Good afternoon, everyone.

It's a call to order the City Council study session of February twenty fourth, twenty twenty-six.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Board Member Gallagher.

Board Member Hampton.

Vice Chair Klaus McGann.

Here.

Councilmember Diaz?

Here.

Councilmember Hines.

Councilmember Palmer?

Councilmember Rumba?

Here.

Councilmember Sidalgay?

Here.

Councilmember Scott.

Here.

Councilmember Walker?

Here.

Mayor Ibsen?

Here.

Well, welcome everyone.

I will start by entertaining a motion to convene to a joint city council and to come up with utility board executive session, pursuant to RCW forty-two.

Sections four, one, and B to discuss labor, not to exceed thirty-five minutes.

So moved second.

All right, we're reconvening study session today.

Our first agenda item is Sound Transit's Tacoma Link extension and project updates.

I'd like to call on planning and development services assistant director Brian Budet for introductions.

Also joining him will be Nyan Wyder, developmental manager for Sound Transit's T Dome Light Extension, Matt Mauer, Government Relations, and Lauren Douglas, Planning Director at Tome Link Extension, Sound Transit.

As you said, uh, just uh for anybody that doesn't know, I'm Brian Budet, Assistant Director in Planning and Development Services, and specifically regarding this topic, uh, also the city's primary liaison on the Tacoma Dome Link extension project, which is the uh the central link extension um from Federal Way down to Tacoma.

Um as I before I turn it over, just um a couple of quick notes.

One just to reassure everyone that there's no shortage of coordination between Sound Transit and the City of Tacoma, as Diane laughs and others laugh.

We meet on an uh exceptionally regular basis.

Um exceptionally regular.

Um sometimes I feel like I'm a Sound Transit employee.

Uh, sometimes they probably feel like they're City of Tacoma employees to some extent.

But um, this really is a a partnership between the city and Sound Transit as the regional transit provider, and lots of great work over many years now, and I think also a significant kudos to the council for your consistent support for these projects and these improvements and staff's um regular involvement in those with Sound Transit.

So lots of discussion that goes on constantly about many of the council's priorities that you've laid out previously on these projects, about uh economic development and supporting small businesses and lots of partnerships with the city and our community and economic development department, particularly focused on the in the dome area and freighthouse square, which we know is a is a really sensitive topic.

Um, lots of conversations ongoing about um how to streamline and speed up the delivery of these projects.

Um the council's recent actions as part of the Tide Flat subject plan, you know, made a big move in that way in uh in rezoning um the area around the Portland Avenue station to really support transit oriented development and make sure that the transit improvements, both in the dome area and in Portland Avenue, um, do not require extra uh special land use permitting, which sometimes can be a real struggle for Sound Transit on delivery of the projects.

And lots of discussion about access and integration and how to really make sure that the Tacoma stations and particularly the Tacoma Dome station is uh is an iconic and community benefit, you know, really reflecting the reality of uh Tacoma as the second largest city and a significant destination on the regional transit system.

So with that, and again, my appreciation to you all and certainly to the staff, um, particular partners in in like I said, community economic development and definitely public works has been a huge part of this ongoing conversation.

Um with that, we'll turn it over to to Sound Transit to introduce themselves and walk through their uh their information.

Thanks.

Awesome.

Thank you, Brian.

Hello, everybody.

Hi, Council, Mr.

Mayor.

Good to see you.

Uh, for the record, uh, my name is Matthew Maurer.

I'm Sound Transit's government affairs uh director for Pierce County.

Uh, wanted to reintroduce myself in the new role as the first time here at this table with you guys, so thank you very much.

Um I'm joined here today by two of my colleagues, and I'll let them introduce themselves real quick and then I'll go ahead and go uh through the agenda.

Go ahead, Diane.

Hi, everyone.

Really happy to be here.

Really happy to be here, Mayor, with you and all you council members at the table.

My name is Diane Wyder, and um I'm a development manager for Tacoma Dome Link Extension.

I've been in this position for about four years, and my job is really helping to facilitate the planning of our stations and our collaborations.

And I have to say you have a home team here today because we all have in Tacoma and work for Sound Transit.

Thank you.

Hi, and uh my name is Darren Crable.

I lead the station planning and urban design for the uh extension from uh Southwater Way all the way to Tacoma.

Thanks, Darren.

Uh okay, uh, next slide.

Do I just say next slide?

Is that how that works?

Or do I control it?

Okay, thank you.

Um, so real quick over the agenda, we're gonna start with the Tacoma Dome Link Extension Overview.

Uh that's the big project.

That's what everyone obviously has been waiting for.

Uh, where are they gonna go um a little bit uh deeper dive into the station area planning for both the Tacoma Dome station uh and the Portland Avenue station, the two stations that you're gonna get here uh in the city of Tacoma.

Uh the bring uh Diana's then going to talk about uh Tacoma Dome Access Improvements, which is uh another project that actually is from different funding from ST2 funding um that's gonna be uh in conjunction with what we're doing uh with TDLE.

Then we're gonna talk about our community engagement uh and next steps.

Go ahead, next slide.

I wanted to real quick um talk about the uh ST Enterprise Initiative.

I know some of you have talked about or have heard about that and talked to me about it.

Um and so I wanted to give a quick update real quick before we move into um the other agenda items.

And forgive me, I'm going to actually read uh just to make sure that I get the talking points right.

So Sound Transit has launched an agency wide enterprise initiative to address long-term financial pressures with the ST3 program.

Updated financial projections indicate a projected funding gap driven by capital cost escalation, increased operating and maintenance expenses, and revised revenue forecasts.

The enterprise initiative is intended to evaluate options to align program commitments with long-term financial capacity.

The enterprise initiative takes a comprehensive cross-functional approach.

Unlike prior affordability responses that primarily relied on project delays or deferrals, this effort examines planning and policy, capital delivery, service delivery, and financial practices.

Areas under review include project design standards, procurement methods, operating models, debt capacity, financial policies, and potential external funding or partnership opportunities.

And finally, the initiative will inform proposed plan updates for 2026.

Fundings from the Enterprise Initiative are expected to shape, excuse me, findings from the Enterprise Initiatives are expected to shape proposed updates to the ST3 system plan, the regional long-term train long range, or excuse me, the regional transit long range plan, and the long range financial plan.

The board will begin reviewing emerging options at their retreat on March 18th, which is actually going to be here in the city of Tacoma, followed by additional refinement and public engagement prior to considerization of the formal amendments.

All right, go ahead and next slide.

And I'm going to hand it over to Diane.

Okay, thank you, Matthew.

So this slide is really an overview of the Tacoma Dome Link extension.

The green line shows you our alignment in the four stations that are part of this project.

It's about 8.5 miles.

The FIFE and South Federal Way stations will have 500 parking stalls that should be constructed by 2038.

And we're currently in the FEIS phase and we're moving towards 20% design.

What's important just for your personal knowledge is that once this is built, you'll be able to get to Federal Way in 20 minutes and the to CTAC in 35.

The Federal Way station opened up a couple months ago, and now you can head to Federal Way, hop on the light rail, and it's 17 minutes to get you to CTEC.

So next slide, please.

Oh, I think let's leave this up for one second because what's important here is that if you see that sort of gray-brown area, that is Puallop tribal reservation land.

We will have the first two stations, elevated light rail stations on reservation land, and this is important in our considerations for how we design and develop the project and work with the Puallop tribe and other tribes as well.

Next slide, please.

So this is our project timeline.

It's basically divided into planning, design, and construction.

And salute.

And we are in the planning phase.

We um completed our draft environmental impact statement and conceptual engineering last year, and we are moving towards final environmental impact statement and doing moving our engineering up to 20%.

Um we hope to publish the FEIS in 2027, and then the Sound Trains Aboard will select the projects to be built, and then we will have a record of decision, which means basically we can move forward with our design work, and we'll know where our stations and alignment are located.

Next slide.

So this shows you the Tacoma segment.

Um, what's important about this is that in order to get from FIFE to Tacoma, you have to cross the Puallop River, and there will be a bridge, either long span bridge or one that has piers in the river that will largely be but determined by the Puelub tribe of Indians.

And we recognize their treaty rights, we recognize their fishing rights, we recognize that they are a sovereign nation, and we'll be working with them closely throughout this process.

Um, and then you can see there's a Portland AV station and the Tacoma Dome station.

Um Portland Ave is effectively on Portland Av.

We'll have more pictures coming up.

Next slide, please.

So station area planning, and I'm turning it over to Darren.

We're gonna take a little bit of a step back just to give you uh how we approach planning of our stations, um, whether here or in other uh parts of the region.

And this what you're seeing here is a conceptual example that is not anywhere specific, uh, but it talks about the different zones that we think about each of the station areas.

So uh in pink we have the actual station and the operating pieces uh that Sound Transit will operate once it's in once it's begun.

And then the there's a blue section here that really we're coordinating quite closely with our uh city partners, and we recognize that the station really does uh affect pieces beyond.

Uh this is often within the construction footprint, but not the operational footprint of uh of the extension.

So the next part is yellow, uh, and this is really how we integrate with the plans that the cities uh that we're working in have, whether that is um a sub-area plan, like the tide flap sub-area plan or south downtown sub-plan or Pialp Avenue project.

We recognize that there's uh a relationship between all these three uh different pieces of the project uh and and try to plan ahead for all those eventualities.

Um when we're talking about the station area, the blue part, we're really thinking about how bus and rail integrate um public space in and around the station, um, particularly at Tacoma Dome, how Amtrak, Sounder, and other modes of transport, parking included, um, work within the same vicinity of each other uh because there are overlapping uses between passengers.

Next slide, please.

Here um just to orient you where Portland Avenue station is located.

It is north of I-5, as Diane mentioned, it's west of the Pialopa River.

Uh it's really at the corner of 27th in Portland Avenue.

This is an overview of the early layout of the station.

It is um uh elevated station with two entrances.

Um we recognize that we're coordinating with nearby businesses and the PLAP tribe on the location of the design of these things.

Um we have uh pickup and drop-off areas, but no parking is uh associated with the station.

Or we're continue to think about the design of those public areas, especially in relationship to safety and security, and uh trying to find ways to get people good safe access to this station once it's there.

Next slide, please.

As we head west to the Tacoma Dome station, uh as Brian mentioned, we continue to have lots of conversations with the city of Toma and Pierce Transit and others uh around this uh Tacoma Dome station.

And while we've uh several locations were considered um during the DIS period, ultimately the city advocated for the location near the Sounder Station that was selected as the preferred location by the Sound Transit Board.

Um certainly there are challenges uh in and around this neighborhood.

You know, there's a lot going on.

We have Sounder, we have Amtrak, we have T Link, uh there's current transit center and parking, and of course the city has its own plans around the Peel Up Avenue as well as the larger neighborhood itself.

Um the location uh will also impact Freight House Square and require relocation of its tenants.

Uh however, uh the lake station does provide really unique opportunities to create a fully integrated multimodal regional transit hub that which is consistent with the city's vision for the dome district, and we're we're certainly working in uh lockstep with all of our partners to realize that vision.

Some of those key issues that we're thinking about, even at this early phase of design is um what are the construction impacts to T Line, Amtrak, and Sounder, and its passengers.

Um what are the connections uh to the dome that support pedestrian movements during events?

Um certainly locating a transit center that has easy access to light rail and other modes uh already located here, and of course, our close collaboration with our transit partners, including Amtrak, uh internal sounder partners and Pierce Transit.

Uh we've continued to have an engagement with our freight house square owners and the tenants within to make sure that they're well informed about what our plans are and to continue to explore uh options for relocation.

Next slide.

Next slide.

Thanks, Darren.

Everything we've been talking about up to this moment has been part of an ST3 project, which was approved by the voter voters in 2016.

However, in 2008, in ST2, there was a program called Tacoma Dome Access Improvements that was looking at, thank you so much, looking at improved access to the Tacoma Dome Station, which includes Sounder, the high capacity transit on Puallop Av, Amtrak, et cetera, because we have been considering this as a multimodal hub for quite a long time.

So there's about 17 million dedicated for projects in this fund, and Brian Boudet did not exaggerate the amount of time we spent together collaborating, not just on TDLE, but on a number of other projects and programs in the in the Dome District.

And as Darren said, it really is quite a complex area.

The Tacoma Dome Access Improvements really we want to minimize conflicts between the upcoming projects and the future building of the Tacoma Dome Lake Extension because we don't want to build anything that would then need to be torn out once we're doing construction on that large project.

And we have reached the milestone of completing CEPA, getting a DNS, and we have completed 10% design.

Next slide, please.

So this is to orient you.

Well, it's a little hard to orient you, but Tacoma Tacoma Dome is sort of in the center of the slide.

The light blue is Pew Avenue, and then that squiggle of blue go takes you up to Dome Top from Dock Street.

We identified 10 multimodal projects, and the template required us to look at parking sites.

When this template was created back in 2008, the Pierce Transit parking garages were almost full.

Since COVID, they've been full about 50%.

So the demand for parking is really different.

It's a bit of a new world now.

So we have identified, however, we have identified two parcels where we could put 300 parking stalls, but the majority of projects are bike peda improvements.

And we went to the community and got their opinions, and very small percentage of people supported parking, and a large percentage of people supported some of the projects here.

And a couple of the top priority projects are Puallop Avenue in that light blue.

And the idea is that we would be able to leverage a great deal of funding that's been secured by the city of Tacoma for this project in order to complete it fully.

We're also another top project, is the D Street Corridor, which as I said goes from Dome Top all the way down to Dock Street and a little beyond.

So we've come to a prioritized list together with our city partners and Pierce Transit as well.

And our next steps are that we're going to go to the Sound Transit Board either in April or May for them to approve our list of projects, and then we will enter into a funding agreement with the City of Tacoma to go from 10% design to final design and construct these projects.

It's very similar to South Tacoma Way access improvements if you're familiar with that project.

Alrighty.

And I'm doing the engagement update.

Next slide, please.

The first thing I want to say is that when you have an infrastructure project the size of Tacoma Dome Link Extension in an already built-out environment, you inevitably impact properties and businesses and residences.

And it is a hard impact for this kind of project, and yet it is how we have to move forward.

And so in looking at TDL Tacoma Dome Link Extension, one of the businesses that will be impacted is Freight House Square.

And Freight House Square, we we know is treasured by the community for both the building itself as well as for the tenants who inhabit that building.

And so we have been meeting with the tenants who are a lot of immigrants, people of color, people who are taking this opportunity of lower rents to be able to basically create an incubator space and start small businesses.

We had a meeting with the tenants.

About 50 showed up, which is really the vast majority of tenants in that building.

And we provided them information about relocation assistance that we are federally required to provide.

We provided them timelines, schedules, and lots of opportunities to connect with Sound Transit whenever they had questions or concerns.

We are also collaborating with the city's economic development department director and staff on doing some visioning regarding Freight House Square and really what its value is to the community.

And they had some recommendations for us that I wanted to share with you.

So this building, while it is iconic, it is not on the national register.

It is not eligible because it has been modified many times over time.

And that sort of green, iconic Freighthouse Square that we know today is not what it looked like before.

And this image shows you that it was sort of a dull gray, and it was the Milwaukee Railroad.

So here, let me get to my landmarks comments.

So the landmarks commission also acknowledged that this is not on the local register either.

And the owner of the building is not interested in it being on the on any historic register at this time.

But the landmarks commission takeaways were that they would like to see us preserve some elements of the structure for historical purposes and also for the embodied energy of the timbers because there are some very large timbers because this was built in 1909.

And so how could those be repurposed in an effective way or used as part of the arts that will be part of the station area?

They said that it would also be great to in an interpretive signage of some way to acknowledge the tenants themselves and their role in the community and bringing community together and creating a gathering space that's welcoming, and they also recommended possibly having some plaques information about the history of the structure and the railroad because Tacoma is a railroad town.

And one of the most interesting things one of the landmarks commission said was Tacoma is a rail was a railroad town, you know, in 1918, when the Transcontinental Railroad came across.

We became known that way, and that's how Tacoma was founded.

But Sound Transit is providing railroad in a new way, in a way for the 21st century to move people.

And so he said it was like a continuity of how this town is identified.

Okay, next slide, please.

So this is a uh a little bit more about the engagement with our Freight House Square tenants.

Um we have been regularly meeting with them.

Um there's this publication online publication called FTST Lifestyle, where we are promoting Freight House Square businesses, letting the community know about all the because really there's a diverse array there.

I think people mostly think about the food court, but there is a lot going on in that building, and so we're doing um promotions, and then we are identifying themes for in-p-person briefings with the tenants, the vendors, based on their feedback and email responses.

So we are staying closely engaged with them.

Next slide, please.

Um, and then generally speaking, we're gonna be um doing a bunch of engagement coming up about Tacoma Dome Lake Extension, the project itself.

Um we'll be conducting some in-language focus groups with Korean and Spanish speaking communities to ask them questions about how they would like to access better access the station and what would prevent that.

Um in late spring, we're going out to the public to talk about station access improvements and get their opinions on the proposed access projects.

We will continue property owner conversations and briefings because as I said, this project does impact property owners.

And we're also going to be identifying and submitting Sound Transit sponsorships for Tacoma Area Fairs and Festivals where we like to show up and let the community know what we're up to.

Next slide, please.

So our next steps is this yeah?

Sure.

It'd be me.

Yeah.

So next steps, we will be having a briefing uh first with staff and then uh depending on how it goes, and if you guys want one, uh we can come back to you as well to talk about uh the enterprise initiative and what happens at the um March 18th um uh retreat with the the board of um the board for our sound transit uh in Q2 2026 um uh the board is gonna make a decision as Diane talked about regarding the TDAI improvement uh list uh and then uh this spring we're gonna be doing an engagement period focused on station area planning um which Diane just talked about as well um and then we are scheduled now uh hopefully for a 2027 publish of our final EIS for the TDLE project if everything goes to plan and I think with that we'd love to open it up to uh to questions thank you so much are there questions or comments from the council councilmember Palmer followed by Council Member Walker.

Thank you for this presentation.

I have a lot of newbie questions, um so please bear with me.

Um I guess that my first major question is why two stations so close together?

What's the reasoning behind that?

Yeah, go ahead, Diane.

Yeah, I'll take that one.

Um so the Tacoma Dome station will be the terminus station, a multimodal hub, it connects Amtrak, the T you know, hilltop link, um high capacity buses, and I mean it is really the transit station for the South Sound, right?

So it's significant that way.

The Portland Avenue station will serve um the Pueball Tribe of Indians, Emerald Queen Casino, and when you think about the quick casino, there's the people who go to the casino to enjoy it, but they also have a lot of staff who need to get to work every day.

It's proximate to tribal headquarters and a lot of pueball tribal enterprises, and in addition, this is the station that will serve Salisham, which is the commission, which is the commission, which is that the the housing, just a little bit to the south, there'll be direct bus service from Salashan where someone can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think there's about 4,000 residents there.

Um so that that's kind of that's kind of the reason.

And it was part of when the voters voted for ST3, this station was included.

Okay, thank you.

And then as far as the parking, are we kind of picturing folks would park at the casino if they did need parking?

Oh no.

We're sorry.

I heard I thought I heard there wasn't parking at the same time.

There we we are we are we assume that when people need parking, they'll come to the Tacoma Dome station, or they'll access that station either via um uh transit or or get dropped off.

There's a lot of pickup and drop-off that happens actually, especially in one car families.

Um, and it like I said, if they do need parking, we will direct them to the to the Pierce Transit Garages.

Um the POALUP tribe is also concerned about people parking in the casinos who are not attending the casinos, and so we're working that with them on that issue to monitor and make sure that that doesn't happen.

It's actually to walk from the station to the casino, it's or to park at the casino or walk to the station, is not as like quick and efficient as you would think, right?

Okay, thank you.

And then this is hurting my heart to think about Freyhouse Square going away as somebody who grew up in the area.

Um so I you know, whatever happens, I guess I'm really hoping that there's uh like the the soul of what that was still there.

I hope I I hope the iconic greed doesn't go away.

That's just me.

Um but also I think there's like there seems like a huge opportunity to have like mixed use uh in the building.

Um I know one of the cool things about catching the sounders I grab my coffee before I get on the train, right?

And so um are there is that in the plans to include in any of the station building.

We are trying screen goods.

Oh, yeah, screen okay, okay.

Okay.

Oh.

So we are studying how the potential use could be incorporated into the station.

It's not feedback, but so we are we're looking into it.

We're not uh quite there yet, but we're we are taking a look at it.

Specific to retail or food service and I guess someone I guess the timing wouldn't quite, but if if there were spaces, if there would be an opportunity for current tenants to come back.

Yeah, that's the hard part, right?

Because they would have to be moved out well before anything would be put together.

Um and so uh we will obviously work with the tenants who are there for relocation, but the relocation wouldn't necessarily be guaranteed to go back if we were to have some sort of agreement like that.

Um so that that is kind of a stricky um uh a tricky spot.

And I think that the other tricky spot is really addressing the soul of what is there because that's that's a hard thing to replicate and um yet we hear that a lot as we speak to community where any um committee or commission we attend, we hear we hear that message loud and clear.

And so we're gonna have to work to somehow embody so whether it's you know repurposing building materials, keeping that the west side of the station great, somehow, you know, acknowledging its its current function in people's hearts.

And I think one thing to note as well, just because we are taking um and and demolishing the building, we are able to provide financial assistance to the tenants who are in that building, whereas otherwise we would not be able to provide financial assistance if we were just impacting them in another way.

And so that is one way that we're able to provide uh above and beyond, or not above and beyond, but financial assistance for those folks who are actually tenants inside the building now.

Go ahead.

Can I ask one more question?

I love newbie quests.

Thank you.

Um I so as far as the relocation assistance, how are we determining?

I I think there's probably what you know what what we have to provide, right, or what sound transit has to provide.

Is there a gap between that and what the need is that the city needs to be aware of?

I'm not yeah, do you want to Brian to go ahead?

I mean, I I'm like there's obviously a portion of this that's Sound Transit's responsibility when they're displacing businesses, they do have mechanisms in place to provide financial assistance.

One of the things that I know there's been a lot of conversation about between the city and sound transit is that while Sound Transit can provide some of those resources, they don't necessarily operate as a matchmaker, shall we say, and the uh the idea of identifying at some level if there is a new place for some of the functions that exist in Freight House Square, that is probably something where the city may need to take a role, or other partners in the community also need to take some level role in both identifying what that is and where there may be opportunities to do that.

Yes, and and the sound transit, yeah.

The sound transit team has been working um uh pretty closely with uh Tanya Carter, your CAD director as well to identify the long-term plan for some of the or for the tenants within um within Freight House Square.

You want to add to that?

Or sorry um probably can't add much to what um what Matt said, but yes, we are coordinating, we actually have uh extra meetings that we've set up with Sound Transit to speak to specifically to the business needs, so that's also what um you know the CED team is working on is to help support in the transition.

So where there are gaps or if there is you know some technical assistance or things that are needed that can't be filled by sound transit, we want to make sure that that's as seamless as possible, but ultimately it's up to the um tenants, you know, if they'd like to move or you know, if they choose to close their business down.

So whatever the tenants should choose in that situation, we are absolutely coordinating with sound transit on how that works.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Walker followed by council member Rumba.

Did you still have a question?

Okay, very good.

Thank you, Mayor, and um thank you, team.

Um I am our Sound Transit board member, so I do get a lot of these briefings and very excited about.

I mean, sometimes you have to look at these maps six times before you can really dig in.

Um but uh mayor and I had a good meeting with you all last week, I think.

But just in really looking through um the Tacoma Dome station and freight house and how that fits in, and um Tanya mentioned we have um staff have regular meetings, but I also have regular check-ins with CED so that um when we're looking at the vision of the Tacoma Dome, it's not just this project or just one other project, it all fits together because I know there's a lot of work that we're looking at with the Tacoma Dome.

Um the school district is working on a project with Lame.

Um there's just a lot of moving pieces in the area.

So I wondered if we could dig in a little bit on slide 11 to the Tacoma Dome station.

Um there's the pieces on this map, and then there are those pieces like right around the edges that are somewhat some of them are private and um there some of them are public, and so figuring out how that all fits together, and and I know we we had a vision um downtown or dome district sub-area plan 20 south downtown, like oh 10 2014.

14, okay.

So that maybe needs a refresh, and that's maybe something we could look at internally.

But I think that that's where Sound Transit gets to be really successful, right?

If they know what our vision is, and there's so many different agencies that operate in this space.

Um, but I know we've had a lot of conversation around the um the transit center and how our local buses and like council member Palmer was asking about not here, but you know, how do you get to the light rail if you don't have parking?

Connecting to local buses is so so important to all of this to make sure it works.

So, right here it's depicting the transit center on what is now private property.

So the assumption with this alignment is that we Sound Transit would buy the property, and that but there's like I think five total scenarios that were looked at around here.

Can you can somebody talk a little bit about that process and where we are in that process?

Could you repeat that?

So we the city and Sound Transit have worked together on a number of different options for transit access.

Yes.

Um, I think there's five uh five versions, and more okay.

So just wanted to talk about that process because this is something that our constituents and especially council member Rumba's constituents there in district two care deeply about, and there's so many moving pieces, like literally moving and also these plans, right?

Like the robotics and the Tacoma Dome and those things.

Can you talk a little bit about where we are in that process and how serious are we about this?

Because we don't own this yet, right?

So yeah, uh no, thanks for um clarifying.

So at the art uh outset of phase three, which is the final EIS process and um preliminary engineering.

Uh Sun Transit recognize that it really this station in particular is super important, not only to the system, but of course, uh to the city.

Um, and because of all those moving parts, all those different partners that are situated right here in the Dome District.

It was super important to take uh a step back and work at the same table uh and talk through all of the needs and the issues and how we can really make uh a hub here work uh and good success.

So for the first um six months of that uh this phase of the project, we did go through a series of workshops with all of the partners at the table, Amtrak, Washdot, uh Pierce Transit, of course the city, even our internal partners uh with Sound Transit Express and Sounder and T-Line.

So everyone at the table was able to have a conversation around what the goals were for a hub at Tacoma Dome.

Uh and we have worked through that and then realized uh what you see in a paper today, which is a preferred alternative for that transit center location, and what is not seen here, but on my version at least is that we're we've added a design option, and I'll just describe it as west of uh it's on the D and 25th, where that parking symbol is actually the design option for another uh alternate location of the transit center.

Um each have their trade-offs and opportunities and constraints with them, and so uh as part of that workshop series, we've determined look the there's really good opportunity with each of these locations.

It deserves additional study and coordination and collaboration between the partners to really discern what is the best option.

Um, and so we're continuing to do that over the next six months to a year to get to a solution.

Great.

And I think what we sort of big picture as a council want to make sure is that we're providing the opportunity for private investment in the area, but also just understanding where we where and when we have the opportunity to weigh in.

I know we sent the long letter.

When did we set when did the council send the letter?

I know staff also sent recent relatively recently to say you know we're excited about the design and how that fits in.

But I think we want to um make sure that we're weighing in where we can.

Um I'm happy to um have a voice on the board, but the um just for my colleagues, the board really defers to the local jurisdiction.

So if we're happy with the design in the space, the board is usually gonna follow suit on that.

So um did you I was just gonna say I think the last communications from the council were in probably November or so.

Okay, great.

And I was thinking maybe we should also send that to Mayor Ibsen and Councilmember Palmer, just so they know what we said.

Yeah, I think yeah, there's been uh as you've seen, this has been in the process for years.

The council has made numerous statements um written and in ordinances and and other things that have been adopted outlining what some of the highest priorities are, which match up with all the stuff you're talking about.

Um and then the last thing I just wanted to let my colleagues know.

I think everybody knows um I serve on the board with um executive Mello, Councilmember Hunter George, and Mayor Kim Roscoe as our Pierce County delegation, and that group uh is working together as we approach the enterprise enterprise that Matthew um referenced.

So very big work on the board, but just know that your um Pierce board members are working together to make sure that we get uh light rail to Tacoma.

And if you have any thoughts or questions, public included, please let us know because we are headed into those big conversations in March.

May I may I add one thing and um what count council member walker, you mentioned the school district doing something with Lemay, and there's also um a future-looking planning process with the dome itself, like dome dome events, and when we think of this station, it's critical to acknowledge and plan for surge events.

So surge events can be like the really big ones of like 20,000 people, but there's also all these events that I call like the baton tourler events, or when they when they which is actually very adorable when you see them all coming up, or the high school basketball competitions, which which take place at the dome and just bring together like so much energy and life, but also just a lot of people on the streets and how to work with the movement of those people and how to create traffic plans, etc.

And so I just want you to know that we're very cognizant of that additional element in this area.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines.

Oh uh, thank you very much.

Great presentation.

I I guess um my only quote, I'll make this really brief for that picture we're looking at right now.

Uh is the does the agency talk about selling air rights to projects like this, right?

Building something above stations.

I don't think we've done that.

Any station I've seen so far has nothing built above it.

But when you think about a terminus, at least for time period, um, in an area where we want to see more density, uh has that been a conversation?

Otherwise, it looks like it's potentially just kind of a more squatty building underneath the squies of the road, a shorter building underneath the uh rail lines.

Um for the entire agency, we are having uh some of those conversations around joint development or integrated development with our stations, uh, primarily uh in the Seattle uh alignment, particularly in the downtown stations.

Uh we have not had those same conversations here uh at the Dome District just because of uh, you know, it's a different market and that sort of thing.

So it's not out of the realm of possibility, but um we haven't had those conversations specifically in Tacoma.

There's nothing prohibiting the organization from doing that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Great question.

Uh Councilmember Savaga.

Uh thank you.

Um couple questions.

I'll start with the Portland Avenue station.

Um, actually, for some of the questions that Councilmember Palmer had.

Um, this was something the community really wanted.

Um it also bears out in the transit usage.

Um, zip code 98404, which includes the east side of Tacoma as most of it, has actually the highest reported uh usage of public transit in the city of Tacoma.

It's like 6.2% will um report needing to use it for work specifically.

So though I know on paper it may not look good that there's not like parking over there, I really do think the the pickup and drop off aspect will be used.

Um it's also really easily accessible from both sides of I5, uh taking the Portland Avenue exit to just get off, drop someone off, pick them up.

Uh, and if we have access for Pierce Transit, which I hope, because the Route 42 is one of the most heavily used routes in Pierce Transit, which is goes through uh the East Side and Saloshan.

Um I think it's gonna pay dividends instead of having to funnel everyone into the exact same um uh transit center, just just a few blocks away.

I get it, it looks really close.

Um on a map, I really do think that this station will have paid dividends for everything south of that area.

People don't remember that there's a massive ridge right there, the M Street Hill, and it really does provide a physical barrier for people to go over, take PACAV or McKinley and come down.

Um said that, I'm looking at the Tacoma Dome station, and it looks like it stops short of Amtrak.

So the green part of the building, uh, I guess that would be west of that would still stay.

Correct?

We wouldn't be messing with that.

Yes, that is that is the plan.

We've worked uh in the last uh year or so to look at different options to remove uh what we typically call tail tracks, which is storage tracks.

Uh we're solving that in a different way so that we can preserve uh uh at least at this time, Amtrak and the western portion of pretty new building and it has some really good history in it, by the way.

If you've walked through there, it tells you about uh the alignment.

Um question do we just not build retail at stations?

Because uh, you know, when I look at the contours of the approach coming in, there's a pretty large vertical kind of drop over there on what is that?

I can't even read this East Jesus.

I can't read that at all.

Um East G Street.

East G Street, there you go.

I'm gonna go with G.

Yeah.

Uh where the parking garage is and where you get on buses.

Do we just not build like underneath and create retail space?

It's a good question.

So typically Sound Transit is not uh well set up to uh be an operator of of retail.

Uh that said, um we do get this question a lot across the different alignments.

Uh and we have uh in certain circumstances um through partnerships or other situations, uh opportunities for retail.

Tacoma Dome uh station specifically is um kind of a different case.

Uh partly because it's terminus station, partly because of the space that um in the location, the context that we're in.

Uh uh it's a bigger footprint of a station, so it might afford some opportunities around that.

But again, there are policy issues that we are currently working through in order to look at if that really is possible, how we can uh facilitate that type of use within our stations.

So uh to be continued, and I guess is the best way to say it is we're working on it, but it's um it's not a set deal yet.

Got it.

Um I would be very appreciative of at least some station design concept that would preserve the ability to, if you can't do it on day one at some future uh time to partner maybe with a private developer to build and run some sort of retail in that area as a way to offer it.

Um but the reason I'd be you know open to that as a future thing is I think some of the stuff that we're talking you kind of talked about in the Tacoma Dome Access Improvement Project is really important because in many ways a lot of the economic benefits you have with transit coming in is the fact that you're just gonna have natural development happen.

And I think the a really big um you know opportunity is Piallop Avenue over there because there's a lot of space over there, it's just not really being um used.

Would love to know if there's anything we have to do to update any land use code, though we did update a lot of that with the tide flats, right?

Um, remind me that that access improvement project is you mentioned 17 million.

Is that what's like budgeted for it, or is there more or less, or what is the 17 million?

The 17 million is um to design and construct the projects in sort of a prioritized way.

So um the for example, we've dedicated a point five million to the Pew Alabav project.

And the excuse me, the D Street corridor is about six point five million, and then there are littler projects, right?

Because that uses up the bulk of the funding, and this is just the amount that was dedicated as part of ST2 and in the template.

And so that that's what we're working with.

So we would be partnering with you if there's any projects that require excessive.

Correct.

Because like Piop Avenue is much more than than 8.5.

And so we we are contributing to different projects to get them over the finish line with that 17 million dollar pot of money with the city.

So we're using that money to bring those projects over the finish line, some of them, right?

Yes.

And likewise, like with the D Street project, if the city were able to acquire grants for that and have Sound Transit's fund be sort of matching grants, then there would be extra money for other projects on the list.

I think Chair Walker wants to add.

Chair Walker.

Maybe one of you could talk about I don't, it's a city project, but the Pewalp Avenue project in the what we've already have dedicated to it.

Yeah, I know it's uh it's in the 40 plus million dollar range.

Um 32 plus million has already been secured through city funds and grants.

Um it is exciting that, and I will say in general on the access improvements that there's been a lot of coordination between um Sound Transit and this access opportunity, the funding opportunity and the the city's transportation and mobility plan, which as you know was just updated this last year.

So both Puallop Avenue being high priorities on that that not only connects downtown to Fife and the East Side, obviously the the uh Shibial Pap Trail is along uh Pewalp Avenue, so huge regional and local priority and D Street that I know Diane's mentioned, which is really the the second one on the priority list, and and by far the next biggest chunk of money in the list connects um the east side McKinley Hill down into the Dome District to the Foss, downtown to all these transit investments.

So gonna be a huge improvement.

So for someone who lives on McKinley Hill, I was really excited to see that there would be another sidewalk because there's only one sidewalk and it's really difficult to go down.

And you know, it makes a difference.

Surge, you know, talk about surge events.

I live in a neighborhood where people will come up and and park there, right?

Um when there's uh major events, and it does bring in economic activity up into McKinley Hill.

Uh and I wanted to point out if we do get Piellop Avenue done, and we have uh Portland Avenue also from I5 down as access points, we just need the fishing war memorial bridge to finish off that trifecta.

Um you know what, I'll leave it at that.

That was my mic drop.

Thank you, Councilman Sidalga.

Council member Rumbaugh.

Um thanks.

I I um just uh first off, I want to say that I did take the Fed Joe downtown to the light to um the Sounders game on Sunday, and there were lots of people on it for the first game of the season.

And I am calling it the Northeast Station.

So um, because it is really convenient from Northeast Tacoma.

I mean, we just like hooked up like the part of the town that has no transportation.

Thank you so much.

Um, but I do want to really um focus again on Pew Alp Avenue corridor.

I think that that's where we should be putting our time and money is into um that area and um energizing what happens there and incentivizing and um as much as I love the idea of something cool at the station.

I've been unless you're on the east coast, I mean you go into a station, there's not really that much going on.

I think people kind of come and catch it.

I really want to get people to try to use PewP Avenue, and I really appreciate that we're talking about this, and we put a lot of investment into it.

I think it's its own little area, it's not a very large place.

I think we could make it really cool if we got some good businesses there.

And I hoping that some of the businesses that are at the um Freight House Square right now will choose to, we will find them something down there so that they can stay in the neighborhood and benefit from the newly built Tacoma Dome station.

So that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you.

Um I too would like to see some sort of a mixed-use economic development elements to new stations.

Maybe it's getting creative about the zoning about maybe letting a coffee cart be in the lot or something that is less structural if that's not if within the building is not possible.

So maybe we can think through that as ideas or I don't know, a food truck area, something where we can have somewhere where folks can grab something as they're making their journeys through the region.

Um the other thing that I think of immediately as we think about economic development and particularly food opportunities, is can you speak to the access of bathrooms that will be at these stations and how we will make sure that those are adequate for everyone who's in the community?

Uh we do have existing direction on where we locate uh restrooms for passengers.

Um I forgetting it specifically, but it's about every 20 minute ride uh is where we try to space passenger restrooms.

Uh, because uh of where Tacoma Dome is and being a terminus station, it would have passenger restrooms, and that is the plan currently.

It is typically behind uh the pay fare line, uh fate pair line.

It is typically behind uh the pay fare line, uh fate pair line, uh, but because of uh some other potential uh programming that people are already discussed, there might be other opportunities for it uh in front of the fair paid line.

Great.

I think that's a really big piece of public transit, is especially for somewhere like the Chichacoma Dome where people are probably coming up from other parts of the county, coming up on other pieces of transit.

It's a really important area where folks can do they need to do sometimes that's just change and get to the next leg of their journey.

It's one of the things we hear the most about when we think about the planning of our stations.

So uh your you're in good company with others' thoughts.

Great, thank you.

Thank you very much.

And uh, with that, those uh conclude our questions and comments.

Thank you very much for the briefing.

Okay, moving on.

Our second agenda item is operational strategy and administrative committee update, council rules.

I'd like to call on human resources continuous improvement officer Ben Thurgood to begin the presentation.

Where are you calling?

Sorry, I have a question.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

And thank you, Council, for having me here this afternoon.

I am Ben Thurgood, the continuous improvement officer for the City of Tacoma, and the executive liaison to the Operational Strategy and Administration Committee, or OSAC.

Um, so as a reminder, the purpose of the OSAC committee is to work on policies, issues, programs, and services that may include but are not limited to council's administrative processes, practices, and structures that guide the city council's operations and its relationship with the city manager.

So I'm here today with an update on the committee's emerging work on reviewing city council rules.

The city council rules of procedures are the formal policies adopted by the council that governs how the city council conducts your work and an orderly and transparent matter.

This council full rules of procedure are available on the City of Tacoma website, Tacoma.gov.

Looking in a bit more detail, we see the kinds of topics that these rules cover.

There are a total of 16 rules that apply to council governance roles and organization, meetings, agendas, and legislative processes, deliberation, debate, and decision making, and public engagement, transparency, and records.

These four categories that you see on the screen are not formal groupings, but they're useful in the context of this presentation to provide a general overview of what's covered by the rules.

Beyond the rules of procedure, council is bound by the city charter and Tacoma Municipal Code, as well as applicable state and federal laws that govern public meetings and the operation of governing bodies.

The council rules are owned and maintained by the city council.

If a change is desired, the only requirement is that the change be brought forward by resolution of the council with a first and second reading and then adopted by a simple majority of the council.

Over the course of the last year or so, proposed changes have accumulated but not been brought forward by resolution.

So OSAC has begun looking at the proposed changes as well as the process for maintaining council's rules of procedure moving forward.

Here today we will discuss two categories of changes that again are informal categories but useful for our discussion.

Some proposed changes are technical in nature, driven by processes such as the 2024 charter amendment and represent housekeeping items to create accuracy and alignment without any significant impact to council's authority, processes, or public access.

Other changes are more substantial and represent a policy direction of the council.

This is particularly true of changes that affect transparency, public participation, council's accountability, or the community's experience about how decisions get made.

In the upcoming slides, we will walk through a list of proposed changes, including both housekeeping and substantive changes, and how that distinction could impact the process for enacting a rule change.

Housekeeping or technical changes would require less discussion and could regularly be made when the need arises.

Substantive or policy changes warrant additional analysis and discussion by council.

As noted earlier, the only requirement for changing the council's rules of procedure is a resolution brought before the council for our first and second reading and then adopted by a majority vote with the accompanying opportunities for public comment and transparency that are embedded in the resolution process.

However, given the purpose of operational strategy and administration committee to work on council's administrative processes and operations, there's an opportunity to create an efficient and effective process for maintaining council's rules in accordance with the council's evolving needs and in alignment with applicable laws and public transparency.

This process is outlined on the screen for you here.

Once a needed change or rule concept is identified, that process can be brought before the full council in a study session such as this to allow all members of council to participate in the initial framing and discussion of a proposed change.

That discussion can then continue with OSAC, who serves as a working group of the council to work through specific wording, technical details, and implementation considerations with support from staff to draft a resolution to bring back to the city council for consideration and adoption.

This process would create early full council awareness of any proposed changes while saving time by allowing OSAC to work through the initial details before final approval of the full city council.

Today we're in that yellow highlighted box with a collection of potential rule changes that have been identified over the past year.

This list is likely not comprehensive, and there may be proposed changes or questions that council members have that are not captured in the following slides.

There has been no process so far to consolidate or prioritize any of the proposed changes and additional feedback from council members to their OSAC counterparts is welcome.

Next, I'll give an overview of the changes that OSAC is aware of and that they will be discussing at this Friday's OSAC meeting.

Council members are encouraged to connect with OSAC Chair Ibsen if they have any additional items or feedback regarding these proposed changes.

So looking at the potential housekeeping changes identified in 2025.

Rule one would bring council's rules and procedures into alignment with voter-approved changes to the city council, the city charter that occurred during the 2024 Charter Amendment process.

While the changes themselves look substantial, they are the result of a robust charter review process and a vote of the public.

The proposed changes to council's rules of procedure are then just technical changes to bring the rules into alignment with the charter amendment.

Rule 15 adds clarity by adding operational strategy and administration committee to the list of standing committees.

The committee was originally formed as the performance review committee in 2001 and then renamed to the OSAC committee in 2025 in resolution 41674.

However, it was never added to the list of committees of the council.

This change then is a housekeeping item that would complete the list of standing committees in the rules of procedures, but it does not change the current operations of the city council.

Rule 16 is considered a technical change because it removes references to revised code of Washington to instead rely on city charter where applicable without changing the actual practices and operations of the council.

And then one of the proposed changes we have identified to rule two goal two could be technical in nature because it clarifies that the presiding officer may call a recess without formal motion.

This clarifies and documents a current practice without changing the policy direction or substantial operations of the council.

Next slide.

Then turning to more substantive changes, an additional proposed rule change to rule two regarding adding a requirement for city council members to provide a report of any out-of-state travel would be considered more substantive because it creates an obligation for council members and it impacts public transparency and accountability.

Council members may have feedback on items such as the timing of reporting in relationship to the travel and the specific content requirements of the report.

Looking at rule four regarding the order of business would change which items appear on the consent agenda.

Because items on the consent agenda receive less specific focus or air time at council meetings, these changes could impact the transparency of these items from the public's perspective.

These changes would simply appear as a change in where gifts and donations, interlocal agreements, and multifamily housing limited property tax exemption agreements would appear in the order of business outlined in Rule 4, but council members may wish to consider or provide feedback on the impact of moving any of these items to or from the consent agenda.

Rule 9 establishes the procedures for community forum and therefore directly addresses public participation and would be considered substantial.

Council's feedback and discussion could include frequency or duration of these forums or additional or alternative venues or formats for public engagement.

Today's meeting packet included potential draft language illustrating what some of these changes may look like based on the initial information received throughout 2025.

This language is only representative of the concepts and has not been discussed by OSAC.

It serves as a launching point for a conversation at OSAC, and it may change as Council progresses through the process of updating the rules of procedure.

And as OSAC discusses and incorporates council's feedback.

So then turning to my last slide here.

As a reminder, OSAC will be discussing these items at this week's OSAC meeting.

One more click, there's an animation.

There you go.

As a reminder, OSAC will be discussing these items at this week's meeting on Friday, February 27th at 10:30 a.m.

in room 243 of the City of Tacoma Municipal Building.

Instructions for joining the meeting virtually are available in the OSAC public meeting notice and on the website, Tacoma.gov.

Council members are encouraged to provide any additional rule changes or considerations to OSAC Chair Ibsen ahead of the meeting.

However, as stated earlier in the presentation, the process for making changes to council's rules of procedure only require a resolution of the council.

So this is certainly not the council's final opportunity to propose changes or make adjustments moving forward.

Moreover, as you can see in the timeline above, once we factor in time for the OSAC discussion and then time for staff to draft a resolution capturing any proposed changes and allow for other proper public notice and adding items to the agenda, we would expect any resulting legislation to be brought before the council for adoption in mid to late April.

So with that, I will turn it over to Chair Ibsen for any additional comments.

Thank you, Ben, for the presentation.

Uh to get us to a decision point and bring something forward.

I will be bringing a proposal for OSAC this Friday to shape our conversation and get us to a decision.

If you have thoughts on any of the following potential changes, please send them to me before Friday to help shape my proposal to OSAC.

Once OSAC has talked through the potential changes this week, we'll bring back something to the full council later in March or April for possible consideration.

And just to daylight wasn't necessarily something specified in the presentation.

One of those things is changes, uh proposed changes to community forum.

Uh one of the changes is taking account of the reality that we're no longer in a pandemic solo virtual type of environment is moving back to the original timeline of once per week for community forum and excuse me.

Once per month that was a that was a very bad uh slip there.

Uh once per month, excuse me.

That was to make sure you're still listening.

Um along with potential um revisiting about um remote participation, norms shaping that, and really anything.

Anything's up for discussion there as an interim part of the conversation, uh, the larger conversation about how we reimagine community forum into a more inclusive um truly community spanning place.

Uh for the time being, we just need a better process, it's more aligned to post-pandemic reality.

Uh so with that, I'm very welcoming of your uh of your input there.

Um are there any council members seeking input?

With that, we have a few uh timing in here, starting with council member Diaz, followed by Councilmember Walker.

Thank you.

I heard you ask for us to email things.

Is it appropriate for us to also speak to what we might send now?

Please.

Okay.

Um I have a couple specific things and then uh just kind of broad idea that came to me this weekend.

Um, so I'll start with the edit to number three and rule two, uh, I guess letter C, page 10.

That is helpful to anyone following along with these paper.

Um, this piece about um essentially giving a report about travel location itinerary funding source.

I would wonder if it's um if if the committee would be amenable to adding some language right before the word travel that just says city related.

Um, mostly because I don't want to hear about when everybody goes on vacation, um, because I don't get to go on vacations as often, and it'll give me FOMO.

Okay, call that the no the no FOMO amendment.

Um for whatever that is helpful.

Okay.

Um and then I am wondering about I guess it's more of a question than a thought.

Um around number seven on page 12.

I guess the subsection B5, this piece about accepting gifts or donations.

I'm wondering if this should reference our code of ethics or how we would determine what the threshold is.

I know the PDC has thresholds around what needs to be reported.

I guess I just wonder how do we in favor of this.

I'm just wondering how do we make sure that we're being specific enough or flexible enough to whatever it is that we need to be.

Um I think about that particularly in terms of like I think the best example I have is uh I don't know how to quantify it other than saying like uh how we think about city resources as you can use them for your personal time, like but it's de minimis use, so that's the context I think of the word de minimis.

I think of de minimis gifts as like uh I met with a constituent who baked me some cookies.

It was incredibly thoughtful and kind on her part, but a de minimis sort of gift in terms of monetary or quantifiable.

So I'm just wondering what how we put some sort of a threshold or a caveat on this so that I don't have to mention every time somebody gives me a button or you know, I think these are city gifts, not individual.

Like when we receive not individuals or like a okay.

That's maybe clarify that then because I really read it as gifts to us as individuals.

Yeah, we can absolutely some clarifying language there, certainly.

Cool.

Yeah, I don't know what that looks like, but that is what struck me there.

Um always appreciative of folks giving buttons and things, but just for the sake of not overruling ourselves.

Um, and then the last thought I had was this piece around community forum.

Um we received uh a letter, an email, I'm not sure which way to phrase it.

Um was some concern from folks who watched the OSAC meeting.

I'm not on the OSAC committee and I didn't get to watch the meeting.

But what I heard summarized in the email was concerns about how we as a council are not necessarily interacting with the public when they give testimony and how we're or give public comment and how we're not um able to really respond.

Um respond, um, or just dialogue.

Um, and I wonder if it might be as we're looking at um how to I think revolutionized community forum.

If we were to say change community forum, something that I saw happen this weekend that I thought would be really pertinent for the city is those legislature during session does town halls once uh once a session, they do a midday mid-session town hall, and they those all happen this weekend where I saw a lot of folks gather at most of the legislative districts here in Tacoma and across the state, um, to talk with their legislators, all three legislators, usually from the delegation up front.

They have a streamlined process with their staff or folks to submit questions there live.

I think sometimes they'll take them ahead of time.

They also do what's called um teletown halls over the phone, but I think for the purposes of our city and for the purposes of having folks feel heard and having us be able to actually react and respond in real time.

I wonder if we might switch to a model like that because it would give us a chance for the public to come in um say or bring up issues that are pertinent to them that aren't on the agenda.

So kind of the spirit of community forum where folks can talk to things that aren't topical to each Tuesday, but our sort of broader topical.

Um, I could see us doing that, say quarterly, say monthly.

I um open to give that idea to OSAC for y'all to noodle and think through more in committee.

But it really struck me how well legislative town halls, as someone who has managed them before as a staffer and attended them as a public member.

I think that could be a really good model for us to sort of shift the dialogue and actually get us a way to interact with the public.

And it would be something that would be open to maybe happening not on a Tuesday evening.

It could be a Saturday morning, it could be other times when the community has we have heard, I know I have heard from community members constantly that um they can't get here at noon on a on a Tuesday or at 10 on a Friday or on a Tuesday evening because they work.

So it might be a way to sort of also shift that that organizing moment and that that platforming moment for the community to come and talk to us to a time when they might be more available.

I don't know what the right time is, or maybe switching it around.

But I just I give that idea to the committee for y'all to consider as you're looking at draft rules.

Um I think it would be a really helpful way to be able to actually dialogue with constituents, but it's just just a thought that came to me.

Thank you.

Great input.

Councilmember Walker, follow up, Councilmember Romba.

Um, thank you.

I just wanted to add maybe some color commentary to our discussion, and thank you, Ben, for going over it so clearly.

I I want to be very vocal that uh everything that is proposed in here with the couple clarifying words.

Um if there was some GPFC discussion, there was OSAC discussion.

I think I'm very ready to to move forward on those.

Those seem like easy cleanup things.

This larger conversation around community forum, and I love this idea of the town hall and doing it on a in a different space.

I don't know if if we're gonna um pursue that and do that.

Um does that go in council rules if because we all do individual events throughout the year, and those aren't in council rules.

Um it seems like we're doing something totally different than community forum.

And I I think that that's the right direction to go.

I'm just curious if it both if if we could move forward these other things and then keep having this conversation.

Community forum is mentioned specifically in the council rule.

So if there is a change to that exact format or venue, then you would want to look at how that is represented in the rules, but there are activities of the city that are governed outside of these rules as well, and they don't not need to all be brought into the rules, but I would look to the city attorney to correct me on anything that I'm saying inaccurately.

You know, Councilmember Walker, just from my own uh listening to other members of the council too, my understanding, and and please feel free to chime in and correct me if it's uh if I'm not accurate here, is that the proposed changes are more of an interim when it comes to the community forum because the larger conversation about reimagining it, um uh whether it's something akin to uh what Council Member Giels was saying about how the state legislature conducts these or something uniquely that Tacoma can do.

My understanding, and and please feel free to chime in, correct me if this uh if I'm not accurate here, is that the proposed changes are more of an interim when it comes to the community forum because the larger conversation about reimagining it um uh whether it's something akin to uh what council member Diaz was saying about how the state legislature conducts these or something uniquely that Tacoma can do, that's gonna be a longer conversation because we want to have a lot of robust community feedback and other uh stakeholders' feedback.

But in the meantime, we we just frankly need a less dysfunctional community forum while we figure that stuff out.

So this is our this is our interim while we get to that point is sort of the uh the best consensus that I've got through talking to my colleagues.

Great, thank you for that clarity.

And uh again, just want to be supportive of moving forward with some more uh spaces for dialogue, and I it I like this idea.

I think it's headed in the right direction.

So I don't want to slow down the process, and I think we're all eager to make the changes, but of course, you know, I would I do want to make sure we have feedback and things like that.

But it feels like the the these changes have been a long time coming, so let's get some get some done.

And and I think everyone's eager to have more dialogue with community too.

So um maybe just sharing my urgency around all of this.

So thank you for bringing it forward.

Well said, Councilmember Rumba, follow up, Councilmember Scott.

Um thank you.

And I just I want to support Councilmember Diaz and the change to the I don't want to hear about your vacation either.

You probably don't want to hear about my vacation, but I I want to make sure that that you know you add something if we feel like we need to add something, but it should say it's council business.

Um and then I also appreciate the conversation about town halls, finding another way so that we could have a back and forth conversation, which is what I it sounds like people want to have, and other cities do this.

Um I think that there's other models and and they and so I think I appreciate we're looking at that.

Um, something that I brought up at our um retreat was considering a way to do interviews for commissions as a separate committee.

And I don't know what that would look like because we do have um requirements for getting people into commission into seats and time to do certain work on different committees, but I would love to if you would take that up, that would be something really great.

Um it just is that we aren't able to get to a lot of things in CVS because we spend a lot of time doing commission um interviews, which is something I really love, and I would I would volunteer to be on this commission on the on the interview committee, but I just I I'm just curious if that's something we might consider taking up at some point.

Okay, thank you.

Good inquiry.

Councilmember Scott, followed by Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

Um the community forum piece, um, or that rather the town hall.

Um I I don't know, since it's not community forum, um I think even though there are those things that we, you know, like our personal town halls and things like that that we do outside of the rules here.

I think for something like a town hall where the express purpose is having the dialogue with the community, um, and that it is whether it's added to this section about community forum or it's a new section added to our rules, just so that we are making sure that that consistency and that communication with the community isn't dependent upon who's sitting at the table at any given time.

Um, and that yeah, and and I think also it probably like figuring out where it's being held and staff time and things like that.

Obviously, there's like a budget piece that comes with it, so I think having it in the rules also make sure it's top of mind when we're going through things like the budget.

That's it.

Thank you.

Okay, councilmember Palmer, followed by Councilman Soldagia.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I wanted to thank OSAC for opening this up for discussion.

I I guess I might be in the minority, but I'll just say that I I think that this is uh opportunity to be a little bit more thorough, and if that means slowing down a little bit and making sure we're we're getting all the changes done the way we want them done, um, then I would be all for that.

I did um go through and and red line and and notate a version of this myself, and so um I'm hoping to share that with you soon.

Um lots of suggestions around community forum and um where things are at in the agenda.

So um I I I do hope that we take the time to get this right, and because I I think it might be more of a push to get it up on the agenda again.

Um, and we have when we have other things to consider as well.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Sildoghi, followed by Councilmember Bushnell or Deputy Mayor.

Um thank you.

I actually agree with um a lot of what we've what's been said, especially Councilmember Diaz.

Um I will add the other part of the travel being that it's also a privacy thing.

I mostly visit family and friends when I'm up there.

I never intended it to help you know.

I think it wasn't it.

I don't think it may be.

I just want to make sure it's very clear that it's yeah, on the draft on the bike thing, it says I think it's I think it's understood.

That's perfectly fine.

I appreciate it.

Uh on the community forum thing.

Um, couple of things I would point out.

Uh we get busy sometimes, we have months where we get really busy, especially if we're on budget in months where we need some time off.

Um, I was thinking about this idea that we have five districts and um 12 months.

Uh we may want to consider there might be up to two months that we don't want to have have it, whether it's Christmas or or um uh summers, um, just to give us that little bit of um leeway.

I'm I'm not like completely married to it, I just know logistically it can get very difficult to adhere to that.

And the reason the number 10 came up was if we do consider this in the future, I would love to be able to do um whether it's a community forum or town hall in one of each of the five districts physically there, because something that I've heard in in my district is they just don't feel like it's accessible, right?

Um, whether it's driving into downtown and risking their cars, like people have actually said that.

I don't think it's as founded, right?

Um, but we should be going to our districts and meeting people in those districts, and I think we should do it as a as a body, not just um individually.

Uh and if there's a way to do that, and perhaps this is a longer conversation because there might be some budget budgetary um uh considerations in order to hold that.

So in my head, it it sounded really nice to get you know up to two months as as kind of uh pressure relief and then 10 kind of community meetings, maybe half of them are uh a community forum.

Uh I think it's important to have a type of community forum where we don't really um have the ability to interact because uh let's remember we have to respect the fundamental constitutional right to petition your your government for duress, whether that government agrees with you or not.

And I think it's really important that we have uh the ability to talk um more, you know, with more freedom with our constituents too.

I think both of those need to be adhered to, and I think a world in which we have one of each type, maybe every other month, um, might be a better kind of uh solution.

Um that's all I had.

Thank you, Councilman Soldagi, Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you, Mayor, and uh appreciate everyone's uh comments on this.

Um the uh just one of the things that uh I think that there's some things that we can move through in a more quickly uh basis, like the um like a lot of the housekeeping things that have been identified.

Um, and then we also have obviously our substantive changes, which includes um you know the community forum and other things.

And so I think that we can move fast, uh we can move slow to move fast, and we can do both at the same time.

Um and so I think that um that was I think the intent when we had our discussion at OSAC if I recall, um, was to try and okay, here's some things that we can generally agree on that we can move through um you know in the in the near term.

Um, but then the more substantive stuff will obviously take a bit more time and making sure that we're dialogue with each other, we're dialoguing with the community, um, and so that we can kind of develop something that's much more uh that makes sense for for the body.

Um so one of the other things that I had a question about specifically is I know that we talked about um the presiding officer to call on uh for recess.

Um and uh we had discussed kind of what that looks like if it's consecutive or maybe even having a new term called at ease.

Um and I I guess I'm a little unclear on on where we landed on that and where that's here within the rules uh proposed changes here.

Um so yeah.

Yeah, the language included in the packet there is may have been developed over the course of 2025, and so it does not take into account the OSAC discussion from last week.

So that'll be a topic we'd want to discuss this Friday at OSAC and get that clarity.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yeah, so the reason why I bring it up is um for those that I just obviously weren't in OSAC.

The I just I always think of worst-case scenario and and how our rules might reflect that.

And so presiding officer calls a recess without a vote of the body, because there's no need for a motion or anything like that.

Can they do it for like 15 minute increments?

Is there like a maximum?

Can they do it back to back?

Like, can they stall legislation or business indefinitely?

So I think those are just things that we have to talk through.

And and I we also had talked about okay, there's there's a uh in Roberts Rules, there's a thing called at ease, which is which is kind of like a reassessable little bit separately that maybe we would do as opposed to a recess, which would require motion stuff.

So there's just a little bit more detail stuff that we should uh work through on that.

So thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, Councilmember Scott.

Thank you again.

Um I guess I wanted to like in the entrance of like getting some things done now and some things done after a little while.

Like obviously, there are even in since we talked about this at OSAC the other week, there are things that have popped up in my mind as well.

So just kind of acknowledging the fact that obviously, like we have things on the agenda at OSAC, but is there any specific, like if we get the housekeeping items done, we take more time, get the other sub um like more substantial things done.

Um, but you know, a couple months or something goes by, and somebody's like, I'm still thinking about this for the rules, and I'm still thinking about this for the rules.

Like, is there anything stopping us from coming back and doing another round of this?

Or is there any period of time we have to wait to come back and update rules or no?

We have a lot of flexibility here.

Okay.

Anytime the council wants to put together a resolution to change the rules, that's the only requirement, the only process.

Okay.

So the twice-a-month cadence of OSAC provides us a good momentum and good energy in a place that can think about these kind of changes, and so I think it'll create that momentum and that assured progress.

But yes, at any time council can open up a rule change.

And so there's nothing preventing us from doing it in three or four batches, if that would help.

Um, and then my other question, um not so so obviously the language around community forum is that it's limited to one hour.

I don't are we is that like a mandate, or is that just like our our what's become our practice?

It's what's embodied in the rules.

Okay.

And so I guess I was just wondering, like I know sometimes there are folks who are you know, we don't have obviously I get the purpose of shortening the speaking time if there are a lot of people and we're trying to keep it to an hour.

Um, but I guess I was wondering if there could be if it's appropriate to have language around uh we're gonna give people two minutes, but we're also going to extend community forum for an hour to an hour and a half instead of just an hour.

Rather, like because there might be topics that it takes people a little bit more time to articulate on rather than like yeah, we might hear from more people, but if they're kind of getting cut short, it doesn't necessarily help us hear them.

And so I don't know if there's language we should consider adding around.

Um, you know, if we know that we have however I'm not gonna try to do time math, but if we have this many people and we know that if we give them each two minutes, like that was what we started to do at the outset of the meeting, and we know that two minutes for the amount of people that have signed up is gonna take us to an hour and 15 minutes.

Can we extend it that 15 minutes, or do we have to ex like is there a formal thing we have to do to extend it those 15 minutes, or can we just let it go?

Yeah, a lot of what you're talking about is covered in rule nine under um public comment and public forum.

And some of those things are that language is in there, so that would be what you'd want to discuss at OSAC with the feedback from your council members is what should those rules be?

Because it is outlined as it currently operates, it will be one hour, it will be 90 seconds, and so there's an opportunity to edit any of that language to meet the needs of the council.

Okay, well, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't that we were that there was something outside of the rules we made for ourselves.

If there was something that's a good thing, department is fully governed by the rules along with you know being aligned with OPMA and thank you.

I appreciate that clarity, and thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Roman.

Um, just I just had a clarifying question um to our staff person.

Um we can bring a resolution forward anytime we want to on this.

So any council member here at any point could bring a resolution forward that's inside our rules and procedures, and we could add it.

So there's really no, you don't have to bring it to their body.

We they could decide once you bring the resolution forward that they want to listen to it, or we could go ahead and and vote on it at some point.

Exactly.

Is that correct?

Okay, the rules require just the resolution to change.

I just I want people to know that I I appreciate how much time they that OSAC has spent.

I've never seen OSAC meet as many times as I have since I got on council, which is really great.

But if somebody here sitting at this table feels like there's something they want to have added, and it we didn't spend enough time on it, I feel like you should go talk to your staff person and make that happen.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And a small um contribution here when it comes to the travel and as well as excused absences conversation.

Uh, for what it's worth, I think that maybe one thing to consider for the purpose of both simplicity as well as easing some concerns is perhaps create a presumption of an excused absence if um a council member is away on uh a specific city related trip, for example.

So, like National League of Cities, or if you're traveling to represent the city on like a trade mission or a sister city trip or something like that.

Uh just one less thing to think about, one less motion we have to worry about making, etc.

Little housekeeping item.

You write notes very similar to me, too, by the way.

Any other feedback?

All right, well, thank you very much, Ben, and thank you, council, for your feedback.

Thank you.

Our third agenda item is community and economic development department overview.

I'd like to call on CED director Tanya Carter to begin the presentation.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members.

I realize that we are short on time, so I will do my best to stick to my talking points and keep it brief and provide anything after the presentation should you want any extra information.

My name is Tanya Carter.

I serve as the community and economic development director for the city, and I support a team of about 35 people.

And my CED management team is behind us here, so they are also available to answer any questions that are more technical than the presentation.

Next slide, please.

We have five divisions and we serve the public in four areas, which blend the work between divisions and through collaboration.

So the first area that we serve the community in is housing and commercial real estate development.

And I'll just go through a couple of the points just for time constraints, but again, can provide this after if you want.

Some of the responsibilities are increasing housing diversity, affordability through administration of and compliance in multiple local, state, and federal funding programs.

Our affordable housing programs fund development and housing repair is for rental up to 60% AMI, and the homeownership is up to is uh at 80% AMI.

We also ensure rental housing is operating in compliance with rental housing laws.

We provide financing tools such as multifamily tax exemptions and rotate uh revolving loan funds to help projects financially be financially feasible.

We also help navigate entitlements for developers and promote sites for development and facilities for adaptive reuse.

In area two, uh job creation and economic prosperity.

We make it easier to open and grow a business in Tacoma.

There are several different mechanisms we use, such as funding and financing businesses, supporting sector development and uh small business and entrepreneurship.

And lastly, workforce development and livable wage creation through some of the programs that we provide.

In the third area, placemaking, cultural vitality and arts.

We activate the community through cultural funding and programming.

We also improve safety and walkability and aesthetics of uh public spaces.

We support job creation in the creative economy, and we also work to distinguish Tacoma as a conducive environment for artists, creative spaces, and cultural identity.

The last area is uh community engagement and partnerships, and we serve as uh with cross-sector and intergovernmental partnerships, uh such as with JBLM, Downtown Tacoma Partnership, Business Districts, Higher Education, Sound Transit, PY Lub Tribe, but we also do engage very deeply with historically underserved uh communities and their representative organizations.

Next slide, please.

Um, there are three slides on our recent accomplishments.

I won't read through everything.

Again, I can provide any um details that you want, but the three sections of Tacoma 2025 that we focused on in this slide, the next slide, and the one after it are all on some of the accomplishments that um our department has uh achieved in the last one to two and a half, three years.

Um, so you can see that a lot of uh public-private partnerships where we have leveraged um funding that we've received for grants to uh help in public uh in private investment, and we've also helped to maintain uh people in their homes uh through some of our compliance and uh loan programs, as well as on the livability side, uh, thanks to council support.

We were able to uh reauthorize the Tacoma Creates program for another seven years, which just uh last year alone contributed to over six million dollars, um, seventy sixty-nine organizations, over a million participants, and um other programs around the city.

Next slide.

Um again, I won't read through everything in the interest of time, um, but just another list of some of the accomplishments of uh our department in the last one to two and a half uh years.

Um in economy and workforce.

We have accomplished everything from helping to launch um almost 40 businesses through our Space Works program.

We were able to distribute over four million dollars to 79 businesses in the community.

A lot of those dollars are getting uh recycled back over up to about three three million, three million plus back into our revolving loan program.

So that's funding that we can keep pushing out to the community.

Uh you know, we've also hosted over 22 international companies, um, which has led to multiple leads uh for businesses to open in the city and a couple of relocations, and uh also uh down at the bottom you can see we've uh leveraged public dollars to um just in the last uh year, two and a half years to leverage almost 300 million dollars in um private uh development.

And also down at the bottom, you can see we've leveraged public dollars to just in the last year, two and a half years to leverage almost 300 million dollars in private development.

Next slide.

Lastly, on education, we have accomplished almost 150,000 labor hours through our LEAP program, and that has also contributed to over 1,200 different industry certifications.

Also with our jobs 253 program that is in partnership with Tacoma Public Schools.

You can see the statistics there on what we've supported for students we've served, credentials achieved, and the stipends that we've also provided.

Next slide.

Again, I'll just run through this quickly, but we support climate environment through the green economy strategy, and that is fulfilling the Tacoma 2035 mission by encouraging businesses to adopt sustainable models and create high-wage green jobs.

Additionally, we also offer targeted programs and support where the city empowers its local workforce and existing industries to join the region's transition into sustainable and green economy.

On community safety, we support that pillar through Tacoma's public arts and murals program, which are not traditional tools, but they help to transform vandalism prone areas into vibrant landmarks, which really encourages activation and helps reduce blight and loitering.

On housing and homelessness, we support that through housing and commercial real estate development.

Our housing division delivers diverse housing supply by coordinating land use, public and private investment, as well as neighborhood scale placemaking.

Under jobs and economy, we support through three different areas job creation and the second is actually we are coordinating with our development team is coordinating and is a vital partner to the commercial real estate community, assisting with entitlements, insisting with promoting development sites and facilitating adaptive reuse of older buildings.

And lastly, under jobs and economy, we also support this under ensuring that investments reflect community priorities and deliver equitable results.

We also work with residents, community organizations, tribal governments, regional partners to build trust and improve outcomes, which strengthens the long-term success of housing and the economy and placemaking.

Lastly, under placemaking, we are enhancing Tacoma's livability and competitiveness by shaping a vibrant and inclusive places and districts.

Next slide.

Briefly on how we support council goals, this just shows the structure of how our department is feeding into Tacoma 2035.

So really since the Tacoma 2035 is the framework to realize council goals, we've structured our department to be operationally transparent in how we meet council goals, which are expressed through the Tacoma 2035.

So just briefly feel at the bottom of the pyramid, our divisional strategies are listed there.

Those strategies include actions and metrics.

Those metrics roll up to our CED action plan at a department level, and those really showcase how all of our divisions collaborate together and really show up for community.

So instead of explaining something in terms of maybe business retention and expansion visits, which a community member may not totally understand, we explain it more in the context of our housing division is developing helping fund housing.

Our business services team is helping to populate the ground floor retail with businesses, and then our arts cultural vitality team would be helping to support how the building is looks and feels on the outside.

So that's more of how we would show up at the department level.

And then again, the metrics and objectives roll up directly to Tacoma 2035.

Next slide.

On the business side, as I mentioned, business retention and expansion visits.

We also are launching an international soft landing program for our sister cities, mainly those cities and businesses that are looking to come to Tacoma and Pierce County, and we work very closely with the EDB on that because if they don't end up landing in Tacoma, we really have a great partnership with the World Trade Center and EDB, so we can make sure that they at least land in Pierce County.

And then on the community side, we are working with MCO to build a content calendar so that we can really make sure that we identify our target audiences, where they consume information and what kind of information they would like to consume on what we are providing as community support.

And the last point regional anchors and community perspective, just really building the relationships with those regional anchors such as JBLM, the Port of Tacoma, and all of our higher ed uh institutions.

Community perspective is something that I think is really important, and it's really looking at how we do our work through the target audience or the community perspective.

So not necessarily creating another form or another you know process, but really asking the community what is it that would feel the best or be the easiest for us to show up for you.

Next slide.

Current initiatives.

Um I won't read through all of these, there's quite a few there.

Um but suffice to say that the team really is uh looking to Tacoma 35, um, also looking at our department strategies that council has um helped to get adopted and uh trying to translate those into an annual work plan and then uh translate that as well into our ongoing work and into future plans.

Next slide.

For current uh critical issues, um, I probably have the same thing to say as as all departments.

We are doing a lot more with a lot less resources, um, so that is definitely a constraint, especially when you have um something like economic development where it is complicated and it is really predicated on relationship building.

Um right now I'll just say that what is a really critical issue for us is that when the economy is in a downturn, that is really when economic development needs to ramp up because it is such a relationship-driven business or practice.

If you imagine, you know, we're competing with other cities for not only the businesses that exist here, but businesses we want to attract, developers, workforce.

So we really need to be building those relationships now so that as the economy um starts to upturn that um we are top of mind.

So that's something that's really on our minds.

Next slide.

Um how you can work with us.

We have a lot of different ways that um council can interact with us.

A lot of our um different website uh websites, um, a lot of our downtown Tacoma partnership, we have Green Economy Hub, and then our business district associations.

Um we also have CBCs and standing committees, um, about six or seven that are there that a lot of you either attend or are very aware of.

Um so please feel free anytime.

Obviously, contacting the city manager is it is a great way to go, and I'm always available if any of you have any questions.

Last slide.

Again, a lot of great opportunities for engagement.

Um we have everything from doing site visits to funded arts and cultural organizations to um checking out our Tacoma Creates calendar for the events that are there.

We have our cross-district um uh association liaison, and so that's another great way to engage on a kind of a broader level with the districts, and um then also we have our BRE visits, so we would welcome any of the council members that want um to join along on any of our business retention expansion visits or any kind of walkabouts.

I know that um that the CED team has actually gone on uh with one of the council members gone on a walkabout, um, and that's always option for any one of you.

So with that, I will uh oh, and last slide, sorry, the most important slide.

Um financials.

Um just something to keep in mind.

CED's work means more local jobs, more small businesses, more housing funded, and a stronger tax base to fund public services.

So we uh use uh we absorb about 17% of the general fund, but we really are able to leverage that um with the rest of our budget, and um I won't go into the details on the all the acronyms, but essentially a majority of our budget is through grants, um either state grants, uh federal grants, etc.

And that's really what makes up a majority of the work and how we're able to create public-private partnerships and leverage the public work that we do for private um private economic development.

That that was actually the last slide.

So, with that, I am available for any questions.

Should anyone have any questions?

And my team is available if I need to phone a friend.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

I'll start with uh calling on Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, can we go to that last slide, slide 13?

And can you just give me a little lesson on acronyms?

I think I only know one of them.

Yep.

Um I so the I will actually ask Debbie to come up on uh two of them, which I'm not familiar.

EDA Economic Development Administration, um, we've got federal or state, federal, federal, okay.

Debbie, do you want to just take over?

There we go.

So um, councilmember, so that I think some of them are the uh 1195 TACR is Tacoma Creates, so that's the one-tenth of one percent sales tax that we get funding for that.

The AHF is affordable housing fund, so that has both the one-tenth of one percent.

It also has a portion of state sales tax that we get returned to us, as well as funding from the Department of Commerce.

Um, FGRT is federal grants, so that's like mostly CDBG funds we get again for housing specifically.

Sorry, that's community development block grant funding.

Sorry about that.

No, it's the I'll just explain one acronym with another house.

Yeah, yeah.

Um the EDA economic development grants are that's mostly this was all actually um from the Department of Commerce with that Carol's program did the community redevelopment um, so that was basically one-time funding.

I mean, maybe it'll come again, but for this by end, it was one time.

The DTBIA is a downtown BIA, so that's money we're just collecting, self-assessed, and then putting back out to the downtown um partnership.

Great, thank you.

You answered two other questions while you were saying that.

So that was really helpful.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you, Tony, for all of this.

I know it's a ton of different programs, and I would love to dig into a lot of them.

Um, but won't take the time here.

Um I am curious, and we touched on this at the retreat on Friday.

When we talk about our Tacoma 35 and we talk placemaking and experiences, it feels like we have largely focused on big experiences, Tacoma Dome, and I love it.

I don't want to change that, but I'm wondering if CED is the place where we do the smaller placemaking, and I think maybe there's some crossover with public works, right?

Because a lot of it is in the public right of way, like you know, pocket parks, dining in the um in the streets, um, those kind of projects, but I don't see that reflected, so I'm just um more curious if that's like a sector that you guys have, or if it's because it's in a lot of different departments, where does that live and how can I get more?

That's a great uh great question.

Thank you, uh, Councilmember Walker.

Um, if you uh I guess our main focus is on the the business side.

So um traditionally we've had neighborhood business districts.

We are, as you know, um moving towards a business district program, which is focused um also it's a neighborhood business districts and so commercial nodes and you know other areas where there's business done around the city, and really um what the placemaking is uh looks like in those areas is everything from you know potentially BIAs, but potentially you know, inspiring and activating the community and the businesses to get together and to figure out what a strategy could be for um beautification, if you will.

Um, we do have a small amount of funding for that, and that is something you know that we are working on allocating.

Um, and uh there also is a saying that we have in the department, which is that we are working to build complete neighborhoods.

And so I think that with placemaking it's not just the the look and the feel, but it's also you know making sure that a neighborhood has all of the amenities, um, you know, not just necessarily the coffee shop, but you know, the child care, the you know, business that you can um maybe walk to and the housing.

So uh that's also part of our strategy.

I'm not sure if that answered your question because it is a very general term, but we do have a strategy for the great it looks like oh Carol.

I don't know how to turn the button on.

Did I do that?

Okay.

I just wanted to add really quickly for phone a friend, Carol Wolf commune economic economic development.

Part of what we do too is so when we do large public investments like the links to opportunity or the investment in um Lincoln, what our public works partners do is they bring us in.

Debbie Bingham was the project manor at Lincoln, I was the project manager when we did links to opportunity, and we can help ensure that that community's look and feel is put into those larger placemaking.

That's a huge element, and right now um Dearder Patterson and Tanya will be working together for placemaking around the TDLE in that area.

We also, through our neighborhood business district program, not only do we offer funding that helps support some of the cost of those smaller festivals, we're also investing with Tacoma Neighborhoods Together, which is a partner of the cross district to help elevate some of the fiscal sponsorship and the availability of our business districts because special events is one of the main things they do.

We're also investing with Tacoma Neighborhoods Together, which is a partner of the cross district to help elevate some of the fiscal sponsorship and the availability of our business districts because special events is one of the main things they do.

So if you go to Art on the Av, Proctor Art Fest, the South Tacoma Way, all of those different events that happen that you see they happen in our business districts, and often we're helping to fund those or provide some of that technical assistance with Ashley at TVE to make sure they happen and go off in a way that the community can see themselves in the event.

So I just wanted to add that too with how we do placemaking.

Thank you.

Any uh further counsel questions or comments.

Councilman Sodalgay.

Um thank you.

It actually really helped me Councilman Walker's uh questions around where the budget uh comes from and what all the um abbreviations mean.

Um real quick, that's 17% that comes from general fund.

Do we have like a hard dollar number?

Like what is that?

Is that 20 million dollars?

Is that 50 million dollars, five million dollars?

You can come back later.

I just wanted to kind of understand.

I'm I would I'm not I don't know the exact number, but 10 to 15, yeah, 100%.

Okay, you can follow up.

That's fine.

I just wanted to kind of couch it.

But it also seems to me in this wheel of funding, a lot of the funding sources go back to a specific thing, right?

Like creates goes back to creates, the affordable housing fund goes back to affordable housing, uh downtown business goes back to downtown business.

It sounds like EDA really doesn't exist anymore because that was one-time funding, if I heard that correctly.

Um, so we're really just down to other funds, general fund, and then the federal grants, which may go away.

And so the thought I had was when we have such more limited funding sources now if we're going into this budget.

Um, what are the things that are falling off and what were their uh impacts?

So, like I guess it's a two-part question, and it doesn't have to be answered right now, it's more for for the budget as we consider the budget because we're gonna have some hard decisions coming up.

It's how do we measure the actual economic, you know, generational impacts of some of these projects that might be kind of falling off.

Um, and how can we augment that?

I that was really the big thing that was coming in my head because economic development is absolutely essential.

It's the only way we can try to stay ahead of the structural deficit in some way, shape, or form, is to have robust economic development in the borders of our city.

I think it's a great question.

Um, I think uh it's a difficult question to quantify uh because there are things that we own, there's things that we can you know influence or things that we can monitor, and so that's kind of how we've structured the department metrics.

Um, what we can own is to your point, you know, the public dollars that we can put out to leverage or to support businesses, but we can't necessarily influence you know what happens down the road.

So to kind of do the math backwards on figuring out like if that was taken out of the maybe a better uh request is when we do the budget, there's usually blurbs next to line items and changes if we can on this side have a little bit more color on both what you're asking for and what fell off, right?

So we can be reminded that there were EDA funds that were one time that are not coming around, or there was a federal grant that we didn't get anymore than what it did.

We can absolutely do that, yeah, because there has been a shift in the funding over the last years, and so we can certainly do kind of a little bit of a look back at the funding over the last years and start to get an idea of what that would look like if we would have things fall off.

Great, thank you.

Sure.

Oh, thank you very much.

Any further questions or comments?

Deputy Mayor.

Um thank you, Mayor.

I just want to I just want to say thank you to the team, um, especially at the looking at the recent accomplishments.

There's a significant amount of work that's gone in here, so I don't want I didn't want to brush over that.

Uh tens of millions of dollars of looking at and going through line by line, making sure these things are happening, compliance things, like there's just so much going on.

So it's and it's a small team, a very small team.

So when I hear small but mighty, I'm seeing it here, and uh just really appreciate the work that you and the rest of the team are doing.

Um, and having a robust and and good economic development department is really vital to uh the the livability and longevity of the city, not just for uh the residents that live in it, but also for the business community as a whole.

Uh it's a whole ecosystem that we I think is is a priority for for the city.

So just uh thank you for that.

Thank you.

Appreciate it, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you.

And uh really appreciate your presentation, and we look forward to further discussion during the budget.

Thank you.

Appreciate it, Mayor.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Of course.

All right, moving on.

Thank you to everyone's patience for this marathon study session.

Our fourth agenda item today is a CCNR uh designating Garden Route South Africa as a sister city.

I'm bringing forward this resolution to amend our formal relationship relationship status with our sister city in South Africa following review of an application for consideration by my office.

The resolution formally transitions Tacoma from a single city relate uh relationship with George South Africa to the broader garden route municipality partnership, which was mutually agreed upon during Tacoma's 25th anniversary visit in 2023 and formally advanced by the Tacoma Sister Cities Council in 2024 and reconfirmed this year.

Tacoma has maintained a sister-city relationship with George since 1997, resulting in decades of meaningful exchanges in education, local government practices, and community support from Tacoma Sister Cities Council and Committees.

This resolution will elevate that relationship to a district-wide partnership with the Garden Route District Municipality, encompassing seven municipalities and more than 630,000 residents.

This expanded relationship creates new opportunities in port and maritime trade, tourism, arts and culture, sports, diplomacy, and youth development.

I want to thank Councilmembers Scott and Palmer for their support of this resolution.

We will hear from members of the Garden Route Sister City Committee during public comment when this item comes forward on March 10th.

If you have specific questions, please reach out to Bakota Warren in the mayor's office.

Are there any council questions or comments on this?

Deputy Mayor.

I just want to acknowledge my appreciation to um the late Councilmember Ushka.

She did travel uh during that delegation to uh to George to help talk about this.

Um this kind of a legacy from that.

So thank you.

Thank you.

With that, looks like there's nothing else on this topic.

This will be brought forward later next month.

And I was just informed that uh Councilmember Hines will be bringing forward what would be today's fifth agenda item next week due to travel uh today.

So we're gonna move on to our sixth agenda item, and this is a council letter of support for Pierce County's proposed ordinance implementing a one-tenth of one percent criminal justice sales tax.

And I'd like to call on Councilmember Rumbaugh to begin the presentation.

Thank you.

Um thank you all for considering signing onto this letter to Pierce County Council, encouraging them to adopt the one-tenth of one percent public safety sales tax.

And as you know, the city of Tacoma adopted this sales tax earlier this year on um March 3rd, and the county council will consider taking a similar action.

Actually, we didn't pass ours on March 3rd, we're bringing theirs forward on March 3rd.

We passed ours January 6th.

Um, public safety is a core responsibility of county government and a top priority for residents throughout Pierce County, and our community communities rely on a coordinated and well-functioning justice system that includes a law enforcement, prosecution, defense, courts, jail operations, and related justice services.

These systems are deeply interconnected across jurisdictional boundaries and their effectiveness depends on sustained and reliable funding.

And this letter was requested by members of the county council who believe our support would be helpful in getting this ordinance passed.

My hope is that the city council can all sign on to this letter and show our support.

Thank you.

And are there any questions?

Thank you, Councilmember Rombaugh.

I'm very much in support of this, and thank you for your leadership in bringing this forward.

Any other any other council uh questions or comments?

Councilmember Walker.

All right, that's a thumbs up.

Very good.

Appreciate your work on this.

Okay, moving on.

Uh we have committee reports.

I'd like to call on Councilmember Walker to provide a joint municipal action committee report out.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I wanted to give uh start getting in the habit of providing a monthly update on our joint municipal action committee.

Um for those who may not know, this is a um joint group that meets once a month that is Pierce County, City of Tacoma, Port of Tacoma, Tacoma Public Schools, Parks, Tacoma, the Pualp Tribe of Indians, Pierce Transit, Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, and then we just added last month Workforce Central.

Um we in February met about um with our CEOs.

They come once a quarter, and we had a robust conversation with legislative updates.

J Mack um comes up with a joint um legislative agenda in November of every year.

And so this was uh obviously with the short session.

Uh very quick update on the legislative session, particularly on items that we're all working together on.

And then we had a quick uh discussion about safety and the safety of our communities, particularly in Tacoma as it relates to ice and how our we're supporting our residents and how we um the community can support each other um as we navigate this new world we live in.

So um that was our February meeting, and I will our next meeting is March 13th.

It's the second Friday every month, and I serve on that committee as well as Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you, Councilmember Walker.

Appreciate you bringing this uh your this forward and for all your work in that committee.

Are there any other committee reports to share?

Okay, seeing none, we're going to move on to item number seven.

I'd like to call on Deputy Mayor, uh excuse me, Deputy City Manager Allison Griffith to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

I almost got a promotion to deputy mayor today.

Uh just a brief review of your agenda this evening.

There are two ceremonials on tonight's agenda, one proclaiming Tuesday, February 24th as a day of solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and one proclaiming February 27th through March 8th of this year as Tacoma Beer Week.

Uh, there are no modifications to tonight's agenda.

There are two opportunities for public comment this evening.

The first is under regular public comment regarding motions, resolutions, and ordinances on tonight's agenda.

The second opportunity is under community forum regarding items over which the city council has jurisdiction.

Please let me know if there's any questions related to tonight's agenda so that we can be prepared for you.

And uh for your review attached to the study session agenda is the city manager's weekly report.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Allison.

Are there any final questions or comments from the council?

See none, is there a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those say no, we stand adjourned.