they are, as long as they're within Tacoma Pfeiffer for Frest.

Super, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Diaz.

Council Member Bush Chanel.

Thank you, Mayor, and appreciate all the updates and all the work that everybody's been doing out there.

Um I got a few questions, so hopefully I can go through them pretty quickly.

Um I'm gonna start with the the Hope team.

Uh again, I appreciate all the work that you guys are doing out there.

Um I remember last time we had an update that there was um conversations around one of the county's behavioral health centers uh like in a transition period.

I think that one of the providers had left, and then they do we do we have any updates on what's kind of going on with that?

I haven't heard anything recently.

So the crisis stabilization centers, there are currently still none in Pierce County.

So we're coordinating with Well Founded.

Well Found has really provided additional support in working with programs to to take people.

Um however, they are not a crisis stabilization facility, they're an inpatient, so typically the stay there is two weeks.

So communicating when we engage with people that that is it's an inpatient hospital, which is different than a crisis stabilization.

Got it.

So if someone's experiencing crisis, how are we uh if if the county doesn't have one, how are we what what what's the process kind of with that?

So what the hope team does when they go out is they they work to provide crisis stabilization so that the person can remain where they are.

If that if they're not able to remain where they are because they don't have adequate natural supports, or they feel like they can't remain where they are because it's not safe, then we work with them to find alternatives, whether that's going to well found, um, we've transported to detox because sometimes that's what a person needs.

Um, or we will transport to uh a natural support within our service area if they have somebody that they can go to to offer that support, but they they that person can't come to them.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um, and then just uh I I see you have average calls per day of three.

Uh is that so is it is that just like over the year, or is that or over like a quarter?

So that's the year to date.

So from January 1 to September 16th.

So we have on average about three calls a day.

Some days they're going back to back or they're pending.

Um it just depends on the level of service.

One thing um one of the biggest differences from this year to date to to last year's is that we no longer have a swing shift.

And so when looking at that data, um, we had swing shift Wednesday to Saturday, and that was from one to eleven, and those um there were there were a lot of calls in that time period due to staffing, we've had to reconfigure so that we could remain at seven days a week of service.

We have us a day shift seven to five Sunday through Saturday.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then just on the case management side of things, uh, on the what does it mean to have a closure?

Does that mean the person has um fulfilled whatever treatment they had gone through and you guys were tracking them and and then cases closed, or it's like we had a warm handoff, so we're gonna close that case for us.

So a closure could mean so somebody is enrolled in our case management program.

A closure could look like they are now in an inpatient facility.

Our case manager has coordinated with the appropriate staff of that at that inpatient facility, and so they are responsible for a discharging coordination, or it could be that we've done a warm handoff to some type of outpatient provider, or a person has said, thank you for this information.

Maybe they're interested in knowing what meetings are available in the area.

The case manager has provided that information, done a follow-up touch, and the person says I don't need any other services, and so then we close at that point.

Okay, thank you.

And then just five final question for you guys is uh is the 108 follow-up encounters, is that folks that are kind of we're seeing again or multiple times, or is that the understanding that differently?

So for case management follow-up is any time we're having an engagement with somebody, and this is solely if somebody is enrolled in the program for case management.

So there might be times um, which is why one of the pieces I highlighted is that we're updating our data data tracking system because right now it's kind of just everything is in one bucket, and so I'm dividing it up so that it's easier to see what those numbers are.

But the person is specifically enrolled for case management, and our case manager has followed up with them, um, which is only applying to those people that are enrolled in the program.

So our case manager has been going out and responding in the field.

She's tracking those services, however, they're not actually enrolled in the program because she provides them with the service and support during that single encounter, so the numbers are a little bit um a little bit different.

Got it.

All right, thank you for that.

Um, I'd be curious um uh when when staffing levels were different, what the what kind of um uh calls per day um you guys were able to get to, um, just that maybe as a follow-up data point.

I'd I'd love to see the comparison of where we're at now and where we have been.

Um thank you for that.

Um I have a similar question for our CSO program in terms of call volume.

Um is are we seeing that there's more calls that our CSOs could go to that they don't because we don't have enough of them, or is are they are they constantly going out on calls at a constant rate?

Like is this number I I'm just trying to I'm just trying to understand the the total calls and and the volume based on the the COS that we have and whether that's uh we have capacity there or could they be more calls that they would go on if we had more of them?

Uh I'll take that question.

Thank you for that question.

Um it's as any type of placework goes, it's very very dependent upon the day.

Um there's been days where we have three CSOs working and we get one call, and then the next day we get you know 14 calls.

So it's all dependent on the day.

I think the biggest way to give have the CSO program be beneficial is to spread them out to have a wider uh time frame that they're available for calls, um, like Captain that said earlier, hopefully we're gonna add a swing shift here shortly.

Um but as far as three per shift, three or four per shift seems to be what I've seen anecdotally.

I haven't looked at the statistics to actually hammer it down, but I would say three to four, you know, on day shift on one set of days, and you know, the same on swing shift would probably be there'd be enough work on average to go around in that situation, but then as the CSOs get more experienced in their job, they'll be able to do each call quicker.

Um, because now if they take a call, it may take them an hour and a half in a year, they could do that same call in maybe 45 minutes.

So we should see an increase in their efficiency as the program gets a little bit older.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Um, and then as we're kind of we're seeing a plus up in our staffing to kind of full levels, hopefully soon.

I know we we recently brought in uh a lot of additional patrol officers and laterals.

Um are we are we gonna see the the numbers kind of shift a little bit on on on because we we have in here in response time specifically that you know when the CSOs are on the response times have have been able to go down some.

Um but is that the lateral hire is gonna impact that potential number as well, or is it gonna give more flexibility to the CSOs to maybe pick up in other areas in order to respond to those low priority calls.

Uh uh thank you, uh Councilmember Schnell.

That might be difficult to answer as we have as we add officers, uh they'll still be focusing on higher project calls for service.

So I don't think there'll be a shortage of the lower priority calls for service, which are also handled by uh our alternate response unit or phone ARU we call it or our phone unit officers on light duty.

So it's the same type of calls.

I don't I expect actually the numbers to improve as far as calls pending and then the actual number of calls handled by CSOs to increase okay.

As we have uh as mentioned, we have now fully staffed, and then if we split them, split split them up between the two ships, there should be more than enough for them to handle.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I apologize for monopoly and so much time.

Thank you, Mayor.

You welcome councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the great questions, Councilmember Bush.

Now, just two things really quickly.

I don't have any additional questions, but I don't want y'all to hear my no questions as a lack of interest, because I think um, and this is just a message for our deputy city manager.

Um, I think this work is probably the most important work that we do as a city, and slide number four, I think really helps.

I think that's a really great visualization of it.

So thank you.

Okay, I will use that in my communication.

Um, and then the other thing I think is for also for deputy city manager and city manager, just to flag this.

Um, but if you have anything to add about it, Alicia, please feel free.

I I just want to check in on that licensure and make sure that we're doing everything we can and make sure that I'm vocal with my support for that.

I think it has a cost to it.

I think there's something we have to do, but I just want to make sure we're not missing a mark there because there's a lot of bullets here, but I just I know that's important.

So um I think I'm just flagging it for leadership.

But if there's anything to add, please feel free.

Thank you, Councilmember Walker.

Um perhaps Alicia can give a briefing to you offline, just kind of what is exactly involved in the process.

I just want to be respectful of our time here today.

But um, she she has recently given one to the Air Coalition, and so I think it would be um probably relatively easy, Alicia, for you to warm that up for councilmember Walker.

So great.

All right, well, thank you all um so much for the presentation.

I always find um these quarterly updates um really helpful, and I think it's really good for our community to hear how we're trying to do things differently.

And I just want to acknowledge um Sally Perkins who is out there in the in the audience.

If it has anything to do with alt response, you better know that Sally Perkins is gonna be present.

So Sally, thank you for continuing to be a great advocate for alt response.

All right, you all thank you so much.

All right.

We're gonna move on to other items of interest, and we have quite a few.

So first I'm gonna call uh our fifth agenda item is the Tacoma Creates ordinance amendment discussion.

And I'm gonna call on Councilmember Rumbaught to begin the discussion.

Um thank you, Mayor, and I wanna um say that I have two amendments um to Tacoma Creates.

Um so the first one, um, I want to thank first off C um Council members Diaz and San Sedalgay for co-sponsoring this amendment with me.

Um what this amendment does is this amendment revises municipal code section 1.55.03A regarding capital funding to change six percent of funds being budgeted so that it says to up to six percent of funds being allocated to clarify that while up to six percent will be available for capital crest in any year, less than six percent may be awarded.

And this amendment would also remove the rollover requirement for budgeted capital funds.

Under this amendment, the program would allocate all funds each year based on how individual applications score, requiring programmatic applications and capital applications to be reviewed together with up to six percent allocated for capital requests.

And this is why I believe this is important, and I'm sure that um council member Diaz and Councilmember Sidalgay have things to say as well, but it supports or urgent needs now.

Setting aside large sums for capital projects limits our ability to fund programs and operations that nonprofits need today.

And I've heard from a lot of small um uh court involved youth programs like Tacoma Boat Builders, Arts Connects, Hilltop Artists, and Skate Alchemy.

These are all organizations that are small organizations who are impacted by less dollars for programs and operation.

And so I just I'm thinking about what that looks like in the coming years as we see um less money coming in for sales tax and what that might do to people being able to keep jobs at some of these nonprofits, and in particular these ones, they do art stuff, but it's also stuff that's with um youth that are involved in the court system, and I really care about that.

Um also is a balanced compromise.

This amendment isn't about eliminating capital funding, it's about creating a fair, flexible process where all process proposals compete equally.

It emphasizes how flexibility matters.

Funding priorities should adapt to the needs of our community, not to be locked into rigid categories.

It shows community voices were heard.

Many question the focus on capital projects early on.

This amendment reflects a broader, more inclusive vision.

Um these pe these organizations aren't getting everything we want, they want, but this is, I feel like it's a compromise.

Emphasizes strength and unity.

Every organization, big or small, contributes to Tacoma's cultural ecosystem.

This is about lifting everyone, not dividing the arts community.

And I think that that's really important.

I don't think anything we're trying to do is trying to divide our arts community.

And I don't think we ever had that intention.

It sort of has come up because of this, and if that's what's happened, I'm sorry that that's what happened, but we would, I don't think anyone on our council wants to do that.

So and I don't I I am disheartened by the way people are talking in our community in the arts community, because I don't think people are like that.

I think they all work together to help each other, and that we're successful because we have big and small organizations and they work together.

And some of them are um that's a symbiotic relationship where they're using spaces together.

So I I just want to say that that is something that I think is really important to think about.

Um it's an economic tool.

Arts funding supports jobs and families, and this amendment helps ensure that impact continues citywide.

Okay, so as far as the second amendment, that's the one that's about Tacoma Creates emerging leader.

Um, inside of the Tacoma Creates proposal, I just want to make sure that we align the emerging leading position on various committees, boards, and commissions.

Um, this would be ordinance, um, it would align with ordinance 29056.

Um, why this is important.

When I started reviewing the CBC youth seats, I had one goal to bring all eight of them into alignment so that the youth applying to serve on the CBCs could expect the same process and requirements no matter which CBC they look to.

As chair of CVS, the community vitality and safety committee, I frequently meet with individuals who apply to CBCs and weren't selected.

What I discovered was that just because someone qualified for a youth seat on one CBC didn't mean they've qualified for one on other C youth seats.

This doesn't make sense to me.

It's confusing for applicants and inefficient for staff to administer.

Bringing the Tacoma Creates Advisory Board into alignment with the larger emerging leaders proposal is critical to having a comprehensive aligned youth volunteer program structured to engage youth and young adults early in life in order to encourage lifelong community service, create opportunities for youth professional development and leadership opportunities, and value youth specific feedback and city council development.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Rambah.

Councilmember Diaz or Council Member Sidalgay, do you have anything to add?

Sadalge, are you are you are you look looking to talk or are you are you fine with what Sarah with what Council Member Rombaugh said?

I'm generally fine.

I was trying to find my raised hands, and I'm sorry.

No, I I I I called on you, don't worry.

I can never find it either.

Um I'm just looking for my notes over here.

I'm glad you don't hear the crying baby in the background over there.

Um sorry, I wanted to um also support the idea that this is not about rejecting capital.

Um it is about adding flexibility.

Um in particular for district four.

Um we had over 12,000 voters in participatory budgeting.

Uh overwhelmingly choose uh uh as a priority in my district.

Um to fund um cultural and heritage programming.

And this is um a way to um recognize that priority while still allowing for uh much needed capital that we're gonna need as a flexibility uh with this administration that's coming.

Um so I just wanted to add that.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Councilmember Walker.

Um thanks, Mayor.

I just wanted to um just weigh in on this one a little bit.

I think for uh I'm not gonna say for now.

I I'm a no on this one.

I think we already um did the work to compromise on this one by rolling the capital into the overall funding bucket so that we can be really clear that all the money is going back to organizations.

I think it's clear that we uh or it's important that we're clear that the the money is budgeted.

Um we have said also that if it if there aren't good capital um applications that it would go back into um funding programs, so we do have that flexibility.

So I think um what this does is actually make it a little bit easier to take it away, and so I um am supportive of keeping the original language.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Councilmember Walker, Councilmember Scott.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I agree with Councilmember Walker.

I'm also not in support of uh this amendment for the capital piece of it around that language.

I think it um it actually doesn't add flexibility.

Um it might allocate this money like the way that it is currently written, it definitely says that it's going to be budgeted in that way, but again, it will go back into programming if uh the appropriate folks decide that whatever applications might come in or not up to the level that they're willing to fund or they're not ready to be funded, whatever the case might be.

Um, and I think that by changing it right now, there's the opportunity that it encourages the applications to come in, it allows us to see the need through that.

It gives people the opportunity to look at those and and say, hey, you know, sounds great, but we need we're gonna give you some feedback on how maybe this can be stronger next time.

Uh for now we're gonna put this back into programming with this wording, it allows them to not even accept those uh applications at all.

That's what it sounds like here.

Um there's a difference between like maybe and will be, and I think that at this point in time we have a process where um the way that folks have been getting capital dollars is by having a relationship with a council member or understanding our process more in depth because they've been doing this work a lot longer.

Uh we are dealing with our own budget stuff at the moment, and so uh it puts us in a position where we cannot offer the same supports that we've been offering through uh contingency funds or budget allocations, and so um I think that the need that we have for making sure that we're looking at the need for all of community, and I don't think that um people in the arts community are necessarily not interested in working together, but I think what we are hearing from people right now is that there is a different reality from the voices that have been generally uh elevated in these conversations.

Um there are a lot of folks who haven't been able to access this, haven't seen it as being for them.

Um and it hasn't gone far enough in a lot of other ways.

There's a lot of ways we could have adjusted this if we the dollars are just not gonna go as far because that's just where we are in our economy in general.

Um and right now, some of our bigger organizations that are getting that comprehensive funding, they can get up to a certain amount, which is great, but we could also end up finding more organizations if we cap that at a lower amount.

So there are all kinds of ways that we could have adjusted this, and I think this is actually a small and reasonable set-aside that ultimately can go directly back into programming, given like that's what the language already says.

And I think we've already made the compromise, so this feels like it's not in good faith of what we have all like worked to get done through talking through with various stakeholders um and amongst ourselves.

So thank you very much, Councilmember Scott, Councilmember Rumbach.

Um thanks so much for that feedback.

So I didn't see it the way you did about it feeling like it was less than that we were trying to like make it so there wasn't capital.

So I appreciate hearing that.

Um I also want to say that right now, um, when I talk to legal, I have no idea what the what the ramifications are around doing capital.

Like if we're gonna, and I'm not talking about capital for floors or for lighting.

I'm talking about capital for somebody purchasing a building.

And um other projects that have gotten money from us have stipulations, like they um are, for instance, when we gave money to the Sexual Assault Center, which isn't even an art organization, and we gave them a small amount of money from our council contingency request fund, they were already actively into a capital campaign where they'd gotten money in the door.

Like they had a 950,000 dollar um gift like thing that they had applied for a grant from the Department of Commerce from the state, and they had raised other dollars.

I just want to understand for me, um, as someone who's done capital campaign money raising for capital campaigns for different projects um for summer camps for a museum.

I just want to understand how the money is going to be, how we're gonna decide is it gonna be dollar for dollar, or is it gonna be last dollars in?

Is it for the first dollars?

I don't know anything about what we're deciding.

So that that's gonna be, I would love to know that information at some time.

So I I there's some there are I'm looking into the audience, there's some staff here.

Um, and I'm gonna ask staff to come forward.

Um because this is new and we set the the parameters that are wide, um, and because this decision is made by the body that is appointed, not by us, and funding decisions of Tacoma Creates are not approved by the city council.

Um I I think that just like everything else, when there's a change, um there are rules that need to be established around that change, and that is in fact something that the committee gets to do, not the council.

So I'm I'm asking you when there's been a change in funding, I guess it really hasn't been from the beginning.

Let's say in the beginning, when we first started Tacoma Creates, obviously we had a set of of parameters based on our ordinance, but the the specifics of what categories, how they score, all of that.

Talk about how that was set up and how you envision when if in doing a capital allocation, how that would be set up and what the process would be to identify all of the things that council member Brombaugh just mentioned.

Thank you, Mayor and Councilmember's Rebecca Salverson with the Arts and Cultural Vitality Division.

Um I don't know if Lisa is listening in online, but if she wants to run downstairs, she'd be welcome to say that.

I saw Lisa's name over here, but yeah.

I know.

Lisa, in case you didn't hear, um, Rebecca's asking for phone a friend, and she's asking that you run downstairs and do it.

So I'll keep talking, and maybe Lisa will show up or she'll raise her hand.

Yeah, I'll I'll start, but um, but Lisa was here when the program was being set up, so she really is the SME on some of those early questions.

Um but I will say um so we don't know what the uh what our code will look like um in by the end of the year, I'll say.

So uh we haven't started setting up what the uh funding guidelines are gonna look like for a potential new program.

Um Lisa raised her hand and we can we I think she has to get moved over.

Did we pull she is here?

Um who sets those funding guidelines?

Um so some of that is set in the code, a lot of that is done by staff, but it is all um advised by the advisory board.

Uh and so they have a a real hand in guiding that and then um allocating specific uh dollars for organizations and Lisa.

If there's anything you want to add, yep, go ahead, Lisa.

Or correct, you're welcome to thank you, Mayor and Rebecca.

Unfortunately, I missed Rebecca what you were saying while Zoom was uh doing its thing of promoting me to panelists.

I don't want to repeat.

Um I will say in short.

Lisa, you're not very clear either.

Would you like me to come downstairs?

Yeah, what sorry, would you would you?

I hate to do that to you if you wouldn't mind.

That's fine, I'll be right there.

Great.

Thank you.

Um, are there while while we're waiting for her to come down and answer that question, are there any other comments or questions?

Council member Walker.

Oh I did want to try to.

Did you want to?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Council Member Scott, sorry about that.

Yeah, I mean, I just like most things, we have a rulemaking period, so I like and I think we've explained that multiple times.

Um, and along with that, like you can't just say that it's not valid simply because it takes a lot to raise capital for a building when we've made it clear that it's not just about the building.

And so it's there are other pieces of this that people can apply for to get that, like it's not just about a building.

If it comes down to a legal matter in the rulemaking process where it's we're not clear where we need to be, if it has to be last dollars in, and it can never be first dollars in, that process will take place.

I have faith in the in our legal department and our um our art staff to get that done, um, as well as the advisory board, but I just don't think it's fair to try to separate this out by saying it's just about the building and not about the whole thing when they're when we've specifically made sure that this can go to uh addressing all of the really vital needs that people need to make their uh program sustainable.

Uh it's not just about the space, that is very, very important, but it's also about it is about the dance floors, it is about uh meaningful equipment, it is about things like that.

So you can't separate those pieces out.

Council Council Member Walker, is your question in this?

Is your comment in this vein?

Yeah, okay, go ahead, Councilmember Walker.

Uh I just wanted to note that we in the proposed legislation, it does say that this um the capital would begin in 2027 to give us time to set this up.

So that is something we had thought of having that runway.

I don't know if you heard the question.

My question was there was a question about um we we don't know right now exactly how the capital funding would work.

And and talking about I my question was when we first set up Tacoma Creates, um how how did the rule how did that the rulemaking for the funding piece get set up?

Who had who got to make those decisions, how was that implemented?

Because I'm assuming as we just heard here, we're gonna have to do the very same thing when we add this category of um of capital funding.

If I'm understanding the the category of things that you're asking about, I think it was largely staff work with um because the first round of things that we did was before the advisory board was seeded, and so we um there's a lot of best practices that we referred to, a lot of research that we did, and a lot of um alignment with the state legislation that we worked on.

Um, and that's that's sort of how we crafted it at the beginning.

Does that get at what you're asking?

I'm not sure.

Not specifically.

Okay, sorry, not specifically.

I I guess what I'm asking Councilmember um Romba, would you state your comment again if you're okay doing that?

So then sure, too.

No, it was sort of what we talked about last Wednesday, where I asked about um how are we gonna side for capital for buildings, not the other capital, because they can already apply for capital for that.

That's not the question.

It was really about um when they apply, I asked how are we gonna decide?

Is it like la first dollars, last dollars?

Are we going to have like a matching dollars?

I just that was my question, and I think you told me that we need to talk to legal, and I think it's only been a week, so maybe you wouldn't have that answer.

So that's right.

Yeah, we would um the the intention as was mentioned that we need some uh lead time to figure this out.

Um we have again a lot of uh best practice partners that are doing this kind of work, um, capital funding with cultural taxing districts is something that's happening in other places.

So we can look at what works and what challenges exist.

We can look at what the city is currently doing with other kinds of capital funding and what you know how we can be the same or different.

There would absolutely be criteria.

Um we absolutely want to mitigate risk.

Um, and so you know, I don't have specific answers yet because we have not yet been directed to actually put this into place.

Um, but I feel really confident about um being very thoughtful and and very um doing a lot of research to make sure that we have a process that's gonna work for community, and that's gonna be um something that is in alignment with all of the values that we currently have.

So so as I hear basically we can't start making rules for money we haven't allocated.

Great.

All right, are there any other comments, Councilmember Diaz?

So I will maybe ask the question differently, and I don't know if I will uh folks will have an answer for me, but um what I am hearing is this six percent is a rough estimate based on sales tax estimates of about 400k a year, potentially, and I am just wondering if the sponsors of this can speak to what they're thinking this fund would be able to go towards of these 400k dollars that isn't a building that isn't already allowed in current capital or capacity building uses under the existing ordinance.

No, I'm asking about your amendment.

Yeah, no, the the the yeah, there's so the idea there is some funding in capacity building, number one, it's not clear.

It doesn't say it doesn't it's not clear about about what um well wait, let me back up.

Let me ask you you were ready to come.

I was like, let me ask you first.

What is included in in the capital in the in the capacity funding for capital?

And how much is how much is that capacity building fund and what other what other items is it used for?

And my second question would be can you get both capacity building funding and programming funding?

Yeah, so um capacity building is not um is not funding that uh organizations can apply for directly, it is funding that we use to support system support.

So currently it is funding things like um uh Jedi training, it's funding things like um uh organized like nonprofit support for the organizations to be able to be stronger, more effective nonprofit.

Um so it's not something that they would be able to access for um capital needs or programming needs.

Does that make sense?

And do you want to add and and I think there was a question also about how much is set aside currently for that?

Correct, which is six percent currently what's the percentage of what's what's the percentage that's set aside for um for capacity building?

Currently, currently, or what's proposed?

Because I don't think we proposed an increase.

Yeah, so what's is that it's well uh now it's changed uh in the code, so now I'm it's either six or eight, but it's not that's an um that's an up to amount.

We haven't gotten up to that amount, and so I think there was an adjustment.

Sorry, I didn't bring the paperwork with me.

That's okay.

I think it's six, I think it's five or six percent, but I can't I can't remember off the top of my head either.

But I think one of your questions was about um could organizations apply for both um programming and capital.

Yeah, but I think I no, yeah, yes.

If if capital, though I said it could someone apply for both.

I did ask that question, I'm sorry, but that was assuming that we could apply for capital in capacity building funds, and what you said is you cannot apply for cap.

So that's that's a that so that's a false statement.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Diaz, that you can't apply for capital in in that in that particular bucket.

Currently, currently, or in the proposal, or in the proposal.

Can I ask why we're talking about it?

But you would you would apply, I think there's just terminology confusion.

The um there would be a way to apply for in the proposal.

There would be a way to apply for capital.

That would be separate to and in addition to the proposal for programming dollars.

Okay, so then from there, your question is it's actually for them as to what kinds of things they're hearing from community members that they've heard from the folks are interested in applying for that they can't currently apply for.

So that's why it's that one's not for you guys.

Say that again, I'm sorry.

What have you heard from community members?

People are interested in applying for that they cannot currently apply for.

Well, I I would say I'm I'll just talk about what I what I've heard and why I'm I just wasn't in the DA, so I would love to hear more.

Yeah, so so let me f for me, for me, as I think about this this opportunity to put money aside for capital, I do think about we just opened the brand new Asia Pacific Cultural Center, and we put 1.5 million dollars into that.

If if Lua Pritchard came to us today to ask us to put funding towards that, we could not do it.

We don't have it, and we don't have a place to get it.

If the grant came to us right now, we gave them $50,000 out of contingency, or if the sexual assault center, well, the sexual assault center is not programmed, not not art.

So let me back up.

So if the grant came to us and asked us for $50,000 to support their purchase, we could not do that now.

This opportunity, this this funding gives us an opportunity to still support those organizations, um, those arts organizations who do have capital projects and setting money aside to do that.

There's also this conversation around council member Diaz around well, there are lots of places to get capital funding.

Um there are lots of places to get capital funding, but I don't know of any arts organization that hasn't had that's gotten well there probably are some, but I don't know of those who the arts organizations who haven't come to ask us in addition to what they've been able to raise for the city of Tacoma to have skin in the game, even if they're applying for a federal grant or a state grant, there always is the question of well, what's happening in your local community?

That's why we push to make sure that we put money.

That's why I pushed to make sure that we put money in for the grant, because they got money from the county, they got money from everywhere else, but the city it's in the city, so we needed to have skin in the game.

And right now, anybody who would come forward to ask us won't be able to get funding from the general fund because we don't have it.

So for me, that's why this is very important to me.

I I don't have a specific organization to tell you what they need, but I know that what what's been asked of us in the past, and I want to make sure that for me that we can continue to support those organizations that need it who come after those that we supported in the past.

I still didn't hear an answer to my question.

My question was what are people asking for that's not a building?

Not which organization is a good idea.

No, no, no, no, no, it's the right thing.

So like a dance floor, a sound system, um remodeling something in an existing building to make it more available to program equipment that that needs to be used outside of the four walls of where somebody currently is programming.

So those those are the things that I've heard that people are requesting.

I'm sorry, I didn't get to directly to your question.

Those are the things that I've heard.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right.

Um you can go to Deputy Mayor.

Yeah, I mean, I I just I agree with everything that's already been said about uh what I think this amendment proposes to do, and I just want to remind us that you all are proposing an amendment, and so asking us what we plan to do with six percent doesn't really make sense if this amendment also has six percent in it, and if you're real if your intent is to keep that in there and your intent actually is to do that, I would turn the question back around on you and ask what it is that you might be wanting to do with these dollars if that is really what you're trying to do.

And what have you heard from community since this is you're on this, right?

Yeah so what might you be proposing that people be doing?

So all the things that the mayor just listed, I actually don't think I didn't know until staff just said what capa what could be I'm trying to learn here on the job.

So I didn't know what could be applied for from capital for from capacity building versus what could be applied for from general pot currently.

Again, I wasn't in the committee.

I feel like y'all have had a hundred conversations about this for months.

I have had about three conversations about this in the last month.

So y'all are just at a 302 level, and I'm still over here on 101.

So like help me get to understanding where you are at before you start coming at me.

I appreciate your questions.

I just guess I'm confused because while you're at the 302 and what we have had hundreds of conversations, again, this is your sponsored amendment.

I don't know why you're bringing in amendment for it if you're not sure what the difference is between capacity and capital.

That's what's confusing to me, and I can't help you understand what your amendment is.

I know what my amendment is.

I don't think you know what my amendment is.

Well, I don't know why you're asking me.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

We're gonna turn those mics off.

We're gonna respect the fact that everybody can ask a question, and and and and that and that is how we learn more.

We don't all come to the table knowing everything.

And so the ability to ask questions exists here at this table.

This is the table that we learn that we learn in or that we learn at.

And so I'm gonna ask the two of you not not to not to get not to not to get per not personal, but not that to just ask the question and let's not challenge each other.

Um in either direction around what people may know or may not know.

So with that, um any other comments, council member, deputy mayor, sorry.

Council member Scott, did you have a comment?

Um, no, I was just gonna say, I just wish if there were still questions about it, I wish that it would have been asked before we got to this amendment, considering that we had adjusted what our original proposals were to fit what we thought your original concerns were.

And so if there were still further questions, I just would have appreciated further engagement.

Okay.

Fair council member Bush now.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to recognize that um I I appreciate everyone clearly has a lot of of love for the Tacoma Creates program right now, and both in the community and on this council.

And so I think there's a lot of questions we're trying to wrestle with.

And I think we all um you know have the intention to try and put the best package forward together.

So I know that intention is there, so I just want to recognize that um and appreciate that uh that everybody's got passion for this.

Um one of the questions I had, and just a point of clarification on what is available in programming, especially when it comes to uh capital funds speci or capital like funds specifically.

Uh, currently, are you able to, as an organization, purchase any equipment through programming funding, or is there a limit on that?

What does that look like?

Can can can a f can someone replace an HVAC system because it broke and now a dance studio doesn't have AC in a hot summer day.

Like, is that available for program through the programming funding currently?

So I just want to kind of clarify where the where's the line in what is available in the programming and what the capital needs could help facilitate.

Thanks for that question.

So I can start and then Lisa may have um info she wants to add.

Um currently our funding is geared towards deliverables and um what these organizations are providing in terms of programming for the community.

So they apply with the work they're planning to do.

We also support you know admin and general operating as well.

That's part of the work as well.

We don't have the the application we currently have isn't really set up to fund specific capital ass.

However, we do see those kind of things uh funded.

For example, uh an organization that might need a set of iPads to go out and do digital art with uh with kids in the community, um, they might need to buy that as part of delivering their programming, and so they'll buy things like that.

I do not believe we've seen an organization fund an HVAC fund things like that through our funding, but I I um I would let Lisa correct me if that's wrong.

Uh we and we don't see them coming forward with a specific request the way it's set it's set up now.

And and just just to kind of follow up on that, has there been any because I have I've had an organization ask, well, I'd love to be able to purchase a van so that way we can facilitate the program and get our our performers or folks to where they need to go.

Um is is that something that can be purchased through programming dollars?

I think that there's some specific questions about vehicles that we would have to research um that is would be new to us.

Um at the moment I would say probably not, but with the proposed adjustments, I think it's possible, and we would need to research that that specific category.

Um what I would add to what Rebecca said is that if there are in our current program, organizations aren't able to come in and say um, you know, we want the majority of our funding to go towards a capital purchase.

But if they are um if the programming that they propose is if they if they use some of the Tacoma Creates funding to help support the capital needs and overhead costs that they have, that is totally allowable.

But the focus of what they're applying for and what the contract is about is about the public programming, whether it's general public programming or youth education programming that they're providing for community.

Got it.

Um so I guess what I'm trying to grapple with is even through this capital request that we're kind of discussing here, it it still lends itself to programming as a whole.

So that's why I'm like, yeah, it's still it still meshes together and it makes sense together in a lot of ways.

Um, but the the programming is is a little like just the programming word is like very amorphous uh in a lot of ways.

And it's like, well, it it could be this, like it can be an iPad, we can purchase that to help with programming, and it can be maybe a computer or maybe a projector, but okay, well, what at what point does okay now it's it's kind of more capital heavy, but it still supports program because then obviously everything we want into coma creates goes back to supporting programming, right?

And so that's that's where I kind of like well, capital at some level does make sense.

If an HVAC system needs replacement, say you got a building um and you own it already, and we we need to renovate the dance floor because it's been the same way for the last 70 years because there's buildings like that, right?

And it helps facilitate programming for that organization.

It might help them survive in a lot of cases.

Um, and so I I really I really want to find a way for us to move forward and to kind of create uh support for capital specific things like like a bus or or a van or a replacement for an HVAC system, or even for some studio to purchase a building, you know.

So if if the if the pots and the abilities are in, you know, the structure of the program allows for it.

And you know, ultimately, I I don't want us to be too prescriptive on what that looks like because we want to give autonomy to the arts community to be able to get the needs of what they would like depending on because year by year things change, market changes, even the revenue that comes in for the the Tacoma creates changes, and so we need to find a way to create that flexibility for arts community to adjust with the market conditions, but also with the needs of the community as well.

Um I I appreciate Councilmember Ramba, you working on this amendment.

Um I I can't support it in this current form, um, but it's it's mainly because I I want to make sure it's in it's as it's currently written, it's it I I would like to see a specific amount for capital that there it would be considered.

Um in this in this amendment right now, it looks like it may be considered, which means it could be zero, it could be six, and I'd like to see something a little more solid, like it will be six and it will be looked at.

um i i appreciate council member rumba you working on this amendment um i i can't support it in this current form um but it's it's mainly because i i want to make sure it it's in it's as it's currently written it's it i i would like to see a specific amount for capital that there it would be considered um in in this in this amendment right now it looks like it may be considered which means it could be zero it could be six and i'd like to see something a little more solid like it will be six and it will be looked at and if it if it doesn't meet the criteria because I don't want to just necessarily set the criteria with the art community to set that criteria what that looks like um then it it could be it could be less than six and that the whatever could roll over could go to programming or another need in the in the community you know I'm not I'm just kind of spitballing out there but those are those are kind of the things that I'm thinking about and I I'm you know I I appreciate all the conversation here and again the passions and I think we all agree that Tacoma creates is a fantastic uh tool and a fantastic uh thing for our community and it's clearly paid dividends it's generated tons of interest a lot of great economic activity has occurred out of it um we have a lot of great youth programming that's come out of it and so this is I think uh something that we um obviously need to continue and those are kind of just my thoughts on that and I just again appreciate it thank you mayor thank you um thank you very much council member bushnow council member thidalga um I just wanted to clarify the record um because it was a comment made earlier um I did reach out as soon as I got um the actual uh as soon as I could after I got the actual uh language um to talk about this so I I don't want that to be a statement that um we didn't reach out um we do have quorum considerations of course um and did we go we did go back and forth um and if that language that came out didn't meet you know the expectations I had I take full responsibility for maybe not communicating that um uh fully uh second I also want to point out that we all agree that capital is important in some form and the structure that we are arguing over is um two real things should it be sequestered as exactly uh six percent up to two years or can it be up to six percent every year that's really it I believe that that that meets your requirements um uh councilmember bushnow you may not uh agree with that um but I do want us to all realize where we all do come in on this which is we all see the value of that uh going forward and this is a small um and in in you know to some a very big difference I think this is a important difference that we need to talk about on a policy level um but we are basically 99% of the the way there and I just want to remind us all uh of that's where we are because there's a lot of other changes and we all are in green with that so thank you.

Thank you very much Councilmember Sidalgi just one quick correction and I agree I agree with everything that's been said we I I think we're also passionate about we all really care we're so passionate about it because we care about it.

And and so I appreciate that I do want to I do want to make one correction there there is a difference will and may are two different terms and may is passive and will is I don't know it was what definitive it's definitive thank you I needed some help um that that that if this said will we may be able to meet somewhere in the middle but there's something different between will and may and that is the biggest difference to me in these two proposals um the one year and two years that that that that is that's a one percenter right that that's a different conversation but the will and may are what are what make the difference and I'll say this again so that we're super clear we could say may if in fact we approved the funding we could say because then we would be able to keep our eyes on it and know that that requests are or are not being funded and then we could make a shift or do something different.

Once we do this rule setting once once we change this ordinance it's completely out of our hands.

The arts community and and be clear not just not just the advisory council that we that we appoint because the advisory council is appointed and as I as I learned and understood then there are committees that are put together that have people who sit on them that we don't appoint that are other community members and I don't know how we get to those community members but then they make recommendations to the advisory committee and the advisory committee then makes a decision and that's what they fund so the May says that they get to decide whether or not they they fund capital or not the will says you will find a way to fund it.

But but if they meet the criteria, the will says that once you establish the criteria and you they meet it, then you will fund them, not you may fund them.

So let's say they get there's I'm I'm I'm spitballing, right?

Let's just say there's a million dollars worth of funding, and they get five million dollars worth of programming programming questions, and there's a pot sitting over here with some actual requests for um for capital.

They could decide in in a May that you know what, since we have so many requests for programming, we're not gonna do capital this year.

And they could forego funding capital in a May situation because they've decided that there's too much, there's two million dollars worth of programming ass, and there's only 200,000 dollars worth of asks in capital, and they could decide you know what programming is going to be more important this year.

That doesn't, we can't force them then to fund programming, and that's why the May is so disturbing to me because they can make a difference, make a different decision, and we don't get to weigh in on that decision, and neither does the rest of the community.

Councilmember Ramba.

Thank you, Mary.

I appreciate what you had to say.

And um I guess my thing for the will is just I guess my concern is that they're quality, quality applications that we're not just that it's that I really appreciate the criteria.

I don't know what the criteria is.

We're deciding something, and I don't know what will if we say will, and it's gonna have capital criteria.

I don't know what that is.

So right now we're gonna write something, we're gonna approve something and say we will do something, but I just want to make sure it's a quality project.

That that's a quality capital ask, and it's not just that, oh, it met 50% of whatever we thought was criteria, and but we have to because we have the word will.

If you say will, that means you're supposed to do it, and now you're taking not just one year, but you're holding up two years of that money of six percent.

So it's 12% actually, altogether that's being set over here for capital, and we have a will on it.

And I just I'm I'm concerned because that that's my whole thing is just um the way this has worked in the past is that the best quality projects are the ones that get the money, and I don't want the will the will to make it so that the qual they're not as great at quality projects, and I'm certain that our city does a great job with applications and this advisory council.

I know that they do a good job.

That is not my question, but my question is I don't know what the criteria is going to be.

So, Councilmember Rumbaugh, what we could do, we do this all the time, and and and I and I appreciate what you said, but we do this all the time.

We allocate funding for a program, and the program hasn't been set up yet, and then staff goes back, sets up the program, brings it back, and we approve the criteria for the program.

We didn't approve, we're not approving the programming criteria, and we're willing to pass 76% on the programming, and we don't know what the programming criteria is.

They can change it.

So for me, we could say, okay, we're gonna put money aside for capital, you all go do the rule setting and bring it back to us for final approval.

We could say that, um, like we do in some other things, but I I don't know of very many projects where we allocate funding and then we know all the rules first because it doesn't make staff or it doesn't make sense for staff to do all that work if if they're not gonna get the money.

But this was approved by the voters first, so voters approved this to begin with.

That's why this is the only reason that I have any of this question is that the voters approved this to begin with.

It was um I remember doing the one-tenth of one percent.

I went out and helped with this.

I remember that, and and that's why I'm asking these questions is because it we're councilmatically deciding something now that wasn't councilmatic before.

So I'm just that's more my lens is just what the history was and where we are today.

I'm gonna ask staff this question.

When we when we when we and I guess I'll look I'll look over here since you weren't here when it was passed, and we formed the committee.

Did they not then draft the criteria for the applications for programming?

Because where do the criteria for programming come from?

It didn't come from just the initiative.

No, we certainly use the initiative as the um overview.

I mean that that provided the the values, right?

Um, but again, the um advisory board was not um C.

Oh, that's right.

You all you all you all set the I'm sorry, you all initially criteria.

Yeah.

And we have had every year since we've had an advisory board, they are involved in a review to make sure that we are um walking the talk of all of the values of the funding um and have the opportunity to act as an advisory board on potential changes.

So that criteria was not definitely set.

The overall thought of what Tacoma Creates would be was set when we when we went out to campaign for it, but it did come back and criteria was established.

So this is the same thing.

We're establishing the six percent rule, and I and I I wish I had the Tacoma Creates criteria, the the line right in front of me, because it does talk about the sustainability of arts of arts.

The sustainability of arts does include capital, and so I don't think this flies in the face of the capital of having capital.

And I think it is the same thing.

We're saying in the general premises of what voters voted for, and then we are now we are now adding something to and asking staff and and the committee once again to go and establish the evaluation criteria and bring and and and and use that to evaluate capital projects.

So I I just I I just want to add that.

I want to be mindful, and I'm talking a lot.

I do want to be mindful that we have four other items still, and it's 335.

So I just I'm saying that, and I've been the one talking all the time, so I will I will hold myself accountable, but just want to say that, and we can continue.

I mean, we can continue the conversation offline to better understand and work together.

That's what we're supposed to do as a council.

And so um, so I will leave it there and I'll turn to council member stock.

Scott, I just uh wanted to add in there that in the language that we've shared with everybody that there is an actual definition for capital expenditure, and it does at least on our level, as best that we're able to do it, explain what is meant by that so that can kind of give you a an understanding of where this of what it means and what the intent behind it is in case that didn't stand out to you as you were going through it.

Thank you, Councilmember Scott.

Deputy Mayor Daniels.

I just wanted to take a just uh a second to just read what the code actually does say.

Um I don't I can't speak to this amendment.

I don't know if it changes that, but and what was originally proposed, capital expenditures as councilmember Scott laid out is laid out.

It says it means the acquisition or construction of improvements to real property, including additions to or renovation of existing structures and new technology fixtures and or other equipment designed to be in service for at least five years that is reasonably related to or necessary for public programming supported under this chapter.

So these think details have already been laid out, and I just want to make sure that you know that um so that you can make the best amendment that you can make that it already is, and what they what their job is to do is to figure out who is prioritized in that we've heard loud and clear from community that small organizations are the ones that have not had access to these, and they are probably the ones that need to be prioritized, but we need to make sure that in the pot that we have put together that they do the rulemaking about who's prioritized, and they have done an iterative process as they did the first time after the voters have pushed this forward, they did an iterative process to figure out who was prioritized and how to best get access to the folks that need it the most lots of discussion, so you can see really the passion around um around this issue, and frankly, it's nice to have so many people engaged in this conversation and excited about and concerned about who gets funded and what gets funded.

Um this is this is what it's all about.

This is what it's all about.

So staff, thank you for uh answering the questions.

Um Lisa, thank you for running downstairs.

Um tonight we will we will it will be first reading, um, and we will um then move to second reading next week and continue to answer questions.

So all right, thank you very much.

Okay, I'm now gonna move over to our sixth agenda item, and I'm gonna turn to council member Diaz and Sidalga, who I don't know who's gonna start first, but this is a property tech ex property tax exemptions for multifamily housing ordinance amendments discussion.

All right, go for it.

Who's going?

I think it makes sense for me to go first, right?

Councilmember Diaz.

Yes, okay.

Um I have one amendment uh for multi-family uh sorry, I'm just trying to get my my notes over here.

There we go.

So I wanted to first uh thank my co-sponsors, Councilmember Bushnell and Diaz on an amendment I have around the MFTE eight year specifically.

I'll get into what, and then I'll list out uh some of my reasonings for why.

Uh what it does is it returns the minimum number of units for the eight-year back down to four units, but it also then limits that eight-year MFTE program exclusively to owner-occupied home ownership projects in order to incentivize the creation of owner occupied multi uh multifamily dwellings uh in mixed use centers, and also then to uh force and incentivize the creation of income regulated rental housing uh to basically uh uh use the 12 and 20 year MFTE program.

Um, some of the reasons why I'm bringing this forward.

Um given today's economic conditions and in a post-home and Tacoma world, using the eight-year MFTE to incentivize market rate rental housing with no affordability requirement isn't, in my opinion, an efficient use of a public subsidy.

We need to be more intentional about what we're incentivizing and who benefits today.

Um we want to also make sure that this benefit reaches the people who live there.

So um with an income uh restricted rental unit uh through the 12 year, the renter gets a clear affordability benefit.

Um if we're not requiring affordability with eight year, because that's how that's designed.

Um then this is an opportunity for to still help, but it would help the person who lives in the home.

Homeowners themselves and not uh the developers with this uh change.

This change can support home ownership projects that serve uh first-time home buyers, working individuals and families, and retirees looking to downsize groups that are often shut out from this current housing uh options.

Um this shift changes how we view the eight-year MFTE to be a tool for home ownership focused developers and benefit uh those who purchase those homes and live there instead of for rental housing developers.

Right now, we want rental developers opting for the 12-year MFTE because it includes a restriction of at least 20% of the units uh created to be uh at an affordable income level.

Um if we're providing tax benefits, then the public should receive more affordable uh rental options to get it.

So forcing them onto that 12-year is a good thing.

Um this also dovetails with state um level condo uh reforms that went into effect this year.

Um recent state law changed um uh made some changes to make it easier to develop 12-year uh 12 unit and and smaller condo units again, something that didn't exist uh in the past.

Um this gives us an additional local tool to allow align with that momentum.

Um and finally, if we could see more home ownership projects built across the city, including in district four, where each of um our five mixed-use centers um that exists in district four, there's currently no ownership or condo development there.

Well, if we could have some more come in, this would be a powerful step towards not only a more equitable walkable neighborhood, but it would be enriched by housing types that lead to generational wealth and housing cost stability.

Uh happy to take any questions.

I have no idea.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, Councilmember Sidalga.

Councilmember Bushnell.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I just want to just um appreciate Councilmember Sidalgay for introducing this amendment and uh being able to co-sponsor it.

Um, you know, I've been trying really hard to find ways to support homeownership opportunities and in a way that we can utilize the MFTE to make that happen.

And I think this is a great opportunity for us to kind of shift um shift that look for from rental housing specifically to home ownership.

And I know we had been talking about um the eight-year MFTE in general, um, because of uh the the amount of it being utilized, but also where it's being utilized.

Um what I'm really excited about this proposal specifically is is how we can use this as a way to um incentivize additional investment uh because this is uh again MFTEs are our are primarily an economic development tool and it still keeps this eight-year MFT as a part of our toolbox, but it it it creates the investment opportunity for multifamily home ownership opportunities specifically.

Um and I think that's something that we've been missing a lot with the MFTE conversation.

Um I think it's really important to how we that we have different housing types and um we need to shift our view away from home ownership, meaning only a single family home.

Uh and being able to have ownership with multifamily units um does create and support that urban density um walkability that council member Sidalgay was mentioning.

Um, I think we get to choose what uh this uh tax exemption uh is worth.

And uh this amendment really clarifies that economic activity is definitely worth an MFTE, but then we also want to make sure that's an extension to support our home ownership goals, which is a part of our uh affordable housing action strategy.

Um so I think uh I think that this is something worth giving it a shot.

I don't think the eight-year MFTE has been utilized uh pretty significantly, and particularly in district five.

And so uh this is something that I really want to see uh as we as we move forward, if this is something that um folks will take advantage of and uh provide more homeownership opportunities across the board for uh our city, but then particularly for my district where we need all types of housing options, which I'm sure you guys are aware, and and all of the parts of the city as well.

Um so just again appreciate um the work council member Sidalgay did on this, and uh that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Bushnell, do we have any questions?

Any additional questions or comments?

All right, moving on to our seventh item.

I'm I'm I'm sorry, go ahead, Council.

Oh, Councilmember Hines, I didn't even see you.

Hello, Madam Mayor.

Uh, you know, thank you very much, Council Sadalgay and the comments that were made by Council Bushnell.

Um I will just say that I have some concerns about this amendment, and I'll just be really clear through my kind of time talk of MFT.

And I'll just lay out kind of three that I've got that I'll I'm happy to talk to Council Sadalgay more about these.

But number one, while we are seeing more people use the the 12-year MFTE, what we're seeing is on the larger projects that we have in our city that are coming out of the ground, and then we look at the data.

The um most of the projects that are larger are our eight-year MFTs.

We're not seeing as many 12-year MFTs.

The average um size of a 12-year project is around 10 units.

The average size of an eight-year project is around 100 units, right?

So we're thinking about our mixed use centers where we want to encourage density to be placed.

I think the eight-year MFT still has a value in getting some of those larger products out of the ground.

I'm also concerned with um getting rid of the eight-year MFT at the high end, um, and tagging it only to um large scale homeowner ownership projects because of the fact that we're seeing fewer projects come out of the ground and to come overall right now.

A lot of the uncertainty at the national level, a lot of uncertainty in the financing world and how we're how these things are paid for.

Um, I think give me pause about making major changes like this.

I I do agree that we need to encourage more affordability in what the housing that we're developing.

I think homeownership is a noble goal that I'm deeply committed to.

I I do though think this is tool still has some relevance, um, especially as we're seeing some projects that have been planned that are not coming out of the ground.

Um, that make me wonder about is this is the right time to pull a large um uh incentive we currently have to get more housing.

Because if we do have a housing shortage, if we house a housing crisis, then I think removing tools that help us get more housing um, at least on the margin is gonna cut into how many housing units are built in our city.

And I think that's something we have to really take seriously.

Um in our conversations with some of the development community, the things we were talking about.

Um, you know, one of the clear things they said is, you know, this is probably not the time to make major changes to our MFT code, especially with some of the uncertainty of the national levels, which is why what we came through, what we brought through it, the committee was really a little bit more um limited in our changes with the commitment to come back in three years as things may change.

I think those are the big key points I would want to just make right now.

I have other things I can make later as we go forward, but I I do think that's uh a real issue.

I'd also just I pause for a second to say that I don't think there's a clear distinction between homeowner or ownership developers and rental developers.

Uh we do see condo conversions where rental properties are converted to home ownership products.

We also see that um even if it was built as a home ownership project, um, I don't think we can confirm that it will stay that way in perpetuity.

I think, I mean, Council will talk about this, I'm sure, which is I think there's a limit to how long we can require it to be owner occupied before someone could sublet it as an Airbnb or as a rental property, even if it was owned.

So uh I I apologize that I had to run out for uh some child care related issues.

Um, but uh I will be back in council later and I will speak further to this uh with my colleagues and uh at the dias.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines.

Councilmember Sidalge, is your hand still up or did you have a comment?

I just had a comment.

Okay, go ahead.

Um I did just want to let the rest of my council members know that this is a policy choice, right?

A hundred unit development um in the context that council member Hines uh pointed out.

Um, in this case, would by definition then be a rental only unit with no affordability.

Um and the policy choices basically say, well, we'll give you the 12-year if you go at least 20 uh units rather than the eight year with uh no affordability.

Um whether that pencils out or not is a debate we can have.

I don't think we're either either of us are developers.

Um at that he wouldn't ask if it could be.

So that's that's really it.

Um right.

I do think that we're at a different place um today.

Um and we can continue this conversation.

Great.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Sidage.

Are there any other questions?

Um, can you all just remind me when is this on the agenda?

Is this next week?

When do you plan on bringing this forward?

It's on the first.

First reading is tonight.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, great.

All right.

Um, moving on to item eight.

Um, which is it?

What seven?

Did I skip seven?

Oh, I'm sorry, council member.

I'm sorry, council member walker.

Agenda item number seven, which is a council consideration request from council member walker.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Um, I'm excited to bring forward a council contingency request for $2,500.

And this goes to sponsor Second Cycle's Bike Stories 2025.

Bike Stories is their big fundraiser, so this um really is going towards keeping their programs going.

Um, I think people are mostly familiar with Second Cycle.

Their mission is empowering youth, engaging the community and advocating for safer, more equitable cycling in Tacoma.

Um, with this sponsorship, Second Cycle can continue expanding opportunities for riders of all ages and backgrounds while celebrating the role that bikes play in building a connected resilient Tacoma.

So specifically, this sponsorship is um for the bike stories fundraiser, bike stories 2025.

So it makes us an official sponsor and puts us on the poster.

Um it uh uh obviously some acknowledgement at the event and on social media, and then um we do have the opportunity to attend the event um with other community members.

So um I think that that covers everything for the event itself and second cycle, but just making a note um that this is connected to our city goals of climate um and our climate action plan, our vision zero plan, Tacoma 2025 plan, and our community safety action strategy in the many many um programs that they run supporting youth.

I want to make sure and thank Council Member Rumba, Councilmember Sidalge for joining me as co-sponsors of this request.

We are hoping to bring it forward for a vote on October 7th next week and happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for council member walker?

We do not.

Councilmember Walker, thank you.

Now I really will move on to our eighth item, which is um another council consideration request.

And am I calling on Council Member Hines?

He's online now.

Councilmember Hines, did you want to do it or did you want me to call on Councilmember Walker?

I'm just missing because he's on the line.

I think I'm gonna read this and then you'll comment.

Okay, go, I'll let Councilmember Walker do it.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I'm a co-sponsor of this, so I am going to read um the talking points uh for councilmember Hines, and but then obviously he's online, so he can weigh in.

Um, but really excited about this one.

A community member um reached out to Councilmember Heinz a couple months ago and um council member Hines, Councilmember Remba, and I met with her um about this proposal.

And um I'm really excited that we were able to figure out a way to make it happen.

So the community member was concerned with the safety of pedestrians in our city on Halloween specifically.

Halloween is one of the most dangerous nights of the year for pedestrians.

People are out walking at dusk and after sunset when it can be hard for drivers to see them.

And young children are not always paying close attention to the roads and maybe have costumes that prevent them from being able to see entirely.

Um, in fact, children ages four to eight years old are more likely to be hit and killed by a car on Halloween compared to any other night of the year.

Um and in Tacoma, sadly, last year um three children were hit by cars on Halloween.

So to help address the pedestrian safety on Halloween, the community member um that we met with recommended that we pilot a program called Trick or Streets.

And this um is what we're bringing forward to council to do um this year.

Trigger Streets would be hosted by Safe Streets and offers neighbors the opportunity to close the residential street to vehicle traffic for free during the week, weekend, sorry, not the whole week, just the weekend of October 31st through November 2nd.

By closing residential blocks to traffic, neighbors can hold community celebrations and block parties to celebrate Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, and they can host trick-or-treating without worrying about vehicle traffic.

So what we're asking for on this is $7,500 in council contingency funds to sponsor the event.

And I'm going to ask Councilmember Hines to clarify, but I'm pretty sure that that full amount goes to Safe Streets.

And our sponsorship would be acknowledged with the use of the city logo on per uh promotional materials.

And obviously, this advances our efforts with Vision Zero goals and our Tacoma 2025 community building efforts.

And this is also suggested to be brought forward on October 7th so that they can get moving on it.

And so those are the written remarks.

I just want to add um a big thank you to the community member who came forward with this idea and to Safe Streets.

Um they this is really a model that they use for the community neighborhood night out in August.

And so they were a great um partner um on the permitting side of it.

But I think more importantly, they really are an organization that is in um every neighborhood because I think the big thing is getting the word out to every corner of the city so that um neighborhoods that do want to do this know that they can.

Um so I think Safe Streets is the right group to make that happen, and I really appreciate that they're they have that infrastructure set up so they can just jump right in.

So thank you and happy to answer any questions or send the questions to Councilmember Heinz.

Sorry, Councilmember Walker, thank you very much.

Um I don't see Councilmember Heinz hand up or his uh mute button off, so I think that you have done the yeoman's job, and I will ask are there any questions?

All right, seeing none, we're gonna finally move on to item number nine, which is agenda review and city manager's weekly report.

City manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, members of council deputy mayor.

Um, two ceremonials on tonight's agenda.

First, proclaiming October 2025 as Tacoma Arts Month, and recognizing MoCAT.

I think I'm pronouncing that right, that acronym arts and awardees, uh, as well as proclaiming October 2025 as walk and roll school month.

Um, no proposed changes to tonight's agenda, Mayor.

Um, and two notes for the council for public comment.

We both have public comment period as well as community forum tonight.

And then lastly, um just want to let the public know as well as uh anyone that's listening.

Um, at the conclusion immediately following city council meeting tonight, um, there is scheduled for a special meeting of the transportation benefit district governing board.

This meeting will set aside for the public hearing on a proposed modification to the 25-26 transportation benefit district budget and spending plan.

Um, and there will be an opportunity for public comment regarding motions, resolutions, and ordinances related to the special meeting agenda, just for your note.

Thank you very much.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Great, thank you very much, City Manager.

Do we have any questions of the city manager?

Seeing none, we're going to postpone the executive session item till next Tuesday.

Um, which means we are at the end of our agenda.

And Deputy Mayor, I will entertain the final motion.

I'll move to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, the ayes have it.

We stand adjourned.

We'll see everybody in just about an hour.