Good afternoon.

I'd like to call to order the city, council study session of February 3rd, 2026.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Deputy Mayor Bushnell.

Present.

Councilmember Diaz.

Here.

Councilmember Hines.

Councilmember Palmer.

Councilmember Rumba here.

Councilmember Sidalga?

Here.

Councilmember Scott.

Here.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Ibsen.

Here.

All right.

Well, um, study session materials were sent to you today at 1101 a.m.

We have a pretty meaty agenda today.

And um, you'll notice it's a little topsy turvy.

That's just because I have a speaking engagement with uh one of our sister cities.

So thank you for accommodating the uh a little bit of a different uh agenda here today.

So our first item is going to be an update on the city manager recruitment and uh recommendation from the OSAC committee on community panelists, uh, just to give you some context.

Uh we have a total of four panels for the um community um for the different stakeholders interviewing the finalists for the city manager position, um, two of which are going to be uh 10 person community panel uh groups that are representatives of different regions and different um different areas of specialization in the city.

Uh we have one that's uh employees, uh department heads, and the fourth is just us, the city council.

So um we decided in the interests of making sure that we had good representation as well as at the same time respecting the anonymity of people who were not selected and finding that right balance, uh, that the best way to do that was an open public meeting where we brought uh after consulting with the rest of our colleagues in the community, um, each member of the committee, four members uh brought five people, and we had a discussion about making sure that we had a good cross section there.

So you'll see in your materials, um, where it says City of Tacoma City Manager Recruitment, OSAC recommended community interview panelists.

Uh there is a list of under primary of the people that we selected.

Uh these were found to be a good representation of socioeconomic diversity, regional diversity throughout the city in terms of council districts, because you know we've had recurring issues with uh appointments to various boards and commissions of, for example, too much uh uh representation from from one neighborhood versus the other and not enough in other places, uh, and also good professional uh diversity as well in terms of people from uh different walks of life, like the nonprofit sector, uh foundations, organized labor, small and large employers, uh, and so forth.

So this this was the overall consensus.

We also um, because it was a pretty large list.

There are about 50 or 60 people total who applied.

Um we also identified an alternate list of people if one or more uh cannot in fact attend.

So uh this will be on tonight's agenda.

Um happy to answer any questions, and and Cheryl Biddleman from HR is also available if folks have questions on the internal process.

And if there are anyone uh any members of OSAC would like to chime in too, happy to accommodate that.

Uh are there any c uh questions or comments from the council on this topic?

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I was just curious as far as um representation for like neighborhood councils.

I'm not familiar with all of the names on the list, so I don't know if if that is included in in some of these names.

Uh can I speak to neighborhood councils?

Uh I know that uh Mr.

Trevion Parrish was on the youth advisory uh committee.

If and forgive me if I'm not naming that committee properly.

Um I'm not quite sure.

I I know that we did talk about um representation from different neighborhoods.

Um Deputy Mayor looks like you want to say something.

Sure.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you for the question.

Uh we do have um, so Andrea Hogue, who's on our alternate list, is uh on a chair of one of the neighborhood councils.

And um I can't recall, but I I know that there were some folks on the list as whole that were either associated, dual hatting with neighborhood councils and other things.

I can't recall if uh other folks that are in the primary list are currently sitting on neighboring council or not, but I can't recall off the top of my head, but that's certainly a consideration and partly why um we wanted to make sure with this such a large list that we had an alternate that did also include.

It's hard to try and get as many people with all the different diverse backgrounds out there onto uh limited list, so that was a good consideration.

Thank you.

And I actually do have a clarifying question myself.

Uh Cheryl, if you wouldn't mind uh coming up here real quick.

Um this is just a procedural question.

Um in the event of whether it's um health, um technology, schedule changes, whatever, and and we do have to activate one or more of our alternates.

Um is there a process of uh tiering or or order that these people are in?

Is it alphabetical or is it um is it just um discretion, judgment?

Uh how would uh that be determined?

Um that's a good question.

I I think the the one point of guidance that we got from OSAC is that you wanted to ensure that we maintain somebody a representative from youth population.

So that was one um specific item, so we would make sure that if someone that you identified as representing youth was removed, we would replace them with that.

Okay.

But the others, I we could just take your guidance of how you would want us if you want us to go down the order as they exist here or some other form.

We didn't really discuss that.

Yeah, sure.

Um and certainly open to input from other council colleagues.

Um based on community input.

Um this is just me speaking as an individual.

Uh I think if there was um based on feedback I received from some people from the nonprofit sector, uh Miss Kimberly Keith would just for me personally be high on the list, just given uh the fact that there's just a lot of hats that she wears, both being um um a resident of district three uh involved in the arts and culture sector, um being involved with the LGBTQ community as well, um working with a lot of youth.

Um that's just my own personal preference.

Uh certainly happy to consider other uh viewpoints there in terms of tiering that.

And uh one other thing before I'll call in Councilman Sadagi also is uh just getting clear about uh if one of the primary people is able to attend but needs accommodation like virtual attendance.

Is that something that's gonna be available?

It would be challenging if they were not able to attend in person.

I I don't think that we're we would be able to support that.

Um is there a reason for that?

I I think it's gonna depend on the room setups, and I don't know that we've taken that into consideration, but there probably is still time to swap out rooms if we needed to do that in order to accommodate virtual.

And again, this is just my own my own personal input.

Welcome to other council members.

I think it's a good idea to emphasize the importance of in-person, especially for for something of this caliber, but maybe within reason.

I mean, impressing upon the group that in-person is preferred.

But if we can look because things come up, kids get sick, people, you know, what have you, right?

Emergencies happen.

Um it might be good to at least this early in the process, try to be as accommodating as we can for those things because we really did vet this to be an inclusive group.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Sadogie.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I would actually um I'm not actually seeing the names for the first time right now.

Uh in the alternate list, I would actually suggest Andrea Hogue.

Uh she's not only the chair of the South End uh neighborhood advisory council that spans both district four and five.

She's done a phenomenal amount of work in community.

Okay.

Um she's also the chair of the community council of Tacoma.

All right.

Uh in fact, I believe that so much, I would actually ask that she get pushed into the primary.

Okay.

And uh which name would you swap out?

I don't know many of these names, but not someone from District 4.

Okay, fair.

All right.

Well, uh, I don't even think there's someone from district.

So I think that's important.

Okay.

So uh thank you for your um your uh testimony.

Um in the uh in the context of the alternate section, if if um if she was not moved to primary but remained on alternate, is would your preference be that she would be primary before someone like uh Kimberly Keith, for example?

Yes.

Okay.

Um I'm willing to budge on that.

That's fine.

Uh Councilmember Hines uh is um shimmed in, but we'll we'll call on him when he gets back.

So um looks like we have um councilmember Palmer.

I I just wanted to agree with that assessment of Andrea.

I think she'd be well rounded or uh a member of the primary.

Okay, that's fine with me.

Very good.

Uh Councilmember Rumbaugh.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

And I just um I'd really like to see someone like Matthew Wilson on here.

And I had suggested him, he's the ACSU Center person, and I like him because he's younger, but he also represents, I think, a an important community part of our city, which is the young people that are see themselves as LGBTQ, AIS.

I can't remember all of it.

But um and and I and I had put his name in.

And I think that I I'd rather have him than um Troy Christensen.

Okay.

So will this be an amendment that you bring forward tonight?

Can I bring them up?

Is that how I do it?

Yeah, it'll be a resolution.

So if you wanted to do that, then you're welcome to do so, and we'll talk about it.

Thank you.

Of course.

All right, so um, I'm hearing uh one potential amendment there and a preference from two members on um Andrea Howe being the primary uh alternate and uh my own this is again just my own personal preference.

Uh Kim Keith, I put on the short list there too.

Uh Councilmember Sadogi?

And uh oh, I'm sorry, Councilmember Hines was first and then right back to you.

Go ahead.

Uh I'll let Council Merced go first and formulate my question.

Please.

Uh I was just talking to Councilmember uh uh Palmer over here.

Um we prefer Andrea to be moved to primary, not to be our first preference is that she be moved to primary rather than the the first alternate.

And which uh which name would you substitute?

Or be uh which name would you be substituting for I would look for my okay counselor to help me with some of these names.

I know a few of them, but I don't know enough.

Okay, so a potential amendment and um and again for all amendments and thank thank you for dealing yours, Councilman Rumba is um either uh preferably via email or whatnot, just so we have enough um enough notice in writing just to prepare for that, that'd be good, just so we can um have uh as much advanced um time to think about these decisions as we can.

But um, thank you for uh telling us about your preferences.

Council Mr.

Hines.

Uh no, thank you.

Um I thank you to my colleagues for potential amendments that are coming through here.

So again, is should I be taking this time to advocate for who I think should be the first person off the alternate list?

Is that what we're the focus on right now is just kind of alternate versus general?

Uh the list in general, um, whatever your preferences are, whether it's names or whether it's just questions on process, uh very free form.

Okay, you know, uh you know, I think list itself looks looks good to me.

I would all talk to my colleagues who have amendments about shading people and I I think they make good points.

Uh you know, uh the only one I would just I come back to is Brian Flint being on the alternate side.

Um hopefully if I I don't know, uh keeping him high on that priority list if somebody jumps out.

I when I look at the list here, you know, one um he's the former um not only has nonprofit background, but was also the board chair of the public utility, which is a whole other component of you know city manager is not the utility director.

I understand that, but um also you know the utility is a large part of our organization.

So just that perspective is something I would think we want to highlight or think about.

Yeah, you you put a lot of weight into that.

Yeah, and for what it's worth, that was very hard putting on the alternate last time.

I'm a very big Brian Flint line myself for both for those reasons and more.

Uh thank you for input, Councilmember.

Uh Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh yeah, I appreciate the conversation.

Um and kind of thinking about who to move over.

I am full support if we want to pull someone off the primary uh to put Andrea Hogan there.

I think she's a phenomenal.

Um that's part of why I wanted her on the alternate list, that way we didn't lose her off of it.

Uh it's such a large group of folks that there's you know a very high probability that maybe one or two folks are not able to make it.

Um to your point earlier about um an online option.

I actually um would I think we were asking folks to come from who knows where to interview with the city.

Um and this is obviously a very important position, that I I do have uh my preference is that there would be anybody on the interview panel would there be there in person as well.

Um and if for some reason for life circumstances or whatever, I completely understand that, and that that's why we have an alternate list, so that way folks are able to be there and in intentionally and be able to be on these interview panels uh in person.

So that that would just be my preference there.

Okay.

That's a pretty important question.

Are there any one way or another inclinations on the council about that about remote versus only in-person?

Councilmember Scott.

Thanks.

I I would agree.

I I as much as I understand uh the need for accessibility and flexibility.

Um, you know, this isn't something that we're doing often and um just exactly what Deputy Mayor said, where you know, we're bringing people in from all around, and um I just think that if it just makes things a little smoother and cleaner if everybody is there in person and can chime in at the same time.

So a couple couple preferences there, Councilman Sidoggy, you're also uh cue doctor.

Um I have a different question, but I think Councilmember Rumbaug wanted to chime in on this one.

No?

Okay.

Okay.

Um I I agree with um councilmember Scott that in person is probably I think necessary.

Um just because we are doing something that we don't do very often.

And it's different when you interview somebody in person than when you do it online.

So thank you.

So it appears that that's the consensus then.

So we'll stick with just in person.

Okay.

Any other further uh questions or comments?

Uh Councilman Sidalgi?

Uh I just wanted to know logistically, is there a reason why we have to keep it at 20 and then swap someone out?

Is it because we're doing two tens?

Is that what we're doing?

We're doing two tans.

We were trying to keep it at eight, just so that it's a manageable room of people for the candidates, but um so we put it in the middle of the year.

That does give more time per person.

It does.

Um it adds another round of interviews, which could change the schedule because for each panel you're allowing an hour per round.

So with four panels, you have four hours, which makes it a morning right up until lunch, which is kind of ideal.

If you added another panel, then you're pushing it into then a then another, then an potentially an after-lunch panel, which starts to push into our afternoon program.

Well, that technically they are 45 minutes, but we need a 15 minutes to you know swap candidates and I'm happy to talk about this offline.

I would love if we could find a solution where we could have uh where potentially obviously these were vetted.

These are people that people would wanted.

I'd hate to pull someone off unnecessarily because you know the more um points of view the better, right?

So if there is a way to to plug in three sevens, I think that could work really well if we can figure out logistically how to do that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Councilmember Walker, followed by Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I asked the same question at OSAC.

Can we just sneak in one more and a um Cheryl reminded us that it's already bigger than they wanted?

I had not thought about three sevens.

I love that.

I think that if we can possibly work out the schedule, and it feels like we could.

I I think that would be great.

That would be great.

Okay.

Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

And um if if there's a way to do it, um, I think that we should certainly explore it.

Um I also want to recognize that going through multiple rounds of interviews can be a lot.

And of course, it's a very uh important position.

Uh and there should be some really good uh questions and vetting and interviews.

Uh and that the other part of it is is the manageability of, as you had mentioned earlier, the the panels themselves.

And we do have a great diverse cross-section of folks from our community.

Um, and I guess what I'm sorry to say is there's always more people and always more voices that we would love to have on these committees, and we have to kind of set the bar somewhere.

So I we set it at 20, even though we actually wanted it less than that originally.

Um so just thinking about that, and you know, when we pull people off, we we are losing a voice.

When we add people, we're adding a voice.

And so, you know, it it there's no perfect formula for this as well.

So just wanted to put that out there.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you for your perspective, Councilman Rumbo.

Um, thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to recognize that um this is really not very equal as far as men and women, and I didn't know if that was important to people that we have more representation from men.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but there seems like there's more women than men on this list.

So is that intentional or is it just because we have such great women in our city, which is great.

But I mean just curious because it is pretty.

Yeah.

We we looked at at talented, uh just objectively thoughtful people from different walks of life.

Yeah, but we we could have had somebody else from the school board instead of Elizabeth Bon Bright and had a man on here.

We could.

I mean, if we wanted to appreciate your feedback on that.

Uh, Councilman Palmer, one more time.

Yeah, I was just wondering when we'll know when these folks will be contacted to know if they're available even for being there.

Still interested.

Okay.

So there will be a motion tonight, I think, to confirm the panelists, and then as soon as we get our direction, we'll start reaching out to people to see who's available.

I I think it's likely given the size of the group that we get into the alternate list and maybe use the entire alternate list.

Um we we just don't won't know until we start making phone calls.

You know, and I I can't speak for my other uh committee colleagues.

I mean, I myself availability was a factor in in whom I named, right?

I mean, I didn't see much point in thinking someone is awesome only for them to only find out that they were nominated the night of and not being available.

That wouldn't be a very good use of staff's time.

So it at least for me, availability was one of my factors.

Um I I would assume that was the case, but um definitely a good question to bring up.

Um what I will say is uh it seems like the idea of three sevens is intriguing.

I I think that a lot of the the concerns about time and capacity, uh I think that's really related to the amount of finalists, right?

I mean, if if it's a larger number, then yeah, that that would that would certainly be logistically challenging if it was however a smaller, more manageable number, like if that's just the the natural direction that things go, then something like a three-seven scenario would actually be I think kind of neat, just because we would get more perspective, we would have to make fewer hard choices, we we could have more abundance.

Um I mean, keeping that in mind.

I mean, just how these things go.

Um we've heard from a few people, but how would people feel about just adding one additional name?

Which it sounds like Andrea is is the top of a lot of people's lists.

Um is there a consensus for adding a 21st person then splitting up into three more manageable groups?

I'm I'm seeing one thumbs up, two thumbs up.

It's an open public meeting, so we can be we can have consensus.

Okay.

Uh why don't we just do that?

And and since we're talking consensus anyway, to your point, Councilman Rumba, uh, in just to save some time and save a tree or two from printing an amendment.

How about we can are we are we all okay with swapping out um Troy for Matthew just to accommodate Councilmember Rumbaugh's request and moving in Andrea to be the 21st?

Is that okay with everyone?

Why don't we just do that and we can just not have to deal with amendments and we'll just do it nice and clean that way.

Sweet?

I mean, I think we are talking.

Did we I don't know if Councilmember Ramba wanted to um look at?

I mean, I know that there's like Director Schroger from the school board.

Yeah, that's who I was thinking of.

But I want to I want to say I love Elizabeth.

I love Elizabeth, but there's just a lot.

I I can't believe again, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I just was looking at having like one more one more man would probably be.

Okay.

Is uh how do people feel about swapping out um uh school board president um Stroger for school board member Bon Brighton?

Yeah, I don't have a problem with it.

I just wanted to, since we were talking changes now, I just wanted to bring that back up.

I mean, I I can take thumbs up.

I mean, that's we're not voting here.

Uh council uh councilmember Hines.

Um my question might be do have we talked to the school board about who's gonna fill that role for the school board?

I mean it might be worthwhile to ask them who they think the most appropriate school board member to fit into that role is um versus I I feel I've I I feel conscious I feel uh that's what we're voting for.

Uh don't feel comfortable saying, like, hey, let's drop off Elizabeth and put in Corey only to have board uh board member Stroger tell us he's too busy to do it.

Well we could just add him to the alternate list.

Yeah.

How about we just add Corey to the alternate list?

Or Councilmember Baum, I'm sorry.

I think I agree with uh Councilmember Hines.

Like we should just inquire if they have somebody that they want on the board or whatever this is.

Panel.

All right, very good.

Claire's mud enough.

All right, Cheryl, thank you for accommodating the uh um rapidly fluid uh dynamic uh conversation that is uh the appointment process, and thank you uh colleagues for your thoughtful input.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to our second agenda item, just as fun is council rules and procedures.

Um so with that uh I wanted to share an upcoming uh another OSAC agenda item, just the hits keep coming, uh, to the council.

Uh we're gonna be reviewing the council rules on the upcoming um Friday, the 13th.

Uh very lucky at our regular meeting, and again during the meeting on February 27th.

Uh we'll be reviewing staff recommendations and pending ideas for rule changes and making initial recommendations uh for how to review potential changes and bring back to the whole council.

In addition to the rules more broadly, we'll be taking a more in-depth look at community forum and community comment periods more broadly to reimagine and restructure these to be more strategic, more welcoming, and more accessible to the public.

This is about meeting people where they're at and shifting our practices to be more responsive, topical, and to get feedback on our strategic priorities at the right times together work more effectively.

For members of the public that are interested in our early discussions, we invite you to public comment at OSAC meetings on February 13th and 27th starting at 10 a.m.

There'll be more opportunities at full council uh to speak at these pending changes uh once this is an agenda item.

And um just some context off script.

Um there have been uh numerous concerns both from the community as well as colleagues, just about whether we're really getting the best bang for a buck with community forum.

Uh we want to be accessible at the same time.

We also want to be welcoming and to have a safe environment.

Um that's not as possible with chaos.

Um so we want to make sure that we're reconciling these in the most thoughtful way possible.

Uh so with that, I'm happy to take uh council input on this topic.

Councilman Sadagi.

Uh I so obviously there's no detailed resolution.

Uh I am supportive of this idea.

Um if you if we also consider a change that would allow us to have venues within our districts.

Um one thing I've heard repeatedly from my district is you know, this just sense of not being heard.

I think one way we can have people heard be heard is to have venues in the various districts in uh Tacoma.

Uh I've also heard from people uh who just don't like coming downtown at 5 p.m.

with uh having to pay for uh parking or not finding parking um or having to go out of their way other way home, right?

Um so any forum that can change that can take that into account, I would be very supportive of.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um talking about the rules uh more broadly.

Um I think it's uh also real important um that we uh look at our rules of procedure.

Um you know, we we run our council meetings a certain way.

Is this an opportunity for us as a body to kind of reexamine is is this is the agenda set in the right way?

Do we want to re-look at you know what order we put things in?

Do we want to add things to the consent agenda more regularly, or there are things that we should pull off the consent agenda more regularly that we would vote on?

So um I I think uh this coming up that this is gonna be a great opportunity for us as a body to kind of really re-examine, reimagine our rules, uh community form included, but just holistically as well.

So um uh please uh reach out to members of OSAC so we can get the initial ideas going.

But ultimately, this will be something that we all uh need to um uh work on because these are will be our own rules, and um so uh we will vote on this uh later on uh this month.

But I just wanted uh tee that up.

Uh, but then also um wanted to mention like like OSAC as a committee, for example, it's not even in our council rules, but we have everything else.

So there's definitely some housekeeping that needs to occur as well.

So thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

I was curious.

I know public will have an opportunity to come to OSAC and and speak to the uh our procedures, but I'm curious if there's another way to maybe reach out to folks where we're putting it out on maybe social media or that hey, what would you like to see changed in our meetings or included in our meetings that's not included?

Um, so we could consider that as well.

That's a great idea.

So we'll talk to MCO and and obviously people are always welcome to call or email us as uh your representatives too.

Customer Hines.

Uh Commissioner, and just a real quick question.

Uh so for suggestions we have around rules, just communicating directly through email with the OSAC committee or just talking to members in general.

I mean, what do you all think is the most effective way for us to share those?

I have a few ideas, so I think it depends on the committee member for me personally.

I think emails will be super helpful so that way I have something in writing uh that we can consider.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, good impact, everyone.

Thank you.

All right, we're moving right along to item number three.

Um our next agenda item is a council action memorandum, Seahawks commemorative flag raising.

Uh, not as exciting as council procedures, but it's a close second.

Um so thank you for those council members who are showing their Seahawks pride today.

Um I wasn't speaking to Chinese dignitaries that have a jersey on, but I got a green tie.

Um as we know, we are just days away from their fourth franchise appearance in the Super Bowl in the first since 2014.

There you go.

On uh tonight's agenda will be a resolution to approve the Seahawks flag to be flown over the Tacoma Dome and city facilities as outlined in resolution 41642 adopted last year.

Thank you to Councilmember Diaz for your leadership on that effort to define our flag raising policy.

While we are prioritizing the dome flag for regional visibility, we are working to identify flags for the three other locations, uh the fire headquarters, Tacoma Headquarters, and the Tacoma Immunity Building North.

But with the popularity of the Seahawks right now, finding flags through our approved vendors has been difficult.

Uh I really wanted to thank Deputy Mayor Bushnell and Council members Heinz and Scott for their support of the request.

Um are there any other council questions or comments besides Cohawks?

Gohawks.

Gohawks.

All right.

All right, well, thank you, everyone.

Uh you look fantastic.

And uh, we're gonna move on to our fourth agenda item, uh, which is a perspective uh which is a letter to the federal delegation.

Um last week, a few of us came together to consider how to continue advocating for what Tacoma needs from our federal delegation when it comes to recent conversations on immigrants uh immigration and enforcement, while thanking them for doing the hard work of negotiating with congressional republicans to fund the government.

You have received a draft letter in your materials regarding your recent DHS funding and oversight responsibilities.

Uh, we specifically want to thank you for your principal stand in refusing to support the recent DHS bill.

Uh and that was directed at our federal our federal friends.

Um I'd like to open it up to my peers for further remarks or questions.

Are there any remarks or questions?

Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I just uh appreciate you bringing this letter uh forward for all of us to consider and um send to our federal delegation.

Um, you know, our our federal delegation I know is working really hard on our behalf to um really defend uh the rights of individuals in our community, and uh I think it's very um good and timely that we send uh our support as the city for the work that they are doing.

Um I think this is a great uh and I appreciate the opportunity uh for the us as a body to weigh in on this uh collectively.

Thank you.

Very good.

Consumer Sidagi.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, we get we get asked a lot to do on a local level that quite frankly, in many ways, we're preempted from doing and limited in our authority.

And I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that um the federal, you know, our constitution and our federal government was designed so that we had checks and balances between um uh the various branches of government.

I personally do not feel that they're working very well right now, but that is my personal opinion.

And at the end of the day, the frustration we're hearing down here is because of some of the frustrations on the levels above us, right?

State and federal levels.

So I I just want to let people know that it's okay to also look at um uh elections in other parts of this country because they will actually help inform these federal policies a little bit more and vote according to whatever your principles are on the federal level uh with your with your wallet in some of these other um elections because that is another way you can do something that could potentially get us um something different on the on the ground floor here.

Um I do appreciate the hard work that our federal delegation does, and they need more help in their respective bodies.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Sodake, Councilman Rumbaugh.

Um thank you, Mayor.

I'm just curious um if we've thought about anything in here about um a requirement that requires DHS to share immediately information where people are taken.

Because one of the things that's happening is people are being removed, say from they're picked up one place and they're sent somewhere, and then there's this whole system that has to figure out where they are.

And I'm wondering if there's if there's any kind of anything that our um delegation in DC could do about that.

Is there anything that they could put forward?

I don't know, and I'm just asking because that is a problem when you're trying to find somebody that's disappeared off the street.

Where did they go?

And I think there should be something in here a requirement that we know where people go.

Okay.

Um is there somebody who'd like to speak to that?

Um Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, that's a really great point well taken, Councilmember Rambaugh.

And is maybe that's something that we could consider adding to our thank you letter um and and bring it back to the full council for later tonight.

Uh but um, you know, I don't know if you know, we we at the at the city level don't share information with with them and they don't share information with us.

And so it would take federal action in order for them to share information, particularly when they're um you know taking folks.

Right.

Uh, and to share that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sounds very good.

Yeah.

So uh how about uh uh councilmember Diaz?

Thank you.

Um only catching the tail end of that.

I think it might be something that we could fit in as a fifth legislation requirement or request.

Seems like something staff could work smith and figure out the best way to articulate.

We like more transparency and clearer um sped up timelines around when folks hit their system.

There is a federal system that tells people if you can search someone's name where they've been detained, but they're not doing a very good job keeping those systems up, so it seems like a reasonable request that we could have.

Okay, very good.

And uh thank you uh to uh to you for helping uh put this together and for your ideas.

Uh, Councilmember Palmer.

So I I'm still learning where the responsibility lies for a lot of these things, but I know that there's a lot of uh bills right now in front of our state house that could be influenced positively through um just support like public support from some of our senators.

Um and so I'm I'm curious if me we might include some of those things like the the no mask mandate and and things like that.

So requesting federal advocacy for some of our state priorities too.

Right.

Fix Bill K with that?

Okay, so it sounds like some wordsmithing.

Uh, how about our our staff can um talk offline, we can wordsmith it and then bring that to the dais tonight.

Some friendly amendments.

Okay, wonderful.

And uh thank you uh in particular to Councilmembers Diaz uh Saldage and uh Bushnett and Deputy Mayor Bushnell for taking point on this letter and and also a related but unrelated thank you also to Councilman Soldage and Councilmember Walker for joining me in um advocating for the City of Tacoma's priority bills when it comes to immigration and to our government relations staff.

I've informed that media and communications is actually gonna be highlighting some of the uh the best uh portions of our testimony there.

So we're we're definitely getting the word out about how the city is front and center on these issues and more to come.

So thank you also for all of you for your help on these topics.

Moving on to our first briefing item.

This is item number five, an update on our homelessness strategy.

I'd like to call on interim, neighborhood and community services director Vicky McLaurin for introductions and to begin the presentations.

We will also have Joven Carlyle and Caleb Carboni available for questions.

Um they are from the uh principal community resources analysts from neighborhoods and community services as well.

Welcome.

There you go.

Thank you.

So good morning, Mayor and Councilman.

Vicki McLaurin, Interim Director for Neighborhood and Community Services.

Here today with Caleb Carbone, homeless strategies, systems and service manager, and Javon Carlisle Homeless Engagement Alternative Liaison Manager.

And you'll know that as heal.

To provide an overview of the city's homeless strategy that was adopted in 2022 and the encampment's response.

Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that much of the work, much of what you will see today is accomplished because of the hard work of each member of Neighborhood Community Services.

The work addressing the impacts of homelessness across nearly every department and every staff across the city together in these efforts.

Their work is intersecting with the work of our community to address housing and homelessness.

And we are approaching that work with the same sense of urgency as council.

Next slide.

Here's our outline for today's conversation, and we will begin this presentation with Kayla providing an overview of the city's Tacoma five-year homelessness strategy and its goals for addressing homelessness and Tacoma.

Following the strategy, Caleb will provide a current snapshot snapshot of the sheltering in the city of Tacoma, and then he will pass the presentation off to Javon, who will brief council on the heel team efforts in addressing encampments throughout the city.

Caleb, will you now lead us through the presentation?

Thank you, Vicky.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Caleb Carbone.

I serve as the Homeless Strategy Systems and Service Manager with Neighborhood and Community Services.

And though this is not a comprehensive list of all things that face the homeless response system for our city, these three areas are crucial for helping to improve our response system and to continue our momentum for implementation.

According to Shell, accessing shelter continues to be a priority for our city and finding ways to partner with providers to develop different models throughout the city to address unsheltered individuals and encampments.

These shelters sites provide basic and enhanced support, such as hygiene meals, laundry, and case management services that focus on trauma-informed care and person-centered practices with priority housing stability and supportive services as well.

Though this city has stood down several shelters sites in the last couple of years, mostly with the goals of each site transitioning to housing specific projects as originally planned.

Additionally, workforce is critical across this support system.

It helps our strategic objectives of reducing income barriers for people who are experiencing homelessness and also helps people stay in their homes and communities, which are aligned with a lot of our strategic goals throughout the city.

Workforce development has been the first step of someone in their process towards stability.

Often it is associated with bringing back uh bringing back dignity and a sense of purpose and uh providing a rhythm of daily life, while also having a practical purposes like qualifying for housing, diversion programs, and prevention uh services.

Additionally, workforce uh development helps individuals with a new or updated skill that are aligned with current workforce trends, and though workforce development is, however, extremely important in our current strategic, it hasn't always been when we are doing acute response, and so it's critical to think about it now as we've progressed in our implementation and are investing more into our affordable housing services and interventions that focus on sustainability.

And lastly, uh our continued work in the regional homelessness response and strategic alignment is critical.

The city has been investing significant time over the last 14 months in the current unified regional approach project led by Pierce County contract with Uncommon Bridges.

We've had several elected officials and staff that have been a part of that project.

As a reminder, the purpose of this project is to agree on the launch a more unified regional approach to homelessness across Pierce County, and the work is consistent with the launch of our homelessness strategy, which we released in 2022 and emphasizing the collaborative efforts across the region and key to address the needs of city throughout the region entirely.

Before we dive into the details of the homeless strategy, I would like to highlight the purpose of the strategy in alignment with Pierce County.

We acknowledge that while eliminating homelessness is nearly impossible.

A state in which any person starting a new homeless episode has immediate access to care and permanent housing interventions.

This acknowledges that homeless will homelessness may never disappear from our community, but instead it aspires to make it rare, brief, and when it does happen to someone that it does not experience it again.

Additionally, on this slide, we do make note that our alignment with Pierce County comprehensive plan homelessness, the current efforts in Pierce County with the unified regional approach, both having the vision of those efforts that stem from a functional zero, and it is consistent with each other's approach on that on that programming.

Slide five is a content we have previously shared with council, and it is part of our initial presentation in September of 2022, and we have provided these goals and our quarterly updates on homelessness since then.

As a reminder, these goals are how the city's how the strategy of vision and mission take form, and because this is something we can measure in effort and action, they're really important to start with.

Goals identify where we want to be as we address those three primary areas of prevention, crisis response and housing.

These develop the goals that encompass the needs of our entire community by transforming the system and how they meet those needs.

So it is important to mention here that these goals were developed and the input from community, including individuals with lived experience, and that after the development of information was shared to ensure consistency, what we have heard about before we published uh the strategy in 2022.

I highlighted part of these goals is that for both goals one and five, uh they bookend the entire list of housing specific or housing, or I'm sorry, they they book in the entire list of goals with a housing specific goal of goal one and five.

This is to acknowledge that in order for our goals to be sustainable, we'll need to continue to address housing needs and solutions for people who are homeless and are on the verge of homelessness.

And lastly, as we've presented in the past, throughout strategy implementation, uh we will continue to invite feedback from those partners to ensure alignment, and we will uh continue to stay nimble and flexible in our response and to needed changes.

NCS has scheduled a briefing to community and vitality safety committee next week on February 12th on the homelessness strategy and uh the strategy goals, objective, and actions, and we'll continue to have those conversations on how the city can maintain its ability to stay nimble and what changes we need to consider moving forward to maintain the momentum of implementation in the region.

This slide provides an overview on the city's capacity that's supported by the city's funds and includes an updated timeline based on the 25-27 legislative support beds and then details of which shelters are included in each shelter category, their bed capacity, and then the timeline or the current expected timeline that uh for each location.

The highlighted section in orange, uh, the shelters are supported by the state's legislative 2527 budget process, and the funding goes to support shelter operations at three sites of 140 bed capacity.

This timeline of the project listed here are currently aligned with our contract agreements and the property owner agreements.

Originally, the city expected to receive three million for one year of operations.

However, the city did receive a notification from commerce for three million for two years, so a total of six million that would support shelter operations through June 2027.

So once we have an executed agreement with commerce, we'll work to negotiate or amend any agreement to provide sheltering that would impact shelter for the city of Tacoma.

The blue section represents the city and that are supported by the city's baseline budget.

This funding goes to support uh shelters that have been that have a collective capacity of 720 beds, and this site is included, or the stability site is included in this list.

This slide is relatively new to council, though we have provided uh briefings about some of the projects to council uh previously.

This is the first time we have provided a comprehensive list to of our current projects that are operational in the city of Tacoma jurisdiction.

These projects are currently not directed by the city of Tacoma but still impact our homelessness response.

With uh with all of these locations, the city is an active partner with Pierce County Human Services and the provider of services on any placement of shelter in the city of Tacoma.

The top four sites are funded from the state's encampment resolution program through commerce, which has an agreement with Pierce County Human Services who procure the services and have oversight of the region's response.

The program is written in the state's proviso and it has various and it is very similar to the city strategy, where the projects are intended to transition from emergency shelter to affordable housing, and many of them have already began that process or have begun design phase.

Currently, right now there are 181 units that are being funded by this program, and referrals come from the city where encampments are on the public right-of-way in our jurisdiction, and they're coordinated with HEAL, Pierce County, the state, and comprehensive life resources, who is the funded contractor for outreach.

The last two shelters listed is funded through Pierce County's human services homelessness and housing program funding, one of them being a scattered safe parking model, which has confidential locations throughout Pierce County, and the city hosts two sites with a capacity of 20.

The city continues to use a three-legged stool for setting up shelter, feasible property, adequate funding and the willing and capable providers to stand up or maintain any uh city Tacoma or emergency shelter site.

This slide helps brief council on the average cost of setting up a new shelter.

Because these numbers are averages.

Um, it is important to note that depending on site location, topography, and available infrastructure of each site can be indicators on how feasible the site is and what resources are needed.

Also, depending on potential contract providers, capacity size, and a long-term planning for the site, all of these factors contribute to how the city can invest in both capital and operational costs.

This slide is to help us transition from strategy of shelter and services into encampment response.

This slide is based on the NCS 2526 issue statement and is focused more on the outreach services that are critical for our response system, which focuses on the balancing of having the right size of resources to needs of our community with the right size of capacity outreach we have currently.

Both outreach and shelters are critical to our homelessness response system since both are needed in order to be effective.

According to our issue statement, the goal for encampment response is to increase access to resources and to address public health and safety concerns.

Funding will strengthen homelessness outreach and navigation services, facilitating crucial connections to essential community resources for individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

Programming will prioritize trauma and form, culturally competent approaches with a focus on marginalized groups disproportionately affected by homelessness.

These efforts will not only provide immediate support for individuals in encampments, but also guide them towards shelter alternatives, stable housing options, and long-term solutions.

And the goal is really to increase access to resources through outreach, which also address public health and safety concerns.

We did rename this area from outreach to response to highlight that it's just not about connecting people to services, it's also about building relationships and supporting both immediate and long-term needs.

Thank you, Caleb.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Javon Carlisle, manager of the homeless engagement alternative liaison team.

It is our intent to ensure that we are consistent in following current processes and procedures when providing outreach and removing unauthorized encampments on the city of on City of Tacoma property and rights of way.

We also work very closely with our washtot, Washington State Department of Transportation partners, as well as environmental services and code compliance with planning and development services to address encampments on their respective properties.

HELL is steady in our daily duties in communicating with relevant personnel.

We regularly work with Hope, Tacoma Police Department, and various other partners to complete our tasks and assist in achieving the city's goals.

As of February 2026, there have been two iterations of Tacoma Municipal Code 8.19.

First developed in November of 2022, with a second review and redesign in November of 2025.

Currently, this legislation restricts camp facilities and storage of personal belongings within two blocks of schools, parks, and libraries, within five blocks of temporary and emergency shelters outside of the downtown zone, within 10 blocks of temporary and emergency shelters inside of the downtown zone, and within 200 feet of water protected waterways.

We strive to provide alternative responses and connections to service services and shelters, coordinating with our outreach effort, coordinating our outreach efforts with our with other departments and contracted abatement crews to monitor properties and site harden.

Furthermore, we regularly collaborate with our surround with surrounding jurisdictions and with various other service providers.

Next slide.

Since the beginning of the implementation, we have performed over 1,059 in-camera removals in total, 700 being within no camping zones.

Throughout 2025, the HEAL team completed 506 removals, 353 of which were in prohibited areas.

In total, we removed over 1.7 million pounds of garbage and debris from encampments, a decrease of 178,000 from the previous year.

Additionally, HEAL has made over 1,810 contacts, a 36% increase or decrease from the previous year.

62% of contacts were interested in services, and 231 or 13% of contacts were placed in shelter.

This is a 3% increase from the two prior years.

Next uh wait one sec.

Uh next slide, please.

For the next two slides, we are going to be looking at 311 requests related to homelessness, focusing on 2025, separated by prohibited and non-prohibited areas.

In quarter four of 2025, we see a continuous decline in the given categories, which include requests for outreach, living on public property in vehicle, illegal dumping on public property, and contact us homeless issue.

The total requests are down in comparison to prior years, indicating sustained monitoring and reduced reporting in locations where camping ban is in place.

Next slide, please.

In non-prohibited areas, we are seeing the opposite.

There are noticeable increases in total requests, mainly focused on request for outreach and illegal dumping.

This suggests an increase in activity and community reporting in areas without a camping ban.

Overall, the total of 311 requests citywide is lower than in 2024.

Prohibited areas are generating fewer requests, while non-prohibited areas are absorbing a great proportion of the total.

The issue is not increased volume, but where the impacts are occurring.

I will now pass this presentation to Vicky.

Thank you, Kayla Benjavon.

We acknowledge that homeless strategy is a living document.

Since the strategy we was published first published in 2022, there have been new approaches that may be included in the strategy.

For this reason, we will be presenting the strategy to the community vitality and safety committee on February 12th to review the goals, objectives, and actions.

The intent is to identify areas council would like to update and to align with the unified regional approach.

Currently, neighborhood and community services staff has uh has participated in the on the unified regional approach task force and staff planning growth.

The city also sits on the comprehensive plan to end homelessness implementation advisory board to provide both guidance and collaboration to finding practical and operational solutions to addressing this emergency.

On February 26th, neighborhood and community services will present the 2728 issue statement and the opioid settlement funds to community vitality and safety.

The issue statement and the opioid settlement fund statement will be used to inform our competitive process for and future funding decisions in alignment with council goals and department priorities.

On March 3rd, I will be back to present the department overview.

Last neighboring community services is committed to supporting the unified regional approach and plans to bring the provider to present to community of Italian safety on March 26th.

Mayor and Council members that concludes our presentation, and we were ready for any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Vicky.

And um I have a number of questions and full disclosure.

There's an event that Councilman Soldagi and I have an obligation to.

So Deputy Mayor Bushnell will be chairing the meeting after these.

So Vicky, thank you for presentation for your hard work here.

I have a number of questions here.

So did I did I hear correctly that if effectively in places where the the banned ordinance is in effect, the request for services, in other words, the the incidences are down, but effectively they're up in the non-banned areas.

That is a good question.

I don't think I actually have the data to supplement that question at the moment.

However, that is definitely something I can look into.

Sure.

Now there's there's some discrepancy with what I hear from some presentations, community members, and others about the rate of acceptance of services from low barrier individuals in particular, but just barrier just folks who are given that opportunity.

Can you tell me how you measure acceptance for services and just what that all means from staff perspective?

Yes.

So while we're doing uh outreach, we do have a survey uh on hand where we collect that individual's information, and then we do have just questions that are asking if this individual has accepted services.

And that's when uh obviously we would click yes if they were to accept services, no if they were not to accept services within that second question.

Uh we would state or we would make note of why this individual did not uh accept services.

However, uh once we on a weekly basis, we're looking at this data, and so we are able to pull the numbers of individuals who did accept services who did not accept services in addition to the total amount of individuals that we were able to speak to over that given week.

As uh someone who participates in the uh the URA conversations, this would be a perfect example of data sharing.

Uh, that's one of the the three core pillars, and if if we can actually track people's journey through these services, so we're not just throwing them to the wolves and actually tracking in real time where people are going.

That that would be immensely more compassionate, not to mention more efficient.

So just daylighting that.

Uh, what is the current count of low barry individuals in Tacoma?

Um I know we did have the point time count recently.

I do not have those numbers at the moment, and I cannot genuinely give you a precise number of the individuals who are unhoused within C of the COVID.

Feel free to follow Plato, that's fine.

So the the point in time count, excuse me, uh Mayor, will come out around April or April and May, it's gonna be a little bit later in the year.

So we won't have the current numbers.

We can provide the numbers from 2025.

Um we can provide that.

Sure, that'd be wonderful.

Thank you.

Um an update.

I I know that uh uh in particular, Councilman Barumbo had taken the lead on on making sure that we're having as robust a conversation about identifying sites for low barrier individuals, not just in the city limits, but making sure that we we're we're having as healthy a dispersion throughout the community as possible.

Can you provide an update on how those conversations have been going and just what the process is looking like there?

So thank you.

So I have um sent an email to Pierce County um human service director um asking him specifically like what the county's approach as far as low barrier sites are.

He has said that there was going to be a request for proposal that will that they will be releasing sometime this year that will be out in the county to identify some low barrier sites.

So the county is from my understanding is the county is working on that.

Um locally or within the city, we are also continuing to look for even sites here that you know subject to budget that we might be able to also stand up.

And what was the con what was the timeline on the county's conversation for that?

He said the spring.

Spring.

Yeah.

And uh, so this is also something just to daylight for the council is as more of a policy consideration.

Um, according to what staff told me, we actually don't have the clearest low barrier definition, uh, which is pretty crucial for deciding these issues, especially with regard to the unified approach and also the resiliency hub conversation about how to um how to better rugged our funding longer term in the wake of federal cuts.

So just something to daylight.

Uh that's something that I think could really do us some good to give staff that clarity.

And then once we do, that that can effectively be our first draft that we then propose to the unified regional approach conversation to have a good regional definition there.

Uh that would that would do us all the world of good.

Uh finally, thank you for indulging the speed the speed round.

Um one last question here, and that is uh with regard to safe parking.

Um my understanding is is that the county and the city both have different entities.

I think we contract with Catholic community services and the county um I'm not remembering that the entity.

Um do you think that there's some opportunity for efficiency if there was a single interlocal master contract for for all of us for our um our partner agencies and the URA, for example, just seeing as this is a good opportunity for a number of reasons to get greater regional dispersion, for example.

Uh, and also uh I imagine just greater alignment in service to that that longer term goal of of regionalism.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

Uh thank you, Mayor, for that question.

Um, I think it's always an intention for uh for both jurisdictions to make sure we're aligning and working with each other regardless of of whether we have an official agreement or not.

Um typically the city does sit on their evaluation committee boards and their funding recommendations to help with um any kind of uh long-term planning around specifically even like safe parking for clarification.

Yeah, Catholic Community Services is our provider that offers safe parking in the city with our city's um site, and then it's homeward bound that um holds a contract right now with Pierce County, and that's a scattered site model.

Um, though the city does host uh sites, um, what we have seen in terms of a trend is is that because the city of Tacoma is um has more available locations for safe parking, has providers that are willing to partner with that.

Um, we continue to see that trend where they do come in the city of Tacoma.

So we always do want to partner with larger jurisdictions to see how we can spread that regionally so people that need resources in the communities that uh they live and play that they can still and work, that they can still continue to access those resources.

So I think it is a conversation worth having on how we can align.

Um we do run slightly different safe parking models.

Um ours is not the traditional safe parking, ours is very similar to our what we call emergency sheltering, where we have 24 hour safety or security, we have staffing and additional resources where generally a more traditional safe parking is um usually overnight, um, they leave for the day, um, services may come on a regular schedule, hygiene services may come on a regular schedule.

Um, but what we have done and shared with the county is that our work with PDS with um what we call our safe parking checklist, where we can work with businesses, organizations, and churches on how to uh utilize those services.

Um, there could be an alignment there where um we can see kind of a larger spread across and maybe possibly increase um safe parking across across both Pierce County and the city of Tacoma.

Very good, thank you.

And a shameless plug before we uh we move on to our next speaker is uh I'm a very personally very big, very big fan of the Fife jobs program.

I think that there's a world of good we can do.

Uh we've mostly been talking about low barrier, but the the mid to high barrier individuals uh for whom that program can be a good match.

Uh it's it it has a very um a very um well received reception where it's been tried, and other county's been talking about it.

So as we evaluate in committee, perhaps our uh our homeless action strategy and and just where it makes sense, where where the opportunities are.

Uh this is just my own plug that I think that's a very good thing to explore.

Um, great at generating some goodwill in the community too, and also attending to our other uh community goals like blight abatement, litter, um, vacant properties, etc.

Uh, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Sildagi, and then uh he and I have to leave to an event at Lincoln High School, and then the Deputy Mayor Bushnell chair of the meeting.

Council.

Thank you, and I appreciate the consideration.

I know uh councilmember Rumba has a lot to say as well, so I'm gonna try to be um uh as quick as possible.

Uh I had one real quick question.

It looked like contacts made in 2025 were in total a lot fewer than 2024.

We know homelessness has not gone down.

Can you explain um the reason for that?

Yes, uh, thank you for the question.

I was making sure I was prepared to answer that question.

So um I was speaking to my team about this, and a lot of it was over the overall impact of the right-of-way program with uh Pierce County as well as the state of Washington.

Uh last year's CLR was able to house over 186 or 87 individuals from various encampments throughout the city of Tacoma.

And so if you sorry, and the just can you give a little bit of description on what the right-of-way program is?

Right of way program is uh Caleb.

Caleb has a better idea or description in regards to the program itself.

Um yeah, so the encampment resolution program for the state is um an opportunity for jurisdictions uh to address their right-of-way.

Um it started with the state's right of way, but they opened it up for other jurisdictions and partnerships because they wanted to help local communities to be able to address their right-of-way.

So, in encampments that are happening on the right-of-way, those referrals can come through effective outreach teams.

Um, so they work with the city for the our referrals.

Um, and so once that referral happens, then the coordination effort it gets approved at the county and state level that they're good, and then we do that.

We work with the contractor provider, which is comprehensive life resources and Pierce County region uh to develop a by-name list, and then in that by name list, um they they offer sheltering services.

Um they do not go to a location unless they have the the number of beds available at that location.

So, for instance, if there's 20 people, they need to have 20 available beds before they address the site per part of their procedures.

Um, but once that removal happens, it's on they ask the city to do any site hardening necessary and to monitor the site after they they shelter those individuals.

Um, and then um and then we can maintain those sites moving forward, and then we do the same rhythm when we have to address another site.

Can you give me examples of those sites here in the city of Tacoma where we found benefits?

Yep, yeah.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Um so there is the uh Northwest Furniture Bank over on Pialabav uh behind that building.

There was a pretty large encampment uh where we were able to work with CLR to get a large amount of those individuals into shelter.

Um and just various individuals uh locations throughout the city of Tacoma, a couple spots over in the hilltop area, um Wiley Avenue, uh Stability Site, which is over on Pial up in Portland, and just various locations uh throughout the city of Tacoma.

And so some of those spots that CLR is able to have direct access to are locations such as Kingfisher over on 84th at Hosmer, Marine Howard, which is located over in Lakewood, uh Oasis, which is on Tacoma Mall Boulevard, um, and then there's Calyx, which is a non-congregate shelter, and uh Aspen Court as well.

So they have uh direct access to a lot of locations that the heel team as well as the city of Tacoma does not have direct access to, and that's what this program is uh built to uh uh suffice is to work with CLR because they are contracted directly with Pierce County to get a lot of these folks into the some of the shelters that we may not have access to.

And those are the shelters you have on some of them are here on this is slide seven, and it's the top four that say Washington State Commerce Encampment Resolution program.

Um just uh, you know, disclosure.

I went on a ride along, so I knew kind of some of this stuff, and I was it was absolutely like phenomenal to hear some of this while we were going behind the Northwest Um furniture bank.

Uh I have another question.

Um can you explain to us how do we just throw people's stuff away?

No.

The City of Tacoma does not just throw people's items away.

Uh we actively engage with these individuals asking them what they would like to get stored and when they would like to get their items stored, and a possible date of when they would like to get their items back.

Uh, we regularly and we carefully ask individuals what they would like us to get rid of, if they are willing to get rid of that, and what process they would like to go through in terms of getting rid of those items if they chose to do so.

But overall, no, the city of Tacoma does not actively throw away people's items without their knowledge.

Thank you.

Um I wanted to make uh a couple of comments based on quite a bit of work we know.

Um I think it's really important that we all understand, and we all know it.

We sometimes we say it, and sometimes we forget that homelessness is not just a Tacoma issue, it is absolutely a regional and statewide issue.

And that is why the work that the mayor, council member Rumbo, especially and I are doing on the unified regional approach is so important.

We're one of only four jurisdictions in Pierce County that puts any of our own money into homeless services.

We put in three million dollars of our general fund the last time we checked.

We also put in about 40% of our mental health and behance abuse and behavioral health, uh one-tenth of one percent.

That's also another three million dollars, roughly 40%, if I remember correctly.

The other three jurisdictions to put any money or it's a lot substantially smaller amount.

I say this because there is a pervasive thought that homelessness is not the problem of this region by our neighboring jurisdictions.

But it is, and even if they don't visibly see homeless people or individuals experiencing homelessness, I think it's also important to point out that 50% of the people experiencing homelessness that we know of in the city have a job.

I'm just gonna repeat that.

About 50% of the people experiencing homelessness in our city have a job.

And so our region has this issue.

And I believe in the goal that the URA is trying to do, and that goal is to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.

That that is the end goal we we want to get to.

And I think it's really important that we do shelter, and that's really important too.

And we have safe parking sites, and we have these solutions, not just here in Tacoma, but everywhere, and we encourage our neighbors uh to participate.

But to me, shelter is necessary but not sufficient to get to this goal.

It's necessary as a first step, but not sufficient because we also need not just ourselves, but our region and our state to help us with comprehensive services for these individuals to help them get back on their feet.

We've seen this model work really well, for example, in the therapeutic courts, where we have a dedicated social worker that works with people for six months to a year to achieve certain goals and graduate.

I've been to some of those graduations.

I wish I could go to graduations at shelters where people are moving up and through the world.

So I think it's also really important that sometimes I think we as a city get a lot of criticism for not doing enough because we're the only ones that are doing anything of of worth or note in our region.

And so if there are people listening, and if you have friends or you yourself don't live in Tacoma, I encourage you to go to your council and ask what are we doing to help with the regional issue of homelessness?

And perhaps it's distasteful to think that you're gonna help that person that you saw on the street while you're driving.

But you should help the person who's working and still can't get a house in your own um jurisdiction.

I am glad that you also bookended your your points with housing because housing is an absolutely essential long-term uh uh solution to this problem because quite frankly, it's in the definition.

Homelessness is because you don't have a home, we don't have enough homes for the people that have moved here.

It is really important that we as a council keep um our our foot on on the pedal around um things we've done on home and tacoma and incur encouraging all sorts of housing.

Um lack of housing exacerbates every issue, it exacerbates our ability to to reach out and make connection and have people accept it.

And the last question I'm gonna ask you is does the heel team sweep people off of their out of their tents.

Are you guys responsible for sweeping people up?

Because that's what you've been characterized as.

Um that's a good question, Councilmember Sidalga.

Uh no, the City of Tacoma nor the heel team sweeps individuals out of their tents.

Um sweep is a word that I don't necessarily use.

However, I don't think I've ever actually heard a true definition of what sweep is in relation to the in-house population and working with these individuals and trying to get them into shelter or find a path for them to essentially uh turn their life around or be in a better position than where they were before they decided to speak to us.

Thank you.

And I I wanna really emphasize that the city of Tacoma has a compassionate first approach, and I think that is exemplified by the caring and professional employees we have that are working in this department that quite frankly, in my opinion, are offerings insulted in ways that they don't deserve.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilman Rombaugh, thank you so much for your patience.

It's completely fine.

Thank you.

I want to thank um both of you for the things that you had to say, and I want to say thank Councilmember Sidalgay for your long um diet like conversation and what you had to say, because I want you to know I really appreciate how much you care about this topic, and you serve on the Unified Regional Approach to Homelessness with me, and you've been a good partner on that.

And um, I just want to thank staff for coming with us.

I know that suddenly we've added workforce development and strategies to this, and I want to say that I appreciate that we're adding this.

I am really good friends with Kelly Blucher.

If people remember she ran against me the first time I ran for office, and she works for Workforce Central, and her husband is the one who works at um Fife.

And I would just say that she's always said to me, housing doesn't work unless people have a job and have an idea of what that's gonna be because Valeo has done things before where they put people into housing and it doesn't work out for them, and they end up having they remove themselves from the housing.

Um and so I'm just when we're adding a new bucket, we need to figure out a funding source.

And so, what are we looking at for a funding source for this?

Is that gonna be some are we gonna be able to work with Workforce Central to get like to get funding?

How does that work?

Does that have to come from our general fund again?

And is that gonna take money away from shelter?

So I just am curious if there's any idea, like where where does where did they get their where do they get their money at five to do this program that they have?

Um thank you, Councilmember Ramba.

Um, excellent question.

Um, so neighborhood community services is not really responsible for workforce development.

So we would have to partner with our um other department community of vitality or community um economic development.

Yeah, um, to actually address that um concern.

Okay, that's great.

It's really good to know that it's where it's gonna live so we can talk about it because what obviously it's great if we can work together.

So if it's EDC working with us, that's super that committee working with CVS and figuring out what that means.

I would love to do that.

And chair is right here, and I would love it if she was open to that.

We could have a conversation at some point.

Um and then there's so much good stuff in here, but I just want to thank you all for I know how hard this job is hard.

And it's hard when we are comparing ourselves to what other cities are doing because we look like rock stars, right?

But we don't feel like rock stars because when you I always say to Linda, my assistant, when you own something all, you're gonna fail.

And that's where we see ourselves is that we just don't have the funding, we don't have the property, and um we don't have the staff to do everything that we want to do, and that's why we're looking for this unified regional approach to be a part of what we're talking about.

Um when we look at the shelter update, um is it is it possible at all when we do shelter?

I know we added these other units that aren't in the city, but they're they're just additional shelter.

Is it possible to do another um like a an addendum that might include the Pierce County's shelters just because I think understanding the whole when as we started that if we're part of the URA and there's three members of it on our council, it would be good to know all of the shelter that there is.

Just so we can say, hey, like Ordine has a veteran's shelter.

Let's give them a hand up and uh support them and what they're what work they're doing.

That way we can see who's not participating, which I think is important for me.

Go ahead.

Um, yeah, uh, Councilmember Rembaugh, thank you for that suggestion, and that is uh very easily we can include um for clarification.

Part of those are of course Pierce County ones that are in the city of Tacoma, and what I'm hearing you is also include shelters that are supported by Pierce County that are outside of the city of Tacoma.

Yeah, that would be great.

Thank you.

We can definitely do that.

And then also I appreciate the conversation about low barrier sites.

I know that there are possibly three sites in the county that we're looking at to be low barrier.

Um I do feel like we have a definition for a low barrier.

I know what low barrier means, and um we have two types of low barrier.

We have tiny homes, and then we have low barrier that's just basic wraparound services.

Um I mean, we do when we do low barrier, it means that we have, like you said, 24 hour security, we have wraparound services, we do things a certain way, and then we also have um an advisory council that's part of that, and that's the neighborhood involved in it.

So I just want to say that those are specific things, and it's good to if we need to give a definition to someone on our council for that, that would be great.

Um I also want to just talk about a little bit about safe parking and how we all think that's the magical answer to things.

Um safe parking works great when people are right away um homeless, and a lot of times the most successful ones, and we have seen this is families.

Um, a mom and a couple and her their child are really interested in getting into housing, and we are able to help them.

If we think this is gonna be for RVs, it's another story.

So I think that we need to kind of talk about what it means to do safe parking, and it's got the word safe in it, and I really want to say that the reason we see it safe is that it does provide the people inside that shelf that security with the 24-hour um security that we we we require.

Um when you do it at a church, and all churches are allowed to do that by state law to have safe parking, it might be a different story.

So um somebody who's um getting away from domestic violence may not be as happy to go to a site in the county if it doesn't have security as they are gonna be at our site, possibly.

Um but it wouldn't probably include RVs because we've talked about that before and the challenges, and I think we probably need to revisit that again and see is that the same thing?

Is that something that um anyone has done successfully in the county?

I think we probably just I mean I want to know more research on that, if that's possible.

Let's see here.

Um and I guess the just the biggest thing I want to say is that when I was um at the AWC Association of Washington Cities, I did hear that um there's two billion dollars more in the budget for right-of-way funds from the governor's budget, and I'm hoping that those dollars stay there and that we're able to get those.

And um I feel like that should be decided based on who's been doing the most shelter, and you should be able to get those dollars more easily.

But I also I really want to say that I hope that some other cities in our county uh will step up and want to do more as they see see that it works and that um it is good to help your neighbor.

So I mean, and I'm gonna get to hear more about this next week.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Roth.

Any councilmember Palmer?

Thank you for the presentation.

Um, as I've been saying for a week, a couple of weeks now.

Um I'm looking forward to discussing this a lot more in CVS.

I'm just hoping to, I guess before that meeting to get a little bit more information.

So I don't know if like another meeting or personally makes sense or um a couple of questions I had about uh the shelter list here.

I think it's great that we have the capacity, but it's been my understanding that capacity doesn't mean like everybody can be in the in these beds, and so I'm wondering if we can break it down even more to like hey, this is these beds are reserved for um this population and that population.

I'd love to see that breakdown.

Um, also curious about the costs of sheltering.

It just like I know there's so many different options, and so um just seeing I guess the spectrum of of the options that are available to us and what's kind of included in these the the costs here and and breaking that down a little bit further.

Um and then I did have questions about uh kind of the debris removal and things like that as well.

But again, we I just maybe requested more time to to go in and go into these more in-depth.

Thank you.

Right, thank you, Councilmember Horn.

Councilmember Hines.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh, and thank you for the presentation.

Uh, getting used to these quarterly updates here.

Um, my question to get to the one of the questions the mayor asked, which is something I've been thinking about is um the by name list conversation.

Where are we at with the by name list?

Thank you, Councilmember Hines.

That's a great question.

So currently we have been working with the county to utilize the uh homeless management information system on developing a by name list.

Um last year they procured services for four different populations to create a by-name list.

Um so they're actually working through operationalizing um that um one of them being chronically homeless um families, um, youth and young adults.

Um, and then I'm blanking the name, um, blanking on the fourth population.

Um so as they're working through that operational, we're working with our heel team member to see how we can utilize the homeless management information system to um uh include the interactions we have out in the field onto that list so that we have a more accurate um process um that goes across the entire city and through the entire region so that we can have a more accurate data um point and it it's consistently updated so we can have it as a running total, it's not just a one-snap um like what what we experience in the point in time count.

Yeah.

Thank you, Caleb.

And I would just like to add that as a part of the unified regional approach, one of the recommendations is for all jurisdictions to use the homeless management information system so that there would be a broader ability to have a broader by name list across the the county um and not just in the city of Tacoma.

I know I I mean I've come back to this since the earliest conversations way back in 2022 around this, which is it's really easy to assume that there was somebody sleeping here and you saw them over here, and now you just draw the straight line of it was that person got moved over here, but it may be that person got in a shelter and a new person become unhouse came unhoused over here.

And if we if we just get stuck in the assumption that this person went from here to here and then here to here to here, and then just kind of cycled around and not acknowledging that it's often fluid and dynamic and people are moving in and out of homelessness in and about of shelter at all times.

Um I think the binding list will really help us get close closer on that.

Um if it's uh if we assume it's a fixed pool of people that are just kind of moving around the city, then I think it's easier to say, okay, well, what does that fixed pool need?

But I uh my assessment both from in my work with the heel team, being involved with this, working with service providers, working with shelter providers, it's not a fixed pool, it's a very dynamic pool, people moving in and out.

So I think the the um binding list would be something very helpful for that.

Um I think one I would just agree with a couple pieces that I council Palmer brought up a great point.

I'd love to know kind of how we slice the beds into what where people can and can't go like to the Heinya village by my house, which you all hear me mention almost every time I talk, so you can mark that on your bingo card.

Umly selects women, children and families, right?

Those are certain, you know, the subset of the population, but it's not single men, it's not you know, there's other pieces of it that I so I'd love to know kind of where we are.

Um, and then I would really love to know when we look at the population we have as best as we can, where are we missing in gaps in that system?

And I think you will have some good data on that, or you have some anecdotes we'd like to get tighter on that because I agree also that capacity is not the only number, right?

Especially if we have a large capacity in something and no one's taking us up on that, then why are we investing in that versus putting it where places where people can get more services?

Um the question so one of the one of the issues within 2025 is we lost a lot of buffer areas as part of the you know the shutdown of sites.

So is that any way reflected in the the decreased number of contacts?

Because if there's less of these areas where people could not be camping, and then they're now they're in areas where they can, then I imagine the Hill team would focus their efforts in areas where people I just is that any is that influence any of these numbers here we look at 2025.

Yeah, that's a that's a great question.

In terms of the outreach data provided, that that goes through November, um, which was under the previous ordinance and part of the new one.

So, yeah, um, to you to your point, the prohibited areas did change, so so would the data that is captured under prohibited areas.

So if somebody was in a prohibited area one week the week before, but then the prohibited area left and they stayed, they would be considered in the non-prohibited area.

So it's not as if they were ever they went through an encampment removal process or they moved, they just are prohibited areas did change.

So that would be accurate.

I think with the new ordinance that um of course will um have more sustainability over time because those are those places like parks and schools and stuff don't change that much.

Yeah, they're a lot more fixed in the downtown zone.

So we should not see um that much of a change with the prohibited areas other than the sheltering uh moving forward.

Yeah.

Um that was just is that stuck out in my mind as we've had this conversation.

I mean, some trends that look really I you all referenced the fact that we removed uh 1100 or uh what was this?

I don't want to do math in public, but you know, from 1.9 million pounds to 1.7 million pounds of decrease, but in 2023 we did five million pounds.

So I mean we're almost three million pounds less than we were just three years ago.

So I think that's any indication of why that is or why the number went down so much.

Uh that is a very good question.

Uh just from the data that we've been able to collect over the last several years, uh the no camping zones assist in us being able to do in-camera removals uh at a much faster scale than previous.

Uh so when you are working a little faster, individuals are less likely to collect individual or collect items, supplies, uh things of that sort within said encampment or within their areas of where they are living.

Um so I would definitely contribute the decrease in uh debris being removed to the uh at the end of the day, the speed of which we're able to address issues.

Oh, yes, but in 2023 was right when the first camp, so you prior to that, if I can take people back, we had some very, very large encampments that have been there for a very extended period of time that accumulated a lot of items that we don't quite have.

We we don't have that as much as we do then.

Okay.

That answers my question for that.

Um otherwise, no, I I appreciate the presentation.

I you know uh I would welcome I'm eager to have further conversations as I see the mayor has brought up, you know, having further conversations around this, and you know, I'm more than willing to talk for further about kind of what we're doing.

I just would want to just begin with the fact that um at the end of the day, we all know what the answer to housing to ending homelessness is for getting people in shelter housing, and I encourage and I'm very excited about the unified regional approach.

Though I I will just be very clear, I'll put my cards to the table.

I I would be very clear that we can't compel any of our partners in the region to do anything.

You know, we can't make anyone other than ourselves, we can't control anything other than ourselves.

So I just want to make sure we're framing that we're all on the same page around that conversation around like I I can't um tell a city next to us to do more and have the and and force them to do it, right?

They they kind of have to do it themselves.

So I uh partnerships are part of it.

Um but um I just think more shelter and housing for folks is is really important, and that's what we need to get to at the at the same moment.

Um, you know, really trying to make sure we're navigating some of the challenges having you know large amounts of people who run house in our community and kind of what the impact is on them, people around them, our staff, our city, our residents.

Um it's an interesting and dynamic problem, and I'm very glad that we have you all working on it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines.

Go ahead.

Um, Deputy Mayor, I would just say one thing about the regional approach, and I appreciate you saying that we can't um force our partners to do anything, but they're at they're coming to the meetings, and that's that's the start.

So I just want to honor and recognize them for at least coming to the meetings.

That's that that we have an opportunity at least to show them why this works.

Uh yeah, I know I thank you, Vicky.

That's a good that is a good reminder for me to keep that in mind too.

Um, and I guess I will continue to look at my colleagues about what you can do around that.

Um, I'm very happy they're coming.

That brought to one more point.

Uh maybe Vicky, you can answer the question.

Uh the mayor brought up the fact that we don't have a clear definition of low barrier.

One of the challenges I think we've always had in the past is we could come up with a definition of low barrier, but at the end of the day, we still need to find a provider who's willing to offer those services that we ask for.

One of the challenges I think we've always had in the past is we could come up with a definition of low barrier but then they still need to find a provider who's willing to offer those services that we ask for so often when we establish kind of what site specific do we do we do an RFP process because we're looking for civic things and we want a provider to do that or do we work with providers to kind of say well what are you willing to do to support this work.

Thank you.

So when we're thinking about a low barrier site most of the time people are thinking about a no barrier site.

The stability site is a low barrier site.

We take you as you are there are some stipulations like you can't have been kicked out twice before but we take you as you are and we'll work with you and we'll provide your case management with the intent of giving you into stable you know housing most of the time people are thinking of a no barrier site where you're not going to get that case management.

There's no security and and we don't offer that as far as a low barrier or a low barrier site as we've defined it the 35th and Pacific was considered a low barrier site.

We did identify a service provider that could do the work and was very successful at it.

And so that's just kind of the difference we do pro we do have them in the city the stability site is one but the no barrier side is what we're not we don't provide.

Thank you.

All right thank you thank you to mayor thank you any other council questions or comments all right I do have just a couple of questions well one of them and thank you everybody for the the good conversation and great questions on the the total contacts made um are we tracking how many of those are are folks that we've already reached out to before and like or is these all unique contacts yes so we do col uh collect information on whether this individual is a new client or a repeat client so we are able to pull that data if you happen to want to look at that.

Okay so every contact at least the numbers that are giving us here today is including folks that we've reached out to before exactly so the the total contacts are both new and repeat.

Gotcha thank you do you have a rough idea of how many folks are are new as opposed to those that you've talked about it definitely leans heavily towards repeat however the numbers are usually pretty close to one another and this could be due to individuals becoming homeless newly homeless unfortunately or individuals who are moving around whether the city or from jurisdiction to jurisdiction between Pierce County King County Thurston County there are a lot of factors in in regards to what makes an individual a new client got it thank you.

And then deputy mayor excuse me if I can add something so we also report every week the number of individuals that we actually do outreach to and we also report how many were new and renewed and so that is in the city manager's weekly report so that um so we are tracking that.

Great thank you for that and then the the by name list um as been mentioned earlier um I know folks sometimes have aliases like how are how are we able to kind of work through that in terms of determining they are who they say they are because maybe a different team talks to an individual and they give a different name for example that is also a good question.

For the most part we're able to pinpoint a lot of the repeat individuals whether they're using a different name or not by their birthday last names a lot of times it's usually a nickname sometimes a nickname however at times sometimes the first name is just spelled differently between one individual and another but I would say the birth date date of birth is usually the key factor in uh understanding whether this is a repeat individual or not.

Right.

Thank you.

All right that's that's it for my questions.

I just want to thank you and the team as been mentioned earlier I think um there's a lot of misconceptions about what you guys do but I know that your your team has is full of heart and is out there every single day trying to get the people the services they need um and you've helped so many so many people out there so many individuals to get to stability to get to housing to get back on their feet and I I just thank you every single one of you so much for that.

And you know I if there was like hundreds of millions of dollars more I could give to you guys I would do it in a heartbeat but you guys are doing some amazing work out there.

And then just broader comments um I appreciate the conversation around the unified regional approach I think those are it's extremely important to come together.

But we had a representative from there.

We've had representatives from other cities that hadn't normally engaged us in these conversations.

And so it's really important for us to work together, uh look at this as a regional uh as a regional approach, and then just really appreciate the leadership as well from from Pierce County.

Um I know that they're they're helping lead in this work as well.

So thank you to the team and thank you to everybody else, uh, part of that, as well as our our council colleagues.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh next up we have our sixth agenda item, uh, which is the Tacoma Venue and Vents Department Overview.

I would like to call on the TVE director, Adam Cook.

There he is, coming on down, and I think we got some teammates as well, or is it just you?

All right.

Well, fantastic.

Well, I like it.

Actually, a minute pull up.

Thank you.

All right.

I may have handed it to them on their way out, and it's a little nice.

Also have a few more.

One goodie is never enough.

Never enough, no.

Oh.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thank you.

And do you want to hold that up so folks online can see?

We uh just got some scars.

Could you talk about where these scars are from?

Oh, Tacoma.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Council members.

Yes, the scarves you have are gifts from uh Tacoma Venues and Events, but mostly from our friends at Visit Tacoma Pierce County.

Uh we'll talk a little bit about the World Cup coming up, but they are a collaboration with ETC locally out of Tacoma.

So happy to be able to provide those today.

All right, and there's my clicker.

We'll let the slideshow get up.

All right, perfect.

Well, good afternoon, Deputy Mayor, Council members.

Uh my name is Adam Cook, and I have the great privilege of serving as the director for Tacoma Venues and Events.

And I'm happy to be with you today to share an overview of our department and the fantastic work our team does in support of the community.

Today's presentation will take the same format as the other department overviews that you've been provided over the past few weeks.

But we can't possibly hope to cover everything that TV has undertaken in 2025.

So I'm also happy to provide you with the hot off the presses 2025 annual report for additional background and information, and that's the packets that I just distributed to you.

So complete report there of all our work.

To start, we wanted to provide a brief overview of our purpose and our structure.

So we are the department responsible for the management and oversight of the city's largest public assembly venues.

This includes the Tacoma Dome and Greater Tacoma Convention Center, which we both own and operate, the Tacoma City Theaters, which the city owns, and contracts with Legends Global to manage, and Cheney Stadium, which is operated independently by the Tacoma Rainiers on a long-term lease agreement through 2041.

We are also responsible for supporting our city's special events program, including the City Events and Recognitions Committee, community event grant funding, and event permitting.

We do this with a slightly different structure than most.

Our divisions focus their work within their specialty across all of our venues and business lines.

So our department heads don't just own a venue, they own work across all the venues, and that includes facility operations, the infrastructure, the engineering of our venues, event services, how we bring events in and execute them, our marketing, business development, and community events team, our finance and our administrative team.

But all of them take the on this work focused on our vision, which is to be Tacoma's connection for culture and commerce, and our mission of building vitality through Tacoma's venues and events.

So how does this translate into our operations in 2025?

Well, as a largely self-sustaining enterprise fund, we measure success both through our business outcomes as well as our community impact.

In 2025, we hosted over 420 events with over one million guests in attendance, generating over 100 million dollars in economic impact to our region.

Within that, we hosted concerts, trade shows, performing arts and conventions, as well as 26 graduations and two state championship tournaments, high school state championship tournaments, welcoming more than 125,000 people for some of the most exciting days in a child's life.

We also undertook significant capital investment in the venues focused on sustainability, accessibility, critical infrastructure, and the guest experience.

One item in particular I'd like to highlight is that both the dome and the convention center now feature dedicated sensory friendly spaces for any guests who may need them.

Our staff was also recognized for their work throughout the industry.

I was fortunate to complete my year as chair of the board of directors for the International Association of Venue Managers, our industry trade association with over 8,000 members across multiple continents.

Ashley Young, our community events liaison was selected to be on the board of directors for the Washington Festivals and Events Association, and several staff members were active participants in regional and national conferences.

And Exhibitor Magazine named the convention center, a center of excellence for the sixth year in a row.

Truly a great honor for us.

Those are our business numbers.

But what lives at the core of the TV team is our support for the community around us.

These venues are public assets and we treat them as such.

That starts with our special events team and the city's Events and Recognitions Committee, or CERC, which is a council appointed committee.

In 2025, this committee awarded $90,000 in excise tax generated grant funding to 26 events and recommended additional events for complementary event services such as public works, Tacoma Fire, and Tacoma PD.

This funding and service allocation allowed these events to remain free and welcome over 200,000 people in a time when public events are becoming increasingly more expensive to safely produce.

In addition, our team provided educational support through four capacity building skills shop seminars with over 300 participants.

This program continues to grow each year with our first in-person skill shop planned for later this year.

CERC also produced the annual Martin Luther King Jr.

Celebration and the City of Destiny Awards, recognizing those in our community who go above and beyond in their service.

The upcoming City of Destiny Awards are council's awards, and we greatly appreciate your participation in the ceremony each year.

More details to come on that.

Operationally, our team was also community focused this year, partnering with Eloise's cooking pot to distribute over 970,000 pounds of food to 49,000 families.

And with COSMO Construction to welcome over 3,000 students and job seekers to the annual Trades and Career Fair.

The team funded the annual 4th of July Fireworks celebration and distributed over 3,700 free tickets to events and underserved communities.

These are just a few of our highlights of our community focus, and there are many more in the copies that you have of your annual report.

So as we look to the future, Tacoma Venues and Events is proud to have a key role in helping drive placemaking and experiences throughout our community.

But our impact on the Tacoma 2035 goals doesn't stop there.

Our team remains committed to taking available steps in support of climate action and sustainability.

This includes conversions to LED lighting, upgrades to HVAC systems, and most recently, independent building audits and action plans to meet Washington clean building performance standards.

We focus our operations on creating spaces for access, opportunity, and belonging for all, whether through the language access and sensory-friendly spaces highlighted earlier, or through the work of TVE's Equity Group and our efforts to ensure our staff and committees are representative of the community we serve.

Our venues are truly gathering places for everyone.

2025 was also the year we launched our first paid internship program.

This 12-week cohort of three college students helps pave a pathway into our industry for anyone who wishes to follow it.

Our venue's impact on jobs and economy is undeniable.

With over a hundred million dollars in annual economic impact and over 33,000 hotel room nights generated each year.

These buildings are critical to the region.

But it goes beyond that.

These venues and events are the gateway to the city for thousands of out-of-town visitors and companies each year.

Visitors and businesses that may look to relocate to our region or come back for a tourism visit.

That's why we continue to foster our strong partnerships with Visit Tacoma Pierce County and the community and economic development team with the city.

And at the core of placemaking and experiences is our venues and our work planning for the future of those buildings.

We'll talk more about that as well.

Through our support of these council goals, TVE is able to sharpen our focus and core functions of our business.

First, by ensuring that our venues are operating to the best of their abilities.

For both the dome and convention center, this means redefining our places in the market.

At the Dome, it's our ongoing adaptation to our billionaire competitor right up the road and focusing on the market segments where we have a competitive advantage and can drive more events with higher attendance while providing better value for our potential event promoters and clients.

For the convention center, it's embracing our less is more philosophy and targeting larger, more impactful events that drive significant economic impact to the region while guiding the smaller banquets and meetings we used to host into available venues throughout our community.

And for all our venues, it's ongoing operational improvements focused on our client and our guest experience.

We're also continuing to commit that these venues and events belong to the people and operate them in a way that continues to drive external support for our community.

And we're undertaking our long-range planning so that future generations have these places of belonging as well.

Those priorities are demonstrated through just a few of our current initiatives.

At the Tacoma City Theaters, we are wrapping up a comprehensive policy review led by our third party consultant and in consultation with the resident arts organizations and broader arts community.

In collaboration with our partners at Visit Tacoma Pierce County and several neighboring jurisdictions, we also anticipate bringing forward a proposal to update the tourism promotion area funding model to allow our region to keep pace with others in the state when it comes to recruiting events and tourism to our community.

That will come forward later this year.

And we'll continue to strategically invest in the safety, experience, and critical infrastructure of the venues, while also developing new potential funding models such as naming rights and other sponsorship opportunities for the buildings.

When it comes to our community, we anticipate being able to quickly bring forward for discussion and feedback from council a distribution model for the food and beverage excise tax.

We are happy to say that 2025's revenue exceeded our expectations and should be sufficient to cover the 2025-2026 special event fund expenses, allowing us to implement a new model for funding as early as 2027.

And of course, we'll welcome the world to the Pacific Northwest with the FIFA World Cup 2026 Tacoma Pierce County fan zone.

You all have your scarves now, so we hope to see you wearing them.

We're still finalizing our partnership with the county and the Pualub tribe, but we anticipate being able to make a formal announcement soon.

And I will say with the scarves, this is the second of six, I believe, the visit Tacoma Pierce County is implementing.

So stay tuned, there are more scarves to come.

As well, we're working with our partners at Parks Tacoma on the interlocal agreement update to update our permitting language so that we can have a more unified special event permitting approach between the two entities.

And perhaps most critically for the life cycle of our venues and our team, we'll launch the Tacoma Venues Master Plan this year.

A comprehensive planning effort focused on the long-term needs of our city's largest public assembly venues, bringing together community input, venue users, staff, and industry expertise to guide future investments and ensure our facilities remain vibrant, resilient, and community-centered.

Simultaneously, we'll be working with the city manager's office and the finance department to identify potential long-term funding mechanisms to support these plans.

Because what we really know is our venues, while iconic and well cared for, are aging with many critical systems approaching their end of life.

Our 2023 facility condition assessment, conducted by Mang Analysis, identified nearly 300 million dollars in needed capital investment over the next 15 years to just continue operating at current capacity.

This does not include potential improvements or enhancements to the facilities.

Our master plan process will show us what these venues could be and the impact they can continue to have on our community.

Then it will be up to us to find the funding to keep them the crown jewels of the region.

But we believe we can do this and anticipate bringing a proposal forward later this year.

How do you best work with us?

Well, to best engage with our team, we encourage you to reach out through the city manager and your council liaisons for all policy matters.

But I'm also here and happy to answer any questions related to the events or operations within our facilities.

Our team also engages with two council supported groups.

First, the city's events and recognitions committee is already mentioned, as well as the convention center's public facilities district board, which is responsible for collection of the hotel motel and sales tax receipts, and then the debt service on the convention center.

We also provide access for council and the community through five websites, 12 social media channels, and standard email and phone, all reaching millions of people a year.

A comprehensive list of the available public contact methods is included in your copy of the annual report.

Beyond reaching out and talking with us, TV has several opportunities for engagement with our team and the community.

The annual Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

celebration takes place each year in January at the convention at the convention center, and we appreciate all of you who are able to join us this year.

The annual City of Destiny Awards will take place this May at the Tacoma Dome.

These are council's recognitions to the community, and each award is presented by council members.

So we appreciate and encourage you all to participate.

Invitations with the exact date will be coming out soon.

We are still finalizing a few last minute details.

And this year we will feature the return of the Teetown Career Fair and City Services Expo this fall.

This is a great opportunity for the community to come out and engage with all city services in a free family-friendly atmosphere.

Our team and the circumf commun Circ committee members, pardon me, are also out at several of our sponsored community events throughout the year.

You are happy and welcome to engage with them.

Just look for the smiling faces, they're always out there.

And of course, we're always happy to offer a tour of any of our venues to provide context to these ongoing conversations.

There you go.

At the start of my presentation, I mentioned that TVE is largely self-sustaining enterprise fund.

In fact, across 15 subfund funds and subfunds, only 6% or roughly 2.7 million dollars in 2025 was contributed by the general fund.

And that money was dedicated to the support of the theaters and capital improvements at Cheney Stadium.

The vast majority of our 46 million dollars in total annual revenues comes from charges for services, with the rest coming from dedicated tax revenues.

The buildings truly are self-sustaining.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Adam.

Do we have any uh questions or comments from the council?

Councilmember Walker.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, thank you, Adam, for the presentation.

I just made uh note here on a couple of things.

Yeah.

Um on page slide number four.

Um you talked about the grant funding to events, which is awesome.

I'm very glad that we're able to continue to do that.

And can you remind me, because we put some additional dollars in in the last budget?

Is ninety thousand higher than before, or are we still waiting for those to kick in on the next round?

Thank you for that answer or that question and the ability to provide a little more clarity there.

Uh yes, we are still waiting for that to kick in.

So the original intent was um that 2025-2026 was included in the general fund as part of our contributions to help uh narrow the budget gap coming into this biennium.

We actually removed that from the general fund and moved it over under the excise tax funding.

So that is the 2025 excise tax is funding 25 and 26, so that's where we held it at the 90,000.

As we approach 2027, we anticipate being able to increase that significantly.

Great, thank you.

Very exciting.

Um, and then you mentioned, I think what you said in that same sentence was that even if we weren't able to offer funding, there were some events that were offered sort of in-kind support from other departments.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Did people apply for that in-kind support, or was that something we offered?

And then that does come out of general fund right if we're offering public works or fire services, right?

Correct, yes, thank you for that.

So the way our city event services program works.

This is the first year we've actually implemented it.

It is runs in parallel to the grant funding.

So events are eligible to apply for both cash grant funding as well as city event services support.

There are two designations offered through the event services.

One is a city-sponsored event.

That uh category of events receives free road closure equipment from the city as available.

Um, public works will bring the equipment out, they drop it off, and then they pick it up and they bring it back.

They don't set up for the event, they let the event handle that themselves.

So the cost is pretty minimal with that.

It's the labor hours to deliver and pick it up.

Um, the second option is our what's called our citywide events.

These are events that have huge community impact across the region.

Think Pride, the Fourth of July, events like that.

Um receive complementary uh public works and road closure equipment, but also police, fire, environmental services.

Uh those do have impacts on those funds for the different departments that are some general fund funded, some not.

Um there are I'm going to get the number probably wrong, but somewhere between seven and eight, I believe, um, maybe seven and nine of those citywide events.

So it is not a significant number.

Great.

Um I'm I'm just so glad that we're able to do that now.

So I've really appreciate that and how it ties into this work.

I think it it's we unsiloed a lot of things, and I think that's really good.

Um, you talked about uh our critical issues and our aging infrastructure on slide nine, then you said you'll have a proposal later this year.

Is that a budget proposal or is it something that will be uh not a request for general fund, that will be a financial proposal targeting additional resources and opportunities to raise the funds necessary.

Um that will be uh not a request for general fund, that will be a financial proposal targeting additional resources and opportunities to raise the funds necessary.

We recognize that the general fund's not going to be able to cover a 300 million dollar uh facility investment over the next several years.

So we will be coming with proposals for other ways and alternative methods.

Okay, great, but financial yes.

Um okay, then just generally I want to say thank you for um I've only been to a couple of events, um, big events at the dome.

I guess we've we've all been to tens of smaller things.

Um your team is always amazing, and I'm always impressed with how we manage so many people.

Um, I know you know I serve on the Sound Transit board, and the coordination with the light rail and all of those things has been really great.

I'm excited to continue talking about transportation options and and how helping transportation options feed into those climate goals and how we get folks around.

Um, and I know you also know this, but just to flag for everybody this the work that we're doing at the dome is so tied into the work they're doing um with the Sound Transit Future Station, as well as any work that's happening at LeMay, and so really excited to have those conversations together.

So that I mean we I think the opportunity there with all three of those in and all of our small businesses is really huge.

So um thank you for being part of that conversation as we move forward.

No, thank you as well.

And and I can say before even Tacoma 2035 became uh the program from the strategic office, 2035 has been the rallying cry for my team for the past several years because that's when the uh light rail gets down to us, and so a lot of what we're doing, especially this master plan is very focused on what can we do with our buildings as well as the dome district in the region around it with that approach and that target.

Thank you, Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you, Adam, for the really good presentation.

Um it is a lot of numbers, but I think that's just um a good testament to how much incredible work your team does.

So I just wanted to highlight that.

And I was just wondering um, I know that you mentioned last year that you were the chairman of that international board, and now you've mentioned that Ashley on your team is on a fest a state festival board.

I was wondering if you can say or share if there's anything you wanted to share around what you brought back from that that tenure or what she might be helping bring back to the city.

Is there cool ideas coming through?

I know it's a really good opportunity for us to help highlight what we're doing, but I was just wondering if there's anything else that um good rogging moment, I guess.

You if you have it.

Yep, absolutely.

Thank you for that, and and for that opportunity, council member.

Um, yes, so speaking personally on my behalf, uh, I can say that um especially with this master plan, a lot of that is being founded through connections that I've been making over the past several years with um various enterprises, uh companies that specialize in this work or um are able to do the architecture piece as we get further on.

So uh a lot of that comes from that work as well as partnering and talking with other facilities that have been through something similar.

So um the uh my immediate predecessor actually as chair of the board was uh a lovely woman by the name of Carrie Painter who runs the complex of venues down in Raleigh, North Carolina, who just went through something similar and are in the middle of their renovation now, having gone through that process.

So a lot of that carries forward here.

For Ashley, um, speaking a little bit on her behalf, I can say a lot of what she is able to glean from these events and the networking and the connections is how other jurisdictions are handling their permitting process, their community event support, especially the ones in our region because it is a localized Washington group.

Um, she's heavily connected in with Seattle, Spokane, the other areas that have those major festivals and events and how they're managing that work.

So definitely a great opportunity.

As you say, the biggest opportunity is telling Tacoma's story.

Um the number of times I've over the past several years I've had the pleasure of talking with folks about resolution 40622 and what that means for us and some of the other initiatives that we've implemented are just tremendous, and and hopefully we're influencing the state of venues around the world with that.

That's really cool.

Thank you.

Um I'm especially excited about what actually can big bring back around that permitting piece.

I know when I talk to people in just the general contracting realm about permitting for um building in the city of Tacoma, they always rave about how much better our system is than most of our neighbors.

So I would love to get you guys in the same boat there for events.

It's great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hines.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Adam, for the presentation.

Um I think you said this right, but you know, when I first got on council, we were really excited because we were in this great period where climate pledge wasn't going to be open, and we were, and then COVID hit and blew that all apart.

Um, and then for a while we were really kind of struggling to keep up with climate pledge on some of the things with a lot of the acts.

I just would love you to chat maybe how how are we seeing that kind of come back as a regional venue because we definitely compete with them in some ways they're at a very different marketplace.

They also have two major, they have at least one major sport team right now, sportsing right now.

So I'd love to kind of maybe talk about where we fit in the broader kind of concert ecosystem.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

Uh definitely happy to expand a little bit there.

So um what we see right now, and uh transparency, there are two major players in sort of concert promotion uh across the world.

So um one is Live Nation Entertainment, one is AEG and Schultz Entertainment Group.

They control a vast majority of the major concerts that may play venues like ours, um of our size and scope.

And so um Live Nation Entertainment has a partnership and frankly an ownership stake in the building up the road, uh, which is problematic at times, but we actually do still host events with them.

We have coming up this weekend Excision, which is our three-day electronic event festival.

Uh, we will be welcoming 15,000 plus people to the floor of the Tacoma Dome for three days straight.

I can guarantee if you're trying to find a hotel room in town, you're gonna miss out because it is fully booked across this community right now.

So uh we do still host events with them.

But yes, we have found that niche with AEG being very representative for us and and bringing out a significant number of events.

Um so that's where, as you talk about sort of our ebb and flow, um, we have found strong strong traction there.

We have also seen that to the point the electronic events are really beneficial for us.

Um they are great about serving the community.

We have huge hotel room nights, we have huge uh restaurant business, but as well, they fill the building, and we can do we are the only space in the region as far as I know, and and probably the West Coast that can do 15,500 indoors.

Um most venues can do that outside.

We're the only one inside, and so we really have a niche market there to do these major electronic events.

We found a great niche with our K-pop events.

Um we have seen consistently multiple K-pop demographic events each year.

Um, all of them do extremely well for us.

Last year we hosted our first JPO event.

Um we've hosted a few others along the way.

So really excited to find those niches.

Um I will say uh the building of the road has actually three professional or three major sports teams in them now.

Um so you have the Seattle Kraken for hockey, you have the women's WMBA team with the storm, and you have Seattle Pacific's uh college basketball team in there.

So lose a significant amount of dates.

I would be lying if I didn't say that yes, we are closely watching the NBA and the commissioner to see when Seattle may get its team back, not just because we love the Sonics, but because it removes an additional chunk of dates from their calendar.

So we also do well with our supporting business.

We just wrapped up a full week of the RV show, followed by a full week of the uh home and garden show.

We have the annual WIA state championships coming up uh following excision.

So we do very, very well with sort of filler business around there that does um you know may not be our highest revenue generator for the building itself, but does very well within the community and supports the region.

Great.

There's also the torrent that I think just showed up.

Oh, and the torrent now, yes, you beat me to it.

Thank you.

Four theme.

I'm also hoping for the Sonics to come back.

You know, they did play in Tacoma at one point in time, but yeah, that that's probably gone back again.

Uh my last question, then I'll I'll stop.

Um, the venue's master plan.

Yes, that will include all the venues, so the convention center, the theaters, the Tacoma Dome, Cheney Stadium.

It will predominantly be focused on Cheney Stadium, the Tacoma Dome, and the theaters.

Um, we will have some minor offset work on um the convention center, but that was really undertaken when we did the hotel expansion and brought the Marriott Tacoma online.

A lot of that sort of analysis was done in terms of whether the convention center needed to grow as well.

At that time, it was determined that we didn't.

We have a very strong place in the market right now to grow bigger would put us into competition with venues that we don't necessarily want to compete with, and frankly, we don't have the hotel capacity in the city right now to accommodate the uh bigger square footage.

We're right sized for what we have.

And so, my point with that question when we look at the venues master plan, is that looking at just the physical plant that is the venues, or is it looking kind of around the outside and kind of the ecosystem we're looking to create?

Yes, uh, so it will absolutely be focused across sort of all of that.

Um predominant focus, the buildings themselves.

How can we use them?

How can we convert them into what the community needs and the community's assets?

As an example with the Tacoma Dome, we know the exhibition hall is woefully underutilized right now.

It's a partner for us with some of the events that host in the main dome itself, but how can we find use for that space beyond that to support the community?

So those will be a lot of the questions being asked, but then as well, the dome district as a whole and with Cheney as well, the district as a whole, how can we maybe start activating that again towards that 2035 goal plan?

Great.

All right, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines, Council Ruhr Raw.

Uh thank you, um, Deputy Mayor.

And I if you talked about this, I apologize.

Um, I just curious um how it's going with some of our smaller organizations that are trying to use our theater district um facilities, and our is it still are you still hearing that that we're um overcharging for them what they can afford or how's that going?

If you could talk a little bit about that, and then um based on that, what are some if there's some ideas that you might have?

If we could talk offline about it, I'd love to know.

Yeah, certainly.

Thank you, Councilmember Rambaugh.

Happy to help clarify a little bit on the theaters.

And so um, as we talk the theaters, there's sort of multi-tiers of event users that may use that space.

Um, first are our commercial events that are booked through Legends Global.

They're external promoters, they're um other opportunities there.

Uh we don't have a whole lot of feedback from them on pricing.

Um, and they pay the main freight of what we charge.

Um so that's pretty consistent.

The resident arts groups um are eight resident arts organizations.

Um the rent structures have never really been a huge issue there.

Um, where we see a challenge, and this carries through as well to our smaller community events and organizations, is on our labor costs, um, specifically stage hands and operating.

Um that those costs are subject to a collective bargaining agreement with the local IATSE 15.

Um, and that is really what skilled labor wages go for in the market right now.

Um and this is one of the areas where Tacoma being tied to the Seattle market probably hurts us a little bit.

IATSI 15 represents both Seattle and Tacoma, all the way up through Everett.

Um, and so that marketplace dictates our rates, and that pushes it pretty expensive for skilled labor, but that is skilled living wage jobs in this community.

Um, so we are proud to partner with them and work with them.

It does mean that it becomes a little cost prohibitive for smaller events to come in.

We are working on several options that we can do with what we have control over, so rent structures and things like that within that community impact um or community uh policy that we're working on.

Um we aren't quite there yet, and once we do, it will still be dependent on a lot of that labor rates and what that looks like.

So continuing to work with that, but in the short term, we're a little bit stuck.

And is there an issue also with um how people buy tickets to the price the price part of tickets as well, or um no?

We we haven't seen anything related to uh ticket pricing right now.

We have uh a bit of a dual system for our commercial events for events that are using the theaters independently, not resident arts organizations.

Um we do use Ticketmaster, it has a variable fee platform that ties in directly to the pricing of the tickets themselves, so lower cost tickets have lower fees.

Um, for our resident arts organizations, um, they currently have the ability to use an external provider if they wish.

Uh, that is something that we're working with them directly on as we shape the long-term policy.

It is not never ideal to have two um competing ticketing agencies, it just becomes confusing for the public.

So we're working on that process, but all with the intent of making sure the fees are reasonable and lower costs.

And will all of this come back to us as a council?

The policies, yes, we'll have conversations.

Um, we may have some one-on-ones, we may also bring it back and say, Okay, that's great.

I appreciate that.

Um, I I did know it was the labor costs that were the issue.

Um, but I appreciate you trying to figure out what else we could do.

I mean, unfortunately, that I may understand um the concern, but I also don't want to send our arts organizations out of our city to perform.

So thank you.

Completely agree.

Thank you, Councilman Rumba.

Any other additional questions, comments?

The council, uh, really appreciate your work and and the team.

Um, I just really want to say, like, I just really want to reemphasize a hundred million dollars plus in economic impact.

Um, that is massive.

That is money that is going through our community, cycling through our community, um, and it benefits everybody here in the city.

Um, so you know, I think it's really important that we continue to work together uh in partnership um with everybody, including you know, 50,000 plus families, that's another partnership uh as well as our local community partnerships.

Um but you know it's really important that we have you know the best spaces and events for people to be able to enjoy here at Tacoma, and um really looking forward to your ideas on uh trying to address some of those capital needs.

And and you mentioned 300 million dollars, and that's specifically to maintain what we have, and that doesn't necessarily mean like the new and improved and other things, and so I'd like to see what does it look like to have new and approved because I love the our Tacoma dome, but I you know our event hall there could exhibition hall could use some some some sprucing up as well as our bathrooms and things of that nature.

Um so thank you so much for the presentation.

Any other final questions, comments?

Seeing none, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, um, next up we have our item number seven, which is our agenda review and city manager's recall report.

I would like to call on deputy manager, deputy city manager Alison Griffith to begin our presentation.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um just for review, there's one ceremonial on tonight's agenda that's proclaiming February 26, 2026 as Black History Month.

There's no modifications to tonight's agenda.

There is one opportunity for public comment this evening that's under public comment.

And if you have questions related to tonight's agenda, please let Hyan or myself know so that we can have staff prepared to respond for your review attached to your study session agenda was the weekly report.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy City Manager.

Any other final questions or comments?

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, I just wanted to, I guess, highlight um something that's come up with the uh purchasing res resolutions and to on tonight's agenda.

There's been a couple of questions um from community members around um those resolutions and um just having time for due diligence to look into all of the um the aspects of of those resolutions.

It seems like um it it would be worth possibly considering um postponing those those purchase resolutions um to a later date, and so I don't know what the process is to do that, but um I'd like to look into that.

Yeah, um we'll definitely let's get with staff and then uh see what we can do there.

Great, thank you.

All right, uh any other questions or comments?

All right, I will entertain the final motion.

Uh move to adjourn.

Second, it's been moved and seconded.

All in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, we stand adjourned.

Thank you all.