All right.

I would like to call to order the city council study session of October 14th, 2025.

Clerk, will you please call the role?

Councilmember Bushnell.

President.

Deputy Mayor Daniels.

Here.

Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Hines.

Councilmember Rumba.

Here.

Councilmember Sidalgay.

Here.

Councilmember Scott.

Absent.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Woodards.

Absent.

Materials will sent to you at 1104.

Thank you.

All right.

So the first item on our agenda today is the state and the legislative agendas.

And for that, I would like to call the city manager's office, government affairs advisor Alex McBain to provide introductions and begin the presentation.

Along with Alex, we've got Andrea Roper, our government affairs advisor, and not Jen Cavino, we've got Amina today.

Welcome.

Yes, uh, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Good afternoon.

Um here to um talk about the R-ledge agenda and to introduce our government relations team.

As you mentioned, uh Andrea Roper who will focus on mostly the federal and regional thing, myself, Alice McBain on the state.

We have Amina Tiore with us, who's with from uh Gordon Thomas, sorry.

Gordon Thomas Honeywell.

Um and you all know um Brianna Murray, who's um unable to join us here today, but we'll be um getting back with any questions that we have.

Um, and then Jen Cavino is with us remotely from uh Cavino Smith and Simon also and I'll hand it over to Andrea to get us started.

Perfect.

And just to give you a sense of the agenda for today's flow, um Alex will be presenting on the state agenda.

He'll give a little preview of what to expect in the state session next year.

He'll then kick it over to Jen Cavino who will give a brief update um on the 119th Congress, second session, and what to expect in the year ahead.

Um, and then I will chat about our federal legislative priorities.

We're happy to take questions at any time or hold them to the end, whatever works best for council.

To give a sense of the schedule and just what to expect for the month plus ahead, we'll do a second preview of our legislative agendas, incorporating any feedback you may have today.

We'll come back to a joint study session in later in October.

We'll be joined with our counterparts at TPU for that discussion.

And then after that, we'll return in November for council's consideration and ideally adoption of the final citywide state and federal legislative agenda.

Our goal is to have this agenda um finalized ahead of the legislative delegation briefing in December, and information for that event is forthcoming.

Um and then, of course, in January kicks off uh the second session of Congress as well as a short session for Alex.

And just to orient you briefly to the materials that you have in front of you.

So the government relations team uses two core documents.

The first is our longer legislative priority or legislative positions document, and this is a comprehensive document that captures our values and positions on a wide variety of issues.

Um it's really intended to serve as a guide to both Alex and I on how we engage on legislative issues both at the state and federal level.

Um and while it is comprehensive, it is not exhaustive, so there will be things that come up in the year ahead that we will need to seek your input on and just rest assured that as those items come up, particularly for Alex in a short session, um, you will be hearing more things in addition to just what is in this document.

Um because you've seen this document now, I think three or four times, and given the number of things you have on your agenda today.

We will not walk through this line by line.

We'll just preview some of the key highlights of changes that we've made.

And to help you navigate those changes, we did provide a flow chart like last year, um, so you can see where language was changed, or if there was a priority issue that you brought up that you want to make sure was captured.

We also did highlight those issues as well.

And then the second document is just our short list of legislative priorities, and this is the sort of key things that we anticipate spending most of our time on in the coming year.

And so with that, I will kick it over to Alex to talk about the state session.

Sure.

Uh move to a quick preview of the 2026 legislative session, the states.

Um, and as a reminder, the state operates on a biennial budget, um, and 2026 will be the second year of the biennium, which means that it's a uh scheduled as a short 60-day session.

The political makeup of the legislature will be similar as to what it was in 2025, meaning that the Democrats will have majority of both chambers.

As the second year of the biennium, all the bills that were introduced in 2025 that did not pass will carry over and remain in consideration, in addition to any new bills that get introduced this session.

One of the biggest components of the session of a short session is work on the supplemental budget, and it's like the state the city's mid-MOD process where the state will be making adjustments to the biennual budget that was enacted last year based on changes in revenue collection and updated policy priorities that or programmatic priorities that the legislature has.

Uh just a reminder, all of the House seats will be up for election in 2026 and half of the Senate seats.

Um and they tend to be making more adjustments to policies than in uh regular longer session in the first year.

Um the next slide.

In terms of some of the emerging state themes, um, we've had um challenges around the ongoing budget, particularly with respect to the operating budget, and then responding to federal actions.

I'd say in recent months, the governor has issued several announcements outlining impacts of the federal changes on Washington state programs uh related to Apple Health and food assistance, as well as the effects on federal tariffs on the on the overall economy.

Uh legislators are actively discussing how to respond to these federal actions and through new bills or policy adjustments.

Um, in addition, just as a reminder, like last session was a very tough session with respect to the operating budgets and all of the budgets actually.

Um, and we anticipate that um that will continue into this next session.

Um the September revenue forecast uh came out um recently, and it it estimates reduction in revenues for the 25-27 biennium of 400 million below what was assumed in the in the uh operating or in the operating budget, and then about 900 million over the four-year outlook, which is what the legislature has to balance to.

Um because of the significant new revenue that was enacted last year, it's it's likely, and the fact that it's a short session, it's likely that there won't be new revenue proposals that get enacted this year.

Um, and any budget shortfall will likely be made up primarily by reducing expenditures.

Um, and that will so that will make it a particularly challenging.

And while I don't think that they while I don't think that there's a likelihood of new brand new revenues that get adopted, there will be continued discussion on tax policy, both around the any um adjustments that need to be made to uh implementation of the revenues that were adopted last year, as well as ongoing um discussions that we've been having and we continue to have around sort of uh progressive fare uh tax system generally for it's both the state and locals.

Um next slide.

I'd say next slide two.

Um because of the challenges we just talked a little bit about in the emerging issues.

It's anticipated that much of the efforts this year will be around playing defense and preserving sort of the existing revenues that come to this to come to locals in the cities uh that um the state shares.

Um, in terms of the draft legislative priorities, we've got uh one, which is the preservation of uh services amid federal cuts, and here the the notion is we would be encouraging the state to continue to sustain and preserve critical programs like Medicaid or food assistance that and um backfilling those key programs that um are integral to the state's safety net.

In terms of fiscal sustainability, this is similar to the issue that was one of the issues that we had last session.

Except this time, instead of focusing on the 1% property tax limit, there are sort of two components I would say.

The first is encouraging the legislature refrain from reducing any state revenues that get shared with locals, such as the liquor tax or the municipal criminal justice assistance account.

And the second would be to continue to push for proposals that would provide local governments with sustainable progressive tax options.

And so continuing that discussion I think is an important to keep that work going.

Last year, what we did was we also had some issued things that we called, oh, before that, a capital request.

That we would have for capital requests.

And then what we did with with the issues of importance last year were other issues that we would spend a lot of time on working with legislators.

And we've got four here that we've we've added in this draft.

The first is to engage the legislature on the wastewater treatment plan nutrient regulations that were being proposed by DOE.

This is, I think you've received some information on this, and you're due to have a larger presentation next month on this, but this will be a topic that will be very uh timely this session with the legislature.

Um there's a follow-up on the transfer of state obligations.

Last year we were successful in getting uh budget language that um delayed the transfer of property from Washdot to the city, for example.

Um the report that the Transportation Commission has done was made available this summer, and the expectation is that the legislature will be adopting new legislation consistent with that report.

We want to be tracking this issue to make sure that the issues that the city was concerned about are reflective in any legislation that gets passed around this.

Um, the sidewalk utility that was we were successful in getting um budget language last year in a study.

The study there's a preliminary study that will be released sometime in December, and so our hope is that we can engage legislators on the that um preliminary study to see if there's any will in engaging further with a pilot program or anything in in advance of the final report the next year.

But we'll continue to talk to members about this, and it's an important um and it's important to the city.

Um also we would be um continuing advocacy for transportation projects.

Um while the transportation budget looks like it's gonna be a little better than it was last year.

The chair had the chair of the House Transportation Committee has mentioned that the he doesn't anticipate any new big new projects for this foreseeable future.

We'll want to continue to advocate for maintenance and preservation of projects in the transportation budget as well as options for um local revenues, sharing local revenues, and we'll also want to continue to advocate for the fishing wars memorial bridge and replace its replacement.

Um then I think the next slide.

Um these next few slides relate to the policy positions document that we have that Andrew described that we use as uh to help us as a guide during session.

Um you also have the handouts from last year that we used to go through that document.

In order to save time, what we're gonna do is just I'm just gonna highlight some of the things on the state side that were changes are important that were raised in the discussions that um we've had up leading up to this.

So in the area of safety, we've updated some language on police recruitment and retention and on the public defense funding.

Um, we've updated language on the funding and resources to address substance abuse and behavioral health.

We've also added some language around life support services that will be impacted by changes to the federal Medicaid program around housing and homelessness.

We've strengthened language around uh about around expanded home ownership opportunities.

We've updated language relating to state funding for affordable housing and for emergency shelters.

Next slide around jobs.

We're maintaining language around the skills training and economic development tools based on discussions with the council members.

We've also added new language supporting opportunity zones in the area of access.

We've added new language regarding the development of solutions to ensure food and pharmacy access in all neighborhoods.

We've uh added new language supporting efforts to maintain and improve vote by mail elections, and we've updated language regarding efforts to improve traffic safety outcomes that are consistent with vision zero.

Next slide around the health.

We've added some new language supporting efforts to backfill key federal programs such as SNAP and Apple Health.

We've updated language regarding the regulation of wastewater treatment plant nutrients, and in the other, we continue language around state shared revenue and fiscal sustainability and continued language regarding the state uh transfer of state obligations, and then we've updated language regarding the health safety and welfare of individuals uh detained at the ICE processing center.

And then uh move it to Jen to talk about some of the federal yeah, we can pause to take any questions on this state side or we can hold them to the end.

I don't know if there's a preference for folks.

Um looks like we might have questions now, so we can do questions now and then so first up, uh Councilmember Rumba.

Um thank you so much, um, Deputy Mayor.

I just I had a question about the the um land, the um state obligation.

What is that?

How did you the transfer of state obligation?

Could you I must just not remember that issue?

And so if you could, and I'm curious if just if you could just explain it.

Um it was around the uh the ability for wash dot to transfer property like uh parts of 167 back to this back to the city without the city's proper due diligence around um their willingness to accept it given the costs to maintain the property that would get transferred back.

Okay, so my question is sort of like the property that's under like 705.

Is that the same question or is that different?

Uh it could be the same question, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, I just wanted to maybe get a little bit more information under housing and homelessness.

Um we had that big financial ask last year, and I'm assuming based on what you've said so far, that's not really possible this year, but it also feels like something the state cares a lot about and the governor cares a lot about.

So, do we think that there might be additional opportunities created to help support that?

Or yeah, I would say right the the this the biennial budget included an appropriation for the next fiscal year 2027 next fiscal year.

So we're anticipating based on discussions with commerce that the money that we they will be releasing money again in 2027.

We imagine that they're going to be using the prior fiscal year that would be fiscal year 2025 as the basis for how much money to they would allocate per so we're anticipating that the three million dollars that we're getting in this year, we would also get in the next year.

Okay.

Um, so I'm not sure that we you know, in terms of going forward and asking for more money, I think beyond what was appropriated in in the biennial budget.

That's a question around.

I think more discussions with our partners and because we want to view this as a regional issue and not just a city issue.

But we do think that the three million dollars that was allocated for this city in this current year will also be allocated for the city in the next in the state's next fiscal year.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you for highlighting that.

Um, my other question under the other category.

I am very glad to see that we still have the um language in there about health safety and welfare of individuals detained at NWIPC and um good news that we're getting started on that rulemaking again that had been paused.

Um supporting immigrants and refugees that are part of our community that aren't at the Northwest Detention Center.

And as I understand the federal government has cut pretty much everything in support of immigrants and refugees.

And so all of our organizations that do that work are looking to local government.

Is there a way the state could step in in any way and help us support that work?

Absolutely.

That's that's something that we can add into this document.

And then also what we would be doing in terms of asking in the discussions we have with the legislators.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hyans.

Council Mr.

Walker got to a little bit of my point.

Alex might be curious about budget allocated for two years.

State obviously is looking at their revenues not matching what they expected.

Are we worried about clawbacks and things like that at all?

I think that I think that's something that we want to pay attention to.

I think that's part of this fiscal sustainability was, and it would be like we understand that we we are anticipating $3 million, for example, for the homeless shelters in the next year.

We want to make sure that the state the state continues to honor that, right?

Like I I think part of the challenge will be that if there aren't new revenues that the state's going to have, and they are looking at budget cuts, they'll be looking under every rock and stone for potential things that they can cut.

Um and we want to make sure that we that they don't claw back some of the things that are important for local governments that are funding the things that we that we would we've been advocating for.

Yeah, I mean, that is uh I was to my colleagues I'm on the association watched the cities board in our long conversation we had at our recent retreat around our legislative priorities.

That was a critical one for us, which was a big debate about whether we should say to the state expand our ability to raise money or maintain what we already have.

I think we landed on to maintain because of this specific concern.

Yeah.

Um, I think that's really important for us to be aware of.

So thank you, Alex.

And thank you.

All right, it looks like there are no further voice.

Yeah.

Councilmember Scott.

Um, under housing and home, maybe I don't know if it's specifically housing and homelessness or if it also crosses over with safety.

Um, but I think I given the state of like drug use and addiction issues.

I think I would also like to see language around like detox and things like that, and making sure that we can more capacity for for beds and of that nature as well.

Yeah, and there are a couple of instances where we talk about expanding behavioral health and substance abuse generally, but we will make sure that we are more specific around detox.

Thank you.

All right, seeing no other questions, I'll leave it back to you all to continue the presentation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And I will call on Jen, who is joining us virtually to give a brief update on uh what we anticipate in the year ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Can you all hear me okay?

We can.

Excellent.

Uh thanks so much for having me this afternoon.

And as you know, we are amidst a government shutdown back here in Washington, DC, that I think is going to be indicative of the gridlock that we should expect heading into 2026 with midterm elections ahead.

If we can move on to the next slide, please.

Um, you know, right now uh the federal fiscal year 2026 actually started October 1st.

And the House and Senate actually were both doing a pretty solid job getting through each of the 12 different spending bills that provides funding to keep the federal government open up until the very end, where Democrats, as you may be aware, are holding out uh for demands related to guardrails in place to prevent the executive branch from withholding or impounding funds that are appropriated by Congress.

And if you can imagine your senior senator Patty Murray is the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, uh is is holding strong on that one given her her role in that capacity.

The Democrats are also uh demanding that uh Congress authorizes an extension of expiring premium tax credits that uh subsidize the affordable care act plans on the exchanges.

Open enrollment begins November 1st, and so we suspect that uh lawmakers are going to be pressured to come to a resolution over the immediate weeks ahead.

But again, as we get toward the end of the calendar year with the hope that this shutdown is resolved heading into the new year, Congress has a lot of work uh to be done here in the final months of 2025 and looking ahead to 2026.

Uh first and foremost, with the government uh funding lapsed.

First and foremost, with the government funding lapsed, there are also a set of programs and their authorizations that have now expired as of September 30th.

That includes the farm bill, which authorizes many of the nutrition assistance programs that are of concern to your constituents.

The national flood insurance program is currently lapsed.

The temporary assistance for needy families program is lapsed.

I would also flag that cybersecure security programs have lapsed.

And so, you know, the lapse of those authorizations exposes quite a bit of vulnerabilities back here in Washington, D.C.

And we hope that Congress will get its act together before anything severe happens here.

Now, looking ahead to business beyond the immediate uh need to reopen the federal government, we get into legislation that would come due in in federal fiscal year 2026.

One of the most uh prominent efforts that we're gonna see unfold here in DC next year is going to be the successor legislation to the bipartisan infrastructure law, also known as the investment uh the infrastructure investment and jobs act of 2021 that was authorized during the first year of the Biden Harris administration that focused not only on surface transportation programs, but that at the time was also coupled with water infrastructure, cybersecurity, and some energy in uh environmental program uh authorizations.

Looking ahead to next year as Congress starts deliberating uh what that successor legislation will look like.

We expect a few emerging themes to be part of the deliberations.

First and foremost, we expect there to be more formula funding that gets delivered to both uh the Washington State Department of Transportation as well as your partners at the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

We also expect a very heavy emphasis on projects that support safety outcomes that support American families, uh investments or projects serving residents of opportunity zones, uh, projects supporting goods movement and freight.

And then also uh we've seen Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy emphasizing projects that are ready to turn dirt.

They are eager to get shovels in the ground based on some of the past precedent and the delays we have seen with the administration and their ability to quickly execute federal funding agreements in recent years.

After the new year, we also expect Congress to do its normal order business focus on the Water Resources Development Act that supports Army Corps and other water infrastructure investments nationwide.

And I understand there's also going to be uh a look at the Brownfields program as well as the state revolving funds with regard to our water infrastructure.

As mentioned, cyber uh security programs have lapsed, and so we expect there to be some attention on potentially reauthorized reauthorizing um the state and local and tribal uh cybersecurity programs that are overseen by the Department of Uh Homeland Security.

If we can move on to the next slide, please.

Uh just anticipating where we have some opportunities on the head if we can go back one.

Sorry about that.

Um, you know, we we are a year into the Trump Vance administration at this point in time, under uh Republican majority in both the House and the Senate.

So we have a pretty good understanding as to what the legislative priorities are gonna look like come 2026.

Fiscal responsibility is gonna continue to be an ongoing theme here as the federal debt has now exceeded 37 trillion dollars.

Uh I will tell you that in my 15 years of working on behalf of cities, we have not seen uh really substantial housing legislation that's been passed.

So there's some pent-up demand there in the housing space.

And I will quickly share with you I am hopeful at this moment in time that Congress, if not in this calendar year, but by next calendar year is hopefully gonna move forward passing uh some comprehensive housing supply legislation.

The Road to Housing Act was actually just attached to the uh Defense Authorization Act that passed the Senate last Thursday night, which is heartening news.

Uh, it is a bevy of housing programs and policy reforms that I think most local governments can be supportive of.

It enjoys the support of the U.S.

Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

The legislation's comprehensive.

It includes uh new programs to support financial literacy, modernization of the home investment partnerships program, uh, modernization of the community development block grant program, as well as a pilot for cities that are increasing their local housing supply.

It would establish a new pilot program to support home repairs, uh, new authorities to increase housing and opportunity zones.

It would also seek to reduce administrative burdens uh associated with NEPA reviews and a simplification uh of the NEPA process for for small and middle-sized housing developments in cities nationwide.

So uh that's some heartening news, but I suspect that it will take time for the House and Senate um to reconcile their approaches.

This bill just passed the Senate.

House Republicans are not necessarily supportive of it because it would create about a dozen new grant programs that HUD would need to administer.

And if you're familiar with what's been happening back here in DC, uh the Trump administration is trying to uh right size the whole of federal government, including HUD.

And while we're on the topic of housing, I do want to caution some potential policy changes on the horizon, alluding to the shifting domestic policy agenda that is being executed by the executive branch.

HUD has now uh cautioned that we should expect some uh policy changes when it comes to existing uh competitive grant programs, including our continuum of care.

Uh, right before the government shutdown, uh media began reporting that we ought to expect that continuum of care funding may be capped at 30% for permanent supportive housing projects moving forward.

The Trump Vance administration wants to push self-sufficiency, and with that, uh a change over to emphasizing transitional housing coupled with treatment where it's appropriate.

And on the issue of public safety and substance use, I do want to acknowledge that uh public safety grants and other resources remain available and accessible.

And I will tell you, it appears uh heading into the new year that there has been overall less demand for some of these law enforcement uh grants, just given the uncertainty at the federal level around compliance with new executive orders.

Uh the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, uh the COPS office as it's known.

Uh, we expect that to be folded potentially into the Office of Justice programs at the U.S.

Department of Justice.

They have announced their uh policy priorities for the next few years, and we can anticipate that these themes will likely stick.

The first uh focus area is going to be um uh projects that support addressing opioids and drug market disruption.

That can actually include alternative response programs.

So that's good news.

Uh, and hopefully that provides uh some funding that might be of interest to the city.

They're also looking to support officer recruitment, hiring, and retention.

They are also looking to be more intentional about supporting law enforcement and addressing homelessness, with the caveat that some of these federal funds are actually uh intended to support the uh provision of social services and outreach to those in need.

Um, of course, uh we do expect that the Department of Justice will utilize its grants as carrots for local jurisdictions to help advance goals related to immigration enforcement and border security.

But I do want to caution um, as much as that is available as a topic area, uh the cops offices put forward those grants that are also available for the for those other uh pressing issues.

The final one is violent crime reduction.

And I know that the city has been uh focused on that in recent years.

So although it's it's been a shifting domestic policy landscape, I I would flag that plenty of opportunities remain accessible to the city in the year ahead, and many are actually very well aligned with the good work that you're already doing on the ground.

Of course, we will be continuing to monitor any new executive orders that are forthcoming from the White House.

I will offer the pace of that has slowed, and we would expect that to continue to slow over the year ahead.

We also expect to have uh final word from ultimately in some cases the Supreme Court, but in many others, uh, you know, the the judicial review of these executive orders remains ongoing, which does provide a degree of uncertainty for staff who are trying to navigate uh some of these federal resources and the conditions that have been imposed for local jurisdictions to accept funding that's available.

Uh and with that, uh I'm happy to take any questions you all have, but again, happy to report that some uh good opportunities may remain available on the horizon.

Thank you, Jen.

Appreciate you being our boots on the ground back there in DC and all your expertise.

Um it looks like we have one question lined up.

Happy to take that before we go into our short list of priorities, if if you like.

Councilmember Rumba.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I just had one question for Jen, and I asked it when we met with them online, but I just want to make sure that housing vouchers aren't getting cut and that that doesn't become a block grant program.

So I'm just checking in on that because I know that that's where we meet death for programs.

Well, thankfully, I can report that um that proposal that was included in President Trump's skinny budget that was released back in April of this year, has been met with little fanfare by uh both chambers of Congress.

So although we saw the administration proposing that, it seems as though there's not much appetite amongst lawmakers.

I will also tell you during the first Trump administration, there was a tendency more often than not to default to long-term continuing resolutions and the absence of agreements on Capitol Hill.

So we've already done one full year continuing resolution through 2025.

At this point, you know, I'm hopeful that the House and Senate can reconcile their spending bills when we get out of the shutdown.

But if they can't, uh there might be a greater likelihood that we see another long-term continuing resolution on the horizon.

So far, voucher programs I would say are largely unscathed.

I will note uh that HUD Secretary Scott Turner again is trying to the best of his ability as a cabinet level official to impose new work requirements.

He likes to refer to federal housing assistance as a trampoline and not a hammock, in his words.

And so I will just caution that uh with all things at HUD, we need to be on the lookout for any policy reforms that they're capable of carrying out through the executive branch in its rulemaking process.

Thank you so much.

And council member, I'm happy to report the housing vouchers are in our short list of priorities too.

So next slide.

Moving into our short list of federal priorities, as um Alex mentioned, much of the upcoming year is going to be focused on playing defense and trying to preserve a lot of the key programs that not only we rely on in the city but also all the residents of our city rely on.

Um so, first for your consideration is preserving critical funding for residents.

We specifically call on strong support uh in Congress for the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.

These programs ensure that people in our community can access affordable health care.

But beyond that, Medicaid plays a critical role in supporting local services, including emergency medical response.

As Alex mentioned early on, the Tacoma Fire Department, for example, relies on Medicaid reimbursements to cover a significant portion of its medical transportation and support services.

And without this funding, that cost gets shifted onto the local level and could strain our capacity to serve our residents.

We also urge in the section Congress to protect vital nutrition programs like SNAP and WIC.

We know that these aren't just food benefits, they're proven and targeted tools that help improve child and maternal health and reduce food insecurity in our community.

Another critical area where we'll be um uh urging Congress to protect funding is in the social services block grant program.

And this is funding that is used across the state for a wide variety of issues from housing to elder care to services for people with disabilities.

And without this support, we risk overwhelming our local systems while we see demand continue to rise for these services.

Um part of what unites all of these issues is we know that it's not just about meeting basic needs, it's about protecting the stability of our community and preventing higher costs down the road.

If the federal government chooses to cut these programs, we know that it doesn't mean the need goes away.

It just shifts the responsibility to cities and counties that are already doing less with more.

So we urge uh the federal government to remain a partner in these efforts.

Second, for your consideration um is in uh the issue of infrastructure.

As Jen mentioned, Congress is expected to take up surface transportation reauthorization, and we have a unique opportunity to advocate for our city's um transportation priorities at the federal level.

One of the major themes Alex and I both heard in our conversations with council members was about safety, whether it was pedestrian safety, vehicle safety, bicycle safety.

Um we've included that um in talking about service transportation reauthorization and urging Congress to provide sustained and predictable funding that enhances public safety and supports local economies.

This includes long-term investment and safety infrastructure like facility upgrades and technology that prevents crashes and fatalities.

A critical part about safety is preserving some of the key competitive grant programs.

Um for example, Safe Streets and Roads for All.

This was a competitive grant program that was created under the bipartisan infrastructure law, and it helps local governments implement strategies to eliminate roadway fatalities and injuries.

Tacoma is actually thankful we applied for and received some of this grant funding, I want to say back in 2023 for our ADA transition plan, and we would love to continue to apply for this funding in future years to help achieve our vision zero goals.

Um the challenge is as Jen outlined, this program is set to expire in 2026, and without reauthorization or new funding, we could lose this vital tool for advancing transportation safety.

And without reauthorization or new funding, we could lose this vital tool for advancing transportation safety.

And I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about infrastructure and didn't mention continued investment that supports freight mobility, which is essential for our trade dependent economy here in Tacoma.

A prime example is asking for support for fishing wars memorial bridge.

We know that this is a vital corridor for emergency response, access to the port, community resilience, and for freight mobility.

We're thankful to have had federal investment so far in this project, and we know that the scale of this project means that we can't go at it alone and will continue to ask for federal support.

And last year, when we were chatting about infrastructure, we also talked about the Portland Avenue project.

I am pleased to share that thanks to Senator Murray's leadership that has been selected to move forward in the congressionally directed spending process.

If you've been tracking Congress, that process is not a done deal yet.

There's still steps to go, but thanks to her leadership, it's been included for funding.

And I'll keep council apprises as that project moves forward.

Third, on the list for legislative priorities is in the area of housing and homeownership, and we know this is in a critical area where we will need a strong federal partnership.

Thanks to the budget reconciliation law, we actually saw some important progress this past year through the tax code.

The expansion of the low income housing tax credit, for example, was a major win.

This expansion alone could help finance an additional one million houses across affordable houses across the nation.

But we know that it's not enough to achieve deep affordability.

So for your consideration, we urge Congress to increase appropriations of the home investment partnership program.

These funds provide vital gap financing for LITEC developments, helping projects move from concept to construction.

Additionally, we advocate for sustained and expanded investment in the community development block grant program.

And these CDBG dollars are some of our most flexible federal resources that we have as a city.

We use them to support local economic development, infrastructure improvements, and essential services for low and moderate income residents.

But we know this isn't just about housing production, so to Council Member Rembaugh's point, we are also calling on Congress to maintain strong funding for housing vouchers and other proven programs that reduce homelessness and housing instability.

We know that housing affordability remains one of our most urgent challenges as a region.

And we're not unique in that, it's a nationwide challenge.

Continued federal investment allows us to respond strategically and scale our solutions and ensure that this progress isn't constrained by local budgets alone.

Fourth, for your consideration is in the council priority area of community safety.

The City of Tacoma is committed to a multi-layered approach to public safety, one that prioritizes crime reduction and effective response.

And what we're asking for at the federal level is increased federal support for the full spectrum of public safety personnel who contribute to these goals.

We're proud to see reductions in crime here in Tacoma, and that progress is thanks to council's leadership, the hard work of our law enforcement officers, but also to the broader public safety team.

That's why we urge Congress to expand federal funding beyond just sworn officers to better capture the non-sworn personnel, such as behavioral health co-responders and community service officers.

These alternative response teams play a vital role in our system.

They handle nonviolent incidents, support people in crisis, and reduce demand on police officers, allowing our sworn staff to stay focused on violent crime and the apprehension of serious offenders.

We're also calling for sustained investment in violence reduction initiatives, programs that are rooted in prevention, early intervention, and youth development.

Evidence shows that these upstream strategies reduce long-term risk and build stronger and safer neighborhoods.

And finally, we are asking for increased federal support for our frontline workers, and that means not just personnel, but providing them with equipment and the tools they need to do their jobs well.

Last year we talked about this specifically in the realm of EMS and fire services.

And thanks to the leadership of Senator Cantwell and Representative Strickland, we have, again, in that congressionally directed spending process.

They have moved forward funding for a fire engine in that in that process, not a sure thing yet.

And we know that that doesn't even scratch the itch of what we need.

So we will continue to ask for increased federal support to support our frontline workers so they can continue to do their jobs.

And lastly, for your consideration is supporting human rights and dignity.

And this was language that we included last year, and we kept the language quite broad to be all-encompassing to uh better respond and be nimble to the many different issues that were coming at the beginning of last year, or I guess the beginning of this year at the federal level.

And given uh some of the dialogue about immigration, immigration reform.

Uh we want to make sure that we I've included language in here for your consideration.

Um, that as that debate continues in our nation's capital, we urge Congress to advance comprehensive immigration reform that provides a clear pathway to status and citizenship, stabilizes our local uh workforce, and promotes family unity.

And that is the short list of priorities, and then um just briefly to talk about the policy positions document.

Most of the changes that Alex uh mentioned are reflected in the federal document.

We try to have our documents mirror each other as appropriate, of course.

Um, most of the language changes that were made this year at the federal level, um, just made the document more evergreen.

It had reference to old legislation that has not been passed yet.

It didn't rec uh reference the reconciliation bill, so we updated that, but then we did um try to memorialize a few things in this document.

So we did not mention the Affordable Care Act, we have mentioned support of that in this document.

Um we also strengthened the length uh language around Medicaid.

We added a reference to support of opportunity zones, um, and then the um one area where we did add uh pretty uh I don't want to say substantial, but we added a new line is in that uh conversation around immigration.

Um this came up a few times in meetings with council members, just talking about enforcement professionalism, and this came up in the context of safety and transparency for folks in Tacoma.

And so we did add language supporting policies that require all law enforcement officers and agents of the Department of Homeland Security involved in civil immigration enforcement to clearly display official identification and insignia when detaining or arresting individuals, and we also acknowledge supportive policies that prohibit the use of unapproved non-tactical masks to ensure accountability and public confidence in official actions.

And with that, happy to take any questions you may have.

And I know Alex is in Jen are both happy to take any additional questions you may have as well.

Great, thank you very much for the presentation.

Do we have any questions or any additional questions?

Looks like you and Jen were pretty thorough.

All right, well, obviously, I know you probably walked through this.

Sorry, I just walked in timeline.

Yep, timeline.

So we'll come back at the end of the month with a joint study session with our partners at TPU for a second preview, and then go for final consideration in November in hopes to have the agenda finalized ahead of the December legislative delegation breakfast, which um information is forthcoming.

Right?

All right, thank you.

So this won't be the last time you all see it.

And if you have questions between now and then, feel free to reach out to uh GRO staff.

All right, thank you all so much for for the presentation today.

Um and Amina, thank you for joining us as well.

All right, we're gonna move on to our next agenda, our second agenda item today.

Um, and that is the University of Washington Street uh street vacation waiver.

And I'm gonna invite uh Chancellor Sheila Edwards Lang to the table, um, along with uh Sylvia James, who is a vice chancellor of finance and admin, Ben Muck, who is the uh director of real estate and development, finance and administration, and then finally Joe Lawless, who is the chief strategy officer and Dylan, are you here?

Oh, there you are, Dylan.

Dylan, just come up just in case of if if they if we need to phone a friend, you're not far away.

Good to see you.

I can remember they they they they they lift up, they you can make them taller or shorter.

Just be careful that when you press on the button, you're standing up to make it taller, otherwise you will become shorter than you would like to be in that moment.

All right.

All right, so um, Chancellor, I'll hand it over to you.

And if you just hit the button to your right.

My other right.

There you go, to your to your other right.

Right.

As I said in the military, your military right.

Great.

Thank you all for making time to talk with us today and for considering our requests for a fee waiver association associated with the vacation of two right of way segments within our campus footprint.

As you know, we just celebrated our 35th anniversary on campus.

And from the beginning, this campus has been more than a collection of classrooms.

This council called the university a catalyst for downtown revitalization, community connection, and equitable access to higher education.

It is that very access mission and community engaged approach that continues to transform lives, not only for our students, but for the neighborhood.

We see every degree awarded at UW Tacoma as a multiplier, strengthening Tacoma's economy, workforce, and civic life.

Looking ahead, we have a bold vision for the next 35 years, and we did a presentation to you all about that not too long ago with our campus master plan.

And we hope that that plan will allow us to build a vibrant downtown inclusive core.

This plan honors our historic district, it reconnects to Hillside and creates open spaces that welcome all members of our community to gather, learn, and thrive.

And just to orient you, the W up there is at the corner of 17th and Tacoma Avenue.

And the Pacific Avenue is our front entrance now, and we as we grow, we want that Tacoma Avenue to be our second front entrance to campus.

When Tacoma leaders first envisioned a campus on this site, they knew that the partnership between the city and the university would be essential to realize that vision.

Every major step in our development has reflected our shared commitment to this city.

Next slide.

But really, the work begins here in the next five to ten years of realizing that vision.

So over the next five to ten years, we'll be working on projects to revitalize our campus core.

And that includes multiple projects that will be central to our vision of a revitalized campus.

Housing and dining.

Housing and dining, revitalization of the Swiss Wild Tioga Buildings, which is our the historic buildings on our campus that have not been renovated yet.

And then more green space on campus.

Next slide.

So the housing and dining project is moving forward.

We'll add 500 beds of more traditional student housing on campus with a full dining hall for all of campus.

And this shows the sites of where we are thinking about the housing and dining site.

And if you go to the next slide, it'll show you a little bit more detail.

And for those of you who may be familiar, this is across the street from the Y.

There's a big green space next right next door to Court 17, our existing res uh apartment building that we own.

So we are looking to put um this new housing and dining on probably site two.

We go to the regents on in November to get approval to go out and identify a um a partner to build this housing, but that is where it will go.

And if you look, you'll see it's right there along the um court C and 19th Street.

And this is where we are imagining the new heart of campus to be.

Um just up if if you're familiar with the W, it's at the top of the W.

And if you look there on 19th, you'll see, go back, Joe.

You'll see just there to my other my left.

Maybe you're right.

I have to do any military left and right.

Um, the Swiss Wild building, which is the old Swiss building, which people have a lot of feelings for, but it is um right now um unusable, so until we can get that renovated, but that is part of it.

So I'll go to the next slide.

The Swiss Wild and the Tyoga are um slated for renovation.

And so we are anticipating 27 or 29 going to the legislature, depending on what happens with our capital project process internally for funding to renovate these last three buildings.

So that those buildings there are right at the top of the W and right next door to the green space and where we're imagining we will have um housing.

And that is also the key to creating a new core to our campus.

Can you go to the next slide?

So that core then will be part of this imagined green space that will come down from Tacoma 17th and Tacoma with vistas that allow you to see Mount Rainier, but they go all the way down the staircase to Pacific Avenue.

And so this commons is directly tied to the street vacations that we are seeking.

It will allow us to create a significant community benefit of green space.

So we're imagining that this park would continue not only benefit our students but also the community, especially as there's a lot more development going on right now along Fawcett Avenue, as you all know.

And there are a lot more apartment buildings that have gone on up along Tacoma Avenue as well, without the benefit of green space.

So this would and it would create Tacoma's largest downtown park, and that will extend, as we said, up to 17th and Tacoma Avenue.

And part of the the thinking about the park is that this is such a hill site that if we can terrace the park, the green space going up, it allows people to move up and down the hill easier and in a terrace green space.

And in fact, um next week, Friday, we start with the first um of that green space.

We are beginning to do a micro force right at 17th in Jefferson.

So that they start planning that on Friday.

So we wanted to we've done a short video that demonstrates the vision for UW Tacoma moving forward and moving up that hill.

The technology.

Yes, and we do want to thank all of our partners for helping us put that video together.

But that shows you the transition of how the campus will evolve over the next 35 years.

Next slide.

Yeah, okay.

You may have to think it just says down here.

So I think you're fine.

So it actually shows you the vista and from looking from 17th down.

But under Tacoma's municipal code 9.22.010, the council has the discretion to waive all or a portion of compensation when the vacation is initiated by the city, or the council deems it to be in the interest of the city.

We respectfully submit that this request meets that standard.

These two right-of-way vacations are integral to implementing our campus master plan, improving public safety, pedestrian access, and land stake landscape continuity across the hillside.

They will enhance public open space, improve accessibility, and strengthen the connection between the university and downtown, all of which directly benefit the community.

We did get funding for land acquisition within our campus footprint.

But if we are required to use those funds for right-of-way compensation, it will limit our ability to secure other parcels identified in the master plan.

Parcels that are essential to maintaining long-term flexibility for future development and public benefit.

And I might stop and say that the legislature allocated us the funding to secure the rest of the parcels in our footprint because they recognize that the campus would not be able to grow if we continue to put apartment buildings in the footprint.

And we in the master plan, we are slated to grow from 5,000 students to 10,000.

When the campus is fully built out, it will be 10,000 students.

Great cities are defined by their great green spaces, and through projects like the Prairie Line Trail, which you all have invested in, the campus green space, and the revitalization of our hillside, we are creating spaces that will quite literally breathe fresh air into our downtown core.

We are creating spaces that will quite literally breathe fresh air into our downtown core.

Spaces that serve not only students but every member of this community.

And I'm excited to see the microforce coming in to be, and I hope that you will drive by next week and you'll see it.

And I I heard that it's over 400 um trees that are gonna go in there, and this is um part of our greening of our campus.

So on behalf of the University of Washington, Tacoma, I ask that you waive the fees for these two right-of-way vacations, as previous councils have done as we have grown the campus, and as a continued reflection of our shared commitment to a stronger, more vibrant, and more connected Tacoma.

So thank you for your time, your partnership, and your ongoing support of this vision for the University of Washington, Tacoma.

Thank you very much.

Uh Dr.

Langman, thank you for the presentation.

Um I think I saw that video now for the third time, and I could see it several times because it's just it's so quick, but it's so precise about what ultimately um we will get to see in the end.

I'm gonna just real quickly um uh Dylan, turn to you just real quickly because uh I know that understanding number one what that what that amount is, what the assessed value is for the property, how we arrived at that number, and what if we if we didn't receive those funds, what or if we did receive those funds, what would they be used to pay for, or vice versa, if we don't receive them, what we won't be paying for.

All right, thank you for that question.

Um so the the value was derived from a like you said, assessed value.

We um look at the land value from the adjoining land and then take the square footage of the right-of-way, and essentially it's a a straight um uh valuation from those two factors.

So that's where the the almost three million dollars came from in terms of what the funds are to be used for.

The code um is fairly clear that they're to be used for open space and transportation, and that could be construction or maintenance.

So those are those two factors.

And Dylan, just told that maybe other people have a better memory than mine, and and and Dr.

Lang uh alluded to it in the past when we've vacated space for given space, we didn't charge.

Do you have any history?

Do you have any of that historical information?

You may or may not.

No, that is a really good question.

Unfortunately, I'm I'm fairly new to my role, so I don't have a lot of history.

Okay.

I I do understand there was um a street vacation for University of Washington where the fees were waived.

I believe there were also other factors like the University of Washington built uh or contributed to building some roads in the area, so there was an offsetting benefit in that particular situation.

Can you can you get that to I don't know if you all have any more info?

Did you have you have a little bit more information?

Sylvia, thank you.

Oh, great, thank you.

It's your button.

I believe there have been three opportunities.

Uh the space where the Prairie Line Trail is currently, uh also uh the section of 19th where the Grant Staircase is now.

Ah, okay.

That's full as commerce.

Commerce, yeah.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

You all you all knew with Dylan.

Sorry, I should have just asked them.

Um, but Dylan, would you just for for at least just for me, and I'm sure some of the rest of the council would like that.

Can you just go back and research research that let us know those three properties and what the assessed value was of those properties?

And then and then what we what we what what we did in partnership with one another.

Of course.

Great, thank you.

All right, any questions or comments from the council.

Um, before I call on council member, I just want to say I you know, um, I said this at the toast.

Um, Dr.

Lane at the 35th anniversary, which was an incredible um night, um, how grateful we are for UWT.

Um I I just continue to our or I should say I continue to be impressed, but our our city continues to benefit so greatly um from having students in downtown Tacoma for for having students who um not only um are on the campus on the you know I always say the four walls, but you know, the north, south, east, west of the actual campus.

But but the partnership that we have with you all and how you all um how you all help to make Tacoma better and how your students engage with issues that are in our community.

Um and so you really are a partner.

I think that your request is reasonable.

Um I think we just have to have a little bit, at least for me, just have to understand just a little bit better about what that looks like, and you and I have had an opportunity to have a conversation, but um I think this is a great opportunity for Tacoma.

Um, and we want to see UW get to those 10,000 students.

So looking forward to continuing this conversation and better understanding what that's looked like in the past, but just again just want to say how grateful we are for the partnership that we have with UWT.

All right, I'm gonna start with Councilmember Rumbaugh, followed by Deputy Mayor Daniels.

Thank you, thank you, Mayor, and I want to thank um everyone here from UWT um for coming and for believing so strongly in a vision for, and I think you have you know, you you were able to get a contract with somebody who does this amazing work who came up with this vision for um the campus, and you're an unusual campus because you're in the middle of a city, which means there were a lot of streets there.

It's not like um Evergreen State College in Olympia, that's a thousand acres.

But could you talk a little bit about your transformer issue and what that what this what it means to have us um grant this for you because what is it look like for your transformer issue, and I think people should know what's going on at campus.

You mean our mini electrical outlets?

Something like that.

Yeah, so um you all may remember that last summer we had a car come through and destroy our entire electrical system on the campus, and it is um a uh project that it will take them another year and a half to design and build a new electrical system for us that um is a redundant system so that when we have other issues like we had yesterday where power lines went down, we don't have um an alternate um to switch to.

Um and then a couple months ago we had another um we have a temporary solution, and that temporary solution um led to uh a power outage where we discovered that one of the major transformers on our campus that um powers many of our buildings needed to be replaced.

So we did we were able to get a four million dollar allocation from the legislature to begin the fix for our permanent um electrical system, but we um I'm told that it's going to be not tens of thousands, but possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars for us to fix the transformer because we have to design and build a new one.

So just yesterday we were able to move over to a temporary solution for that.

So we have unstable electrical systems, and we don't have a source of funding to pay for those things, um, except for going to the legislature, because when these um the way the University of Washington system works, the Tacoma and Both campuses are pretty much left to their own devices for major fixes.

So we that does play into our availability of funding for a lot of things.

And also the businesses that are on Pacific Avenue are tied to your system.

So every time the power goes out, it affects and impacts businesses and uncertainty there, correct?

Absolutely.

And they are mostly small and women-owned businesses.

So we have had um many, many conversations and with our tenants, and we've given many concessions, rent concessions, and others to make sure that you know many of them are just coming back from um the pandemic um losses that they suffered.

So our electrical issues and our ability to get that fixed has been um an ongoing challenge, not only for our students, but for those tenants.

And I just I wanted to just make a comment that I really want you to get to 10,000 students.

But my real goal that I see for you in the future is that students that live in Pierce County and go to school in Pierce County, as particularly Tacoma Public Schools want to go to UWT, and I know that that's not how it is now.

You have students from Thurston County and King County who come to UWT, which is wonderful, but I think when you get the homegrown students that want to go to UWT, that really shows the success of our campus, and I really want you to get there.

We want to get there too, and part of the resonance hall and the emphasis for having a residence hall is a lot of 17 and 18-year-olds don't want to live in an apartment and cook for themselves, and we don't have traditional residence halls, and we don't have a dining facility.

Yeah, and I've heard from students when I've gone to talk to the students that one of the biggest issues they're struggling with is housing and security, and if they were able to get you know grants or loans to go to UWT, and then you had housing for them, then they could live right there on campus, and maybe that would be a way they could afford to go to go to UWT and have a place to live.

So that's definitely the vision.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rumbaugh, Deputy Mayor Daniels.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you so much for the presentation and the video.

Thank God it worked.

It's I was kind of worried.

Um I think Council Member Rambaugh hit on a couple of things that I have been thinking about, and then you um you brought up uh what the the street vacation costs and then what um it what you could potentially use the funds for, and I just wanted to expand on that and make sure I understood correctly.

Um so if you aren't if you aren't able to use the dollars for the street vacation, or if you are allowed to use them for other things, I believe you said you would be purchasing housing outside of camp.

I did okay.

I did not see I didn't hear that.

I I thought I maybe heard that right wrong.

Okay, let me just clarify.

Don't make me make a plan.

We no, we um had three large um high rises go up in our campus footprint, and they're not affordable housing, so they're not places where our students live.

But they also then that meant that we would not be able to put academic buildings there at in the future.

If we don't buy up the rest of the property, which is why the legislature gave us the funding, we were not gonna be able to grow the campus to 10,000 students.

So um we have purchased most of them, and we still have a uh a couple to go.

Um but if we don't have the funding to do it, then we ran the risk of another high rise in our footprint.

And I just want to uh touch on that a bit, that legislative appropriation can only be used for land.

So if we utilize the funding to go, say to the street vacations, we would then not have that funding available to purchase the rest of the parcels.

So there would be other parcels that would be left open for developers to buy to then potentially put up high rises.

Okay.

I was confused because I heard high rises, but I wasn't sure if they were yours, and so I thought maybe I okay.

That makes sense.

Um, and I completely understand.

So you're gonna expand the educational buildings for class classes and stuff.

Um, one of the things that uh I heard your you have first of all, really amazing and smart students advocating for you and other students, um, particularly the ones from Tacoma at uh the state, and one of the things that they said that was their highest and greatest need was housing, particularly for those that are from Tacoma that want to be able to come to college uh here.

And if you could talk a little bit about how that fits in the plan in the future, and how if there is a way that this could help you to do that, what could that look like?

So the street vacation that we're looking for is right in this at the site where we want to do the housing development and create the the campus, the heart of campus.

So we will uh go to out to bed in November for a partner to build campus housing and add 500 housing um beds, traditional beds where students don't have to cook for themselves with a dining hall um to the campus on that site right next to the street vacation.

Oh god, it that must I think that was C1.

Okay.

Okay, amazing.

Yeah.

Um I think that was all of the questions that I had.

I just want to again thank you for the work that you're doing.

I think um we talk about economic development.

We talk about economic development, we talk about um students and we talk about many things as it relates to our economic development plan and jobs and how we attract business and all of these other things, and um education is a huge part of that.

Uh council member, I think that um you're right in saying that we need students to stay here, but I think we have a lot of entertainment uh barriers and other things that there's a bunch of reasons why kids don't want to stay at home and go to school, they might want to venture out a little bit further.

Um, so but I think that there's work that we can do together, um, especially as it relates to housing, and then on the fun and placemaking side to get students who want to stay here and uh contribute back home.

So thank you.

You know, one of the things that I'm so um just thrilled is a partnership with the city.

So we have been talking not only about what we do on campus, but what happens around us and how we can create um more a more vibrant um south of us um right there by the brewery district as we're building that new prayer line trail and that whole area over there needs to be redeveloped, and we want to be part of good partners in helping the city and others think about what happens there because that's the entertainment that students will be looking for as well.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Councilmember uh Bushnell.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you to the team for being here and being so bold and and visionary.

Um I I'm really excited for this project, and I in light of uh the questions that the the mayor has asked uh regarding the um what funds can be utilized for.

Um in my mind, uh you guys are using exactly or you're doing exactly what we would want out of the any funds that we would have received through this anyways.

So it's we're talking about uh transportation safety.

Uh we're talking about open spaces and green spaces.

Um that's exactly what we'd be if you know we were to um uh sell it.

Uh this would exactly be the same thing that we'd be so it doesn't in my mind it doesn't make sense when you guys are already planning on doing that in the first place, and we have a really great plan right here.

Um I do have some questions about like uh I didn't uh it's my understanding we did some utility work not too long ago, stormwater in that area.

Is that correct?

Um and I'm just curious about any kind of um utility infrastructure that might need to continue support in that and how what that kind of looks like.

I actually don't have any uh information on the utilities in the area, so um, maybe you guys can help with that.

I was gonna say, Sylvia, do you want to?

Thank you.

Silvia's all thank you, Councilmember.

We watched it.

It's a great conversation.

We partner very closely with TPU and the city when we're talking about utility infrastructure.

One of our projects that's further out is an interdisciplinary health sciences building that'll also continue to build infrastructure and we'll plan for infrastructure further up the hill.

So part of that would then also include that utility infrastructure in whatever way we're looking at as we continue to build conduits and other pieces up that hillside.

Um additionally, when we do that work, uh we partner with the city in planning as well to talk about what kind of other pieces do we need to talk about when it has easements or other kind of conversations, and so in any of those circumstances as we're putting up new things, we're obviously the electrical emergency brought it further to light, but thinking about how we can be sustainable and efficient and effective with the utility we put up the hill.

And the the main stormwater uh was replaced five years ago, comes down 19th Street, turns goes down Jefferson to 17th and then and then down.

Um this uh vacation includes an easement for that.

It's that on that there's kind of that central commons area between the Swiss and the housing.

It maintains that easement in there.

Got it.

Yeah.

Yeah, and as you I'm sure as you guys go through and design all this, try and make it in you'll I'm sure you guys will try and find make it away so that those easements can be accessed so that way we're not.

You know, that this beautiful campus.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh that work every year we partner with our civil engineering and urban studies students, and so they actually do capstone work in alignment with our capital planning.

That then means that they help design some of the infrastructure work as part of their learning outcomes as well.

So uh it's a real life experience that they get to use uh as they're learning, and then the city of Tacoma and other partners come in and actually help facilitate that learning with our students as well.

So it's not only an opportunity for us to uh benefit and for the community to benefit and for our students as well to use it as a learning outcome and benefit as well as they're doing the work.

Great, thank you.

Uh I I will just say that I I believe that UW Tacoma is really a gem in our city, and right now the conversations we're having is to polish it, right?

And to really make it shine.

And I think the the plan here that you guys have put forward and the partnerships that we're working uh with the city and other entities around, um, we're really gonna make this uh be a successful beautiful campus with student housing, with uh hopefully with that increased density in in folks being downtown that that also creates more opportunity uh both inside and outside the campus.

And we had talked about things that students would like to be uh part of.

Well, the market's there's gonna be a market for it, right?

So things like that will happen.

Uh and speaking of markets, I think maybe this is this is the catalyst we need to bring a grocery store to our downtown that's gonna work for everybody.

So I think I I'm really excited for for this plan and to to be a strong partner in in helping it the vision come to fruition and uh and what we can do in the future to support both inside and outside the campus.

And just to tag on to the economic development piece, I think in 2024, and we had shared this when we came in April in 2024.

Um we had done partnered with the university to look at our economic contributions and development across the state, and uh at that time it showed a 359 million dollar contribution to the state of Washington in economic development, and that was up from 149 million in the prior study.

And so I think it's a really great example of how continuing to build this directly uh contributes to the economy.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for for the presentation and and having this conversation with us today.

Um really looking forward to the next conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Bush.

Now, Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I got the right homework assignment here as a husky.

I just felt the vibe.

Uh I went to UW Seattle, but very grateful to have a UW campus here in R C D because the footprint is already great, and I think the vision you have going forward looks even more spectacular.

I'm really excited for that.

First time I got to see the video, so it's very good.

Um I was wondering, I think Councilmember Buschanel started to touch on the question that I had is um does any part of this revitalized campus core or the bigger footprint plan that you have include a grocery store?

Or is that a question for other staff?

Oh Sylvia, Sylvia is about to jump out of her chair.

We we're not planning to build a uh a grocery store in our footprint, but there is a big hole there at on 21st.

Is that 21st?

Right across the street from the camps, 21st and Fawcett, um, between Jefferson going up that hill to Tacoma.

That would be an ideal spot for a grocery store.

And I will say that the city's economic development um director um is very excited to talk about what might be.

I know we've had many, many false starts on that property, and that's a city property that um I think we were gonna build a police department on, and another location was chosen.

So, you know, we have great aspirations for what's gonna happen either there or up on Tacoma Avenue.

There are a couple of um vacant parcels there that would make really good opportunities for grocery stores.

Thank you.

I think that's a really important piece as we're thinking about getting 10,000 students on campus.

We already have folks in downtown, including students who have talked to many of us about getting a grocery store downtown.

So that's why I ask if it's in your footprint or just helpful to know where you're at in terms of also having that that thought in your mind is we already have a food desert on the east side, we have a new one in the South Um South Tacoma South End area, and now as downtown keeps developing, which we want, we want to make sure we're not creating a food desert by not getting a grocery store there.

So I appreciate y'all's collaboration in that.

Um, the other question I had is uh probably very cart before the horse, but I'm wondering to what degree y'all are working with um community members or folks around visioning what the Swiss melding might be.

Um, because I know that everyone has strong opinions and thoughts.

Um, I will just posit mine is that was one of the last good um venues that the city used to have before Alma came online and then offline, and so I think you know there's a music nexus there, there's lots of things and directions you could go there.

So I was just curious if you have a vision you're already leaning towards that you can share.

We don't um have a vision yet, but I will tell you that um as chancellor my first year I was surprised by how many people because I didn't know the Swiss.

The Swiss was the best.

But people like what I mean.

I get strong feelings more about what are we gonna do about the Swiss than than anything.

So I think that um we did have students um work with Tacoma Rising, yep, um, to do some visioning for what might happen in the Swiss, and so um that involved a community forum where the students did their presentations and um you know we we always try to have our students have an opportunity, a learning opportunity to engage.

So we have some ideas, but um, we would have to go through a feasibility process to come up with what we think that we're gonna have there.

And I'll just add that we did begin feasibility on that building this week um and doing that work.

Uh and one of the things that sort of wraps into all of that and in the community building is if it is something that we seek legislative funding for, which we're hoping for in the 27-29 biennium, that it has to be student educational student services focused, and so we're really looking at how to continue to build community and serve our students and utilize the feedback we received from the community and students in our master planning to really build that work, and so we have been really intentional in the engagement that we did in the master plan so that it would give us enough information to continue to work towards that again.

Also, our urban studies and civil engineering students have worked on a variety of projects as well that are community-engaged projects where they go out and engage community and community and students.

Uh, so we have a lot of data going into that project and how we envision what that will look like when we request funding from the legislature.

We do at this point think it'll probably cost 77 million dollars to do those, the renovation of those three buildings.

And so uh that's just uh another thing that we're very cognizant of and making sure we have a strong, a really strong message to carry forward to the delegation.

Great.

Uh looking forward to partnering on that.

That's a lot of money, but great.

And genuinely looking forward to partnering on it.

I think it's an important investment for the state to be making in Tacoma.

Um and the UW system.

I guess the last thing I wanted to say is thank you for having such a good vision for green space in our downtown.

I think the things that we hear about in downtown, I think the top things are affordability of housing, the grocery store and the green space, so that it's already built in is really exciting to me, and I appreciate all your work and coming here today.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember Diaz.

Council Member Scott.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you all for being here.

And I apologize I stepped out, but I've had the opportunity to few different opportunities to hear about just the campus master plan and the street vacation, including even yesterday I met with Courtney Acoff over there.

Um, and so I just one, I wanted to say, like, just thank you all for being very like deliberate and and thinking things through and um and just you know when I think of our downtown and uh just how important it is to to the city of Tacoma, whether that's economic development or all the students that exist down there.

Um it's one of the first places people see when they they come into the city, and so um I just you know there's a lot of really important pieces to our downtown, but I I love the way that UWT um is kind of taking this role of being one of the big centerpieces there, and like you know, my purple this vision I have for you all is that you're you kind of have this like you're this epicenter that has this gravitational pool that's bringing in students and industry and jobs and ideas, and then you know, incubating all that and kind of sending it back out into the community to continue that work in like different iteration iterations and and just really building on all of the really awesome things that we have going on in Tacoma.

So um, I didn't have any questions.

A few of the questions I had already were already answered, so I just wanted to share my appreciation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Scott, Councilmember Hines.

Yes, Madam Mayor.

Uh critical question is where is the sports arena as part of the master plan?

Yeah, no.

Uh I will not that was meant that was a joke, everyone.

So uh thank you.

No.

Maybe 5,000 seats, you know, for basketball.

No, um, for just Tacoma, there you go.

Dr.

Lang, I'll take care of him later.

Yes.

No, I just want to say I was at Illuminata for the 30th anniversary.

It was a wonderful event, great celebration, all the work you've done.

Um, I've had a lot of my former students leave my classroom and go to UWT and saying highly praises of what the admission and what you all do.

So this seems like a great legacy for us at State Tacoma to leave to you all in this project going forward.

So thank you so much for the presentation, and I look forward to further conversations.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Hines.

All right.

Well, that looks like there are no more questions.

So thank you all so much for the presentation.

Thank you, Dr.

Lang, and to the entire team.

Courtney, I didn't see you out there.

Um thank you so much for for this project and just for everything that you do for Tacoma and for students in Tacoma.

You know, it's it's great to have a vision.

Um and and it's good to have a direction to go in.

But what I appreciate is that it's not just a vision.

It is, it is, it is, or we say it's a working vision.

It is not something that we're just dreaming about.

It's something that you all are actually getting the work done to make come to fruition.

So really thank you, thank all of you for your leadership and for this work and look forward to getting the street vacation done for you.

All right, great.

Thank you all very much.

All right.

I've moved so many agendas around here.

Okay.

Moving on to our third agenda item.

Here comes our interim city manager.

Um, after two visits with the OSAC committee, um the uh the city manager, interim city manager Kim is going to present um his work plan.

Um he's already been working since June.

Um, but he's gonna uh share with us his plan for for moving ahead.

So Jung, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you so much, Madam Mayor, uh members of council.

I will go to the next slide here.

Um so I want to lay out um what the council has transmitted to myself in the form of expectations and themes.

I'll go over that along with some work plan and timeline items.

Um and please just stop me at any point if you have questions.

Um, starting with the first expectation, assisting council with policymaking role.

Um just want to straight um read from here uh the description of this uh expectation of the interim city manager reads as follows accurate and timely information, alternatives and recommendations, support strategic goals, concise written verbal communication, timely follow-up, um future focus, advanced planning, and the expectations are as follows.

Uh as far as work plan, we're in the midst of transition.

And so pursuant to what I've spoken to the OSAC committee, uh the work plan item for this is uh signing this to our relevant departments in the city manager's office, the city clerk's office, and the city attorney's office, along with every department to update all of our written materials for council onboarding.

Um the plan was to get that done by this this quarter, end of year.

Um, and I am I'm I'm happy that we're in process and actually the team is working on this as we speak, and the departments are reporting updating materials.

I do still foresee an opportunity for many opportunities for prospective new members of council, uh council members that will be continuing service to the community to have those touch points as well as those previews with the departments.

Um and so that's my work plan item for this item, um, along with uh the many other policy uh lanes that the council is pursuing and making sure that we're nimble and that we can adapt and be available for you all.

That is uh the first item.

Um the second theme is around organizational performance and internal administration, a little more concise.

Uh the description here is uh issue analysis and long-term solutions, periodic status reports, thorough knowledge of budgeting and finance management, cost control, timely and accurate financial reports, effective professional relationships with staff, clear expectations for staff performance, employee performance management, um, expectations uh developing the mechanisms and sustaining, I would add, uh, to gather suggestions from all city staff on policy issues and concerns that could lead to policy recommendations for council consideration.

Um, this is in conjunction with our established protocols and SOPs, as long with along with our your robust and very talented uh policy staff creating a new revenue uh strategy uh roadmap with clear and well analyzed menu of new and adjusted revenue options aligned with fiscal needs and community expectations.

Um council, I want to add on this one.

Um we have before you um wastewater stormwater SDC system development charges coming to committee as well as council.

We have transportation impact fees slated for uh October 28th.

Um we also have additional roadmap revenue options that are coming to you.

I'm anticipating that will be before you at the special meeting after Veterans Day on November 13th to discuss other revenue options for your consideration.

Um and then um the other expectation uh develop a no budget deficit budget in line with the adopted biannual budget framework.

This is to read the way I take away from this expectation, council is that you want a balanced 26 2026.

Um also providing council uh and mayor with transparent data informed analysis to support council in evaluating service levels, priorities, and potential service level trade-offs.

I want to note in this public meeting that uh the directors and I plan to go offline for a day, discuss uh evaluating the capacity of each of our departments from a throughput standpoint of what capacity they have, as well as just an organizational department by department analysis on what work is going so that we can really form recommendations for what I'm kind of terming for internal teams as a recovery plan that we'll be working on in alignment, running parallel with the 27-28 budget development starting in April that will come along with this recovery plan of not just the analysis but also why we need to have a recovery plan for where we're gonna be if we're going to be in hardship, which we are, and we could say that now, and we will not be in hardship if this plan works.

So I'm looking forward to uh unveiling that as part of my work plan to you all.

Um, as far as specifically to the the work plan, we're in process today.

Is our uh we'll have a committee of the whole after uh executive session to discuss some additional summaries and questions and answers from last week's presentation for midMOD.

We are tentatively slated for mid mod to be adopted by this council on October 28th, that's in two weeks.

Um expected outcomes for this.

It's again restating that our recovery efforts and planning for that effort for 27-28 from first quarter to the third quarter 2026.

Um, and I I touched on this before in creating a revenue strategy roadmap, um, mayor and council, this is probably where I have a dialogue with you all.

It's pretty succinct as far as what's in process now between SDCs, transportation impact fees, and then potentially another option, uh, councilmatic authority from perhaps House Bill 2015 for public safety, but then we're talking about possibly uh streets initiative and possibly uh maybe a library levy of sorts that we might want to talk to you in 26 about outside of that um just preparing continually through experimentation, outside the box thinking, piloting how do we support the businesses that will start businesses here or sustain businesses so that they can grow even in hardship.

Outside of that, just preparing continually through experimentation, outside the box thinking, piloting how do we support the businesses that will start businesses here or sustain businesses so that they can grow even in hardship.

That's kind of what we're thinking about.

The next um, I apologize.

Uh this is the work plan.

So I'm on the third part.

Um I'm gonna revise this.

So what as I was speaking to OSAC, your wonderful staff have actually named the pilot program.

It is and it was it was inferred in a public meeting uh I believe two weeks ago.

It's the missing middle uh permitting project.

Um this is coming to you uh next Tuesday at study session.

Um I'm really proud of the team, uh, led by PDS, environmental services and public works.

Uh this is a direct uh conversation from this council that we had uh back in February of of this year.

Um how can we speed up permitting?

And so talk to the team.

Um for many of our permitting uh efforts.

We have a number of plan reviews, permit application questions, and how do we bring those cycles down?

And so the premise is how do we get the teams together to be in coordination even more so?

Um I think you'll even find hear from the team next Tuesday the possibility of the inclusion of other uh utilities, not just environmental services, but this is a pilot program.

I've asked the team to learn fast, um fail fast, report back, uh checkpoint.

So this starts in January.

Uh they'll be back to you in June of 26 to report back what they're finding.

And as that is hopefully successful, or there's learnings to be had, they can report back to you all and conclude at the end of 26 and let you know.

And I've I've been really candid with our leaders.

Uming you all to the degree that I know you all, if the team is successful, we're doing this for for housing now.

You're gonna ask for more.

And so I want to I I would let them know if this pilot program nets out actual speed or consistency or reliability of what to be expected for the applicants, you're gonna want that for commercial.

You're gonna want that for other things.

So, and and our response will be, and we need to be um coalescing around the fact that we might need more resources.

This is a pilot program that we're not asking for resources at this time.

Um, so just want to share that with you.

Um, and then also uh substantially uh continually on the organizational performance.

Um we're in transition on the staff side as well.

We currently have uh the HR director recruitment efforts happening now.

We have slated um uh interviews that are gonna be happening here in the next few weeks.

Um after that, we have a um our neighborhood community services um interim director, Vicky McLaurin's doing a fantastic job.

That position will be competitively posted as well after that.

And I expect that there might be a few more after that too.

That's in alignment with your city manager search that's on you all.

That's obviously for obvious reasons that's not on me.

Um, and then uh the chief of police after that as well.

So just want to let you all know that, and just keeping the teams motivated in that change.

What are the opportunity costs?

What are the opportunity opportunities with changes?

And um, I think from a morale standpoint, just keeping our our directors who many of who are behind me today uh motivated, and uh they are doing a wonderful job for you all.

So I just want to reflect that.

That's today, as well as when you evaluate me come December.

Um the third theme of expectations is around communication, uh external communications as well as internal communications.

Um straightforward here.

Um, what I read from these words, and I'll read this here from the description as well as the behaviors from an internal perspective.

You want regular updates to council, uh this that you want me to share information with the council members in a clear, timely, and concise manner, and provide clear understanding next topics externally, high quality professional, uh accessible external communications and outreach, diverse and broad base of communication, community stakeholders, uh dialogue about issues and concerns, news media relations.

Um I take from this uh these words, uh, pretty straightforward.

Um, I'm talking about myself in the third person, um message in innovative new ways to tell our story differently.

Um, and so um I I can report back to you.

This is the work plan efforts that we're doing.

I can report back to you both Allison and myself and many of your directors are re-going back to the base, which is I'm meeting with neighborhood councils business districts.

Um, and I'm gonna keep that effort going along with your CBCs and just trying to get into the community of what they want to hear about.

And the things that I'm hearing right now are fairly consistent.

It's safety related, it's economics related, it's um you know the consistency of what we're doing, and then the safety net.

I I am hearing that uh pretty uh pretty loud and clear what happens and what's happening here in day 13 with the federal shutdown.

I'm hearing that um Tacomans, our residents that we serve are feeling vulnerable.

And um, I may come into an audience to talk about the budget, or I'm there to talk about a project.

They want to talk to us as staff on your behalf about what we're doing to help protect them.

And so, how do I translate that to you all and working with our wonderful MCO team on how we can actually get to short form, faster, more dynamic communication.

That's that's the charge there.

Um, I will share additionally here on both the external and internal side for work plan efforts.

Um they're pretty straightforward.

Um Allison, your deputy city manager and myself are working towards efforts to what we have for the meeting cadence of uh public forum, community forum, um, finding ways in which we can report that out to you as well as the community.

Uh those are kind of the work plan items from the communication.

It's pretty straightforward from the expectations.

That's what that looks like.

Um and then moving on to the next council expectation around strategies and status.

Um, I just want to share with you all on uh the description behaviors here, implements and actively monitors council priorities and progress, engaged and provides sound recommendations.

Um I hope that I can you know have substantive things that I can bring to you.

Um and it's happening every day, it's every Tuesday.

There's a lot going on right now, and I don't need to share that with you all as my as my bosses here.

Um you know you know what's going on there.

Um as far as work plan items, I'd like to share uh just from a broad sweep here.

Um Tacoma 2035.

Um this presentation will be coming to you in November uh for a refocused way in which we can you know fundamentally have a conversation about our plan of all plans.

This is our 10-year uh strategic plan for the city.

Uh it's an update from the 2035 efforts.

Uh expected outcomes for this one.

Uh I I that presentation in November will correspond with touch points for the council in January and February, so that there can be ownership from council and that we can get take directions.

That's a living document.

That it's not just a plan set for all of our planning efforts across every department, but it's a where in which you can say, yep, that's something that I own, and I want the city to work on.

Um the next work plan item is fairly succinct.

Um we have a partner project that has been launched with the city of Tacoma and the city council's efforts.

Um, the Tacoma Rescue Missions men's shelter expansion that just got kicked off here.

Um this project is in peril.

We have committed 3.5 million dollars in general funds, but we are also the fiscal agent for this project in the tune of four million dollars for the federal government.

Um, and leveraging that federal pass through was a good idea yesterday, it's a good idea today.

But as changes happen at the federal level, we need to continue to monitor this project on a weekly basis.

And interim director uh McLaurin, uh you know, deputy city manager, um uh Griffith, they are all working with the teams to make sure that we're supporting this.

We have an update on this one that I'll be providing to you next week.

Um there are changes happening here, and I just want to make sure that we have timely communication to you all so that you are aware of what's happening with the shifting landscape of federal funding, and that we are prepared.

Um, and then the last project, it's their second pilot program through this work plan.

Um, what I've described, this is this naming uh you'll notice I did not give it an acronym.

I've not yet done that yet.

Um, but this is not cemented.

But uh Director Chavez and his team are leading on an effort uh to bring uh dollars that were appropriated through a legal settlement for our partners at Department of Ecology, and uh they've had two workshops, or actually one workshop, a subsequent follow-through.

Um what I would like the team to do is how does the city prove and demonstrate to the state that we're in a better position to actually execute on cleaning up the air in South Tacoma.

We I believe we are in a better position.

Let us deploy those dollars.

And so that's a lofty goal, and there's this is probably one of the most risky ones because the standpoint is we don't have control in imposing our will to the state, and so I do trust that Director Chavez and his team are the right team uh to work this out.

And uh success for me as a success factor in reporting back to you is can we get an interlocal agreement with DOE hopefully by the end of the year?

Um, and then we can talk about what that looks like for our our residents in that area.

So with that, this is my uh work plan and expectations that you've set, and I've spoken to OSAC about love to take any questions or concerns.

Um, thank you for that presentation and to my colleagues.

I know it took us a little while to get this to get this done.

OSEC got really busy when they started, and so um, but really excited, Young, for the work that you've done to bring this um before the council today.

And so um I'm gonna start by calling on councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I just wanted to maybe say the same thing you both did was just that we have spent some time on this at OSAC and um gone into some detail and after the first iteration asked for a little bit of a different breakdown so that it was super clear exactly what we're doing and the goal to keep it keep it simple, but also reflect all of the many, many, many, many things that the city manager does.

So I think um Hugh, and this really came out great, and I'm I I really like the the flow of it.

I don't have questions because I've had some time with it, and I think maybe our colleagues need a little bit more time with it, but I appreciate that there's the sort of high-level um uh big points in the plan, but we know that this doesn't um even touch the amount of day-to-day work that you do, and so we we wanted to be able to recognize that um and know that you're keeping everything else going underneath as these big items are popping up, but really appreciate the work and and making this as clear as possible and and excited to um get moving.

I do have one question about that TRM shelter expansion, but it sounded like you're gonna come to us with an update next week, so I'll just hold on that.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Walker.

Are there any um additional questions for the city manager?

No questions means you're guys are okay with the plan.

Whoa, whoa, light hands went up, lights went on.

We'll start with Council Member Rumba.

Thank you, Mayor.

Actually, I wanted to just reflect on what Council Member Walker said that we need some time to process, and that's really what I'm doing.

And I was wondering if he could bring it back next week and we could talk through again because I this is the first time seeing it.

So I appreciate I mean there's a lot of other things going on, so I apologize that maybe I didn't see when you sent it out.

I wanted to say that I really appreciate the letter that you sent to staff and to us about the budget and talking.

I that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

Is that being ahead of something and bringing out information so you're transparent?

I really appreciate that.

That was a nice and it was well written and very thoughtful.

So I wanted to just commend you on that.

I didn't get to say that, so thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Romba, Councilmember Hines.

No, uh thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, uh, city manager.

I think this is really great.

I'm very excited about the permitting plan, the concurrent permitting.

That's something we you've heard from myself and the deputy mayor quite a bit over the last couple months, I guess, many of us, and so I'm happy to see that's part of the plan.

I'm also very excited about the Department of Ecology partnership.

I know that we've heard a lot about how we can plant more trees and build out an urban canopy, and I think that's this is actually a really good way to do it, um, as opposed to some of the conversation we've bogged down on around kind of our housing goals.

Um, this is the way to really be proactive and make sure we're planting more trees.

So I think there's lots of really good things here, and um I think you've done a good job of capturing most of the things that I had thought about going ahead.

So thank you to the OSAC committee for all your work on this.

This is great, and thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Hines.

All right, city manager.

I see no further questions or comments.

So we'll we'll get it back on the agenda, then everybody can digest it and we'll have a full discussion.

Thank you.

All right, we're gonna move on to our fourth agenda item, which is uh uh council action uh memorandum, uh amending title eight of the Tacoma Municipal Code relating to camping and storage of personal belongings on public property, and I'd like to call on council member Heinz.

So uh thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh, I want to just take a moment.

We talked about this last week at the study session, so I first of all just want to uh thank my colleagues for being part of that conversation.

Um, I know that we often don't have you know kind of those in-depth conversations where people are really thinking and engaging and talking about these things out out in during study session, and I really appreciate people's kind of willingness to be really direct and clear about their thoughts um to ask their clear questions, and and I just want I want to say I appreciate the dialogue.

Um so this is just to kind of talk about based on that conversation.

I am bringing forward an ordinance amending title eight, and I just want to talk about a couple things that I did based on your feedback and and uh comments.

So based on the what I heard at the study session last week, just to be reflective, uh the new language uh states our intention that anyone found in violation of community buffer zones be reacted to our therapeutic courts when qualified.

I think that was something that's come up multiple times, both from my colleagues and from the community idea of you know how are we how are we using the utilizing this to get people connected to shelter and services.

I think by requ having in the specific code that we would direct people to therapeutic court when qualified and recognize that's a that is a piece of this, right?

Where not everyone is qualified for therapeutic court, but when qualified, directing people there.

Um and I think actually the one success story that we found out of the previous kind of uh people who were cited for violent camera, they were sent through therapy to court, got access to shelter services, housing, and now have transitioned into stable housing on their own.

So I think having that as a critical piece of the code is important and shows our intent that this is about getting people help.

I think the second part is um we looked at lots of different maps on Tuesday, heard a lot of feedback about thoughts about kind of what they looked like and you know how much how little the city was impacted.

So I made a clear change, which is um the community buffers around our public schools, public parks, and public libraries.

Um the initial one of the maps had it at five blocks, which I knew drew a lot of um questions around from my colleagues, also questions of the community.

I've narrowed it for this proposal to two blocks around public schools, public parks, and public libraries, so really shrinking the amount around those areas, but still kind of maintaining the intent, which is how do we keep public spaces open to the public, open and accessible to the public.

Um one comment was about some of our buffer pre-existing buffers that were around our shelters, and could we decrease it?

So, as part of this next proposal, uh this proposal I'm bringing forward, we're gonna decrease the five block the 10 block buffers that are around the shelter sites that are outside of the downtown core from 10 blocks to five blocks.

So think of Thames 3, Kingfisher Village, um, this uh those are the two big, I'm trying to remember the other one.

There's two other ones.

Bethlehem Baptists and um the Adams Street shelter from the rescue mission.

We're we're gonna shrink those, those are gonna go from 10 to 5 because they're outside of the core.

But remaining with the 10 blocks around the shelters in the downtown core.

The reason for that was when we started looking at the five-block buffers around the downtown core, um, it started looking much more confusing.

There were lots of spaces between different sites, and because of the sheer density of the numbers that are down there, we kept it at 10 blocks to kind of give a more cohesive kind of downtown zone to the kind of areas.

So that's where we landed with that one that proposal bringing here.

And then it still maintains the buffers around the protected waterways that was in the initial ordinance.

Um those are the changes.

The maps were public, the final the map that we're operating off of was published on that I'm bringing forward tonight was published on Thursday.

Um I know there were lots of questions about the different maps and different um proposals, and what I would say to you all, and I've said to people who reach out to me in the public, is you know, the first conversation with different maps was meant to be a discussion with you all to understand kind of where your perspectives were and to try to understand kind of what where people were to kind of come to where I am at at this point in time.

Um before I just discussion, I want to just bring a couple points that I brought up last week, but I'll say it again.

Um of the things that we've run into and why this is coming forward now is um with the kind of stand down of some of our sites, we've seen some of the buffer areas that were pre-existing have gone away without us really having a conversation about whether or not we thought that would be a good idea to remove the buffer areas and just um return to kind of pre-2022 um enforcement and response levels.

Um, what we're seeing is we're getting a lot of people reaching out to all of us, um, and I've been out kind of talking to people in neighborhoods for the last few months about the community impacts of encampments and in areas where they would say, like, well, before this wasn't here, and now it's here again, what's going on?

Um, and clearly it's directly related to the kind of buffer changes.

And so that's why I think having this conversation now is important.

Um I think the second part is I've been hearing from a lot of folks why not just the buffers around our permanent shelters or shelters we have, but um, why not um why bringing in the public facilities?

And that's like related to some of the concerns I've heard from the public as I'm out talking to folks in neighborhoods, as I'm out, you know, having conversations with business owners, with just residents as I'm kind of walking to the city, that there have been some challenges with people feeling they are unable to or cannot access public places, including schools and parks and libraries just because of the large number of encampments that are nearby.

Um and I think what we want to be able to do is balance the fact that these are public spaces open to the public.

Anyone can go to a park, anyone can go to a library.

Um, but we want to make sure that they are open and accessible for people.

So that's bringing that one forward.

And then I I just really want to come back to the I've heard a lot about the community buffer zones that we had before and kind of what are some of the challenges.

And you know, the data one thing about data is no matter what data you have, someone will dispute your data, and we can go back and forth disputing data over and over again.

But the data that I'm operating under is what we've been kind of shared with from our kind of heel team.

And in the last three years, we've seen you know over 770 encampments that have been addressed through the time here.

Our 311 data also shows that Camus off simply relocated to other parts of the city.

I would just be clear that one of the concerns that was raised in 2022 was John, if we just say you can't have this large encampment or 705, won't that large encampment just redirect itself down the street into an area that's not in the buffer?

That's not what we've seen.

We haven't seen the really large ones recreate themselves in new places.

Um and so that is, I think, a place where we found some success here.

Um I also just say that in the buffer errors we found that people are more likely to accept services in the buffer zones than they were outside the buffer zones.

That's a data point that's been true since the first day we passed it, that people who are interacted with inside the buffer zones, the percentage of them accepting offers of shelter and service are higher than people that are outside.

Um and I have I'll save a lot more of these comments for this evening because we have first reading.

But you know, I again, just to reiterate, um, and I said this way back in 2022, but you know, this plan is not about ending homelessness.

I'm a firm believer the way we end homelessness is providing shelter and housing for folks in our community.

It's why I stood up to my neighbors back in 2020 to set up a shelter right by my house, um, because I believe in it at that much that I'm willing to put it in my own neighborhood.

But I think the challenge that we're looking at with some of the encampments is encampments are not safe, and they are not, and they have community impacts on people in the community, and they have impacts on the people who live inside of them.

And so this is meant to really address some of the impacts, community impacts of encampments.

I understand that the way we that a key component of how we get rid of encampments and continue and to have fewer people living on our streets is shelter, housing, and services.

But I would pause that even if we had enough shelter beds and enough housing and enough places for people to be, we would still most we would still need a camping ordinance to address some of the impacts of people camping in around a house on our streets.

We need to balance that.

We would need to have that still too.

Um and finally, just really clear that you know, this goal is not to limit the anyone's ability to use or visit public facilities, public parks, public libraries are open to the public.

Anyone can go there.

This is not about that.

This is about encampments and storage of public private goods on private property, on public property and kind of the taking of public property for private use that we're really trying to address here.

So uh those are my comments here today.

Happy to answer any questions from my colleagues.

Um, also happy to talk further about anything in this proposal if people would like to see changes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Hines.

Do we have any questions or comments for council member Heinz?

Councilmember Scott.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um of the concerns that I have about uh this conversation that we're having is that we that we seem to be separating it from our homelessness strategy.

Um I understand that on one hand that we need um that we need to talk about like kind of managing the community impacts and from encampments and keeping public spaces open.

Um but on the other hand, I think what we're missing from the conversation is just a discussion on how we can also improve our approach around services first, around permanent supportive housing, around all the things that we um state as our as our mission and what we're what we're working toward in our in our strategy that we do have.

Um I understand that like a big part of that is funding, and I know that that's part of the reason why this conversation can you know maybe doesn't move at the speed we might want it to because obviously we've been talking about the budget.

We know that we have our issues with um, you know, just making sure that we have what we need to to provide all the services that this community would like us to provide.

But um, but I do know that we we do have some existing resources and uh that could help toward that we could direct toward enhancing our services.

Um like, for example, one of the issues that you know NCS has brought up, but a lot of our community members have brought up is that folks are you know engaged in an addiction.

Um of all kinds of substances, and I think that like if we think about our services first approach, um doing more to get people into places where they can address those addiction that substance use and um would be a key part of this.

And so, you know, thinking at like how do again, like how do we have this as a tool, but like how do like considering this is a conversation that we know is going to impact this community, and I get that where we may be breaking up larger encampments.

Um what I'm not hearing necessarily is that encampments are going away, that more people are housed, that uh we're not seeing some of these issues, so it just feels like having this conversation absent of the other conversation that we should be having around our issue with homelessness and uh housing insecurity in general and getting people the services they need, whether it's around substance abuse uh abuse, mental health issues, whatever the case may be.

Um so I think like as we think about um specifically going back to like talking about detox and substance abuse, like we have funding from like the opioid settlement, and um I know it's we can't talk about like how we use dollars that we have not yet allocated, but you know, having one of the things that if we're gonna be talking about this, um whether or not it's about homelessness or not, we we know as the policymakers here, and we know um from what we saw when this first got brought up when it was originally passed to the community discourse and dialogue that we hear now is that these two things are connected in the mind of the community, and so how do we make sure um that we are looking at just doing that work in tandem and doing it in a way that's intentional and doing it in a way that can help us dress address and and live up to the value that we are stating in our strategy, considering that we know that this has been used as um a piece of it's been used in a way that has impacted that strategy, um, and that you know it's not that we don't have we haven't done the work to create that strategy here.

Um whether or not we've done a good job of expressing that to the community might be a conversation we can also have um and really helping to help them understand what the work is that we're trying to do.

But I think one thing that will help is making sure that when we do this work, we don't do it in a silo of just this one particular ordinance.

And so um, I mean, I think you know if we can again we can't direct these dollars that haven't been allocated, but I think you know, something that would start to make me feel more comfortable about this conversation we're having is something like you know, directing the city manager to potentially like with that intention of like how as you're looking at how we might spend those dollars, um, understanding that you know one of the biggest issues is that we're seeing in some of our encampments.

So I don't know if this is something that like you know, I I'd like to get feedback on this or other ideas that people are thinking about, and uh, you know, we're kind of on a short timeline with first reading being tonight and uh and getting there, but I I think that if there is some like appetite for it, I just I would be more interested in this conversation around the ordinance if we were thinking a bit more broadly about connecting this to our services first approach outside of just the therapeutic core piece.

Thank you, council member Scott.

Council member Diaz.

Thank you.

Um I was wondering if you're prepared to talk now or this evening or maybe another time about some of the concerns we've heard heard from folks about funding for or fiscal impacts of this policy, or just generally funding and how the city is using tidy up to coma funds versus how this kind of policy impacts that sort of cleanup or just general other things that we um as a city pay for for different elements of city cleanup or um removing debris post-encampments or or that kind of thing.

I can speak a little bit to it and I'll speak further to it tonight.

That's a great question, Councilman Deus.

So one of the things that came out of last one was was how is this gonna impact the work kind of of the heel team?

One of the things that I that I brought up was bringing up was with the buffer areas kind of going away, we actually reduce the workload of the heel team, right?

Because they're they both are responding through on one calls connecting with folks, but then there's fewer areas to kind of be more focused on for the buffer areas.

So by looking at this, and when we look at kind of the amount of the city that'll be covered, we'll roughly see the heel teams kind of capacity returning back to where it was when we had all the buffers on.

So we're not gonna expect to see an increase in demand or cost around that for implementation heel team side.

I one thing I I want to bring up though is I had to ask this question.

So for heal team, when we started this, we had four.

I'm looking at Allison.

When we started in 2020, we had four heel team members or two.

Actually, three council members of the two.

Okay, yeah, two.

Okay, sorry, I'll bring it over.

So when we started this, we had three healers SEAL team members, we've now since expanded to eight heel team members of the heel team, they're not doing this outreach.

So we've kind of really expanded our capacity to do it.

Um there we have the ability to kind of manage what we're seeing here.

Um the tidy up conversation, I did do some look at that.

So roughly per year we spend about 2.2 million dollars dressing kind of debris, trash, dumping related to camping or encampments.

So that is both kind of cleanup and mitigation, but also just the debris or um trash as part of just having people who are living on you know unhoused.

Well they don't have trash service, they don't have trash service.

So then we're so that's where we're covering with that part of the broad that proceeds.

So that's those are the two things I had so far.

Did I answer all your questions or what am I missing?

Um I think you started to get there.

I just I wanted, I know I've heard questions about that, so I was just wondering if you had some of that readily available, if you're gonna continue to talk more about it, because I think it's just an education point for us as we're considering this policy.

Yeah, and and I think so, and as a way to to think through this at least a little bit, um the way we manage the waterways, the 200 feet around waterways, is all direct, it's all done through kind of through in one request, right?

So it's not just a heel team or people are driving around every waterway in the city of Tacoma and kind of managing those areas.

Um, the buffer areas that are around our shelter sites a little bit easier to kind of manage to keep an eye on.

So for the new areas around the community uh buffers, schools, parks, and libraries be something very similar to that.

So still driven by three on one, still kind of balancing based on the capacity of the heel team.

So we don't see necessarily an increase in cost because we're still operating with the same number of people and same level of resources, but really just trying to be responsive as they come up.

Okay.

And then the other question I had, I think comes up around the how many heel times team members we used to have versus how many we have now.

Um I think we've heard probably presentations on this in the past, but I think it would be helpful if you know or if the director knows or can give a broad overview of what kind of conversations or services the heel team members are having with folks as they're approaching them.

I know that they give folks notice.

I know that they interact with them to try and give out services, but I'm wondering do they bring water?

Do they bring any kinds of other resources?

If if anybody can clarify that because I think it helps inform some of the conversation around this as well.

If that if we're using the map to prioritize where these folks are going, what are they actually doing when they go?

Okay.

Uh it looks like Vicky is walking up to the microphone.

So I'll let if she'd like to answer that question, she can.

Um, or an interim director with neighborhood and community services, and thank you for that question.

So the heel team does go out to the when we're out in encampments.

Um, we ask people if they would like services, we try to get them into shelter or some type of stable housing.

We do provide water, we provide um food, we provide just big basic necessities while we're out there.

Um, but our intent is really to get people into shelter.

Okay, so anytime folks are getting tents or coats or anything else that is from community members or folks who are not on the heel team, correct?

That's correct.

Well, yes and no.

There's been times when people have given us donations of different things, and we have we'll we may provide that, but our primary is food and water, and then also getting people into shelter.

We're not providing tents though.

Okay.

Do we talk to folks at all about who they can connect with for different resources if they ask if it's not shelter?

We do, and we can.

Um, you know, basically a lot of the people that are out there, we are we know by name.

Um, they know us, and so we're familiar with what they're looking for and what their needs, and so we do try to see if we can meet their needs and then get them to the proper services if possible.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

I think it's just a helpful reminder for folks.

Umber Rumba.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I just um I did talk to many of the council members here today that I'm gonna be working on a motion for next week's packet.

Um that will uh be asking the city manager to work with surrounding partners on a low barrier site for unhoused in our community.

And you know, when I think about what I'm looking for, I really appreciate what council member Scott had to say if there's some way to tie it to drug treatment or some type of substance abuse help.

I I would love to do that.

Um I'm really looking for people to be in a safe place, someplace that people can go if we are passing a camping ordinance.

And I really the model that really stuck out for me was the forging path site um that was up on 35th and Pacific.

It was a low barrier site, and it provided safe spaces, but also had you know, other people who showed up to help and support people, and it I know council member Sidalgay and I were talking about it today as well.

For me, when I took Pierce County council member Amy um Kruver there and um I believe council member um Heinz was with me, she was blown away by something that was for people who had been unhoused coming there and getting the stable services that they needed to move forward.

And I believe that um we should be able to find a place like that in our area.

We are sort of running out of space in the city of Tacoma but I think we can find something with working with partnering cities or other entities, public entities that believe that they may have space.

So I'm truly believe that um before we can get to a unified regional approach we need to work with our partnering cities to figure out where do we align on things and um I just I just think that that's where we need to be and I um we'll be asking our city manager to be looking at that and there'll be something in the packet next week.

So thank you.

Councilmember Walker Oops thank you Deputy Mayor um I just wanted to I think weigh in in agreement to all these things that have been said um councilmember Hines thanks for um being responsive to um so many of our requests I just pulled up the email that you sent because Councilmember Scott's um comments reminded me that I had also asked for you know how does this fit in with the context of what we're doing.

So having the list in front of us that is all the different shelters that are open right now plus the two that are two emergency shelters that are in the works to be opened soon.

This is super helpful because I I do absolutely agree with that we can't do this in isolation.

And really appreciate I happen to um swing by the um parking site this weekend and so just a shout out to staff who are making all of these things happen um really really good resources that are out there in the community.

So appreciate the conversation I realize it's sort of awkward because we do, you know we're only talking about this ordinance but all these other things are happening.

I do think that that's part of the larger plan.

I'm wondering um I'm sort of thinking out loud here Councilmember Hines as we present this tonight is there a way to put some of that information out um to the public from the dais to say here's what we have I know we don't have time for the full presentation that we got at study session a couple weeks ago from the heel team but um maybe some of those bullet points to just again reiterate or um make public what we are doing.

I I think that we can do that I'll work with Christina to make sure that's part of the conversation this evening.

Okay.

And to share that out then thank you for referencing the email that I sent out you know that answer tried to answer many of your questions in last week.

So um I appreciate the thought and time people took to dive in.

Great thank you.

Councilmember Bushnell thank you Deputy Mayor um and thank you uh for um conversation here um one of the questions I had last week and you had answered in the email that you sent out is regards to low barrier shelter um and it it uh it mentions that the one site that we do currently have is the stability site that is about a hundred beds this might be a question for you what what is the c the with that hundred bed capacity how many is it is it completely filled up right now or um I know also that we have about a 23% exit rate to permanent housing out of that stability site specifically.

And is it fully utilized?

Thank you for that question.

So yes the stability site is currently full we have a wait list um it is uh completely utilized and it does have that success rate of of 23% great thank you I think 23% success rate is really great.

Um and for me to really it should hopefully we we can improve on those numbers I think there's always room for improvement.

But I you know I kind of take pause because really one of the big things um we're good thank you so much uh um I I kind of take pause on this because at the end of the day we need some place for somebody to go and and one of the things I really appreciate about the low barrier sites specifically you can come as you are there's really if you're having uh issues uh with substances if you're having challenges with your mental health uh if you're having any level of challenges these low barrier sites are are places that you can go and get the support and help you need there's really no excuse you can just come as you are um and I I take pause because I hear that we're we're at full capacity for the 100 beds that we currently have and so if we're gonna have this push poll of to try and get folks the support they need to be successful um I I would like to see if if we are at full capacity here maybe is there a way to transition some of our other locations to be low barrier uh it's so we can increase those beds because really I I don't want there to be an excuse to say hey I can't make it because of this or I don't want to do it because of that.

Uh it's so we can increase those beds.

Because really, I I don't want there to be an excuse to say, hey, I can't make it because of this, or I don't want to do it because of that.

Um we should be uh here's some shelter, you can come as you are, let's get you the help you need.

Um and clearly we're not we're not there uh in terms of capacity, and then I'm also concerned about the you know, even with the the current areas that we have now, there's a there's there's still encampments and there's still a kind of a like kind of making sure that we're meeting community expectations and what we can and have capacity to handle as a as a group.

Um and so those are kind of those are kind of the thoughts that are kind of coming through my head right now.

Um thank you again for for the conversation here.

Did you wanna Yeah, I can kind of take a quick recapsulation.

No, uh thank you very much.

And to Councilmember Scott and Council Roma Customer, if you are willing to bring forward a resolution around that, I would be happy to support it.

Um I do think that a low barrier side is something we should be talking about.

Um we hear it very clearly from community, and if my colleagues are saying that this is something we want to do alongside of this, um, I think that sounds like a good idea to try to talk to what it looks like.

One thing I would point out, you know, because I'm on the uh Pierce County Opioid task force, one of the real clear glaring gaps we have in our system right now is we have no 24-hour um opioid um treatment center in the entire city.

So nowhere that open pass 8 p.m.

where if you decide, hey, I want to be I want to get services, you can go, which is something I'd really like to see us look at, and I think there's some willing partners that want to do that.

Um so I think there's a broader conversation around that that I'd like to see too.

Um I think we can do do both.

Um I think to Councilor Bushnell's point, um I also interested to see what we can do to try and transition some of our other sites from kind of where they are to lower barriers or some contracting stuff we'd have to look at for that.

But um I think those are all good things to for that I'd like to consider and have us be part of this conversation.

I you know when I keep when I try to separate and I think there's a it's both challenge to like pull them apart, but also I I just I try to pull a piece, a couple of these pieces apart because I I trust is uh I trust the Hill team that they're out talking to these folks and have made connections here.

And one of the things I keep asking over and over again is like, well, what what are we missing?

Like, what's the thing?

And it becomes it boils down to really specific kind of individual pieces of it.

And I'd really like to see that conversation continue to roll forward about how we address that.

At the same moment, I mean, I my perspective on some of this is right that um encampments that are left unaddressed where people are not being connected to or being contacted, do become real health and safety issues for people.

And there are people who probably want more than life who get kind of pulled into them that becomes hard to kind of connect with.

Like one of the challenges we have with 705, to be really clear, was we had people inside of there who wanted help, but it was so dangerous that we couldn't get we couldn't get outreach workers inside.

Um, and so one of the while I understand this concern about well, we're still seeing people who are homeless our community.

We are because everywhere in this region, we're seeing numbers of people with homelessness continue to struggle, right?

It's not Tacoma alone where we're seeing homelessness go up, though I I think that is something that has been brought up.

Um it's the entire region that we're seeing it.

But I one thing I we have found is when people are in smaller groups or smaller encampments, it's easier to make contact with outreach to get connected to them, get them shelters and services they need, and we see less of the fires, less of the kind of kind of crime that was associated with the larger encampments.

And so while I'm I'm very supportive of all of my colleagues, and like how do we get people the services, the shelter, the housing options, how do we make sure there's off ramps for people to get to um what's available.

I also think this is kind of a uh public safety kind of challenge, community impact challenge that we have to address at this time.

So Councilmember Rombach.

Yeah, just one more thing, and thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I just I want to just re-stress that um this is not just a Tacoma issue, it's a Pierce County issue, and that's why we have have a unified regional approach we're working on.

Um, when someone from Furcrest tells me that when there's a homeless person that they identify in Faircrest and the police officer asks them, what are you doing here?

And they say, Let me take you to services, they take them to Tacoma.

And so I think it's it is our job to serve people, and it's our job to help support other cities and the county and moving forward on a unified regional approach so that there are services and places for people to be all over our county, not just in the city of Tacoma.

And um we're like 20% or 22% of the population of the county, and we're doing over 80% of the service.

And I think that that's probably not the right mix.

I think there needs to be more service in other parts of our county where people actually are can get the help they need, and we need to move to a different style where we have that mobile service so that people are served wherever they are.

Um, I'm just a strong believer, and there's lots of different ways to do this, and there's not just one solution.

And you know, it's sort of um important for us to support a lot of different things, and I really appreciate um our council, and I appreciate Councilman Burhines for doing hard things.

I appreciate it's difficult to bring forward things that are unpopular because they don't look like they're doing what people think they need to do.

But I think we need to do a lot of different things to get where we need to go, and I really appreciate how thoughtful people are sitting right here at this table.

So thank you.

Both ends, yeah.

Okay, go go right ahead.

I I didn't want to call on you if you were not.

Um thank you for bringing this back so we could um discuss some of the questions that we had last week, and thank you for sending the emails out with the updates and then uh with the one map.

I think it's helpful to understand where we're going or where you are looking to go.

Um I still have a few questions that I think are left over from the last one, and I think Councilmember Diaz got at some of it, but um I have further questions and just kind of like just trying to make sure that my understanding is correct.

Um in the updated cameras impact, it says what funding is being used to support the expense.

Are expenditures and revenues planned and budgeted in this biennium's current budget.

Um my question with that is we talked about sending folks to therapeutic courts, and I assume that I know that they're already stood up, but my question is how have we budgeted to expand those courts?

It and what does that look like on here?

That should be part of our fiscal impact if it's a direct cost and we're sending people directly to therapeutic courts.

Um, there is a fiscal impact there.

Um, the other question that I had was we there it seems to be some discrepancy in what it costs to enforce this.

I heard you say 2.2 comes from tidy up, um, but we have several different funds that money comes from to support this.

So if we have three million dollars from our heel team budget, 5.2 million dollars from the tidy up fund, which equates to the 2.2 uh you mentioned earlier, another million dollars from right-of-way site reclamation that comes from our public works general fund and streets fund, two million dollars from our hot team, which comes from our general fund, and then um some small amounts from code compliance.

My concern is that this is 11 million dollars, and again, we have a council action memorandum that says that there is no fiscal impact.

That's problematic.

There is an impact fiscally to this, and it and I think that that impact gets in the way of what we had talked about earlier as having a homelessness strategy and not being able to fund it.

How do we balance the two if we are spending so much money on just cleaning up the same sites over and over?

The issue that I have with this is that again, I don't know that it solves the issue.

I think we're gonna get a lot of people with complaints in the areas that are gray, as we do now, where it is not banned, and then we are going to end up cleaning up where we have been.

I feel like I I've been racking my brain on this because I live where it is banned, and we still see encampments.

They're not large, they're small, but it's the same folks, it's not having a place to go because we don't have enough low barrier sites.

The vision of our homelessness strategy is that we have places for people to go in all stages of their homelessness and or of being unhoused.

We have not yet met that, and it's really hard for me to entertain calling in other tools if we haven't quite funded enough for there to be shelter for everyone.

And it feels like we have instead focused on funding cleanup rather than funding permanent um supportive low barrier sites for places to be.

Councilmember Rumbai, I appreciate you for wanting to bring something forward.

I just have questions about where that dollar where those dollars would.

We have we spend right away dollars right now on cleaning up, and so I think that there's more questions about how we would do that.

And I also don't know if it's our responsibility to fund supportive services in other cities.

I and I don't know how we make that make sense, and then also ask the state for our our shelter dollars for us.

Like there's this a lot of things that are happening budget wise that still need to be worked out.

Um, and that's just on the financial side of this.

On the timing side, I have problem with bringing forward this kind of ordinance um coming up on November in the coldest season that we have.

I feel like it's particularly egregious, and I wonder why we would choose to do this in this season.

I think that there's a better way that we can do this.

And when the reality is when we move people around and it's below a certain degree, they die.

They don't have services, we cannot find them, and they end up under they end up.

We know that people pass away during this time, and I just feel like that's there that has to be said.

This is something that we could consider over the next year into the summertime, maybe, so that we can have time to implement and pilot this new strategy that I still have concerns with, um, but I think doing this in the middle of winter is again particularly egregious.

Those are not all questions, but yeah, thank you.

Councilmember Hines.

Yeah, thank you.

And thank you, Matt.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And and I appreciate your tough questions here and thoughts about this.

First, first part therapeutic courts.

Our therapeutic courts are underutilized at this point in time.

They have capacity.

We're not citing people for misdemeanors that qualify for therapeutic court.

So one of the ideas behind this is if we were to move to deferring people to therapy court, we would be able to better utilize the resources already than allocated, but they're functioning under capacity right now.

Um, so the idea would be transitioning more people there to capacity so we can get them to capacity, and then there would be a further conversation.

But at the end of the day, um, we cited three people in 2022 to 2023 or 25.

So I we our heel team continues not to lean into enforcement directly.

And so I I don't know, we don't feel staff does not feel like it's gonna be a resource issue for the therapeutic court.

Um now, with therapy court being an option and people who qualify, we maybe we see it using citations as a way to better channel them to it because you can't send somebody to therapeutic court unless they've been cited.

Um, but we don't anticipate it's going to be a capacity issue for them.

Um the the money conversation, the three million dollars for the heel team again is for outreach.

So whether we had a camping ordinance or not, we're just gonna spend three million dollars on outreach unless we want to scale back the amount of outreach we're doing.

So that's a part I I hesitate to say that's just for removing encampments.

It's our outreach budget that we've been funding.

So that's three million dollars that's there, whether we take this policy on or not.

The 1.1 million dollars from the state for right-away is directly for reclaiming sites.

So if we don't, we wouldn't have that money if we weren't addressing encampments, it just wouldn't be there.

Um the 2.2 million dollars from tidy up, yes, I you know that is a cost that's associated with it, but I would say, and I haven't been able to have staff find the data on it yet, but we were paying millions of dollars pre-2022 for encampments cleanups when we didn't have an ordinance because there's just was a lot of a lot of trash, they don't have regular people on the streets don't have regular trash service.

So I would just say that the fiscal impact is not there, not because we're trying to hide the cost.

You've been very clear about laying out the cost of the current operation, it's that this won't mean additional costs.

It will it will fit within that structure of how we'll pay for it.

Um the season conversation is uh you know is one I have been thinking about.

Um, as you know, we've talked, I've been talking about making this change for well over a year now and had conversations with many of you about making changes to this.

Um, one of the things that we do have coming is as cold weather months come, we see expanded shelter offerings and abilities.

The rescue mission increases capacity, nativity house increases capacity, a bunch of other facilities due to cold weather when it gets cold enough, open up their doors for more people.

So there will be increased capacity for people on that.

Um I you know, to there I just you know, there's probably just a philosophical difference in the fact that I don't think that um letting people fend for themselves on the street during cold weather is is is the r is uh a good choice in this option.

I'd like to see more of those people come into shelter and housing, and if this ordinance would encourage more people to do so.

But I I think that's best answer to that to your questions, Deputy Mayor.

Um, and I understand you know your concerns and happy to chat with you more offline about it.

Are there any other questions or comments?

Councilmember Hines, anything you want to add?

Um, Madam Mayor, I think I just again, I want to just acknowledge and appreciate my colleagues for this conversation.

We don't do this enough where we talk through some of these challenges and how we navigate these things in public.

Um I hear the public say they want more of these conversations to happen, and so I just appreciate us kind of doing that.

You know, at the end of the day, um, I think we're all pretty aligned here, which is we want to end homelessness by providing people shelter, housing, and services that best meet their needs to help them transition off our streets and on with their lives.

I think everybody at this table agrees to that premise.

I think we're what I'm trying to talk about here is um we've had so many folks come in here who have expressed concerns around the impacts of encampments that I don't think that I think we need to be deliberate about where we can address encampments and the impacts of encampments, where we can't, and really manage the process by which we take care of those community impacts.

Um we have seen, I think I just to pause, you know, something I've been thinking about a lot is we has seem to have been uh part of the conversation seems to have been stuck on this idea of like do we move people or do we not move people?

And I I think that's not where we need to be focusing the conversation because when we don't move anyone, it's not like that is good for anybody involved in that conversation.

Pre-2022, and while we're on the council in 2021 and 2020, we didn't move anybody.

And I've yet to hear someone say that's the reality we want to go back to.

Um we've invested millions of dollars in shelter and housing and services in the city.

We've expanded options.

I understand they're not as expansive as they were a few months ago, but I'm committed with my colleagues, I think, to doing more.

Um but I just I think we need to have a balanced approach to this, where we say if you're gonna go into a shelter, you have a reasonable sense that there will not be encampments right next door to it that could potentially have a health and safety issue to you, or the outreach workers who are trying to do the work.

And that if we're a community that invests in shelter and housing and we love our parks and our schools, that we have a reasonable assessment sense that we will not have um large encampments near our parks and schools that impact our ability to use those public spaces.

And um, I know this is there's probably never a good time to have this conversation.

Let me just be honest with you, but I feel like um it's important for us to have us to have this conversation right now, and I appreciate my colleagues for having it with me.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, uh, Councilmember Hines, Councilmember Scott.

Thank you, Mayor, and thanks for letting me go again.

I um I do I do just really want to be clear, like it's I don't have an issue with us as a city having rules and expectations for how people behave uh and and share the spaces that are shared spaces in our community.

Um I just think because either this ordinance needs to say nothing about homelessness or it needs to lean into it because it's just it it makes it really hard when we know that most often this ordinance, the people who are going to be cited for it.

I mean, and I get that we aren't citing people for it, but that's part of the problem in the sense that you have folks who want to see people sited, jailed, diverted to whatever court.

You have people who want to see services offered, services accepted, people getting houses, people having places to go.

I I just think that this doesn't provide any clarity on, like we get it, you can't do this.

Okay.

Uh if you do do this, that is these are the issues, these are the consequences.

Okay.

What can people do?

We know that not everybody is going to accept services immediately.

So when you say you can't be here, what does that mean?

Like, you know, if somebody is just like, all right, well, you I can't be in the park after dark, sure.

Uh, but I know that I can be uh in a business that's open, I can be at a friend's house, I can be at my house, I can be at a car.

Uh like, so like, where is the can in this?

Where's the do this, not this type of thing?

I I don't think it helps us as policymakers, I don't think it helps us as a city to have rules that are just no don't.

The there has to be a but this.

And if you're not doing this, then this is the consequence for that.

Um I just like I feel like we are at this, like the conversation is disingenuous because even though the word homelessness appears in this ordinance, um we're saying that that's not what it's about.

And again, I just go back to the point of like, yes, this, you know, this applies to the person who just decides, you know what, uh, my garage is full and I want to store all my stuff on the sidewalk.

Sure.

How often does that happen, and how often uh does it not get remediated very quickly?

And you know, and it's like it's not like each one of us who have a home sitting around this table and in this room are going to decide today, you know what we should all do after the council meeting tonight.

Let's go pitch a tent in the park and roast marshmallows.

None of us are going to do that.

There are plenty of people who are who are not make that's not a choice that they are necessarily making, in the sense that like I get it, there are things that lead people down that path to homelessness.

Sure.

And there are various ways that hopefully we may be able to intervene.

But now that people are there and they're so they're away from employment, and and that's not to say that we don't have people living on the streets who are employed.

We have people have mental health issues, we have uh people with substance abuse issues, we have people who have aged out of foster care, we have people experience experiencing domestic violence, we have all kinds of reasons why people have ended up here, and all we're saying to them is like it's nice, like, and again, Councilman Pushnell already brought it up.

It's great that we can say, you know, do you want to go to this site?

Do you want this housing?

And they say yes, and then we're like, all right, wait listed.

And then we move them.

And so maybe when the wait list is open, how do we get in touch with them?

They don't a lot of people don't have ID cards, they don't have cell phones, they don't have Wi-Fi.

Like, and then we get to the point of like, you know, say we have a clear of like you do get to the point where you you are deciding, like, okay, we're gonna cite somebody for this.

What does that mean?

We cite them, and you give them a piece of paper and say, come to court, and then what?

They don't show up to court because they lost the paper, they don't have a calendar, and then are they then cited for failure to appear, and now there's a warrant, and if they get picked up on that warrant, are they still gonna be diverted to therapeutic courts?

Like, I just feel like it's hard to have this conversation, and I I think it's irresponsible of us to have this conversation, irrespective of like what else we have in place.

If we're not incorporating that, we know we know that this is going to impact how people are impacted by the encampments in our community.

It's going to impact the people in the encampments, it's going to impact our businesses, it's going to impact uh apartment complexes and individual residences and and schools and libraries and and all the things.

And so it doesn't make sense to me, and it makes it hard for me to be able to have this conversation in a way that feels worth engaging in at a certain point because it feels like we're not being honest about how we need to be talking about, and maybe maybe the thing is that we, you know, like I don't know, I just wish that when we when you started having the idea to think about updating this ordinance, that the idea was actually, and let's look at our homeless strategy alongside of it, and let's look at how we make sure our budget is balanced in the sense like in the in the large sense, but also in the sense of yes, we're spending this much money on enforcement.

Uh we're spending this much on cleanup, we're spending this much on co-compliance and things like that.

Um, is that balance with the money that we are spending on, I don't know, surplus land and using that surplus land and and finding places where we can say, yes, you can go here, and when you're here, we are providing various things.

We are providing the trash pickup.

When I hear things like, you know, we're doing this tidy up to coma, like that some of this money is coming from tidy up to coma, and the hilltop has multiple encampments and like three trash cans.

I I have a problem with that.

And I don't like the idea that like now the hilltop is included in this like whole buffer zone, you know.

But I like, yeah, I know I'm from I'm from the Hilltop, and people often like associate me with the Hilltop, but not I represent the whole of District Three, and as I represent the city in a lot of ways as well.

So I'm also concerned about, you know, there are plenty of places I see on here where I know that there are people in encampments.

Uh I know that there's no trash pickup.

I know that nobody like eventually people get out there to them, but I I just feel like there's a lot of reactiveness in what we're doing.

There's like we have this strategy, we have a plan, um, but we're not taking the steps to like we said about the UWT thing earlier.

It's a vision, yes, but it's a working vision.

And I I don't think we're at the working vision part of of our homelessness strategy, and that's not to negate the great work that you know we have that our service providers are doing that our contract like service providers are doing.

Like I I just and you don't there's I know that I'm saying a whole lot that I didn't necessarily pose one specific question.

I don't know that there's anything that you can answer for me in this moment.

I just feel like I need to be very clear that this is not about me being upset that we have expectations for how people act when they're in our parks, or how long they can be there, or when they can set up a structure, or when you can do X, Y, and Z.

It's about us trying to piecemeal our way into a better community, and I just don't think it's helping us right now.

Thank you, Councilmember Scott.

So as I'm sitting here listening to all of the conversation.

Um, and again, I I appreciate the the passion and care and concern that everybody who sits around this table has for the entire community.

I think that's the strength of the work of this council is that there is no lack of people who really care about those who are unhoused, and about those who are housed or need access to schools and to parks.

I don't hear that at all.

And I think um, council member Heinz, you acknowledged it, and it's just a difference in philosophy in philosophy.

I want to be really careful though.

Um because I don't think anyone directly said this.

Um but I just I I I just want to want to bring the focus back to we do a lot.

We just had an update two weeks ago, we get a quarterly update on homeless services in this community.

We get a quarterly update on all the money that we're spending.

All of the things that we have done.

So I I just it in in the in the conversation that's being had, and I and I again, this I don't nobody meant to do this, but if I were if I were a staff person sitting in this room right now, the conversation I heard um doesn't give much or doesn't give a lot of thought to the people who do this work every day.

And frankly, it's not the nine of us.

Nine of us don't go out and clean up homeless encampments.

Nine of us, I mean, we all in our own way may do something, but it is our staff who do this work every single day.

So I just I I want to start with reminding us all, it's it's it's not as though we don't know what's happening.

And if we don't know what's happening, then maybe we need to ask staff to come back and make that same presentation they just made a couple weeks ago where they outlined all the things that we are are doing and all the things that we're investing in.

It would be great if we could just stop and take time to look at all of our resources to gather everyone in the same room to be able to address this issue.

But to be honest, we're building the plane as we're flying it.

And unfortunately, nobody in this country has built the plane, so we don't even have a model to look at where someone's been successful about how to how to really address all of the issues, because it's not just one issue.

And I think you all have done a great job of acknowledging it.

It's it's not just it's not just one issue that we're dealing with, it's a lot.

Again, we have to care for those who are unhoused, but we also have to think about those who are getting to school every day, who are wanting access to their parks.

The frustration of not being able to comprehensively solve the issue.

It is a matter of time.

Who came in from Red Elm, who was the person who supported people who came into her shop who were homeless, who who gave them coffee, who gave them shelter during the day, and she stood at that podium and cried about the fact that she was afraid she was losing her very own compassion because of the effects that encampments were having on her and her business.

No, I don't think.

I don't I know that nobody sitting at this table, in my opinion, is trying to put forward things that are harmless.

And I feel like I either this is deja vu, or I've said this before.

Um I I don't feel like I don't feel like there's there's anyone sitting around the le I don't.

Anyone sitting around this table who's trying to do harm.

I think there are nine caring individuals sitting around this table who want to be able to solve it and haven't been able to do it thus far.

Um I I don't have a question.

I just I I just put that out there as food for thought.

Um and to those staff members who are listening or who will listen later.

Um please know that what you do every day and how you show up every day is greatly appreciated.

So seeing no further comments, um, we will move from this item, and I don't know if we'll get to a place where we can um where we can get to something that we can all agree on.

But you know, my goal is to always try.

And so let's continue to work.

Um we we know it can happen.

Um, but let's continue to work and see what we can come up with.

All right, I'm gonna move on to our fifth agenda item, which is the C CR, and I'm gonna call on Councilmember Bush now.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I want to um uh just first my appreciation to um uh Tacoma Public Schools, um Alicia Laura, she did a lot of work on helping um get some background information on this, uh Linda for helping me put this together, uh, as well as my co-sponsors, Councilmember Rumbaugh and Walker.

Um there was a vision not too long ago and a partnership between uh the Trust Republic Lands, Parks Tacoma, uh and Tacoma Public Schools uh to make sure that we can launch and transform Tacoma schoolyards to be vibrant community spaces uh through what's called the community schoolyard program.

And in keeping with a lot of the goals, shared goals that we had, they wanted to make sure that every person in Tacoma has a quality place within a 10 minute quality park within 10 minute walk of their home by maximizing the use of existing schoolyards as they uh improve play areas and increasingly natural spaces for children as well as adults in the larger community.

I'm happy to say that vision uh has become a reality in so many of our neighborhoods.

The first five locations that serves over 25,000 people in Tacoma's South End and Eastside neighborhoods.

Uh projects at Stafford Elementary, Reed Elementary, Mann Elementary, Whitman Elementary, they've all they've all been completed.

I you know, I personally went to Jenny Reed Elementary School where one of these schoolyards projects happened as well.

Um I had a chance to go to the kickoff events with a few of my colleagues.

Uh and the fact is when I was there before the project uh broke ground, it looked very much the same as when I went there as a child for the first grade.

Uh not much had changed.

A block top was the same, many of the play areas was the same.

And I'm happy to say that afterwards uh after the completion, uh I had a chance to um ride on one of the little circly things with uh with our superintendent.

I forget what it's called, you know.

You know, you think you jump on it and it spins around, right?

Um you get really dizzy.

I had a chance to jump on that with uh Josh Garcia, our superintendent of public schools over there.

It was it was a great time.

It felt I felt like a kid again.

I felt like we had a really positive impact uh in that neighborhood.

I will say that there's still one school left.

There's still one school left, and I I hate to say it, but you know, this federal administration has pulled out the rug from beneath our partners, beneath our community, and Stafford Elementary, who has had most of its funding, uh most of it is funded, but because of the the removal of a federal grant, they are not able to fully complete the vision that's expected for Stafford Elementary.

It's the final school of this project.

Oh, excuse me, not Larchmont.

Apologies.

Stafford and nothing.

Sorry, uh so I I live right I live right in between Stafford and Larchmont.

So I I got the two mixed up.

It's it's Larchmont Elementary School.

Larchmount Elementary School is the final school in this project, and it's in the east side neighborhood.

Uh in Tacoma, we deserve nice things.

We do.

Uh, our children deserve nice things, our community deserves nice things, and these parks within the 10 minute walk of our communities are much deserved.

And because of the setback, uh, there's a possibility of not seeing the full vision of these community schoolyards come to fruition.

Um, I will say it's really heartening to see that even with this setback that uh losing their million dollar grant from the federal government.

Um, together Parks Tacoma has pulled together 450,000, Tacoma Public School 50,000, and 300 an additional 380,000 from the Trust Republic lands.

And so what I'm asking for uh today, and I know we can we can talk about the dollar amount, but is 32,380 dollars and forty-four cents so we can complete um this project as originally envisioned.

So the community has really rallied together around Larch Mount Elementary to finish off this schoolyard project, and I would really appreciate the support of this council and this community to see that vision become a reality uh for our community here in the Larch Mountain Elementary area.

Um and this should be enough to finish out the the original intent and vision.

And this is the final uh school to receive this schoolyard community project.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Councilmember, thank you, Councilmember Bush.

No, Councilmember Walker.

Um thank you, Mayor, and just wanted to say thank you to Councilmember Bushnell for running with this and making it happen.

And I think it's um I'm obviously supporting it.

It's an easy yes to support when there's already this much excitement and um commitment from all the other agencies, and it's something that our constituents get to enjoy.

And so filling that gap, that 10-minute walk gap within the city is super important, and I think it touches on so many of our other goals, and just excited to um support this and hope that I can ride on a spinny thing with you when it's done.

Ditto.

Councilmember Rumba.

Actually, I want to see you do that, Mayor.

Yeah, so I want to thank Council Busch now for reaching out and asking me to be a co-sponsor.

Um, you know, I live in a neighborhood where the open space is Browns Point Elementary and it gets utilized by the whole community, and that means kids from stadium high school come there, different ball, um, different uh little leagues play there, um, kids from the neighborhood come there.

I mean, this is the place where everyone comes and it's a safe place to be, and I think every neighborhood in Tacoma deserves this.

Um, my one question is it will the facility be open to the community?

Or um, I know that that's been a struggle in some places, and it's something that I would really like to talk with the public schools and parks to coma because a lot of these are combined uses and make sure that if we're doing this work that everyone in the neighborhood gets to utilize it.

Absolutely.

So thank you for that question.

Uh it's my understanding that these parks are the these are considered parks and they will be open to the public outside of school hours.

That's that's exactly how it is at Browns Point Elementary.

And um, unfortunately, we've become kind of a dog park at Surpart, but um hopefully that won't happen to you.

So um I'm really excited about this, and I hope I get invited to the opening of it.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

All right, do we have any other questions for council member Bush?

No.

All right, moving on to uh the next item.

Um agenda review and city manager's weekly report.

City manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, members of council.

Tonight we have two ceremonials.

Uh the first proclamation proclaims Thursday, this coming Thursday, October 16th, as community conflict resolution day.

We're also we also have a uh ceremonial for recognizing the 20th and 25th anniversary for environmental challenger program.

Um no proposed modifications to tonight's agenda.

Just of note, two opportunities for the public to comment, both for public comment and community forum, and then just uh for note immediately following the council meeting tonight.

Uh there will be a public hearing for the transportation benefit district governing board on the proposed modifications for the 25-26 transportation benefit district budget and spending plan.

That concludes my report.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right.

All right.

Uh are there any further questions?

All right.

Oh, Councilmember Walker.

I think you're gonna answer my question.

I was just wondering if we're doing the closed session or the committee of the whole first, but I think you're gonna tell me the I think I thank you.

All right.

So first I'd like to entertain a motion to convene to an executive session pursuant to RCW 42.30.1101 II and II to discuss potential and penny litigation not to exceed 15 minutes.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

All those opposed.

The ayes have it.

Then I'll entertain a motion to convene to a closed session pursuant to RCW 42.30.

To discuss labor negotiations.

So moved.

Second.

All right, all those in favor to convene to a closed session.

Signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

All right.

Um the close, um, the closed session oh will be conducted once the committee of the whole has adjourned.

Okay, so I should have looked down before.

That's what it says here on my paper.

Madam Mayor, that was the plan, but um that would work which is fine if we go from executive session to the closed session, and then we'll come back out and you will gavel back into the committee of the whole.

Okay.

So no further business will be conducted um once we have gotten through executive session for study session, except to adjourn the meeting.

Then we will gavel back in for the committee of the whole.

I'm sorry, then we will go into closed session.

We will gavel back.

So why don't we say committee of the whole is going to begin at 3 30?

And whether the closed session is done or not, we will con we will end and get to because we need to give the audience a starting time for the for the committee of the whole so they can tune back in.

So committee of the whole will start at 3:30.

All right, so we stand in recess for study session to go into executive session.

I'd like to explain the executive session.

Study session is adjourned.

Study session is adjourned.