It's a call to order the city council study session of March 31st, 2026.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Deputy Mayor Bushnell.

President.

Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Hines.

Councilmember Palmer.

Councilmember Rumba.

Here.

Councilmember Sidalga.

Here.

Councilmember Scott?

Here.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Ibsen.

Here.

Our first agenda item is state legislative planning and permitting mandates.

I'd like to call on planning and development services assistant director Brian Boudet to begin the presentation.

And Steve Eckerson.

Welcome, folks.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

Deputy Mayor and Council members.

Pleasure to be here this afternoon.

And as you said, talk a little bit about state mandates, and this is with a particular focus on planning and permitting mandates over the last couple of sessions.

So I'm I'm Brian Boudet, the assistant director in planning and development services, and happy to be here with Steve Atkinson, the manager of our long-range planning group.

So this is at some level follow-up to conversation that started back in January when Planning and Development Services was providing its uh overview of our department.

One of the things that we talked about was the reality of a lot more state uh bills being passed that were affecting in general the planning and development services department's work program and particularly planning commission's work program as well.

So I know one of the questions that came up as part of that conversation was council's interest in getting a better understanding of what some of those mandates are and how that plays out both in the work program and upcoming policy decisions that council will ultimately ultimately be making.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about um last year's session, 2025, some of the primary land use bills that came out of that, as well as a little bit about this year's legislative session, which as you know just finished up, and um there's a lot of bills that um got adopted this year and are still kind of in the uh waiting for governor's signature phase.

So we'll talk about those, but obviously some of them are still in waiting to see exactly whether they get finalized, and if so, what exactly that final form is.

Um, and then we'll talk a little bit about how that relates to the existing and future planning work program.

So I'm not gonna go through everything on these lists.

Um you have them.

We're gonna highlight a few bills after I sort of give the overview.

Um I'll be honest with you, part of the message here, uh whether intentional or not intentional, is that there is a lot.

Um, and again, these are just the bills that specifically are relating to planning and development issues.

So you'll see a number of things on there.

The other the other big item, and I think no surprise to the council, as Tacoma is struggling with it, but Tacoma is not unique in struggling with housing production, housing affordability, is that that certainly is much of the state's focus over the last couple of years.

Um, going back even further than that, obviously, with uh the middle housing bill that drove part of our home and Tacoma conversation, but the state is continuing to try to find ways to unlock additional housing production.

So there's a there's a bunch of bills on there, like I say, um these are you know a modifying processes associated with residential development, trying to streamline those, um, addressing regulatory barriers that have been identified by the state, by the development community, and others, um, and um just generally trying to increase both production and um tax support for new housing development.

Um a couple that I'll just highlight on here.

Um, in part, well, one of them I'll highlight is the HB House Bill 1576, uh, which is about historic designations.

This is one that was adopted, and in fact, actually, the council has already taken action on this one.

You may recall back in October of this last year, uh, the council updated some of the historic district regulations, and that addressed the requirements of that bill.

Um, in addition, there's um stuff on here about housing elements, uh, minimum parking requirements.

We'll talk about in a little bit.

Um, and uh there's also um idea uh components on here about transit-oriented housing development, which is also a really significant bill that the state adopted um recently.

Um other one on here, I think is uh let's see.

Oh, it's uh it's on a future slide, so I'll talk about it as I get to it.

So one of the big ones on there as is parking requirements.

This is another place where the state has taken a lot of action over the last few years to try to reduce the level of parking requirements, um, as council is well aware.

Parking takes up a lot of space, parking costs a significant amount of money, and this is a place where the state has really taken liberties to utilize parking as sort of an incentive and a carrot as ways to try to encourage housing development of different types of different kinds.

Um, so sort of in the same way that the state often uses tax policy to try to encourage some things and discourage others.

Parking seems to be another place where the state has done a lot of similar work.

So I think as the council is well aware, we have a project that's already kicked off through the planning commission and through the infrastructure planning and sustainability committee to look at parking requirements.

Uh, and so there is a pretty significant reduction that's being considered, as well as the potential for just generally removing parking requirements.

You will see on here where you start adding up all of the different exemptions, um, small units, 1200 square feet and under, small commercial spaces, affordable housing, child care, other things like that.

You start getting to a place where between what the city has done in the past in reducing and exempting parking requirements, and what the state is mandating that the city do to further reduce and exempt parking requirements, you start getting to a place where there's almost more places where there's no parking requirements than places where there would be parking requirements.

So, um, like I say, that that project already uh in the works but is responding to this and other state bills.

Another place where the state has put a decent amount of emphasis is on uh methods to encourage homeownership, I'll sort of broadly say.

And much of that comes down to the ability to divide property.

Um mechanism is condominiums, that's one way to divide property and allow for individual ownership, and splitting property or platter property is another mechanism that's generally used to divide up properties so they can be individually sold and owned.

So the number of bills that the state has done this last year, and I think there's more this year as well, looking at ways to streamline and reduce the processing requirements associated with dividing property.

So one of those is what they're calling lot splits, and so this is basically taking one property and dividing it into two.

So it's kind of the simplest, smallest version of subdividing property.

Um, but the state's really mandating that we create a very streamlined administrative process to try to make those as simple as possible.

And one of the last ones that I'll highlight here, which in part because I think it's one of the biggest ones from last year's legislative session, was regarding transit-oriented development.

So this bill uh essentially mandates that the city and it's not just um Tacoma, but basically this is associated with where there's high capacity transit investments happening throughout the Puget Sound region.

Uh, so it's tied directly to rail stations or um bus rapid transit BRT stations.

So in Tacoma, obviously we have rail stations, and this is light rail and commuter rail, both count.

But the requirement is that within a half mile of rail stops that the city is required to allow for a floor air ratio of 3.5.

Uh now, flora ratio, kind of a wonky term.

Uh, what exactly does that mean?

It's a it's a correlation between the size of the property and how much building that you can put on it, how much square footage of building.

Um the idea is you would take if you had a 10,000 square foot property, 3.5 would give you 35,000 square feet of building area, essentially.

So it's just a multiplier of the land area.

Just to give a sense for that, because it doesn't translate very simplistically to stories, because basically nobody builds property line to property line a straight vertical box.

Um, it actually becomes somewhat exponential.

And so an example up there, this is a project in Tacoma that has an FAR of 3.9.

You can see in that case, it's about a six-story building.

That's pretty common when you talk about FARs of that scale.

So again, the basic requirement here is that the city will be required to upzone areas within a half mile of rail stations to allow for at a minimum that FAR of 3.5.

And then there's some bonuses and things on top of that.

So for geographic uh help you understand where we're talking about.

And this is another project.

That one's up in the stadium area.

That one has an FAR of just over four, again, sort of in that six story plus range.

But what is a half mile from rail stations look like in Tacoma?

Well, most of that is downtown, obviously, along the link uh light rail system, the T line, and the one in South Tacoma, the Commuter Rail Station in South Tacoma.

So you can see the orange area there that's within the bubbles.

That's basically that is our downtown regional growth center.

So that includes at the extents, includes the stadium district and the hilltop mixed-use centers.

If you go a half mile out from those, you'll see that that goes essentially to Sprague on the west side.

And north for orientation, you're about to where Annie Wright is.

So if you think about the scale of buildings, again, the one on the left there is in the stadium mixed use center, right in the core.

That the requirement is essentially to upzone areas for that distance up to about that scale.

So it's kind of like extending mixed-use center zoning out to that half mile distance again, which covers a pretty large area.

So we're talking about most of the sort of North Slope Stadium Seminary area and most of the hilltop area.

And then in South Tacoma, a bunch of that is industrial, so that won't really get impacted as much, but there certainly are areas to the east and southeast of the existing South Tacoma 56 and South Tacoma Mixed Use Center that also would require some pretty significant upzoning.

So the timeline on this one is uh 2029.

So when we get to the work program conversation at the end, you will see just because of the scale of what that modification is.

Um obviously we can have to get started earlier than 2029 on it.

So you'll see that starting to play out.

Um clearly some of the other conversations and future policy discussions that will happen is kind of a how proactive do you get with these kinds of things, right?

I mean, that map reflects the existing reality of rail in Tacoma.

Well, we know we're talking about Tacoma Dome Link extension that will add at least you know one additional station area that's not captured in here over by Portland Avenue, and there's also conversations about future extensions such as the TCC uh T line extension.

And so inherently the question of well, how proactive do you get about the zoning that at some point would get triggered once those rail stations are put in place.

So just a couple of other um quick mention on bills.

I know it's come up a couple of times in council conversations.

Um we do have child care centers modifications for those coming forward as part of this year's annual amendments.

Um the condominiums, the state continues to try to work again on home ownership via condos as well, and made a number of modifications last year, and there's more modifications in a bill this year to try to address some of the challenges around warranties that has led to the long-standing challenge of uh of liability insurance, particularly for construction of condominiums.

So I will say I'm starting to hear on the development side people using condominiums, and so I think that is a pretty positive message that the state may have gotten enough modifications done in there to unlock some of those issues.

All right, now 2026.

Now I mentioned obviously we're uh the session is over, but the the bills are still many of these are still in the process of being reviewed by the governor's office.

I will say, actually, since the time that I created this PowerPoint presentation, and now some of those bills that are shown on there is not yet signed, have subsequently become signed.

So probably about half of those.

Um while we've certainly been tracking uh the bills that are going through the legislative session this year, um, only so much assessment yet on as far as impacts, because obviously we don't in many cases know what the final versions are.

Um but I will highlight a few as we go through this as well.

Um affordable housing on religious properties.

So the state has long had a bonus system, bonus requirement in place for religious properties to get additional density.

Um we did home and Tacoma, the council incorporated that really into the overall bonus system.

So we don't have a specifically called out religious facility one, it actually applies to anybody.

So it could be a nonprofit or it could even be a for-profit developer if they're interested in providing affordable housing, they can also utilize the bonus system that was put in place.

Well, what the state has adopted here is a modification to those standards basically to reduce the thresholds.

Um so whereas it used to be a hundred percent of the units where it had to be affordable, now it's down to 50.

So it's trying to make it all the more encouraging some amount of affordable housing to be included.

So as I note here, the what that's going to force is that as part of home and Tacoma conversations, we will need to modify the bonus system, at least to allow for that change for religious institutions, if not more broadly for other folks, as the council had chosen in the past.

One of the other um big ones that the state put forward this year, and I think maybe hasn't been signed, or maybe got signed yesterday, I can't remember.

Anyways, is this idea of residential development in commercial zones?

I will say this is a bigger deal for many other jurisdictions around the state than it is for us.

It's not uncommon, I think, that in jurisdictions where they have commercial zoning, they actually prohibit residential.

Uh the city of Tacoma has long allowed for residential development in commercial zones.

That got all the more instituted when we created mixed-use centers and the mixed-use zoning, which even highlights that ability to do mixed-use projects in those areas.

And actually, in that the last 25 years, the vast majority of commercial areas in the city have become mixed-use centers.

So when you look at the zoning map, most of our commercial is mixed use.

One of the things though that this bill does also is a common concern is the amount of first floor commercial requirement.

So lots of jurisdictions, and we do have this, where in certain areas on key kind of main streets, we limit residential development on the first floor to try to facilitate that few blocks of commercial main street activity.

Um the state has provided some limitations on how much of that you can do.

I think again, this is a place where lots of other jurisdictions would kind of do it just very broadly, and the assumption that you could have commercial development on the first floor of mixed-use buildings spanning huge geographies, I think has come back, and that's where the development community has gone to the state and said, hey, this just commercial, you know, economically doesn't work to have that much commercial activity in many cases.

So this is gonna necessitate that the city look at our pedestrian street designations, which are those areas where we're focusing and limiting residential development on the first floor.

We may have to make some some tweaks there.

I don't think that one's gonna be huge, but there's definitely a need to evaluate and make some adjustments.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Steve.

Great.

Thank you, Brian.

And good afternoon, uh Mayor Ibsen, Deputy Mayor Bushnell, members of the city council.

I'm Stephen Atkinson, uh planning manager for City of Tacoma Long Range Planning.

Uh we have just a few slides left in the presentation.

Uh, this uh portion of the presentation will focus on our current uh planning work program.

Um at the end of these slides, I want to make sure that uh when we wrap up this discussion, the council has a good understanding of uh the projects that we are uh currently have in progress, the general scope of that work and the timeline in which these projects will be coming to the city council for consideration.

Um also want to make sure that at the end that we have a good understanding of some of the next steps and the process for reviewing and revising, updating the planning work program uh to start to extend that out to 2027 to 2028 and some of the considerations that will go into that.

Um, one thing I wanted to clarify here, just as we get started, kind of a big picture uh concept here is we often refer to this as the planning work program.

Um I do want to probably be a little bit more accurate in the statement today and say this is the planning commission work program.

I think more uh specifically.

Um I bring that up for two reasons, kind of as we get started with this conversation.

And the first is simply uh want to make sure it's clear that there's a number of other projects that are beyond the scope of this work that our long-range planning staff and team are currently either leading or supporting.

Um, second, one of the questions we often get is you know, what kinds of projects are required to go through planning commission review or a full legislative process for city council consideration.

Um so all of the projects that we're we're gonna talk about as part of this work program are projects that are required under state law and city municipal code uh to go through both planning commission and city council.

Um so effectively any project that would amend the city's comprehensive plan or land use development standards, uh often what we refer to as our land use and zoning code, title uh 1311, uh sorry, 1306, uh title 13 broadly, are required to go through a full planning commission city council process.

Um the oh, sorry.

Um second thing I wanted to uh mention here as we get started is uh kind of a second question we often hear, which is where we have where do we locally have some flexibility or discretion in how we adopt or enact new state planning requirements.

So as I go through these projects, I'll try to give a brief description, timeline, and some idea of kind of where we have some of that local discretion in our planning work.

Um so with that, I'll go ahead and just kind of dive in with a focus on the 2026 projects.

Um, we have the critical areas preservation ordinance update.

Uh this is uh chapter 1311 of our municipal code.

Generally, these standards are for the protection and preservation of critical areas which refer to things like fish and wildlife habitat, streams, wetlands.

Uh so generally trying to assure that we achieve no net loss of ecological functions in the city of Tacoma.

Um second, this also includes standards for the protection and preservation of life and property in situations where there are potential for natural disasters, things like flooding, geologically hazardous areas.

You can imagine steep slopes and erosion.

Uh so generally there is both a protection of ecological resources as well as a protection of life and property integrated into the critical areas ordinance.

Um this is a uh state required update.

We are periodically required to review the best available science, uh, implement standards that uh enact the best available science, and this uh does just for the council's awareness have a significant citywide uh impact.

Uh critical areas ordinance is a critical part of our environmental protections, but it also does have uh significant impacts on how people can use and develop and uh uh build on their property.

So this generally gets a lot of interest uh from folks that may be impacted uh around the city.

We are expecting uh the planning commission to finalize their recommendations tomorrow evening and then forward that recommendation to the city council in May and June for your consideration.

Uh the next project, the Pacific Avenue Corridor Sub area plan and environmental impact statement is a project that we've been working on as a partnership with Pierce Transit.

Um this is uh partially funded uh through that partnership with Pierce Transit as well as through state grant funds.

Um this is a uh unique subway plan in the city of Tacoma in that it is focused on the entirety of the Pacific Avenue corridor from I5 to the southern city limits, and this is really looking at a plan uh to really activate that corridor uh in conjunction with uh transit uh service that we have on Pacific Avenue.

Uh the second key part of this is the environmental impact statement.

This is being conducted as a uh what we call a CEPA planned action, which is a process of environmental review that is intended to kind of front load the review and consideration of environmental impacts so that when uh future uh projects come in for permitting, there's a more streamlined uh and more predictable permit uh path for projects that would occur on this corridor.

Uh the 2026 annual amendment package uh is something we go through uh on an annual basis to really uh take in private applications as well as to advance some of the code uh priorities of the city council.

In this case, the annual amendment package is comprised of four uh applications.

The first is the McKinley annexation, and this is our process of establishing the zoning uh districts that would be in place uh pending the uh incorporation of McKinley into uh that annexation into uh City of Tacoma jurisdiction.

Uh second is a update to our special needs housing code, and this is both uh partially in response to a city council resolution, and uh secondly, in response to some recent state legislation that modifies how we are required to permit um uh shelters within the city of Tacoma.

Our third is a minor plan and code amendments.

This is typically what we consider non-policy.

These are uh often uh amendments that we're making to the code to clarify correct errors in the code or address clarifications or organization that we uh have heard as feedback, often from our current planning team or uh folks who have gone through the permit process and have feedback on their use of the code.

Um the final is uh the legislative code amendments, which is uh kind of bundling together two recent again, state uh requirements.

Uh first is to update child care and daycare centers.

Um again, the state is requiring now that we uh allow daycare centers in all of our zoning districts uh by right and at a minimum in our industrial zoning districts as a conditional use permit.

Um, we do have some flexibility in how we account for heavy industrial zones or zoning districts where they may be uh hazardous uses in close proximity to the daycare facilities.

But this is a an example of the state uh adopting legislation that is very prescriptive in terms of the permitting requirements that we have to follow.

Um, and then the next is the binding site plans, which is more enabling legislation.

Uh binding site plan is uh an alternative to more traditional platting and subdivision.

Um it's similar to something like unit lot subdivision if you're familiar with that.

And this is a change of the state law that allows us to up uh allow multifamily residential to utilize the binding site plan.

So previously that was limited to primarily commercial developments within the city under state law.

The next project is the capital facilities program.

This is a the six-year CFP that is being extended out from 2027 to 2032.

Typically, this is something that the council considers as part of your budget process.

So the planning commission will be working with staff and the budget office to put together their review of the CFP in May and June.

There will be a public hearing in support of that process and then forwarding their recommendations to the city council so that that can be incorporated into the budget considerations later this year.

The commission's role in the capital facilities program is typically to review the projects that are proposed to be added into the CFP and to determine whether or not the projects are consistent with the comprehensive plan.

So if the council is not familiar with this, the capital facilities program under state law is considered to be a chapter of the comprehensive plan.

So any amendments to the CFP are considered amendments to the to the city's comprehensive plan.

So it goes through the full public review through the planning commission and then to the city council.

And generally, state law requires that our capital planning implement and be consistent with the priorities in the comprehensive plan.

And then Brian mentioned the parking code.

So I won't go into details about that scope of work.

But generally, the timeline for the parking code is to have that to the city council likely planning commission recommendation in September of this year.

I did forget to mention for 2026 amendments.

We are expecting as well that the planning commission will complete their recommendations tomorrow night, and that will be on a similar timeline coming to the city council in May and June.

As we get into 2027, the work program really, I think, in my characterization is a bit of a bridge year.

We'll have one major project that will be coming forward to the city council in the first quarter of 2027.

That is something we are currently working on with planning commission and the IPS committee.

That is the landscaping and tree code update and is based on resolution 41682.

So we are expecting a planning commission recommendation on that by the end of this year, and then coming to council early next year for consideration.

So we'll have some work that we're starting in 2026 that we expect to conclude in 2027.

And then we're going to have a number of projects that are due under state law to be adopted in the 2028 to 2029 time period, but which will likely need to be started in 2027 to complete.

And that includes these four projects at the bottom of this page: the Shoreline Master Program, the new climate element for the comprehensive plan.

We will have a mid-cycle comprehensive plan review, which is a new state requirement.

And then the compliance with the new transit oriented development bill.

So that will include the rezones and the code updates to be consistent with those new state requirements.

So these are all projects that we expect likely by June of 2027 will need to be starting or in progress in order to meet the timelines for later adoption.

Those are all state mandates.

So the two or three projects in the middle are projects that likely will need to be either started, initiated this year or into next year, or some of these are projects that are on more of the wish list, kind of pending staffing resources.

So we are anticipating a home and Tacoma code adjustments package kind of based on some of the community input that we've heard to this point, as well as to address some of the ongoing state housing amendments.

We will have another annual amendment package coming forward.

The projects that you can see here were some of the things that we discussed with planning commission IPS committee as potential candidates for that annual amendment package, including an update to our commercial zoning, establishing more effective industrial land use transitions, particularly in South Tacoma, around the South Tacoma Manufacturing and Industrial Center, and then some initial code updates to come into compliance with the new passive housing code requirements.

The last project here on this page, you'll see kind of a lot of hyphens here, commercial downtown mixed-use center street classifications and standards update is a potential package of plan and code updates responding to a number of different legislative requirements.

So first would be the new legislation on limiting how much ground floor commercial we can require in our commercial zoning districts and mixed use centers.

Um that is something we will likely need to revisit.

Um second uh is potentially updates to our downtown subarray plans, uh both to update and extend the CEPA plan action ordinance that was uh adopted as part of that package uh back in 2014 and 2015, uh, and then to potentially review and update our downtown sub array plans as well to make sure that those are uh up to date with new state and regional planning policies.

All right, next slide.

All right, and as I mentioned at the beginning, uh we developed this work program in conjunction with the planning commission and IPS committee.

Uh we are scheduled to go back later this year, uh typically start that process with the planning commission in mid-summer and then culminating in early fall with the IPS committee to establish and extend uh that planning work program.

Um as I mentioned at the beginning, there are a few uh factors that we take into account as we are developing that work.

Um one of the reasons why we develop that program is to make sure that we can uh consider council priorities alongside our state mandates, uh local initiatives as well as periodic private applications that we may receive and get input and direction from the city council on how to prioritize that work and align the projects that we are committing to with the available staffing and resources that we have to perform that work.

Um so we do expect kind of based on um the new state's uh mandates that Brian walked through that we will likely have a significant revisitation and revision that we'll need to consider uh later this year with City Council and APS committee.

Uh with that, happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Any council questions?

Councilmember Sidalga, followed by Councilmember Walker.

Uh thank you.

Uh I'm gonna I know we have a long agenda, so I'll try to keep it relatively um short.

I had a quick question on slide, I guess this is six.

I just wanted to um confirm on the transit-oriented um uh housing.

Um it has uh things around a BRT, but I saw that the stream isn't included.

That's not considered a BRT.

I I take it.

That's correct.

Yeah, the enhanced bus service, which has been now Pierce Transit's focus for those corridors, is does not qualify as BRT.

Uh but does that stop us from considering it, or is there like a comp plan update if we wanted to kind of get ahead of the curve?

Like, for example, um whether it's uh the the stream or um the uh uh the uh the Sound Transit uh station at uh uh Portland Avenue, would we have to go through a plan com update to kind of incorporate that so we don't have to do a future update?

No, absolutely, Councilmember Sidalgi.

I mean, obviously, in many cases the state's setting the minimum, right?

So we've got to do at least this much by this time frame.

Um it certainly is uh local discretion, council's ultimate choice on exactly what you want the scope to be for many of these projects.

Um I would note obviously when it comes to stream and particularly Pacific Avenue, right?

We've got the Pacific Avenue sub-area plan, corridor sub-way plan that we're working on, which creates the obvious opportunity.

And I mean, the basis of that project, it sort of started with BRT and doing up zones to help facilitate that.

Um it may not be quite as extensive as what the state's talking about if it at some point became BRT, but yeah, there is a project that that creates that opportunity right there.

Got it.

Uh a couple of other questions based on some of the I mean, I know it's really you know, I had the the benefit of having a briefing like this with some of the parking updates in IPS uh a few weeks ago.

Um, and if I recall, there's just a lot of parking kind of requirements that the the state is basically going to make us implement.

And if you boil it down, I believe if I recall correctly from that, we effectively can only mandate what one uh stall for a single family, and then basically uh half a stall per unit, uh except for probably about 30 different exceptions.

Yeah, that sounds like uh sorry, sounds like an accurate characterization, yes.

Okay.

Um to me, you know, given the the complexities involved, uh I think something we should really consider as a as a body is um one this idea that removing any sort of minimum or lowering a minimum doesn't require isn't the same as requiring no or very little parking, right?

Like those two statements aren't equivalent.

Removing a floor um doesn't mean that a developer can't build parking on site, correct?

Yeah, it has it has not been a conversation about preventing parking.

It's a question about what is the city's role and how much parking should the city require.

The state's obviously putting pressure on that.

And I think, yeah, the the conversation that has been at IPS has absolutely included the exploration of whether or not the city should just more broadly kind of get out of the business of requiring minimum parking.

And so to extend that to some of the other concepts that are put over here, uh on a transit-oriented uh neighborhood uh requiring uh a floor of a 3.5 as your ceiling is effectively what you're doing here.

You're not saying that every development there has to have an FAR of 3.5, but if you currently have an FIR lower than that, you have to increase that, correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

And and part of the reason why I I put the map up there and point it out.

Um, first of all, we're talking about up zones over a very large area, um, certainly from an economic development perspective.

I mean, if you think about how big the geography is, I mean, you're this is decades, and you know, it would take a very long time, certainly, to fill up those areas, but at the same time, much of those areas are currently urban residential zoning relatively low scale.

So the difference in some of those areas is pretty significant.

You know, it might be one, it might be one project every 10 blocks, but you know, if you're next if you're next to that one, we're not mandating that the all every project has to be bigger.

What we're saying is if you could build a bigger project, we'll allow it, whereas today we're effectively not in some of these places.

Yeah, as is the reality with most regulations, right?

It either determine it determines the maximum that you can do in many cases.

Yeah.

Uh and I'm pushing this one more time because it's really important when people are listening to this that they hear the correct kind of thing that we're we're we're working on.

Um so with no commercial on bottom floor, that also is one of those where they could build it if they want to, but we're not gonna mandate it, especially in in a world where we've seen where some of these new commercial spaces are not being utilized because there currently is not um whatever uh an ability to use them.

Yeah, not enough commercial demand.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

That's okay, yeah.

So I wanted to keep hitting that point that what we're not what we're we aren't mandating the thing that people are seeing.

We're allowing flexibility, and the flexibility word is important because especially when it comes to parking, I think we really do need to consider the flexibility that we can give developers to allow for off street parking on site.

Um in addition to just removing that potentially or lowering those to the state minimums.

Um couple of things that come to mind.

Obviously, for me, you've heard this, which is uh front loaded and front access garages.

Uh potentially credits of some sort for permeable surfaces that allows uh cars to come in, but the surface isn't impermeable, so it also helps with stormwater.

Uh potentially things around credits for you know uh a carport with a solar panel on it or something, right?

Um flexibilities that can encourage developers to build these things that can be both responsible uh environmentally, uh responsible in allowing a product that that people want to buy or rent uh uh come in.

Uh the last thing, and I feel like this might be chair walker, so I feel bad about taking this point.

I believe there are going to be four openings on the planning commission.

So any masochists out there that want to take on all of this work, uh we I mean, there's gonna be a lot of work for the planning commission uh uh coming up because of these state mandates, and uh there's nine people on planning commission currently, right?

So almost half of the planning commission has an opening uh currently, if I'm not mistaken.

Uh we have one currently we have one vacancy, but we do have uh four positions that will be up for application.

Yeah, correct.

Okay.

So one known vacancy, we don't know exactly what's gonna happen with the other four.

There could be up to four um uh uh vacancy, but at least four applic, you know, four positions we're taking uh uh uh uh applications for.

There's a lot of work.

I I really do think we need to find some really talented people to help us out in these advisory uh commissions.

Um that's it, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and I'll just be really brief on this.

Two things that I would love to follow up and understand better is the um Senate Bill 6026, the commercial zones, and how it it um connects with the pedestrian streets or street designation.

We don't have to talk about it now, but would love to follow up on that.

And then also, what's the timeline on that one?

Because I would I don't know which package it's part of uh I think let me see.

That one's not yet fully finalized and and signed, so I think it might I think we've got a couple years.

Okay.

Um and then the other one is the child care centers and the requirements around that um as part of the 2026 annual amendment package.

I know we'll see all this and it'll come through, but I'm just hoping to grab some time with you to understand that one a little better.

And I know that there's specific things that are required by the state, but are there other things that we could be doing at this point?

Just want to make sure we're not missing an opportunity to make it as easy as possible to get more good child care in this city.

So thank you.

This is all very exciting.

I've gotten to spend a lot of time with you at IPS, so I won't spend time now.

But looking forward to all of this.

Thank you.

Consumer Hines.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, thank you for the presentation.

Uh like Council slowly said, I had a little bit of a preview for some of this stuff during IPS.

Uh, I would say one, I said the starting IPS, I'll say this again now.

I think a map showing where you can require parking in the city with all the state law mandates would be more confusing than a map, just say then a that a map didn't have package requirements at this point in time because you would it would end up with like a Swiss cheese map when you start counting everything in there.

And I think actually our public members of the public be more frustrated and angry if they said, Well, how many units of park, how many parking spots are required for this project next to my house?

Like, well, first of all, let me ask you a couple questions.

Do you live next to a daycare?

Do you live on this?

How far are you away from this?

How far away this?

Okay, well, this one next to you has no requirement, but if it was built three houses down on the right, it would have you know we could have parking required.

I just think that would that would get us away from any kind of transparency.

So I would encourage you all in the planning commission to take that really seriously and think about how do we move forward a parking code that's clear to the public and that the average person can understand and doesn't need like a uh math uh degree in planning to try to navigate that.

Um, though you all I mean have those things.

Uh so I think that's something I keep in mind.

Uh my the question I had that I that brought up in this presentation was House Bill 1491, you know, the TOD bill doesn't have to be put in place till 2027.

Is that what I heard?

Or state gifts of 2020 to put it up?

It's actually 2029.

29.

So my question was if I'm in one of these green shaded areas, am I vested at the FAR of 3.5 as of the now the state law being put in place, whether or not you we've completed the code on our end.

Meaning, like if I'm in one of these shaded areas, I know state law says I can go to 3.5, but you're telling me it's gonna be till 2029, but I have a project that I'd like to get permitted or start the process now.

Am I vested at the 3.5 far, or do I have to wait until the work gets done?

You you don't get it until we change the code.

Could that open us up for some adverse legal action where someone could say, like, hey, the state law says you're allowed to do.

I guess that would be something I'd like to follow up on, right?

Because I could see a developer saying, Well, I'm in this area, state law says I should be able to build 3.5.

Your code is not up to date yet.

You're working on it, but I'd like to get guarantees that I could build this thing.

Yeah, I mean, in in general, the the land use policies are implemented at the local level through local land use codes.

So the state law changes, they say cities and counties, you've got to change your code, you've got this much time to do it.

If you don't do it, then you get into the scenario, I think, at some level that you're describing where somebody could show up and say, Hey, wait a minute, you haven't updated your code, and the state says you're supposed to.

I want that credit.

Okay.

We won't get ourselves into that position.

No, I I think all right, that's good to know.

Um, my only other question comment would be so it looks like the work plans laid out for 2026 and all the way into 2027.

So council members who are looking to make land use policy decisions or policy work around that need to start talking to you all about getting things I added to the planning commission's work plan sooner rather than later, and more likely than not it'll end up in 2027 versus 2026.

Correct.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So uh we will be coming back to IPS committee uh later this year to talk about the update to the work program for 2027 and 2028.

So I think getting a good understanding of what council initiatives uh you'd like to advance um your priorities uh are really helpful for us to be able to have that conversation with planning commission, city council.

Uh one of the things we are often trying to do is to, I mean, you'll notice that the state mandates don't translate one to one with city planning projects.

So knowing kind of what kinds of things you may want to advance allows us to sort of see how we can bundle things together where it maybe it affects a common part of the city or common land use types or common uh zoning or development codes.

So really helpful uh to start those conversations with staff as soon as possible.

All right, and just as a reminder, anything related to Title 13, which is land use code and municipal code has to go to the planning commission before it can be enacted, correct?

That is correct.

So just I for members of the council thinking about land use policy reminder that anything that touches Title 13 has to go to the planning commission.

Like a winter fences.

There we go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I think Councilmember Hines asked a couple of the questions I had already.

I did have a question uh because community is kind of they're looking at us looking at opening up some of these codes and re um making them.

What is the word uh work that'll be the word?

Um, but there's questions around like looking at this provide another opportunity to like look at some of the other things that are in that code.

Um, for instance, like when we're looking at like the special needs housing code update, um, it's in a similar document that includes things like um detention centers and and and the like.

And so does it make sense as it is it strategic to look at those other things while we're looking at these these documents, or is that helpful at all to you guys?

Um as a general statement, I would say yes.

I mean, as Steve mentioned, um, it's not uncommon that these projects incorporate numerous topics, numerous state laws that they're trying to implement, um, like parking, the parking probably there's probably five bills related to parking that are all gonna play out in that parking um code update conversation.

Um so absolutely in general, I will say specifically, because I know there's been recent conversations about special needs housing and detention centers, those generally aren't uh in the same category.

Um the current project that's moving forward regarding special needs housing does not address or modify anything related to detention centers, and that conversation is not currently in the scope.

But it could be or should be.

I guess that's my question.

Uh my sense would be if the council wanted to have a conversation about detention centers, it probably deserves its own project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rumba.

Uh thank you, Mayor, and thank you so much for um bringing this forward.

Since I don't sit on IPS, I don't get to hear all of these.

So thanks so much for um bringing them all forward.

I just there's a couple um first off, I want to say I'm really excited about the one where they changed the um the small dwelling units to 1200, you know, uh because obviously before it was I think 400, is that what it was?

And that's why we're getting all those micro units.

So I'm excited about that.

Yes, that's a win.

Um, because maybe we'll get units that fit the size of families so families can actually live downtown, which would be great.

Um, and then um I I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about um before I get to my question about transit-oriented development and train horns, which I've gotten a whole bunch of emails about recently.

Um, if could you just talk a little bit about um about the condo changes to the condos warranties and like what that means?

Yeah, so the I guess the quick version is now with the two bills.

I think the state's been trying to address the same issue.

There is um traditionally in in condos, there's uh an implied warranty basically against defects, construction defects, which created all sorts of liability and legal concerns over many decades now of um of challenges where residents have brought cases against builders sometimes quite a bit after the construction.

Um that's what created the liability insurance challenge that made it very expensive to build condominiums.

What the state has been looking at, and particularly with smaller buildings is trying to create a mechanism to have an expressed, what they call an expressed warranty, um, which basically is you're going to tell them what your warranty for how long and has to meet certain basic criteria that that can then be utilized instead of the implied warranty, which is much broader and less defined.

So I think the idea is that will help um streamline and clarify what the liability actually is so that you can that the insurance can be much more tailored to what the true risk because I'm I I know that the issue has been to get these insured, you've had to use private funds.

You weren't able to get some of the loans that you'd like to get in the bank, and there was like a timeline of seven years before you could actually, you know, that those went away.

And so what I'm thinking is this is really important because we're running out of property and land and the ability to build up and have the ability to buy a unit as a condo, I think is really important, and especially in this city as we're talking about development.

Um I just I'm hoping that we can get this kind of worked out.

I think it's really important as I see us putting finding ways around it.

I think like home and Tacoma 2 is a way around it by all the units that people can put on a property, but wouldn't it be better if you could just build up it's like neater, you know.

And I know just I think affordability-wise, that would be there would be people who could actually afford to buy something.

So it's just okay.

So then the other thing was um in transit-oriented development areas.

I just I think there is this conversation about the several different intersections and the trains going through.

Um, when our former city manager was here, I heard that you needed to, in order to have it so they didn't blow the horn through the four intersections in the dome district.

I think there's four.

I could be wrong.

There might be less, but I think there's four.

Um, in order to have a quiet zone, you we would have to pay two million dollars.

And that was like two and a half years ago when I asked about it, or maybe three years ago.

Um, so I'm curious if this could be something that's written into TOD zones.

That there's the option instead of the city having to pay for it, finding a way that it's that there's like a another way to fund for this.

I mean, because right, Sound Transit used to have the authority, was the one who could do it, and then they gave it, said, No, we're not doing it anymore, you have to pay for it.

So I would love to have more information around that because this is going to be a bigger issue as we start to see more development, and I think I'm really excited about it, but I also am thinking about people who live there and making it easier for them to sleep at night.

Um something's happening over that I don't know what's happening over on um Star Street over in Stadium in Old Town where they they have a system that's set up where it's supposed to blow the horn, and it's now they're blowing the actual train horns as they go through, and it's four times a night.

And so I I really think this is something like it would be great to talk about transit-oriented areas.

Yeah, I will just um quickly say that uh rail related safety regulations is a whole other world with all kinds of I'm sure interesting history and standards.

We could certainly follow up on that and talk more about the conversations that have happened in the dome area.

Okay, seeing no further questions.

Thank you so much for your testimony.

All right, moving on.

Our next topic is the uh interim city manager fund report out and draft city manager work plan discussions.

Thank you, Mary Ibsen, uh deputy mayor and members of council.

Um, I am here after two consultations with OSAC members of this council.

Um, in your packet and for the public, there are two versions of the draft city manager work plan, um a clean version as well as a track changed uh version whereupon changes have been provided with input from council members individually.

Um and I can um speak to the fact that I briefly touch point uh touch space with every member of this council just briefly in in my weekly briefings, um, and even last night I received some feedback that I'd like to include um in my presentation today.

Mayor Ibsen, I would like to just go through this version, the clean version, and just start from the top.

Please and um I will pause at each of the uh the prerogatives, the work plan themes and take questions of that kind of that works.

So, starting off with uh the introductory statement here, um, the statement would read as uh reflected in the introduction here for the work plan, what it is and what is not.

This work plan outlines the city council's expectations for the city manager to focus and prioritize uh efforts to drive results throughout the organization to benefit the community on behalf of the city council.

This work plan is intended to provide council with a focus list of goals, metrics, initiatives to determine how well the city manager is expecting or meeting expectations in relation to community context as well as conditions.

So speaking to the qualitative there, uh the city manager is directed to compete complete these items with an emphasis on partnership with local jurisdictions, labor partners, and community partners, uh increasing access, advancing opportunity, centering belonging for all Tacoma community members, leveraging the equity index to provide emphasis in low opportunity zones, um, also utilizing data-informed approaches with the balance of qualitative and quantitative accountability and focused communication.

Heard that loud and clear through council throughout this process and cross-departmental alignment and coordination, leveraging all relevant resources of the organization in the day-to-day operations of the city.

So the first metric is themed around organizational performance and internal administration.

And we have a intro here on operational excellence, leading the organization to promote a healthy stable workforce that delivers on council's priorities while implementing internal process improvements, cost containment, and efficiency measures in 2026 as we work to structurally align revenues and expenses to ensure sustainable delivery of city services in future future years.

The first metric is on fiscal sustainability.

So this is a tall order.

And the first thing I'd like to speak to is a great comment I received last night.

And regarding the timing element of that column next to each of these initiatives, the question prompt was what is that timing represent?

And as I was explaining it, realize, yeah, there probably should be most of these timing elements are in line to initiatives or efforts that start or are will be reported by that time or finished by that time anticipated.

So perhaps maybe in a final draft, I can come back with where those timing elements would line up.

Start, reflect, and finish.

I think that was a great input there.

So I will make that change.

Initiatives under the performance metric for sustainability, maintain and expand existing general government hiring freeze by quarter two.

So we're right in that window.

Conduct organizational business model facilities and operational reviews to identify structural changes andor reorganizations as necessary.

We would be planning, I would be planning to come back to council and the public sometime in quarter two, quarter three.

So sometime in that May, June, perhaps late summer portion to come back to you.

This would align with your budget efforts as well.

That any reorganizations that I would be proposing would be in alignment with potentially something we can do now, but more in line with January 1, 27, 28 with the biennium.

So and then provide council with a clearly articulated decision making approach rubric and/or guidance for how budget decisions, including restructuring, will be made.

So sustainability, durability, any changes we make, especially with our labor partners, our employees, how is that going to set us up for success into the future?

So that's in line with the budget as well.

And then update council on a portfolio structural changes, additional changes.

Conversations that we would be having and direction will be receiving related to administrative support of our CVCs across the city.

So those kinds of things sometime in quarter three.

I'll pause here on this first metric, Mayor.

If would you like me to finish out this theme?

How about we we do the first bucket and then we can do halfway?

Wonderful.

Perfect.

The second metric is in relation to just service delivery to ensure sustainable delivery of city services to the community.

The city manager will promote a healthy, stable workforce and lead a lead the roadmap to recovery to structurally align revenues and expenses by 2030.

So what we start today in terms of the structural gap, we've identified many years.

We have a gap, and it's going to take us more than just a year or two to align our cost containment measures as well as our partnerships with our labor unions as well as community partners to ensure that we have a way in which we can actually structurally solve for X, which is our gap.

So the initiatives here design a proposal for guiding a potential community task force to provide community input and co-create options for long-term structural sustainability.

This would be something that we'd potentially start now.

I need to preface this that this may be a little bit premature because as we're working through making some cost containment measures for 26.

We won't have the full full uh I guess options for council in the budget until probably later this summer, so that a task force of sorts, if the council wants to launch that effort, that group from the community would most likely be validating what we're doing to say we've vetted this, we have questions.

That may not start until next year potentially.

So I may revise this timeline in reflection and consultation with you.

The second one is identify structural changes for implementation 27 and out and begin public engagement throughout the budget development.

This is to say as we're working through the budget and we're looking at service delivery changes, potentially any impacts to the public, we need to start talking to the public about, especially those groups that we may be impacting.

A good example is that in mid at the MidMod at the budget amendment for last year, we made some changes with the support of council when it came to service delivery for our seniors for programming in partnership with uh Parks Tacoma.

Um so this is a group would be an example that we'd be out and speaking to uh and engaging from our budget office, the city manager's office, and from council as well.

Okay.

Other initiatives along this theme.

Um establish a community-facing uh cost containment dashboard to public report on items such as expense to revenue growth, structural balance, and personnel and benefits growth.

So we just need to start putting this information out in an easily discernible uh way in which, as you know, we use um some uh visualizations for our budget.

We should do the same for our roadmap to recovery potential.

This is where our progress report will be going on on the board.

Uh the next item is work with the city council to incorporate updated fund balance and uh policy reserves into a structurally balanced budget policy, perhaps uh for potential next year.

Um this council, the council before great stewardship of what we're doing here, has a very robust uh fund balance policy.

Perhaps we need to discuss a structurally balanced budget policy going forward as we're making the inroads with the structural deficit.

Um the next item is support the development of a ballot measure aimed at creating a stable funding for safe and connected streets, our streets initiative effort.

This is a potential 26-27 uh prerogative that the city manager's office would support that effort with our public works team and all other departments that are working on this.

And then the last uh metric uh under here initiative uh conduct a review of 2026 internal employee satisfaction results uh anticipated to take place sometime in December of 26, uh, and then develop an action plan in collaboration with the city council to improve organizational culture as we are making changes potentially, and as I am speaking to my colleagues and the employees that I serve as well, um I want to get a firm baseline in terms of a survey.

I do anticipate that that survey will be difficult as we're making changes and role clarity and working with our partners, uh, our labor partners, our employees, um, getting that baseline established by the end of this year, and then developing a plan to continually work towards morale and improve conditions for our employees.

And then the last performance metric under this section uh to promote transparent, timely communications internally and externally.

The city manager will work with media and communications, the OSAC committee uh citywide leadership to improve the impact of our internal and external communications.

Tell the story of Tacoma.

Um so in this is a carry-forward from the interim work plan.

Uh the initiative would be uh sometime now.

We're starting this continually uh to support the city council in their specific community engagement uh and communication needs.

The city manager will work with the committee to propose an implemental model for council staffing in the 27-28 budget development process.

Council staffing.

Uh the next initiative is along uh continued to advance media and communications transition to a digital first strategy and implementation of the 22 2022 uh communication audit report, which Director Clancy will be reporting after my presentation today as far as how it will adhere to this, and then moving forward that transition.

How do we support uh our uh MCO group to ensure that they can support the council tomorrow as well?

Uh the last initiative, or I'm sorry, the last last few here uh continue to provide quarterly updates to the city council on our digital communication data analytics and resulting strategies, so the report out.

How do we report out on the methodology upon which are we penetrating?

Are we getting our story out and trying a lot of new things?

That permissive environment, what I've heard from council is uh as you're working with uh director Clancy and her team, try different things.

Um let's go short form, let's digital first, let's start moving towards that way.

Um, how do we report that in a way in which we can report that not just in the quarterly reports but in other ways as well.

Um, another carry forward uh from the interim work plan is the weekly report.

I I reported to OSAC on Friday.

Um, this is a carryover.

Uh the city council has in years past requested uh somewhat of a it's still dynamic.

The report is uh generated on a weekly basis.

We provide uh a PDF file that we provide to our constituents, your constituents.

Um perhaps it's time to take a look at a way in which we can actually put on a dynamic uh uh page, a landing page where folks can take a look at interactive data dashboards, infographics, um, and more information that's more distillable.

It's almost like that that uh tagline.

If you want to know more, you start here and then you click through on the web page, perhaps, uh, to get more information from the items that are coming out of the weekly report so that more folks are getting you more utility out of uh the weekly report.

Um another carry forward is the public comment briefing.

Um, this is in large part with council as you're working towards council rule changes and um other ways to get into district for meetings.

We are also uh going to be supporting in uh in terms of developing an after action briefing on uh comments that are made in public, just to really close up that gap with I've made a comment to council, I've come to redress or receive some redress from council.

It seems very one-sided.

How can we use that to share out this is what we're hearing, this is what the council's hearing, this is what the city's hearing.

Um that's something that we could be working towards as we look towards next year with your your plans.

Um, and then also from a constituent relations standpoint.

Um, Chris Matheson, our amazing coordinator, uh, working on with the council of all the input you're receiving, the intake you're receiving through email, phone calls.

How do we capture that and report that out to the community as well?

So that's something we'd work towards here in the next uh year as well.

So I will pause there.

Thank you, City Manager.

Yeah, with uh this first um bucket here with the internal processes, deceptively ambitious and bold.

I must say I'm I'm uh a really big fan of the fact that there's such an emphasis on culture on structural and systematic responsiveness to just what frontline mid-level and people up and down the chain of command are talking about.

That's that's just good governance and it's good for morale.

Um I really appreciate the focus on timelines with the first and the other metrics, such as a start as well as a finish timeline that's really good for broadcasting certainty to the community and the workforce.

That's very important.

Um really bury the lead that we're talking about curing the structural deficit in four years.

That's incredible.

Um, that's very important to shoot for the moon there.

So I very much support that.

And uh, Mike, not a request for revision, but just a clarification.

Uh, we're talking about pretty robust public engagement for the road to recovery focus on the structural deficit.

Uh, can you talk more about with the current budget process that we're embarking for 27-28?

Uh, what the public engagement is gonna look out uh look like and how we're gonna robustly start that off and what you're envisioning there and when you're envisioning that.

Mary Ibsen, that's a great question.

So, right now, our internal service departments um are all making uh plans for potential reorganizations as well as some uh reduction exercises that they're working through.

From those, we'll move to the external departments uh for general government sometime in the June time frame.

We'll be hitting the ground running with all of our uh community uh partners that we uh report on.

Um, this is gonna be different.

I think we're gonna be doing not just what we've done in years past and just continuing that standpoint of going out to the community and saying, here's the budget calendar, here's what we're looking at doing.

We also want to work towards um having that deliberate process of of uh speaking to our recovery plans too, and just a level set with our uh community partners, our residents, as they're hearing in other forums.

We're gonna go out.

Um, I believe we have a list of uh of groups that I would convey to you after this meeting to the full council of the groups we plan on engaging directly with.

Um, but there's also a lot of areas where we're not uh touching from the standpoint of um if there is a mystery to how the budget is developed, our engagement efforts have to go directly towards that.

Um speaking to our amazing team at OMB, our budget office and our finance team, as well as perhaps other teams that will be leading in, leaning in to help support this engagement process.

Um, let me come back to you and speak to that directly.

Fantastic.

I can get you the list though, as far as who we're gonna be talking to, and then who are we missing and having that engagement with you all as are we missing the mark here?

Are there other groups that we should be speaking to as well?

Okay, great.

Thank you.

We have a number of council questions, and keep in mind we have a second uh section here for city council priorities for the work plan.

So starting with uh councilmember walker, followed by councilmember Diaz.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, quick clarification.

Um I understand and thank you for the little note on the top of this one that this is like our changes over time.

And I've got a clean one, and then we got just passed out this one with the blue marks.

I just passed that out.

Oh, this is from this is your proposal.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Just wanted to be oriented to that.

Um I spent lots of time with you in OSAC on this.

Um I spent lots of time with you in OSAC on this, so um I'm not gonna get into a lot of details, but I do just want to make sure, and I think we just have a little bit uh a little ways to go in terms of um making sure we're identifying what's the city manager's job and what is our job or the staff's job, things like um bringing forward ideas for revenue growth is your job, and it's our job to balance the budget, right?

Like, so I think being really clear on those things, what we're holding you accountable to and what we get to and need to decide in terms of policy.

So I think there's just a little bit of cleanup um still to do to so that it's really clear to anybody who's reading it for the first time.

Um, but I I feel really good, you know, after all the time we've spent in OSAC about the content of this, so um, I'll let other folks weigh in for further detail.

Thank you, Councilmember Dioz, followed by Council Member Paul.

Thank you.

Um thank you, City Manager and OSAC committee for all your work on this document.

Um I have to be very blunt with you and tell you I don't like it, it doesn't work for me.

Um there is a lot of content in here that is in line with the values and priorities of this council has set, but I think there's a lot of things in here that are not worded in a way that give the administration the flexibility they need to solve problems as they arise.

Um, and there's things in here that are trying to be quantifiably measured but are subjective.

I think one of the examples that sticks out the most to me is I mean, just through broad broad looking at it, sticks out first to me is this bullet on number two um that says protect the health and safety of all to commands by increasing urban tree canopy.

Um it goes on from there.

I think that is a big council priority.

We all want that.

That's why we have increased funding for our urban tree canopy department.

Um that's why we're working on tree code and IPS, but there's no quantifiable way to measure the increase in tree canopy in Tacoma if DNR is not funded, which I just happen to know because that's my day job, with their LIDAR program.

And so there's no way for us to know when they will be funded for that, when we'll be able to get that metric back.

Doesn't account for when people are topping trees versus when we're planting trees.

There's just that is not a quantifiable thing that would make sense for me in a in a document that should in my mind be broader than this.

Um the other one that sticks out to me, just so I'm pulling forward examples.

Um, is the first bullet in this section that says bring forward revised ordinance and enforcement approach for code compliance.

I am just the alternate, but it's my understanding that that work is happening in CVS, so I'm not sure why it would land in the city manager's work plan.

That seems strange to me.

Um, and then I didn't, I just now realize that I'm looking at um Councilmember Palmer Palmer's proposal rather than the city manager's proposal.

But there are some things that she's proposing that I also don't think belong here.

Um particularly this one.

Um about the CBC work plans being in line with advancing council priorities.

Um this is just far more prescriptive than I think we're gonna be able to address in an annual performance review in a transparent way for the public, um, without making sort of different excuses or different different things.

I feel like that we should lean closer to where the performance metrics are, maybe the the top bullets in here, but not any of these initiatives.

They don't seem to make sense and they don't incorporate all the work that we're doing in committees and as a council and emerging topics that will inevitably come up in the next um three years through the end of the 2028 contract that we have before us.

So this format is concerning to me.

Thank you.

Councilmember Palmer, uh, unless you'd like to respond to the city manager.

Yeah, Councilmember Diaz, thank you very much.

Um, I should have led at the top um a work plan that is both ambitiously uh broad stroke um but ambiguous perhaps.

Um how do I say this with some brevity here?

Um in my experience, the performance evaluation of a city manager um as much as I would love to have, I I really appreciate this this dialogue.

I think this is where we just need to get to the the point of what would you like to measure me on?

Um, and if you're looking at this from the standpoint of those those examples, um I'm happy to uh seek the consensus of this body to see if that's something you'd like to be taking off to be more uh measurable in that way.

Um I think there's the notion of um uh the performance of a city manager that's based on um the totality of the performance, and sometimes it is about um it is subjective.

Um so um what I did not speak about um in in service to what you also share, Councilmember uh Diaz is there are so many efforts.

A good example of that is uh Brian and Stephen Atkinson they just presented to you the work plan for the planning group um with all the potential mandates that are coming down from the state.

Um if I'm not supporting that group with House and that's also um something that you'll be evaluating me that's not spoken to here as well.

I'm trying to reflect that as well.

So I guess I'm not speaking to that, just adding that commentary, Marison.

Of course, and I appreciate that.

And I should also maybe be a little bit clearer that my feedback is quite frankly from my council colleagues, not for the city manager.

I don't think that anything that you have proposed that should be included or not included in here is the problem.

I actually think the expectations that we're trying to set as a body don't make sense because they don't necessarily align up with everything that we do and everything the council has currently sort of put forward.

It just it feels out of line, and maybe it's just because I'm not an OSAC, so I didn't have time to go through this.

Um, but having first real public eyes on this, I don't think this is ready for prime time.

Thank you for your comments, and uh just if I can maybe provide some helpful context for how the OSAC process went.

Um the intention behind all of this structuring was for it to begin and end with staff perspective.

So just to be abundantly clear, um, while this did incorporate um feedback from the general consensus from the uh the city council retreat and and from our iteration here subsequently in study session, the way this conversation began was uh charging the city manager with interpreting the council's overall uh emphasis because um this isn't about saying things are unimportant, it's about not everything being equally important, and fundamentally this really being a question of what gets an overrepresentation of money and staff time uh as interpreted by the city manager, and and this is also frankly the the city manager's um interpretation of that and also um what what Tion basically told us is um a reasonable goal for us to judge and by plus or minus some council feedback.

So this wasn't just simply the council or committed committee members plopping goals in front of the city manager and saying good luck get this done, so much as this is a general emphasis.

What do you think is a reasonable way of achieving this and then some give and take?

Um this is absolutely a living document, though, so this isn't something to be perceived as set in stone, uh, but just out of an abundance of clarity for how the process went in the OSAC committee.

Um the other thing I would say just uh in the context of evaluation is that in any fair objective evaluation is is also going to account for force majeure factors.

So uh if if a council or any other body sets a goal for say tree canopy or um pavement of certain numbers of streets and so forth, and then uh the rug gets pulled out from under us because of a government shutdown or state funding going away, for example, that that absolutely can and should and will be a factor uh because we have to be fair and we have to just be abundantly clear about how that works.

Is there anything to that you'd like to add, city manager, just about overall process?

I actually think that from uh what whether this is ready to go today or if it can be with the additional uh iteration of changing this to a place where you can all be comfortable.

I would candidly use this also from the potential quarterly report back.

This is to your point, Mayor Ipson.

Um, the force majeure provision of a performance contingency upon which council, this is where I've I've led with our staff.

Here's a reason why this is not working out.

I would like to make sure to revise the work plan in on writing so that in writing uh so that the public also aware is aware that come six months or a year later when I come back and say this is why those conditions were met, but it also dynamically allows um allows me to work with the staff to pivot as well.

If we're not doing this because of this, what is in our control and how can we pivot to that?

And if I'm understanding correctly, city manager, today is not the finalization of this work plan.

This is basically the daylighting of what was once in committee to now the full council for further refinement, correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Um Councilmember Palmer followed followed by Councilmember Sidalkin.

Thank you.

Um this was co-created, right?

Like you had a lot of input into the format and goals.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, just curious.

Um I guess I like I I'm looking at do you have something similar to this with your employees as far as a way to like a work plan and something that they would have to follow that you would then um actually to say so my plan is that if I can have something finalized here in the coming weeks, um I would be taking offline all of our directors in town and make sure to spend half a day or a day to translate how this will be executed.

So it will be directly from not just this, not just the budget, but council priorities as well.

So there's concurrent priority setting that is happening at all the time.

But it's a normal thing that you would do with like your employees, right?

Is yeah, with my colleagues and my DMS.

Okay.

Um and you are our only employee, correct?

As city accounts.

That's correct.

Okay.

So I I feel like this is a it is makes sense to me as far as like having measurable, especially since it's been co-created and it's not as Mayor said, just kind of coming out of nowhere.

Um these are things that have been thought through, and maybe the timing makes sense to change in that, but I think it it makes absolute sense to have measurable goals for you to attain to, and in your in your contract, it does include or possible contract, right?

Um there's mention of the the force major, uh whatever language that is, um, that we would definitely take into consideration if there were circumstances that it um affected this.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Sorry, I'm being a lawyer, right?

But that's that's the the partnership that I I seek and uh that I've received and confirmation and to this point with a potential contract.

Thanks for that clarification.

Um so yeah, I I sent I I didn't send, but we we put together some we had talked yesterday about some of these things that I've highlighted um in the in blue here in this version that um our recommendations and things that again this is understanding this is uh conversation that we're all having um that I saw would be in I would be interested in changing around.

One thing that's not on here, um we did talk about yesterday that the this is really a uh document for us, it's for you, but it's also for the public.

Um and so I love thank you for thinking about the timing and making that more clear.

Um thing that we also talked about was um you know the things that maybe aren't in here that are just kind of automatically a part of your work, um, which would be like some some of the things that we talked about earlier, like the state changes, the the mandates, um, and so maybe including like a disclaimer in here saying that those are the things that are just not included in here, so that the public understands that those are still part of your work, but um it's just not part of your work plan.

Um that's a suggestion, and then yeah, so my suggestion, like in this first the blue um, and I I did this because there's no real um way to kind of point through, so I'm hoping this is helpful for my colleagues to see where I think the changes should or could go.

Um but I I'm all in favor of our goals being based on measures of success.

Um then to the point that council member Diaz was talking about with the um ensuring the CBC work plans are in line with advancing council priorities and Tacoma 2035 goals.

I really see you, I mean you're steering the ship, right?

You're steering the ship on on how we get to reaching our goals and how you address council priorities.

Um so I don't see this as something that you're like day-to-day you're involved with.

I I see it as okay, this is our end goal.

It's my it's your job as city manager to get us to an end goal.

Um, so making sure that something like that's included in in here makes sense to me.

Um we did kind of mint talk about that yesterday.

Um then some of this is just language.

Um the support council members in their specific community um to support council members in their specific community engagement communication needs.

Um we're talking about um council staff looking at council staffing.

I just wanted to make sure that that didn't just touch on those two things, like there could be other things that are involved in our roles that we might need staffing help with, and so that's why I changed it to add um and broader role fulfillment needs and that's it for that section, then I'll go through the rest um when we go to the the next section.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Sidalga.

Is there any feedback from City Manager?

Oh, yes.

No, I'm I'm in received vote.

Um you're good.

I was making sure that we heard you all your mic's not on no, sorry, it's off now.

But it's all okay.

Councillor, is it okay?

Um yeah, I was just collecting my thoughts.

Um I'm gonna try to keep it to the section one, a couple of my comments I think had to do with the entire kind of document.

It's the first time I'm seeing all of it together uh right now.

I do share many of uh Councilmember Diaz's concerns.

I do appreciate Councilmember Walker pointing out that there needs to be a little more clarification on what is the purview of the council versus the city manager.

Um because there are some words, some sentences without enough qualifiers, I think, are talking about policy debates we really need to have before we have it as a goal.

Um so when I look at this, you know, I'm generally okay with the top level sections that are in the performance metrics sections, those blue or purple, whatever you want to call that color, depending on which sheet you're looking at.

Um with the initiatives being very detailed kind of things that are going to support those goals.

Um so I don't think we really need to have all those initiatives right now because that's gonna change over time.

So when I think about the operational excellence thing, obviously, yes, budget is big.

Right.

You know, when I think about a city manager, what's your primary responsibility?

You're supposed to deliver us a balanced budget with options.

That should be a goal.

Deliver me a balanced budget with options to talk about what can change, and those options go into the second and and uh section because everything that that budget is going to affect individuals who work here, right?

Because they're they're combined, you know, budget with options.

By the way, this also leads to if you want to do this option, it's going to constrain our ability to do X.

You know, to do Y we can't do X.

That's just basically what our budget is.

So this idea of getting rid of a structural deficit, I don't think is something that quite frankly you can do.

And in many ways, we as a council are very limited in doing it because the structural deficit is generally the fact that our revenues do not grow with inflation, and with a war and everything, we got more inflation coming.

Right.

So what I'd like to see is what kind of flexibility can be built in here in that goal.

Um deliver a budget with deliver a balanced budget with options for our priorities that we get to um discuss.

Explain to us what the uh implications are.

That to me, that's the job that you should be doing right now.

Um also be cognizant of explaining to us, you know, not that you can, but when you can, the craziness that's coming upon us in the next year or two, because we got a state budget that's gonna affect our budget, we got a federal budget that's affecting our budget, we got an economy that affects our budget.

So on a regular cadence, which gets to the first point, which I wanted like what is the cadence that's expected in us.

So let's start with that.

That's the easy one.

All of that was preamble.

What's the cadence in updating us?

So with the budget that's going on, it's most likely a monthly update to you as we're forming.

For the budget.

For the budget.

But as far as a report out from the work plan, um, we have discussed maybe quarterly.

What's normal is six months to a year?

I think quarterly would be really fast, six months if we're really lucky.

I think on a budget level, we definitely need uh a faster turnaround, just my opinion.

Because the budget really just affects everything.

It does.

Right.

Uh the health and welfare of people, I think it's really important that we do a survey, but I think you know, whether we do a hiring freeze or not, is slightly more of a policy question, because the real question is if you want this council member, this is what we can't do.

Because that's how our budget is.

Um am I good with the stuff on the uh purple one?

I think it needs some wordsmithing, but those are relatively good higher level goals.

Get me a budget that's balanced with options.

You know, understand uh how that budget and those budget decisions will also affect our organizational effectiveness and the people that do the work because that's intricately uh uh um uh connected, and let's help communicate what it actually means because there are a lot of people that interpret things in what we do in those policies.

So those three high-level goals on this operational stuff, if that's what you what we mean by that, great.

All the bullets underneath, that's gonna change over time.

It's gonna change over time with how the world changes.

So to me, great, but those might as well just be, you know, for right now, these are some of the initiatives we're looking at uh in council.

Um I do specifically agree with uh councilmember Diaz about the CBC work plans.

That is with uh uh uh subcommittees talking directly with uh CBC chairs.

Um that's where that lies.

Uh staff does what that work plan is.

Um that's a that's a very small thing, but I'm looking more for these higher level strategic goals that helps us get flexibility in how we operate going forward and a regular cadence that tell us, hey, this thing changed, and now we have an issue with reaching this thing that we all agreed on.

Because we as council members, we get really, really and and I'm guilty of this.

We love shiny new objects.

We forget about all the work that we've asked um council to do over the years, and we're still asking them to do and haven't gotten reviews, and then we sometimes think that you know we can just go for something new.

Uh we need to be, you know, also kept in check with the finite reality is in order to do X, Y is not gonna get done.

Um that's all I got.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Hines.

Oh, all right.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, I'm gonna shift the conversation just a hair because I think one of the things I'm struggling with right now is this is our work plan.

It's not Hun's work plan for him to tell us like what he wants us to do.

It's our job as nine people to figure out what we want the city manager to do.

So I I'm struggling with the conversation of what do you think about what I want you to do, and then you signing off on my approach when I think we should be talking with each other.

Like if I want something on the work plan, I gotta talk to all of you all about why it needs to be on the work plan, not ask the city manager for his permission to add it to the work plan.

So I guess, Mr.

Mayor, I guess I'm kicking back to you for the conversation moving ahead, is one of the values of OSAC was we sat down and we went through it line by line and said, hey, what do you think about this?

And we kind of wordsmithed it and talked about it, and it wasn't a parallel play, it was an actual co-creation.

And what I'm worried about right now is we're we're drifting into a kind of a parallel play where everybody kind of fed their thoughts to Hume and Ben, and they regurgitated it.

Not that's a bad term.

They gave it back to us, and instead of like going through, like I would love to go through and have Councilmember Palmer tell me why each one of these things needs to be on the work plan, and then I could ask questions and talk to her about what I think whether it should be there or not.

Because at the end of the day, this is our plan as nine people, and I do think it's important to be fed by information from the city manager, but I would much prefer if we either spent the time from right now talking amongst ourselves about what we wanted the work plan to be, or to simply read this and go off and have a conversation someplace else about it, because I don't think us going back and forth and just ask the city manager about each piece line by line is actually a productive use of our time.

So uh Mr.

Mayor, I kick that one to you.

Yes, uh, thank you, Councilmember Hines.

And I I think that's a very sensible way of looking at it, and which which was very much the ethos behind the OSAC committee, because at the end of the day, I'm I'm pretty literalist about this.

That this is not the city council's work plan, this is the city manager's work plan.

Uh our strategic work plan was what we talked about at the University of Puta Sound and fleshed out here a study session, and ultimately, I mean you're you're talking about nine people with 15 different opinions.

Um at the end of the day, consensus really matters, but this is this is ultimately about not building a Christmas tree with everyone's preferences because I have a fair amount of things I care about that didn't necessarily make the cut here, uh, or with a little sticky notes at UPS, and it's not a reflection of the merit of any ideas I or anyone else have.

Uh but ultimately, especially given the the scarce budget conditions and just the current realities.

Um, one, this is fundamentally about the city manager's interpretation of what we have already said are our top priorities collectively.

So that that box is already checked, frankly.

And secondly, this this is about giving the autonomy and creative control to staff to run with this and to define what they believe are reasonable goals with with consensus and feedback.

Uh, but ultimately, you know, for for lack of a better term, this is about allowing staff to have the autonomy to to run with this.

Um so that that's that's my interpretation.

I I mean, I will defer to the city manager about what the appropriate timeline is for further fleshing out and wordsmithing.

Uh definitely uh abundantly sympathetic to folks' concerns about what initiatives initiatives make or or don't make it, or whether we should even have initiatives at all.

Uh, but ultimately, uh my my own one of nine uh perspective on this is that this is fundamentally about staff's interpretation of what we have already stated are our top priorities, and then um speaking from my own prior experience in the council.

I mean, I I I frankly don't remember city manager work plans being that long and drawn out that they're ultimately something that is the product of conversation the council has already made and already indicated our top priorities, and then just giving staff the free reign to do that.

That is my particular take on it, but I absolutely welcome staff feedback.

Do you have anything to add on that before we move on to the deputy mayor?

Um I I'll I'll hold until all the comments sure.

And we do have an additional section, and um we have a lengthy closed session as well, so just keeping that in mind.

Deputy Mayor.

Let me give council member.

Oh, please.

I mean, I guess then my question would be what would be the difference between a city manager's work plan and the council's work plan for the city manager.

Um, because I think what I'm perceiving from listening is that the city manager had took our priorities and developed this, but council members are not feeling that it's reflective of what they want to see or not.

So, where is the venue by which we would discuss whether this meets our needs as a collective body um for directing the work of the city manager?

Because I what I want to avoid is any kind of ambiguity, right?

And I don't what I would what I would be concerned about is a city manager picking one thing off of this that was one single council member's idea and saying I demonstrated this metric because I did this thing, and then have seven of us or six of us say, like, well, that's none of us wanted that.

Um, and so how did we get to this as being like the driving force?

So uh I guess my question would be what but I guess I do see this as part of like it's our work plan for the city manager versus kind of his specific work plan, unless your interpretation is that he wrote this, gave it to us, and we're just supposed to say go forward.

Sure, and and not that extreme, uh, Councilmember Hines.

I I do think that ultimately staff is smart enough to read the tea leaves.

I think this is a this is a consensus culture with that.

And again, to uh to reiterate, and and I I welcome feedback and any input from the city manager as well, is that today is not the finalization.

It says the word draft on on the paper in front of us.

Um, all today represents is taking a document that was made in a committee to study session to have five other people look at.

That that is the only objective for today.

Uh, with further refinement and feedback, staff interpreting, and uh at a further point in time for us to bring the conversation back and refine it until it's there is a general consensus, which isn't to be conflated with everyone being a hundred percent happy, but a general consensus that staff has sufficient clarity on.

That is again my own interpretation.

Deputy mayor.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

And I just uh appreciate uh City Manager, all the work that you've done, as well as OSAC and everybody else that's had input on this.

Um, and really great conversation.

I I think uh at least from my perspective, I for me the the purple areas are the goals that really the council is outlined as my as I understand it from what uh during our our different conversations uh at the uh retreat um as well as within our strategic priorities as a council.

And it's my understanding that the initiatives that you put under there are kind of like your idea on how to accomplish those goals.

Is am I just am I reading that correctly?

It's it's both, and the there's been um uh the initiatives have grown uh from the conversations through OSAC and consultations with individual council members.

So it's both and I think um and and I'll I'll hold I I've got some thoughts as well as productive next steps.

Okay.

I I guess I I'm not the the thing that I'm focusing in on is is the purple stuff, right?

I for me my perspective is the initiatives, this is how you're going to get there, but that's kind of internal to yourself on what you want to do, and you're trying to be transparent with the council of what those initiatives are uh based on the goals that you're trying to achieve within the purples.

Um I guess I'm thinking also maybe about like so if we were to take like you still continue with the initiatives uh internally on on your own, but like what are the goals to what are gonna be the metrics of success at the purple portion, right?

So what what are we gonna be measuring for what success looks like within those purple areas?

Those initiatives obviously support those goals, but that that's kind of what I'm thinking about when I'm when I want to see like how do I how do we get to those goals?

I don't know, going around about here.

But that that's kind of what I'm thinking about is like what are the metrics of success.

And so I almost feel like where initiatives is in here, kind of it should be like here's the metrics that success, how we know we've gotten to this point of this goal.

Yeah, almost illustrative illustrative as well.

Yeah, and the initiatives are just what you're doing to and then but we need to find out what those metrics are and how we're gonna, you know, all the external pressures obviously as are as caveats, but um, that's at least what I'm thinking of, and I really appreciate I do appreciate you adding the initiatives in here.

Um, but I think it's to remember that's in support of the purple, the the goals, um, because uh that might give us ideas on hey, maybe we need to re-prioritize in some areas or you have a better broader understanding of some of the initiatives that are going on internally um that might be able to align with some other policy recommendations or work that the council's a body is doing as well.

And so um, or maybe maybe we notice something's missing is like actually, did you think about this as you were going through your initiatives that you're working on?

So that's just kind of thoughts I had on that.

Um I'm happy to take any feedback or thoughts from others.

Thank you.

No, thank you very much.

Oh, Councilmember Rumbaugh.

Um I I'm gonna just hundred percent what council member Bushnell said.

Um I think the initiatives they change.

Like we are like the ocean going in and out, and we decide all of a sudden something changes, and it we may not have as much control over why it changes.

It might be because the federal government didn't send CBDG money tests, and then we have to like shift how we're doing things.

I think being less prescriptive here makes sense to have for me, that's what I think.

But I really feel like I want to put this back on the mayor because there was another way to do this, and it's not really you, it's really the mayor sitting down, setting up meetings.

Um it's a c it's council member Palmer, if she wants to make changes, making meetings with us to tell us what her changes are rather than coming here, which I don't think at the last minute we're supposed to be making decisions on your work plan, which I think one of the issues here is that we've just sort of rushed through this.

It feels rushed, and I know for the people sitting on OSAC, they don't think it feels rushed, but when you when you've been sitting in a meeting working on something together, and then you bring it here, it's just a different, it just gives us less.

I mean, no matter how much time I've had sitting outside of council to do this, I think it's good that if the mayor would lead something with separate council members to sit down and talk about why did OSAC decide to do this, why is this in here?

Um I think always giving you more flexibility makes you more successful.

Um, I also want you to be able to like try things, and if you fail, you fail.

But um, if we're gonna tell you everything we think, I mean you're kind of guessing based on our what happened at our meeting, maybe it changes is what I'm saying.

And so I just um I like to have less be more.

Um and I appreciate that we want to have measurables.

I think that that's great.

Um I also think that some things aren't measurable.

Um in the same way that you can have a number or data, it might be more elusive.

Um, and so I just I want to say I appreciate you brought this forward and it's been worked on, but um, right at this moment, there's I'm not gonna, I'm not supporting approving something.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rumbaugh, Councilmember Scott.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, City Manager, for sharing this.

Um I feel like I know that the mayor has the um the privilege of being the one of us who gets who's working full time.

Um I know that we the four of us in Alternan have the that most of the the four of us have the privilege of sitting on OSAC.

Um I will say that also like even with that, there's if you're just seeing this today, that's a choice in some ways because it's not like it wasn't sent prior.

Um this didn't just materialize out of nowhere, it's a continuation of a work plan that was started last year.

Um and so I just I understand that it feels there are times where something comes to study session, I'm like, oh, I wish I had learned about that sooner.

Um things happen, and they don't always get, and I get it that this committee is a little bit different than some of our other standing committees.

Um I think this is that we are working on this is not news, and if you want to get a deeper understanding, yes, the mayor can reach out, yes, the city manager can reach out, yes, councilmember Palmer could reach out, but so can you all so we all have a responsibility to understand I might not know what's going on in every committee, and but there's only a few things that we are working on in OSAC at any given time.

And I'm not saying that you have to know our exact agenda all the time, but this is not new.

So if there was any type of input, concern or anything that was specific to this work plan, this is not the first time this work plan has been shared, it's not the first time it's been talked about.

Um so I understand that you feel that there may be some responsibility for the mayor to reach out on some of these things.

Um, but I also feel that we all have that responsibility to reach out to each other.

I think with council member Palmer, yes, she could have done that that way, but I think because this is a discussion, it's not a decision point.

This is a great time to bring up points for discussion.

Um she could have not brought this specific thing and just shared those thoughts, and maybe it would have felt less formal.

She's just somebody who having a physical document might help her, and it also is a reference point for you all.

So I just I feel like um that there's just a better way of going about this discussion.

And it I think it's being taken as this is we are telling you that you have to do this right now, and there is no choice.

We are not voting on anything.

This is a discussion.

This is the time for you to share your thoughts about what should or should not be in here.

I know you did, but you did it in a way that is putting the responsibility on somebody else.

When you have a voice to say, hey, before this moment, you knew this was gonna be on the agenda today, and if you didn't, that is that's because you didn't look at your report or whatever that said what was gonna be coming up.

But this is something that has been out there that if you wanted before this moment to see this document, you could have.

If you wanted to have these conversations, you could have.

So I just don't like when we have these moments of things that feel like um we're just making like you're making a lot of assumptions about people's intention instead of saying giving a little grace and saying this is a discussion point, I am feeling this way, but this is also my opportunity right now to chime in on this discussion because again, it's a discussion.

This is not a decision point.

So you don't necessarily need to put people in this position where they are being made to feel, and this is maybe me speaking on behalf of other people who don't feel this way.

But when you say, I think the mayor needs to do this, I think council member Palmer needs to, I think you could have talked to Councilmember Palmer about that after this meeting.

So just there are times where we have conversations where it just gets to a point of passive aggression and disrespect.

And I just that was all I wanted to add on this part of it.

Thank you.

We have one more speaker, and then we'll close off this one particular topic.

Um, I'm aware this is definitely a passionate issue, and I take the grace in that that this is a council who really cares and is excited about what could be really bold, transformative changes to our city.

Um so with that, um, I'm definitely appreciative of the first of many broader conversations here, and uh definitely appreciative of all the perspectives here.

It's ultimately just gonna result in a stronger document and just clear guidance for a city manager.

So I'm really grateful for that.

Uh, Councilmember Palmer, then we'll close off this topic and move on.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, yeah, I I guess I wanted to just point out that you know it's been there's been a couple of uh emails sent out from OSAC from um Ben, yes, um ahead of this, and you know, uh since this was something that interested me, then I I sent in recommendations on the first draft, and now these are my recommendations on this draft.

And so it is a it's an I understand it's an ongoing conversation.

If we want to talk about um, you know what should be an OSAC and what shouldn't, we'll have that conversation.

But I think like this has been something that um like council member walker had said, or council member Scott had said, that has been there, and I I have felt the need to chime in at different times.

And yes, this is how I y'all are still learning how I work.

Um, but this is how I work.

I go through and I see the things that you know call my attention, and I want to bring those up into your attention.

Um if there's another purpose of study session besides an opportunity for us all to get together to discuss these things, um, let me know.

I feel like study uh it's implied that there's a discussion that's going to happen, and this is the opportunity for us to also all to communicate, because as we know it's a big poll in order for us to to do this, um, especially you know, if we have a document that comes out in a week for me to contact you each individually um beforehand when there's not a decision that's going to be made versus talking at a table where community can see it and where um we have the opportunity to discuss back and forth, um, it makes the most sense to me uh on an efficiency level to to do that.

Thank you.

And um, city manager, uh it looks like even though this conversation appeared to take on a life of its own, uh, there is a second section related to policy goals out of an abundance of respect for our staff.

I I'd much rather prefer that you conclude with any final thoughts before we move on to next steps, and uh just to respect our staff's time and also the rest of the agenda, we will forego any future council comments on this topic before we move on.

City manager sure.

Um thank you, uh Mayor.

Um, the second topic, I'm gonna just dwell just to make this a productive conversation here.

I'm gonna dwell on the the performance metric here.

The second one as far as council uh priorities, strategies, and status.

This is not to say that these are the only areas upon which I would be using our staff resources and my talented colleagues to support you all, but uh to enhance perceptions of public safety for Tacoma residents.

The city manager will work with police, fire, neighborhood community services, public works, environmental services, and all other departments to improve neighborhood conditions as measured by the business climate and community surveys.

That is an ongoing effort that we make.

Our community survey is launching this week.

Um it's a net way in which we can actually actually take a look at are we capturing ways in which to do this?

It's very broad.

It is very much subjective at some points, but there is a point where we need to improve the conditions.

And to your one employee prospectively, it's me.

You need to hold me accountable as well.

And so both it's what I've heard here today, and just maybe this is a commentary.

I I really do appreciate this conversation because what I'm hearing to make this more productive, um, Mayor, I'm hearing council members speak to the fact that they don't want to overly prescribe and box me into the conditions that are out of my control per prospectively.

But I'm also hearing, well, we also have to get some things on the board where we're talking to the community of what you're working on on our behalf, and how we're gonna measure you.

It's that balance.

I think there is a way to do this in a way in which prospectively, maybe not in a study session.

Uh OSAC could you can consider uh as committee members and as the chair uh taking that to a committee of the whole um to work on this as well.

So I will dwell there, Mayor, unless you would like me to call out specifically any of these uh initiatives, but just hearing and reflecting on what you've heard, why I'm taking this view back.

Uh, we'll defer to your preference.

I will I will move on to the next one for housing and homelessness, the performance metric to support the well-being and dignity of our unhoused residents and ensure safety and cleanliness uh of the city for all Tacomans.

The city manager will direct our NCS uh to reduce portions of Tacoma's experiencing criminals homelessness by 2035.

Ambitious school.

Um, any way in which we can actually uh make that uh measurable move, I think it's worthy and um taking steps this year uh to mitigate or some initiatives here as well.

And then um, jobs and economy, the performance metric to ensure a vibrant business environment, the city manager will direct CED and other and all other departments uh to engage with community partners uh and industry to analyze improve Tacoma's business climate as evidenced by an increase in business satisfaction scores in the business climate survey that we produce every year uh or every other year.

Performance the next performance metric to enhance the speed of permitting in Tacoma.

Uh this is somewhat of a continuation item in collaboration with TPU, the city manager will direct uh planning development services, finance, and all other departments to reduce the time it takes to issue uh certain permits uh by the end of 2027.

Open for business.

That is this metric.

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Uh, any closing thoughts or um just feedback on time and next steps?

Mayor Ibsen, I think uh the next um there is a planned uh another OSAC meeting, but with the feedback that I've received on your behalf, um perhaps the council would want to consider having a committee of the whole uh conversation where you can have a little more discussions as to your work plan for me.

It is both and my work plan to you as far as what I would like to deliver.

So sure, happy to schedule that.

Thank you for the vigorous conversation.

Of course, thank you for your uh your patience and grace.

All right, moving on.

Our third agenda item is the media and communications quarterly update.

I'd like to call on media and communications office director, Amy Clancy to begin the presentation.

Hello everybody.

Um ye uh share as a much more we get all my stuff together.

And you all know Golden.

I should flush a little bit because you look here.

We go.

Wonderful.

Um Mr.

Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council, thanks for having us.

For those of you who have not been part of this before, I do this every quarter with Golden.

We share facts and figures, we share data that we have compiled because we know that what we do digitally is something that we can track.

So that is the purpose of our quarterly updates to keep you in the loop.

So, first, I wanted to share some numbers.

Uh, since I got here in mid-April of 2023, for anybody who's questioning the impact of digital communications, here are some numbers from City of Tacoma.org and Tacoma.gov.

We've had 11 million page views, 5.2 million unique users, which is basically two times the size of Puget Sound area, and a 38 million event count.

That's how many times people have clicked on something, looked at a page, watched a video, looked at an application.

And so people are really engaging with the City of Tacoma digitally, and that's a really important way for people to find us.

And I just want you to know that it's something that we take seriously because we know that this is a great way to reach not only people in Tacoma, but people across the world.

We are the City of Tacoma, and this is how we share.

And if I'm hearing you correctly, what I'm hearing is that you believe effective communications include good storytelling, transparency, accountability.

One of you also mentioned that we need to know what our why is when we communicate with the public.

And I just want to share with you my why.

I believe transparency and accountability will equal belief and trust.

And this is something that I believe from my years in journalism.

Spent over 30 years sharing facts, information.

The picture on the left I just wanted to share because that's the result of a four-month investigation into an elected city official who was misusing public funds.

I understand how the public sees people in power and understand their desire for them to be transparent and accountable.

The middle picture was when I was invited to go attend something called journalism law school.

I was the only local television reporter in the country invited to attend.

I was nominated by a lawyer, and I was there with people from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, and it was a seminar down at Loyola Law School where we learned how to use public disclosure requests and FOIAs to get information from people like you all, people who serve the public.

And it was just a very enlightening time.

So you might be wondering how does somebody go from this to what I'm doing now?

Well, that's a good question.

Tacoma resident or Tacoma Native, Chief Carmen Best hired me to increase transparency at the Seattle Police Department.

And that's how I made the transition from journalist to communications director.

But I also want you to know that I was really lucky when this job opened up that when I walked in here, they gave me an 81-page document.

That is my strategic plan.

It's my work plan.

It includes all of the things that Jay Ray did surveys on, spoke to employees about, and it came out in 2022 before I started here, which clearly identified where we could do better.

And it's 81 pages, so there's a lot in there.

But I do want to point out, for example, one of the first things was hire a digital manager, and that person is Golden Doles.

We didn't have somebody who was identified to manage all of our digital content.

Also talked about a large-scale overhaul of the website, which we've done, a singular PIO to own PIO duties, which we have also done.

It also indicated that the survey believed that TV Tacoma was underutilized.

We needed to be sharing that video content and more than just on television, which is why we now have the digital first strategy.

Also talked about restructuring MCO to be 100% dedicated to communications.

And these quotes are coming directly from the audit.

So dedicated to communications, not community engagement, not strategy.

Those are two functions that are now outside of MCO.

It also talked about incorporating city branding.

And you've heard me talk about that, and I'll get into that a little bit more later.

But more audit recommendations included.

We recommend the team adopt an intake form that requires the prioritization of the work being asked of the team and ensures the most efficient use of their time and resources.

That's why we took a software, took on a software called RICE, because it takes the information that the departments want MCO to share, and it puts it in all one intake form so we can clarify what are your needs and how can we deliver them.

It also said we further recommend the adoption of processes that allow MCO to be more of an advisor to other departments rather than needing to take on communication for every project and initiative.

This has resulted in things like talking points when you're doing a media interview.

We also did not have FAQs that we shared on our website before I got here.

And the City of Tacoma does a lot of complex projects.

You know, dozens, if not hundreds of pages of information for a single project.

But how can you take that information and condense it into something that the public can easily understand?

I'm not saying the public can't understand complex things.

They definitely can.

But it's nice to have five to ten FAQs that clearly identify what is this project, how did it start, how does it work, where is it going?

So this audit is my strategy, my communications plan.

And speaking of logo, as we've talked about, we've been talking about for a long time.

According to the audit, the city of Tacoma branding lacks a consistent look and feel, and that MCO needs to incorporate city branding.

So it's not just Amy Clancy saying this at MCO.

It's the reason why we're going from dozens and dozens of different logos and colors to as close to this as we can possibly get.

It doesn't apply to fire, doesn't apply to police, doesn't apply to TPU.

But for general government, we're trying to get as close to this per audit recommendations to get a more consistent look and feel.

So I do this every quarter.

I talk about what's new, and this is what's new in just the first quarter of 2026.

We've updated our crisis communications plan.

We know we've got a big event happening here in June and July with the World Cup.

We needed to make sure that our crisis communications plan was up to date with the right numbers so people know how to get in touch with each other.

We also, in partnership with one of our departments, created a service level agreement.

It hadn't been clarified.

What does MCO offer?

What does MCO not offer?

So we created an SLA in partnership with PDS, and that's something that really clear clarifies what we can do for you.

Podcasts, we've broken ground, we were just uploaded to Apple today.

We're getting there.

We haven't put any new content on, but we're making progress.

Um for five weeks, and that's um I think we're going to be loading episode three tomorrow.

And speaking of storytelling, I also wanted to share information about our Tacoma Fire Department public information officer Chelsea Shepherd.

When I first got here, FIRE did not have a PIO.

And it was something that then Chief Green talked to me about.

How can we get more information about the Tacoma Fire Department out?

Well, the audit says have a PIO.

And so he and I work together and it's paid for by fire, but Chelsea works in the MCO office.

And just to give you an idea of what kind of impact a single employee can have, these stat these figures are just from the year 2025.

She started halfway through 2024.

So in 2025 alone, she's had 2.4 million social media views, 43,000 total engagement, 6,400 new followers, and her Facebook video watch time is up 309%.

It has direct community impact because their CPR class enrollment increased by 18%.

She's published over 460 posts, which is a 79% increase over 2024.

Media availability and media visibility because Chelsea is there and can answer media questions.

TFD incidents and events were mentioned 450 times in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, reaching an audience of 16.8 million.

74% of that was local broadcast coverage.

So reporters know Chelsea is there, she'll pick up the phone, she'll meet me at the scene, she'll do an interview, she'll give me the facts, and it's really increased Tacoma Fire Department's visibility.

And when it comes to weekly social topics, she likes to have fun with it too.

She has stationed spotlights on Tuesdays, it's health and safety tips and preparedness, and then on Throwback Thursdays, she includes old video from the archives.

They're a lot of fun, a lot of firefighters from the 70s, and a lot of the engagement is from retired firefighters, really enjoying seeing what they look like 30 years ago, 40 years ago, whatever.

So she's definitely having an impact, and it's really fun to see.

So, what have we seen as far as social stats in the past three years?

Since 2023, we've had a 24% increase in Facebook, we've had a 70% increase on Instagram, and our YouTube numbers have increased 31%.

In the year of 2025 alone, our Instagram impressions were up to 1.6 million, which is up 494% from the year prior.

Our Facebook impressions from 2025 were at 5.8 million, which is up 691% from the year prior.

So we regularly use this data to help us understand what is effective, what's reaching people, and how many people are we reaching.

And then I come to you every quarter, and I'm accountable to you because if those numbers go down, I'll definitely tell you that as well.

But when something doesn't get engagement, we we try to pivot, we try to go in a different direction.

If something does, then we know, okay, this is something that people really like to see.

Moving on to Tacoma.gov.

As you know, we launched our new website on April 30th, and since then, so not even a full year later, we've had more than three million total page views with more than a million unique users.

City of Tacoma has a population of 220,000.

So five times basically the City of Tacoma is engaging with our website.

And we've had a 14.5 million event count.

Again, that's how many times somebody has clicked on something, watched a video, filled out a form.

This is also something we're constantly evaluating.

We're also constantly evaluating how effective the pages are, how they can be clarified, how information can be culled or added so that it's more helpful.

Okay.

So here's some more information from just quarter one.

We've had nearly a million total page views.

This is since the beginning of the year, with 295,000 unique users, a 5.3 million event count, and approximately 400 updates and edits made to those web pages by Golden and her team.

Her team's not huge.

Manny Brown is in the back.

There he is, waving.

And one of those updates I have to say, I really love is our hero image on our webpage.

If you haven't noticed it, it's the video at the top that takes up the top of the third of the screen.

Brian Cox, our multimedia guy last week, the cherry blossoms were beautiful.

He just went out to Wapato and took some new video with the with the cherry blossoms, trying to get out in as many neighborhoods as possible and show the beauty that is Tacoma, because we do have a beautiful city and we want to show it off.

So getting to the social numbers, and I'll whip through these as fast as I can because I know we've got more on the agenda.

In just quarter one, our content was viewed 1.3 million times, which was a 17% increase over quarter one of 2025.

We have more than 31,000 followers, so we've gained 964 since last quarter, with 23,000 reactions, comments, shares, saves, replies, etc.

More than 1,200 link clicks, so when they see our posts, they go someplace else, and we had 176 posts.

Of those posts, the top ones were number one, Eudora's Bakery Cafe, which was one of our Black History Month features.

It had more than 1900 likes and loves.

Number two was Patty Jackson confirmed as chief with 1,400 likes and loves.

And the third was the 12th man flag over the Tacoma Dome with just over a thousand likes and loves.

We also include video, not only on our Facebook and our Instagram, we have reels, but we also include video on our website.

These were the top three Facebook videos for quarter one.

The first one was the 12th man flag with 1,100 likes and loves.

Number two and number three were both Tacoma report stories.

And this is an example of that underutilization before of TV Tacoma.

We've got great people taking great video.

They do wonderful work, but there's no sense in just sharing it in only one place, which is television.

So we share it also on our social.

And those were the second and third most viewed Facebook videos.

Number two was the Tacoma Report story with Parks Tacoma on Monkey Shines with 296 likes and loves.

And number three, Black History Month celebration at the People's Community Center with 96.

Moving on to Instagram.

Quarter one content was viewed 319,000 times, which was a 48% increase over quarter one in 2025.

We have over 17,000 followers, which was a 7% increase over quarter four.

12,000 likes, comments, shares, etc., and 144 posts, which is more than a post a day.

So we are sharing content.

And of the most popular, I love to share this because the number one photo of the week was a snowman at Wright Park.

You can probably guess when that was taken.

That was March 13th.

And this is an example of Tara Long, our social media person, recognizing we've got an opportunity here.

She was out walking her dogs, she just took a picture, and it happened to be the number one photo of the week.

810 likes.

It doesn't have to be produced, it doesn't have to be staged or planned, but immediate and recognizable and fun is really important.

And Tara is really good at that.

The number two photo of the week was from Mount Rainier from Point Rustin, which is a beautiful shot, and the number three was the 12th man Gohawks flag over the Tacoma Dome.

Top three videos of the quarter, again, the 12th man flag over the Tacoma Dome.

The number two was a Snow Day reel that Tara shot on March 13th with 444 likes.

And number three was a Tacoma Report story, again, a TV Tacoma product that we share on social as well.

The Parks Tacoma MLK Day of Service with 172 likes.

Moving on to social media trends, and we like to share these just so you know that we are staying trying to be on trend as much as possible.

Like all across the country, X followers are down.

We still have 56,000 followers on X.

So when there is a road closure or a tree down or some reason for us to reach out to people quickly, we still use X and say this has happened.

We think it's a great way to engage with people, even though there are fewer people on it than there used to be.

There are still 56,000 people who follow us on X.

Next door, we have 75,000 members in the City of Tacoma.

And we target our posts to demographics or council districts.

We've had six posts in the first quarter.

They're always hyper-local.

This is happening here, so we can send it just directly to that area.

And we had over 5300 impressions.

And on YouTube, we have nearly 6,000 subscribers, which is an increase of 700 in the past year.

We've had over 37,000 content views, and we've uploaded 115 videos.

Moving on to the hub.

The hub is an internal SharePoint site where people who are City of Tacoma employees can get information.

We don't share as many all-city emails as we used to.

We want to encourage people to go to the hub for information.

In this first quarter alone, there were more than 75,000 page views by 3300 unique users, which is good because we have almost 4,000 employees.

We had 38 total news posts added.

The top visited site was the homepage, followed by human resources, and then followed by that was the link on global navigation and job openings, as you can imagine.

And Manny works hard on keeping the Tacoma Hub up to date.

The top three posts were the Kudos campaign number one, Engineers Week was number two, and number three was the 2026 Employee Appreciation Breakfast.

Moving on to the public information officer.

As you know, Maria Lee works really hard.

Analyzing the volume and pace of the PIO's media relations workload reveals not only consistently high demand, but an escalating trend.

From January 1, 2026 to March 26, 2026, she managed 186 media inquiries, which is compared to 155 from that same time last year.

That is a 20% increase.

And it points to a heightened media cycle and growing public interest in the city's operations and strategic direction.

The thematic focus is right here, also listed.

The nature of the inquiries from the media underscores that journalists are focused on highly sensitive core community challenges, spanning public safety, housing, essential services, and civic leadership.

The five most frequent topics so far this year, shifting focus from last year's top topics of homelessness and shelter funding, include number one, immigration enforcement, number two, expansion of garbage can program, followed by questions about Mayor Anders Ibsen, then homelessness, and police chief and city manager recruitments.

So the information strongly suggests that the PIO's media relations workload continues to be characterized by deeply complex and sensitive issues rather than simple transactional questions.

She continues to unpack intricate subjects with journalists to ensure their accurate understanding.

For example, recent questions required her to carefully explain the fiduciary responsibilities and the mechanics of passive index funds as they relate to the Tacoma employees' retirement system and its minimal fractional exposure to controversial holdings.

Clarifying data reporting metrics on the HEAL dashboard, guiding reporters through the administrative review processes to explain closure rates on homelessness-related service requests, and outlining the implications and timelines of the new one-tenth of one percent criminal justice and public safety sales tax.

It's a good thing for us that Maria Lee is a very smart person because she has to explain complex topic topics to people.

And she relies on the subject matter experts.

She reaches out, she calls them, she has long conversations with them, so she understands and can easily explain it to people.

So moving on to TV Tacoma.

We're making TV Tacoma, like I said, creates great content, but they also go out into the community and they bring events that you folks are all involved in to the public.

For example, this quarter alone, the city manager community event, then the Martin Luther King Jr.

celebration, and the mayor's first state of the city.

Tacoma Report, I brought you the monkeyshine story.

There was also a great story about the Red Cedars New Trail at Point Defiance.

We also have on City Line topical, informational, enjoyable, entertaining interviews.

The first one here is from the Dark Dr.

Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

celebration, followed by the new paved trail in Point Defiance, followed by Little Miss Sweets, who is a 2026 City of Destiny award winner.

The first quarter alone included interviews with 23 different nonprofits, seven different City of Tacoma departments, six City of Tacoma businesses, 14 different theaters and concerts, and other government agencies that were represented, included the IRS, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, scams and how to avoid them, social security, that type of thing.

So lots of great informational content.

And many of you have made guest appearances as well.

Moving on to email marketing and gov delivery for quarter one, we sent out 103 e-newsletters, e blasts, and notifications, which were delivered to 553,000 recipients.

Total number of subscriptions is 322,000, which is an increase of 21,000 just since quarter four.

The total number of subscribers is 134,000, which is an increase of 3200 since quarter four.

And just so you know, your council staff have access to this data and this information so you can see how it's, you know, how you're trending or whatever.

Now, I mentioned earlier that according to the audit, um CO should just be focused on communications, and we are.

Community engagement is embedded in departments, but we support the department's community engagement efforts through these ways.

Um Leah and Dee work with the departments to create flyers and marketing materials and social media materials and things that the community engagement folks can bring to the community, either in person or on uh digital um platforms.

Um so we like to make sure that our materials have the City of Tacoma colors and branding guidelines.

We like people to understand what it is the City of Tacoma does.

So even though we are not the ones out there doing the community engagement, we do support departments' community engagement efforts.

So, what's ahead in quarter two and beyond, and I'm almost done.

Um, of course, we're working on our budget just like everybody else.

Um, as I mentioned, our podcast studio build is underway.

It's noisy up there, but you're welcome to come up and take a look at any time.

We utilize AI when we can because we do not have a large staff, as you've heard me mention.

We basically have one person doing every job.

Um, and we have two people who represent 20 departments, and so we need to make sure that we're using our time as wisely as possible.

We wouldn't put something out that hadn't been fact-checked or made sure it was uh City of Tacoma branding appropriate, but we do use it to help us do our jobs um more efficiently.

Something else that we're working on is we're continuing to use as many platforms for our storytelling as possible.

And I just want to let you know about something that we're currently working on.

Um, our team did a heel team ride-along.

It's going to be part of our Tacoma in Action video series.

Um, Tacoma in Action basically tells the story of what the City of Tacoma employees are doing for the people of Tacoma.

And this particular video will tell the story not from the employee standpoint, but from the people who have been uh recipients of of help from the heel team.

We hear a lot about what people say people enjoy about it, but we wanted to hear from the people who were personally impacted themselves.

So this video will tell the story of Larry, the guy up in the upper left, who got into shelter after a HEAL team member physically carried him to where he needed to go.

Uh, bottom left-hand corner, that's a couple named Lucky and Bandit.

They've remained sober, they got into shelter, they retained custody of their daughter, and they're moving into permanent housing after working consistently for two years with the heel team.

Steve, the guy in the white hat, is a service provider who worked with heel team to reduce violence in the communities where he serves food.

And Chris, who is in the red shirt with the black hood.

He worked with Heel to regain his sobriety and the custody of his daughter.

He is now stably housed and with a support network building a bright future for his family.

And when asked about heel, he said they gave me a place to stay, a place to put my daughter to get her back in my life.

You guys did a wonderful job with that.

And one of the things that I thought was interesting about a lot of these interviews is most of them started by saying, I couldn't stand you.

I didn't know you, I didn't trust you.

But these are all people who might have had that feeling at the beginning, but after being contacted multiple times, earning their trust, they were able to get into housing and get some help thanks to the heel team.

So that's going to be coming along in quarter two.

And with that, happy to take questions.

Thank you, Anna.

Very thorough presentation.

Any questions?

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you.

Not only for the this presentation, seeing these numbers across all the platforms is really powerful, I think, both for us and for the community that's listening, but also for the continued content.

And Golden, thank you for sending that email every week to let us know what's coming.

That's super helpful.

I don't check it every week, but when I do, then I'm able to share things on my platforms too.

Um, only really quick question is on the email marketing gov delivery.

You might have said this, but does that include our newsletters too?

Okay, I just wanted to check on that.

Yeah, and screw department different newsletters too, but yeah, definitely your newsletters.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much for the presentation.

Oh, Councilmember Palmer, jump the gun.

Thank you.

Takes me a minute to get my thoughts together.

Um I just wanted to thank you for the um for including all of the numbers that we can kind of compare where we were at and where we're at now.

That's super helpful.

Um, do you do you know?

Um maybe this is something to do next time.

Um, is to look at maybe similar cities, uh like same size and kind of how we compare to the traffic they're maybe seeing or what they're doing.

Yeah, I did look at some of those numbers just earlier today.

Um, for example, uh even the city of Seattle, they only have about 20,000 followers on their Facebook page.

Um, looking here locally, uh Pierce County has about 25,000.

Um, and then I looked at Spokane because that is a very kind of similar sized um city as City of Tacoma, and they had about 29,000.

So on our platform, we have 31,000 on Facebook, so it is a little bit higher than um than some of the other local ones and um other cities.

So wanted at least share that we have a little little more followers than they do and hopefully growing.

Okay, wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for your presentation, and we look forward to the uh further conversation as part of the budget.

Thank you.

All right.

Our fourth agenda item is our 2026 annual action plan for housing and community development.

I'd like to call on community and economic development housing division manager, Felicia Medlin to begin the presentation.

All right, good afternoon, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council.

I am gonna be before you briefly today.

Uh so every year we have to go through this process as for our annual action plan.

Um, it's related to three federal grant programs that we receive funding for.

I'll talk about those on the next slide.

And so the very beginning part of this process starts with the consolidated plan.

Right now we're in the 2025 to 2029 uh five-year consolidated planning cycle.

And so our consolidated plan consists of four parts uh a needs assessment, a market analysis, a strategic plan, and then it includes a one-year spending plan for the first year.

So we're currently in year two of our five-year plan.

Okay, a little delay.

Uh so our annual component, our program year runs from July 1 to June 30th of each year.

And so these are our estimated 2026 funding allocations uh that are pending uh budget allocation and approval currently.

So they're based on our 2025 actuals.

So for the community development block grant or CDBG program, we received 2.3 million dollars.

For emergency solutions grant, we have just over 207,000.

And then for the home investment partnerships program, we're at one point uh 1 million 70,000 dollars.

Uh so these programs are all designed to serve individuals with a maximum income of 80 percent, and a lot of our programs target uh zero to 30 for the ESG program, uh, and then CDBG is anywhere from 65 to 80 percent, so 80% is a hard cap uh as a maximum.

So we implement these programs through a few types of agreements.

So we have sub-recipient agreements between the city of Tacoma and the Tacoma Community Redevelopment Authority and the City of Lakewood, and then we also have individual contracts with providers out in the community to community to provide direct services.

So I'm just gonna run through the grant allocation and breakdowns for each of the grants now, and then um we'll have time for any questions or comments on the presentation.

So for CDBG, that 2.3 million, the 20% for admin and the 15% per public services are regulatory set asides.

And so within the housing programs and economic development programs, we have four activities that we'll be undertaking on the housing side.

They're all gonna be related to single family rehab.

So this is our an anti-displacement program that helps keep homeowners in their homes.

And then we have two providers, so the Tacoma Pierce County Chamber Space Works Program and Business Impact Northwest that are going to be doing technical assistance for microenterprise businesses.

And so those activities will total 1.5 million dollars in activity going towards that.

And then with public services, this is uh CED works really closely with neighborhood and community services who is actually the implementing side of these funds, and they're gonna be doing some shelter programming with these funds, which we see year over year, and they're set aside is 355,000.

So moving on to the ESG program, uh this is just a general breakdown.

So the 7.5% is a regulatory maximum for uh admin, and then the HMIS or homeless management information system uh operations is 2.5 percent, and then the balance of that goes to external contracts uh and the external contracts for this program are gonna be shelter programs once again uh and then rapid rehousing.

And then finally, the home program.

Uh this one is pretty cut and dry, so we um have Lakewood as a consortium member for us, so we divide the money with them.

They currently have a 20% population contribution to the formula, uh, and so we transfer that percentage to the overall grant allocation that we have, and so they have about 712,000 that they use to implement programs.

Oh no, that's ours.

They have 250,000, my apologies, that they use to implement programs in the city of Lakewood.

Um we set aside 107 for administration, which is a 10% regulatory maximum, uh, and then we have 712,000 that we make available for um mainly the new construction activity uh on the homeownership side uh and the rental side.

We try to prioritize homeownership since home is one of the primary sources we have for homeownership funding.

And then we'll talk a little bit about next steps.

So starting tomorrow, we will be having a 30-day comment period uh on the draft document, and then on April 21st, we are planning for a public hearing, and I believe at tonight's council um there'll be a resolution read to set that date for the public hearing.

Uh we'll be coming before you on May 5th for final action, uh, and then we have a submission deadline to submit the plan to HUD on May 15th, and that does conclude my presentation.

Thank you, Ms.

Medlin.

Uh, we have a couple of questions first from Councilmember Romba, followed by Councilmember Sidalgate.

Thank you, Mayor, and I want to thank you so much for Felicia because I've already heard your report from at community vitality and safety, and I want to thank you so much for how you laid out the funding.

Um, I just this is really easy to understand.

Um, can I just ask one question about when we do the HEMIS operations, the grant allocations?

Do we give um I know the county does um they give out like uh different con like I don't know how to certificates or user things is that does that go to other providers or is it just for the city?

Um and I have Caleb coming up to answer that question.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Rumbaugh.

That that funding goes to help with the training of our staff uh to help with navigating that system disproportionately.

Okay, thank you so much for explaining that.

Appreciate that.

And I just could um for everyone here and for anyone who's listening.

Could you just describe how funding happens?

Like, so you send a grant in to the federal government and then we have to wait to see if we're gonna get the funds.

Is that how it works?

So for these funds, these are formula allocations, and so it's based on population.

So we're automatically in HUDS queue, so to speak, to be given um a set aside for these funds pending the passage of a budget.

So as long as they pass a budget that includes funding for the home CDBG and ESG programs, there will be a formula applied to that that will give us our our portion each year.

And so we're hoping that the budget gets done so that we get our money in time this this year.

Yes, so the um I believe it was the continuing resolution that they passed about 37 days ago.

Um, so that started HUD's clock.

HUD has um 60 days to issue our actual allocation number.

So they're running that formula currently, uh, and I believe on August, not August next week.

I actually think April 7th is the date that they're supposed to have that um process complete by.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sidalga.

Uh thank you.

Um so everything you're you're presenting here, this is all federal HUD dollars, or is there any state kind of match or anything like that included in here?

Just so I kind of understand the landscape.

Yes, these are only federal dollars.

They don't include any required match contributions that the city has to provide.

Got it.

Uh the city or state or both, or just the city?

The city, and just um for awareness, the match dollars that do support these funds are our local affordable housing fund dollars.

So we kind of have an inherent.

Is it our one tenth of one percent?

Yes.

Okay, that was gonna be my last question is how does the one tenth of one percent um kind of interact?

Okay.

And so, and I also want to be cognizant that these is one slice of many different funding sources that we use to do all sorts of housing things across our city, correct?

That's correct.

Okay, because I don't want people to think that we only have this sources.

We're going through this specifically because it's a requirement that we do our plan with HUD to be able to even receive some of this this funding.

Yeah.

Um I really did appreciate uh because one of the questions I had was like examples of what some of these um uh plans do.

Uh so I got the CD uh C D B Game from a city that had CBGB, so um so yeah, no.

Uh home allocation, that was kind of a new one for me.

What are some of the kind of programs or activities we do with some of the home uh uh dollars?

Yeah, so currently I I would say in the past three years, it's been primarily used for new construction.

So we've had um projects awarded that were multifamily rental, um, and we've also had some homeownership development projects.

So those are the two main categories.

Historically, um, we have also used it for down payment assistance, and so that's usually if um a new construction homeownership activity is coming into play.

Um, they usually also request some down payment assistance funding to help support uh the sale of those units.

I kind of recall this program in which you have to create new um housing that's at like 95% of the median, like new housing.

They have like a dollar number, they tell you like is the max price.

Very cool cool that you lashed on to that 95%.

So that is a sale price restriction, so it's 95% of median is what they cap the sale price um for units that were developed under this project.

And median being what basically half half the homes are selling for more or less, so this is uh uh an achievable number for most middle class uh or slightly lower than median income.

Um great.

Uh I did also want to point out because we had this as a talking point when we were in um NLC.

Uh we were pushing um a bipartisan effort at the federal level called the Road to Housing Act, uh, that we're hoping will pass that does some things to some of this uh funding that that should help.

So I'm looking forward to how we can expand this one source of funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, well, very much appreciate the uh presentation and looking forward to uh continuing this work throughout uh later throughout the year.

All right, moving on.

We have a council committee request from Councilmember Scott.

Um I'm working on this one with Councilmember Scott, and can we just swap these items so that she's here for it?

Yeah, sounds like a plan.

Thanks.

Okay.

With that, um, our next item is uh from Councilmember Walker pertaining to Sound Transit.

Great, thank you.

I am also ready for that.

Okay.

Um so as you all um have seen, um, we sent out a media release uh yesterday about this.

Um the goal here is really to just give a recap of the Sound Transit Board um retreat that happened here in Tacoma a couple weeks ago.

Um many of you reached out to me after that because there was a lot of media about it and a lot of confusion about what was actually decided at that event.

Um and so I wanted to just briefly go over what we did at that event.

Talk about our priorities as a as the Pierce delegation on the Sound Transit Board, and then open it up for comments from you all because I know that you have been fielding uh conversations from constituents.

I was also want to acknowledge my board colleague is here, uh, Councilmember Hunter George from FurCrest, and uh, you're welcome to come up here and join the conversation if you'd like.

Um, so just really briefly on the board retreat.

This was May March 18th, um happened here in Tacoma.

Um we were discussing primarily what we're calling the Enterprise Initiative, which is um closing an affordability gap of about 34 billion dollars.

And staff um gave us three sort of scenarios that had multiple levers that we could pull on to um address the gap.

There are revenue options and there are cost saving options.

The intention of the presentations was not like pick one scenario, it was here are different ways we could do this, and we'll talk through uh what those might be.

Um then we also worked in small groups on what we call opportunity registers, which is basically just the list of solutions, and they were in different buckets from staff.

Really incredibly important and valuable to dig into all of those pieces.

Um, and then what came out of that, as you all know, is a lot of conversation about like, well, whose project are we cutting?

Um, and I've been very clear, everyone I've talked to, that is not the intention of the board is just to like slash each other's projects, but really to work together to creatively solve problems, and I've gotten that over and over again.

Um we have an amazing um Pierce delegation, including Councilmember Hunter George, our executive, county executive Ryan Mello, and Mayor Kim Roscoe from Fife.

The four of us are working together on um all things Pierce County.

Um, but I would share this also with for all my other board colleagues on the Sound Transit Board that everybody wants to get everything done.

There is no intention here to cut anything, and we realize we're we're faced with an affordability gap that we have to solve.

Um, but we do want to deliver the transit that we promised the voters all across the system.

It's a regional system.

Um that being said, uh Pierce County has waited a long time for our regional light rail connections, and so we're gonna push pretty hard to make sure that Sound Transit fulfills that commitment.

As has been mentioned also earlier today, um, with our planning team, we have done a lot of work uh to prepare for light rail in Tacoma, um, upzoning, land use planning, um uh specifically around the future stations, uh specifically preparing for high capacity investments, um, both along the Tacoma Dome Link extension, but also our TCC uh project, which is the expansion of the T line.

Um so want to just very briefly um and then I'll let you uh board member George say a few words before we open it up.

But we we have three sort of big projects here in Tacoma.

Um you all know about the Tacoma Dome Link extension.

Our goal is to get the Tacoma Dome Link extension to the Tacoma Dome.

Um that is a priority, and this is what really delivers us into the larger system, um, makes the connection into the regional network, and this is also one that we've delayed in the past, and so we feel like we've we've put in our delay time and um we um need to deliver that to the people of Tacoma and Pierce County.

Um the second uh sort of bucket of work is our uh the Tacoma Community College extension of the T line, and um this is a project that's very early in the planning stages, so we don't have a lot of information on the costs.

Um we have sort of this very big estimate number, um, but really really important in helping folks get around uh within uh Tacoma and Pierce County.

Um and again I'll let uh councilmember George talk a little bit more about that, but serves Tacoma Community College and all those students serves Cheney Stadium and the Rainers, um, and then tons and tons of TOD development potential along that.

Um and then the third one is that our sound or commuter rail.

So obviously we have uh robust sound or commuter rail.

One of the things that's in question is and has we have been working on for many years is how to add more capacity there, and for a long time that was assumed to be longer trains and longer stations, which is incredibly expensive to build.

What the riders have told us is no, let's have more trips all day.

So we're um pushing that forward to get more trips all day uh throughout the sounder system, and then also in SD3, there is a an extension to DuPont, and that's another one that is very very early in the planning process, and um certainly want to keep that on the list.

Um, but thinking about creative ways to get that one done.

It's a real opportunity because Sound Transit owns uh much of the tracks, um, so in a lot of ways it's an easier project to implement.

Um so with that, I will um kick it over to you, board member George, if you want to add a few things and then ask my colleagues for questions and comments and uh path forward.

Um yeah, just there you go.

I've never been at this table before.

Welcome.

I wasn't sure which button to push.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Walker.

And just uh uh I don't want to be the thing keeping you from adjournment today, so I'll I'll be super brief, which is to say that um uh we were the four of us represent the entire uh Sound Transit district within Pierce County.

Uh and so we think about all of those projects and all those places.

I I want to speak to coming from from my area of the county there with Fircrest and UP.

Um we have the Four Corners Initiative that we've been working on for many years, where at the intersection of 19th Street and Mildred, uh you have Tacoma, UP, Furcrest, and then the the 12,000 student community college.

That is a significant uh it's a major intersection, and and you've got three jurisdictions and a college campus all there.

We've been we've called it the Four Corners Planning Initiative.

It's been going on since the since before COVID, uh, where we've been trying to make sure that we don't have three different sets of uh comprehensive plans and three different visions of what that area will look like.

We've been planning for this extension for many many years, and so we're hoping to maintain uh that and and I think the uh as council member walker said we haven't the Sound Transit hasn't begun the planning on that yet, so it's a um it's really kind of a back of napkin almost.

Uh you know, I'm I'm sure it's a it's a it's an educated guess, but that's all it is because no engineering has been done.

So hoping to to at least see that project advance so that we can figure out uh where are the savings potentials and and uh and then actually wearing the other hat.

Uh you mentioned Cheney Stadium.

The uh Parks Tacoma is envisioning it working with the city and the school district uh on a um a new master plan for that Heidelberg Cheney campus that that has a ton of potential for entertainment for economic uh development and for recreation.

Uh and we're planning on having a uh a light rail stop there, so it's it's uh an important part of that plan.

So uh I will I am working, I'm doing the same thing that you're doing where I'm I'm uh trying to spark some conversations with the FurCrest Council and the UP council in the next week or so.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Uh we have two additional uh other items of interest.

Uh Councilmember Scott has a C C N to bring forward, and then we have a letter from the Deputy Mayor.

Oh, did you oh, isn't we're moving the other direction?

Uh which one do you want to do first?

If you if you're con if you're pressed for time, then Deputy Mayor.

Well, yeah, I I think just timely conversation.

Uh probably good to bring the letter up.

So um just wanna I uh given the conversation that we've been hearing from the Sound Transit Board and really appreciate the representation you guys bring to Pierce County and Tacoma uh on that board.

Um I uh felt compelled that it's important to really reiterate and restate um the priorities of our uh city uh as well as our delegation.

Um and I really appreciate Councilmember Walker and Scott for their input on helping kind of get this together.

And uh normally we would like to get this on prior, but these these conversations are timely, and so it's something I would like uh us to be able to vote on tonight during council.

Um obviously open to uh additional changes uh to the letter as well, uh, if any folks have a suggestions before it gets us before us tonight.

Um but basically it reiterates a lot of the things that Councilmember Walker just brought up, um, you know, recognizing that they are in a pretty large uh funding gap, uh, but that there are nearly a million people in uh Pierce County that are relying or looking forward to relying on the this essential service to our community.

Um and we have already made significant public and private investments all across the city in anticipation of um TDL E as well as a lot of the zoning changes uh across our city, especially with the T link and things of that nature.

And so just wanted to make sure that we're we're recognizing um that we're also working very hand in hand with our PLT tribal partners, especially considering the um the stop on Portland Avenue and how important that is to them.

Um and so we just wanted to make I just want to make sure that we're reiterating this um given a lot of the the conversation that's been happening so that way uh folks as they're they're making decisions on on these budgets um that they know that the city of Tacoma, Pierce County, and our region are really looking forward to the completion of uh ST3 projects here locally.

So open to uh any call topics or conversation on that.

Um thank you.

Uh uh thank you for letting um uh uh Deputy Mayor Fishnel go because this was an important point I want to bring up to two board members for for Sound Transit.

Um I think you know, Deputy Mayor made some compelling uh reasons why this is important, but there's another really important reason, especially in my district, right?

There is an equity component to this.

And the way I explain it is 98404, which is most of the east side, has some of the highest usage of public transportation, and it is poised to use more because it has one of the highest needs to use um uh HOV lanes to get to work.

It's one of the questions you have on the census.

This is an area that has nearly 25% of the people speak a language other than English.

It has a high population of BIPOC individuals.

It has one of the lowest rates of people saying that they have the option to work remotely.

So these are people who right now need to take HOV cars, right?

They have to take cars, they have to carpool.

They don't have an option to work remotely, and as one of the highest percentage of people that need to leave their uh uh their city to get to work.

We can all know where they're going, or a lot large portion.

This is one of the highest most uh this is a population for whom a light rail coming down to the dome is absolutely gonna be essential.

On top of that, we have one of the only, I believe it might be the only elementary school right next to a highway, Jenny Reed.

Every car that does not go on there, which we've already seen north of here, is a benefit to every child that is in that that school.

And we're about to have three high schools with a nexus to the the dome.

Not just the robotics center at LeMay.

We're gonna have the Maritime uh center open, and we're gonna have Idea High School coming in.

And lastly, there's a tribe that has tried to exist that has two really important businesses that are gonna be supported.

So you don't have to put this in the letter, but I think it is the height of repeating historical systemic racism to prioritize areas where 60% of the married couples in Ballard earn more than 200,000 a year that have some of the lowest rates of needing to use HOV to get to work that already have buses that can get them for the six percent that use it over indigenous people and people who've been historically uh shunned.

Deputy mayor?

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

Um, I just wanted to thank Council Member Bushnell for putting together this letter, particularly for emphasizing this piece about the P.O.P.

tribe.

I think it's pretty egregious that the non-Pierce County and non, I think it's Nahomish County folks on the Sound Transit board would even consider putting anything before this piece of the line that would bring folks to the P.

Half tribe to Tacoma because it is such an important commuter area, and because it is um to Councilmember Snalga's point on the data, it's really egregious to put um some of the most affluent areas within a city, which being Ballard and West Seattle above Tacoma.

And quite frankly, Tacoma and Pierce County have been historically very, very skeptical of sound transit because of past actions.

And this is the most important way that they can build on the promises that they have given us and not further erode that trust because if there's hope for an ST4, we have to be at that table and we have to have this link completed.

Otherwise, we're definitely never voting for this again.

So I think now is the time.

It's really critical.

We've waited more than we should have.

Some of these other stops should have never finished before Tacoma did, and now it's their time to finish the work for us.

So thank you to our board members for fighting for us here in Tacoma.

I appreciate you, and please let us know how else we can help.

Thank you, Councilmember Diaz.

And uh, any final comments.

Um, I know that we're gonna be bringing this forward on the consent agenda, but I do want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to uh maybe talk about this letter um on the dais as well.

I think uh it would be a good opportunity for us to do that.

So um maybe just before we adopt the consent agenda, we we have an opportunity for council to weigh in on the letter specifically.

Of course, Councilmember Walker.

Um thank you, and thank you, Deputy Mayor, for that.

I think that will be great.

Um, I just wanted to make a really quick note about timelines as folks who are listening and for my colleagues um want to weigh in on how we move forward on this.

Um again, decisions have not been made.

We have uh many, many proposals in front of us as a Sound Transit Board.

Um the next month will be crucial uh in making decisions, looking at details.

Staff has done an amazing job of bringing things forward for us to consider.

Um, but if folks want to speak up for light rail, now is the time.

And our goal is to get some, if not a huge portion of the decisions made in the first half of this year as a board.

Thank you.

And thank you both for your leadership.

Certainly in support.

Anything we can do goes without saying.

All right, thank you.

And with that, uh, we have a council committee request in front of us from Councilmember Scott and Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um excited to share this proposed resolution with you all and grateful for Councilmember Walker as well as Councilmember Diaz's partnership in bringing this forward.

Uh Tacoma, like many other cities, has used large rocks or boulders as a last resort for site reclamation in some locations around the city.

Specifically in the past two years, we have placed uh boulders at 24 different sites.

Um while boulders can provide some benefits, particularly for safety in dangerous or hazardous areas or protection around vital public infrastructure.

Our community members find them unappealing.

We also hear from the community members that boulders can give a false impression that a neighborhood is unsafe or not well care for by neighbors.

Councilmember Walker and I have also noticed that some of the boulders around our city have been in those locations for a long time and appear to no longer be serving any specific purpose.

Fortunately, there are wide range of options to help make public and private spaces safer and more welcoming for people who live or work in the area while also discouraging criminal activity and loitering.

We're particularly excited to see if we can increase our use of trees in site reclamation work.

Trees are not always going to be the best choice for site reclamation, but can often work well in tandem with other techniques, including a temporary placement and emphasis on the temporary placement of boulders.

Plus, planting additional trees aligns well with our climate action plan and the urban forest priority action plan.

In addition, enhancing the perception of safety in our community by removing unnecessary boulders and decreasing our reliance on the boulders in the future would help advance the community safety action strategy and many of our goals in the comprehensive plan.

I will turn to Councilmember Walker to speak about the details of the way forward that we are proposing in our resolution.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember Scott.

Um, so the this resolution affirms that site reclamation should aim to activate and restore public spaces for community use to the best extent possible.

Specifically, the resolution notes that using trees and landscaping and site reclamation is a cost-effective way or in a cost-effective way should be a priority.

It also affirms that the installation of boulders should continue to be a treatment of last resort only.

Um Councilmember Scott mentioned the 24 site reclamation or the sites that have boulders, and so the resolution directs the city manager to review all of those and then evaluate whether those boulders are still needed or necessary.

If there are locations where boulders are no longer needed, the resolution directs the city manager to provide cost estimates for the removal of the boulders, site restoration and boulder storage.

And we want to bring these forward as part of the 27-28 biannual budget.

So once we have those estimates, then we would bring those forward.

Um this process, the whole process will give us an opportunity to better understand the costs of restoring the sites.

Um this is simply removing the boulders, it's also about putting grass back in, planting trees, um, other landscaping, um, and then we'll have that data as we head into budget decisions.

This also notes that any boulders used in future for site reclamation in residential areas or locations that are highly visible to the public should be evaluated annually so that we don't just leave them in perpetuity.

Um, lastly, we want to see some estimated costs and options for alternative treatments that decrease boulder use at future site reclamation locations included in the budget discussion, along with those estimated costs and options.

Um, we also want to share that information with private property owners just so that they know what their options are before they um just automatically um put down boulders.

So we plan to bring this resolution forward at our next meeting April 14th, so in two weeks, um happy to answer any questions, and I just want to really quickly shout out Christina Kahn for working with us on this.

Um, we spent many more months, I think, than we thought, just digging into information and work with a lot of different staff.

But thank you to Christina for getting us here.

Thank you so much for your presentation as a co-sponsor uh councilmember Diaz.

Do you have anything that you'd like to comment on this?

Just thank you for your both um for all your work on this.

I've also shared a lot of your concerns around how we prioritize um what kind of infrastructure we have in the city, and I'm particularly uh big proponent of having less hostile architecture in the city.

So this is um something that falls in line with that, and I appreciate you guys doing frankly the heavy lift on all the work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rumba, followed by Deputy Mayor.

Um, thank you, Mayor, and I just want to thank both Councilmember Scott and Councilmember Walker and Councilmember Diaz um for co-signing.

Okay.

I want to thank you both for bringing this forward because I feel like it is kind of an outdated um way to do things, and I I actually um appreciate the thoughts that that we come up with something else because down on my street on Marine View Drive, they had all these barriers, and um we put up no parking signs, and there has not been any issue since they took out these barriers.

So I just I feel like maybe this worked at some point along the way to do this, but I just feel like it might there's another way to handle finding people housing, finding them a place to be reaching them with services.

I think our heel team is doing a good job reaching people.

Um I just had one question, and I um brought it up to Councilmember Walker, and I apologize, Councilmember Scott, for not reaching out to you.

But I was wondering if we could maybe think about doing um boulders uh um near parks and schools first.

So removing those first.

And I just I'm curious if that could be something that was added to this that we make a priority even as we are doing the evaluation that we might remove those first.

Um thank you.

Okay.

Councilmember Walker, would you like to respond?

So um I I don't think prioritization is a bad thing, but what we've heard from staff is that every site is very different and they want to have the um ability to uh evaluate each one for its own situation, and so if we put that in, which I don't again, I don't think it's a bad idea to prioritize that, it won't change the outcome of the evaluation.

Um so we could we could highlight those for um for extra care or something, but I think it takes away from the um original intent, which was to evaluate each site as its own thing, which is what we've heard from staff is that everyone is really different.

Okay, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Father, Councilmember Hines.

Thank you, Mayor, and uh thank you each of you for bringing this forward for discussion.

Um I I do agree that there's certainly some opportunity for us to um to see what that what's the end game for these, and it does create kind of an environment where um I you know boulders don't look great.

Uh the reality is there, um, but it's also uh a challenge for you know the different property owners on their ability to manage uh folks that are coming and going on their area or in the public spaces near them.

Um I guess one of my my questions is is in regards to inclusive architecture.

I I'm not sure exactly what that means.

What is um I I see there's some some information here around trees and other things, which I think is great household beautification and things of that nature.

But I'm I guess maybe separately, I'd just be curious of what inclusive architecture looks like, um, just so I can have a better understanding of what I'm what what we're thinking about here.

Um, but ultimately I do think that it's important for us to um this was a um this was a solution to uh concerns around certain areas, um, but it may be maybe it's not the solution, and then what's what's the long-term plan for um making sure these spaces remain accessible to the public um and and be beautiful for our city.

So I think that having a full understanding of this is really important, having a good good conversation about this is important as well.

So thank you guys for our each of you, excuse me, council members, for bringing this forward.

Uh looking forward to uh continue to discuss it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines, followed by Councilmember Scott.

Oh, yes, please.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, as far as and correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as like inclusive infrastructure, like things that kind of can help activate the space.

So maybe it's a bench, maybe it's um a sculpture, maybe, but uh just something that invites people in rather than tries to keep people out.

So I can we didn't want to be super prescriptive on like it has to be it has to be a bench or it has to be this, um, but really trying to think about like how can we activate this in a space in a way that serves dual purposes of like it does deter people from doing from deter people from doing the things that we don't want them to do, but it invites people to do the things that we do want to see more of in our community in these spaces.

Yeah, I actually there's a great example of this um with the McKinley Overlook.

Um it's a great example of how it was a once kind of blighted, really uh struggling area, and we it was completely reimagined.

Uh for stealing my thunder.

Oh well, I I just I but I'll give you some thunder back.

So I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hines, thanks for your patience.

Followed by Council Member Sidel.

I'll make this relatively quick.

Thank you to my colleagues for kind of bringing this forward.

I I think um one question in item number two, it says decisions to remove boulders should also include adjacent property owners in the agreement, or um when we say should, does that mean they will be part of the process, or does that mean we're just gonna ask, we're not we're gonna try to reach out to them and then remove them anyways.

But I have heard from multiple constituents who were had that appreciate the rocks being there because it's meant that they've had fewer instances of dealing with people kind of living right in front of the property.

And so I I would just want to make sure when we do this, we're gonna be asking the private property owners if they want them removed in the first place, correct?

Yeah, so that's exactly why we're evaluating each one independently because sometimes we do need to continue to use the boulders and they make a lot of sense for that site.

So I'm not seeing can you direct me to where it says should because we can clarify that language but you you're exactly right that um we're not blanketly taking them out because of that reason.

Yeah, I know, and and I think just in my mind, right?

It's it's uh you know, I could drive by a piece of property and say, wow, like I don't live here, but like those rocks are really ugly, we should remove all of them.

But then if you went and knocked on that person's door, they say actually, no, I really want them to stay in front of my property.

And so, you know, I think just as long as we're staying grounded in like the actual residence and people living where these things are, and I think that's really helpful.

Yeah, and I think that that's a big piece of it, like, you know, and some of it is part of that, like looking at whether it's still there is can something else that is a bit more inclusive do the same thing.

Um, in some places it might not be worth it to put that thing there, or in some places it might that might not be the case.

Like again, we mentioned you know, certain things that have to do with safety or critical infrastructure, and so like it it's not necessarily gonna make sense for us to put a pocket park by a railroad or you know, uh a bench next to a big power structure or something that they're trying to keep you more feet away from.

But um, but yeah, just making sure that we're doing that due diligence of really being intentional about um why was this put here in the first place?

Does it need to be this?

And if not, what could it be?

Okay.

Thank you.

That that's great.

I think the other part that I would just be curious about, or I have two questions, so I'll go to the next one.

Um I do agree, like least restrictive environments is probably the most important way to approach this.

But um one of the challenges is if you have clearly communicating to the property owners, so like we're planting trees.

What if a tree gets taken out or trampled upon, or we put some of this arc the more welcoming architecture, these implant plantings, grass, shrubs, if they get removed.

Um, I are we gonna something I'd be interested in seeing as part of the city manager's assessment is how what is the ongoing cost of those invest inventions versus um other choices, right?

And part of that's also communicate with the public to the property owner, where if we're saying instead of the boulders, which I imagine have zero or no cost, um beyond the installation, uh we could remove those and put trees, are we then communicating to the property owners that then if if the trees get removed or the bushes get cut or someone lays on top of this, we're gonna come back and pay again to fix it, or is this now on you, property owner, to to take care of this in the in the future?

And have we taught you all, and that would be something I if the city manager is gonna say, like here are your different in investments you could make, what are the on not only the one-time costs but the ongoing costs associated with them?

Yes, we've spent a lot of time talking about this.

We don't have the answer, which is why we're asking for this.

Um, because there is an assumption that it will be more expensive because of the ongoing costs, but we don't know that yet.

And what could we do?

You know, how big do the trees need to be to make sure that they're not trampled on, or you know, those kind of questions.

So we want to be really specific about that so that when somebody asks that or makes that assumption, we can say, yes, it's gonna be X amount more, but it will have these benefits.

So we really want to get that in writing.

So that's what this is asking for.

Okay.

Um no, I think those are my two main questions.

I think my other question, I don't know if you could all can answer this, but it might be just something more broadly.

But um, if we think about replacing something that is hostile, like rocks, with something that's more welcoming in a place where potentially were previous encampments, um, that will also welcome everyone back to that space too.

And so I guess have you all did you all talk a little bit about what the enforcement of that might look like?

So, you know, we've had if we remove boulders and we put benches and then people come back and are sleeping on the benches and are there constantly, or they're back, and then the property owners like, hey, look, you know, we had this, we had this here before, now it's gone, now it's welcoming, but now I have people here that you know are staying a lot longer than I had anticipated.

Um did you all talk a little bit about maybe what the enforcement component of that looks like or how we would address that, or that may be out of the scope, and that just may be something I'm thinking about, but um just a question I had.

We have not yet, but a very important point in for future investments perfectly.

Like, I mean, I I think it is something to think about with this, but I think that's like kind of a broad, like that's a general question for our camping ban policy and enforcement anyway.

Uh, because I think that's been like kind of the crux of it in a lot of ways of like, well, we have it here, and there are you know, there are penalties or consequences for being in places that there's a ban, but we're kind of telling the police like don't necessarily go in and arrest people.

So I think that that um that piece around enforcement is probably a a different conversation that will impact this, but I don't know that it's specifically this policy that dictates that enforcement.

No, and and I think that's thank you, Council Scott and Conservat Walker.

I think that's probably more of a a um I guess this opens into that what this goes for opens us into that next conversation, which is we have used similar to how we use infrastructure to encourage or discourage certain behaviors, we could always not use infrastructure and just use enforcement to encourage or disencourage certain behaviors.

So if we're if we through this study, we look at moving away from infrastructure as a way to discourage behaviors and move towards a more kind of you know open model, then I guess it does kick us into that conversation of like then are we all right, and then how do we keep those spaces that are for the public open and to the public?

So uh I just thank you for indulging me there, Mr.

Mayor and my colleagues for my questions.

All right, thank you.

Final comment from uh Councilmember Sidalgan.

Uh yeah, thank you.

Um and as Deputy Mayor mentioned, um, you know, I live right next to the McKinley Overlook, and I remember a time when everyone wanted all sorts of barriers over there just to keep people out.

And ultimately what we got to today is a lot better because we've reactivated a space.

So I agree with the values of where we're going with this for sure.

Uh I do have some questions.

So it does sound like this would not apply to private property owners that chose to do this themselves on their property, correct?

We can't really mandate that.

No, if if you have rocks on your property and not in the right-of-way, we can't do anything about that.

The reason I want to uh point this out is I don't, you know, uh and there's also Washdot has their own on their property.

And I want to be really clear that you know you may still see them somewhere, right?

And that doesn't mean we can get rid of these types of things everywhere.

Correct?

Councilmember Walker, you had an answer to that.

This is wrong about Washington.

No, no, no, you're 100% right, but we want this to also be an invitation to different things you could do on your private property.

Absolutely.

100% agreed.

I just don't want the expectation to be that if we did something like this, and let's say we do go through a budget ask and do this, then everyone's like, hey, I thought you were gonna get rid of boulders, and we're I see your point.

Fair point.

Um I do have a budget consideration that I think we should think about, right?

Uh so there's two other things.

One, um, would we um be you know uh uh you know running some of these because I assume this is like a report of the 24 sites and what it would cost and what they are?

Is that kind of one of the the to-do's here or okay?

Um I I'd be suggesting that we also run it by neighbors in that area and make sure the people that live around there are kind of comfortable with it, maybe the neighborhood councils.

When it comes to the budget, I don't know the numbers, and this is my concern.

Let's say it costs X dollars, $50,000, $500,000, I don't know, per site.

The question becomes because of our budget today, and this is something new we're doing, it's going to take away from something else we could do.

And where I'm stuck right now is trying to understand is there a better way to accomplish this where we don't take away from good that we could do.

A hundred thousand dollars for a nurse at a shelter has a lot of uh benefit.

So potentially my uh uh edit would be to try to think about alternative sources of revenue that we could use, grants or other ones, if they exist to help us get there.

Um, if there's ways of matching funds or something from private donors or something as a way to to have that a lesser impact on all the other stuff we may want to do in the budget, because there just isn't, I mean, you can get 27 million dollar hole, right?

And so that's that's where I am right now.

Again, I haven't seen the numbers, I don't know what it'll do.

I don't know what the the you know the the total magnitude is of that.

So, you know, that's kind of where I am right now.

So two things.

One, we we don't know either, and that's part of what this resolution is figuring out what our options are and where we could pay for them.

And two, what I'm trying to take away from is budget we're spending on boulders and putting it into the case.

Yeah, that's what I want to see.

I want to see all of it.

That's what we're hoping.

I don't know that it's gonna be a one-to-one, but that's why we're asking for the numbers.

Okay, so that's just really important to me because of the fact that I just in this budget.

There are a lot of other good things we can also do that gets, you know, and that's the hard part of that, this job, because I want this to happen.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Um there's a lot of conversation, and we have uh we have a closed session, uh, but we'll we'll take one more comment.

Um we can or time in please.

Thank you.

Um I hear, I guess I hear the budget concerns, and I think that it's uh a good opportunity to really think about what we do versus like what we can uh activate community to do as well.

And I I don't know anything about the adopt uh doctor uh you know, there's adopt a highway, adopt a spot.

Um, but maybe that's something that's more cost effective that we could encourage.

So um if this does pass, that would we'd be something that maybe we could include um for city manager to look into.

Okay.

Thank you for your feedback, and thank you to all of you for your leadership and bring this forward.

Forward to the future discussion.

Okay, with that, we're moving on to committee reports.

Are there any committee reports to share from the council?

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

I'd like to call on Deputy City Manager Alison Griffith to begin the uh city manager's weekly report.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor and Council, for your awareness on this evening's agenda.

There are two ceremonials.

The first is proclaiming today, Tuesday, March 31st, uh, as transgender, excuse me, as transgender day of visibility.

The second is recognizing the Daffodil Royal Court.

There's one modification on this evening's agenda, which is to amend item 10 resolution 41878 to correct the tax parcel number.

There's one opportunity for public comment under regular public comment regarding motions, resolutions, and ordinances on tonight's agenda.

Please let us know if there's any questions related to this evening's agenda so we can have staff prepared and finally for your review attached to the study session agenda is the weekly report to council.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

At this point, uh, I'd like to entertain a motion to convene to a closed session pursuant to RCW 42.30.140 sections four and b to discuss labor strategy not to exceed 30 minutes.

So moved.

Second.

Moving second, I'll those in favor to convene to a closed session, please signify by saying aye.

Okay.

Closed session will begin once study session is adjourned.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

A move to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

I'm supposed to say nay, we are adjourned.