Good afternoon.

I'd like to call to order the city council study session of June 2023, excuse me, June 23rd, 2026.

What a day.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Deputy Mayor Bushnell.

Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Heinz.

Absent Councilmember Palmer, absent Councilmember Rumba, absent councilmember Sidalgate, absent Councilmember Scott.

Here.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Ibsen.

Here.

Our first agenda item today is an update from our communications update.

This is our quarterly update.

For that I'd like to call on Director of Media and Communications, Amy Clancy to be in the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks for being here.

Deputy Mayor, Council Members.

I'd like to introduce Golden Doles, who are our digital manager.

We're here to give you the quarterly update, which we do every three months or so, just to give you an idea of what we're working on and how we're doing, and we're happy to answer questions at the end.

Just want to remind you that everything that we are working on for the most part was part of our strategic plan, an 81-page audit that was done a few years ago.

And some of the things that were the main points for our focus were a website overhaul, which has been done, digital being the priority, which we're continuing to do, and branding consistency, which means we're going to try to get as close to universal usage of this logo as we possibly can, wherever and whenever possible.

One of the new things since we were here in March is this video is now live.

And if you haven't seen it, I would like to encourage you to go check it out.

You can find it either on our main page or on our YouTube channel.

But it is, it was also posted on our social media, and this was a ride-along that our team did with the HEAL team, just to give you an idea of uh what type of work the HEAL team does.

What else is new?

Um, good news, we will be able to hire a replacement for our communications and marketing analyst for social and digital communications.

We do have a hiring freeze, which we totally understand, but social media and digital communications are very important to how we get the information about what the people of the city of Tacoma are doing for the people of Tacoma.

And the review board uh approved our request for an exemption.

So we will be um replacing that um that worker.

Um we posted the job last week.

We already have at least 18 qualified applicants, and getting tons of interest all the time.

And I believe it's going to be open until the Monday after July 4th.

So anybody who's listening who is interested in this position, please check it out.

Um, it's um really crucial, it's an important part of what we do, and we're gonna miss the person who did it, Tara was great, and she's got a different job, but um we know that there are lots of great people out there, and we're looking forward to filling it.

Uh, we are also continuing to work on our podcast.

So, what does this mean?

Um, our studio is under construction, equipment has been ordered.

This is what it looks like now, and I encourage you to come up and take a look at it anytime on 15 if you'd like.

Um, dedicated internet connection for live streaming and content uploads is progressing through the ITD approval process.

We want to make sure that everything we do is safe, um, doesn't uh compromise the city's um website and and internet at all.

So we're going through that process.

The structured wiring installation for lighting control, LED systems, cameras, etc.

All of that will begin shortly, and right now Brian Cox is up puttering around in the studio.

Most of the team is here, but Brian is up working on that right now.

Um just to give you some idea.

Um, as of June 7th of this year, our CT COT podcast network, we've had 483 total downloads with 396 total listeners.

Our top performing episode is the talking to coma episode, which included the roadmap to recovery discussion with city manager Hyun Kim.

And as of June 7th, there were 232 downloads.

Total number of published podcasts is 18.

And it's kind of interesting to see where people are finding us.

The platforms from which the podcast is being downloaded.

Um, the most common is the COT Podcast Network page with 172 downloads, followed by Apple Podcasts with 19%, and the Podbean app by 14%.

It's also kind of interesting to look to see where people are from who are listening to us.

As you can expect, uh, United States is the majority with 97% of all listeners from there, but we also have listeners in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, and Chile.

We will obviously get more analytics as we move forward with the podcast.

Something else we're going to be doing soon is uploading some of the city line segments to our podcast because a lot of that is really important information.

If you don't have cable TV, you want to, you want to hear it.

So we're going to be putting that up hopefully by the early next week, end of this week.

Moving to Tacoma.gov quarter two.

This is information between March 16th and June 7th.

We had 852,000 total page views, which is slightly down from quarter one.

We had 459,000 unique users, which is roughly twice the um the size of the city of Tacoma.

We had 4.4 million event count, which means how many times people clicked on something, watched a video, filled out a form, etc.

And we had 400 updates or edits to web pages, which is approximately the same as quarter one.

So when we are when Maria sends out a news release and it includes information about an ongoing project, we like to make sure that that project web page is up to date with the latest information.

So when Maria sends the news release, and it also is published on our website, it includes a link to the very latest information.

Speaking of social media, which is where we're going next, this was something that came out of Reuters just last week.

Social media is number one.

According to Reuters, the 2026 digital news report found that people rely on social media for news more than TV or news websites, with TikTok and Instagram influence increasing.

And we don't have TikTok because we currently cannot have TikTok, but we do have Instagram, and we are noticing that our Instagram numbers continue to grow.

So let's take a look at Facebook for quarter two of 2026.

Between March 16th and June 7th, our content was viewed 1.3 million times, which is on par with Q1.

We have just over 32,000 followers, and we gained 726 since quarter one.

So we're still getting new followers all the time.

We had over 16,000 reactions, comments, shares, saves, replies, etc.

Over 6,000 link clicks, and that's 200 posts.

So in a period of three months, we posted 200 different posts.

Our top three Facebook posts for quarter two, and this is something we haven't seen before, is all three of the top three happened right here in Council Chambers.

The top post, the number one was the National Transgender Day of Visibility Council Proclamation with more than 1,000 likes and loves, followed by the Red Dress Day Council proclamation with 566 likes and loves, followed by the Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Week Council proclamation with 548 likes and loves.

So whether people are able to attend council meetings or pull it down on Legistar later and listen, this gives you an idea that people are still engaging with what it is you're doing on the dais because they can see what it is you're doing, and they can, you know, experience it through social media.

Our top three Facebook videos for quarter two.

The first two were from Tacoma Report stories.

The first one is an e-bike rebate program story with 458 likes and loves, followed by a styrofoam machine is back at environmental services with 369 likes and loves.

That include Mayor Ibsen highlighting the tidy up Tacoma summer 2026 event that happened just a couple of weeks ago.

Moving on to Instagram for quarter two.

Our content was viewed 471,000 times, which is a 48% increase over quarter one.

We have just over 18,000 followers, which is an increase of more than 1,000 over quarter one.

We had more than 20,000 likes, comments, shares, saves, etc., which is a 63% increase over quarter one.

Um 960 link clicks and 134 different posts.

Our top posts for quarter two.

Number one was the 17 signs that were installed by the City of Tacoma regarding immigration enforcement.

We had over 1,700 likes for that.

Followed by the photo of the week was the orcas passing through Dalco Passage.

Those Orca videos and pictures always do really well.

We had 922 likes on that one.

And the third, the top, the third Instagram post for quarter two was a real.

Spring and Tacoma, a five-minute forecast.

And I'll show you more about what that looks like in just a minute.

Top three Instagram videos, again, the real Spring and Tacoma five minute forecast, and there's an image from it right there to the right.

Followed by Light Railers Coming to Tacoma with Council Member Walker and Executive Mellow with 456 likes and loves.

And that the third most popular Instagram video was another reel, first day of Broadway Farmers Market.

So getting out there with a camera, you know, a high quality camera or just a cell phone camera, we can get images and videos that people really seem to engage with.

And this was the most popular one the Spring and Tacoma five-minute forecast.

And Instagram gives us an opportunity to be just a little more friendly, and we can still give information that's important, but it shows you that, oh, look, spring is here.

And then the next minute, nope, it's gone.

So those types of posts really get a lot of engagement because people can relate to them.

YouTube for quarter two.

We have over 6,000 subscribers, which was an increase of 363 over the last quarter.

37,000 views, which is approximately the same as quarter one, and we uploaded 136 different videos.

The top three YouTube videos, the first one was the City Line Historic Homes of Tacoma Tour, with over a thousand hundred or a thousand views, followed by Call to Hall Animation, also with over a thousand views.

And number three was the 2026 Daffodil Grand Floral Parade with 453 views.

YouTube is great, not everybody can sit in front of a television when something's happening, but they can pull up a video when it's convenient for them, and that's one of the reasons why YouTube is a valuable place for us to share information.

Social media trends for quarter two.

Next door has seven 76,000 members, which is an increase of over 900 over quarter one.

We only posted four things because we always make sure that our content is really hyper-local, but even those four points, four posts had over 2,000 impressions.

We've already gone over YouTube, so let's move down to X.

We have 56,000 followers, which is a decrease of 152 from quarter one, and we did put 60 posts on X.

The engagement continues to decline, which is a national trend.

But however, if we've got 56,000 potential, you know, people, followers who can get information, it's still worth our time to post on X.

Some other social media key takeaways.

Um we continue to see steady growth on Facebook and Instagram in terms of followers and reach.

Um and Tacoma Report stories perform much better on Facebook, while vertical reels perform much better on Instagram.

So this is an example of if you have information you want us to get out, give us the information and we'll figure out the right platform.

Is it a horizontal video?

Is it a vertical video?

Um are there other places to do it?

We have lots of different ways to get information out, and sometimes one platform might be the best way, and another platform might not be.

But um we can always figure it out, and that's what we use this information for to determine where's the best place to share this so it can get the most eyes and most impact.

Moving to Tacoma Hub, we had 96,000 page views.

We had over 3,400 unique users, which is pretty good since we have about 4,000 employees in the city of Tacoma.

Uh 22 total news posts added.

The top visited site was the homepage with 88,000 visits.

The top department visited was human resources with 563.

And the top visited link on global navigation is job openings.

So internal employees are still looking at that page to see what else might be out there, which is great because we want to keep our workers working with us.

And that was 857 visits, which is nearly two times over quarter one.

Our top three hub posts for quarter two.

Number one was red dress day with 518 page views, followed by the explanation of what is the roadmap to recovery with 500 page views, and you can see that content there on the right.

Followed by enhancing position management, our commitment to operational excellence with 480 page views.

Moving on to the work of our City of Tacoma PIO.

Between March 15th and June 15th, Maria Lee received 184 inquiries.

In 2026 overall, that number is 344.

The five most frequent media topics in 2026.

Number one was immigration enforcement with 21 inquiries.

And the thematic focus of those inquiries included public safety, civil rights, and legal policy.

The number two most frequent media topic is Mayor Anders Ibsen with 13 questions.

And the thematic focus is government transparency, leadership, and regulatory compliance.

Number three was the expansion of the garbage can program with 10 inquiries.

The thematic focus was public infrastructure, neighborhood cleanliness, and public services.

Number four was homelessness with nine questions, focusing on core community challenges involving housing, public safety and social.

And number five was Home and Tacoma year one with seven questions, and the thematic focus, housing affordability, economic stability, and urban planning.

PIO challenges are many and ongoing and 24-7 pretty much.

The PIO's media relations workload continues to be characterized by deeply complex and sensitive issues rather than simple transactional questions.

She doesn't get questions about who is the director of this department, because that information is easily found on our website.

The types of questions she's getting are very complicated and involve a lot of research on her part.

She has a steady pace of questions that come in at all hours.

Her workload is escalating.

The topics are increasingly complex.

And reporters' questions are more nuanced and multi-part.

So her response is highly detailed, it's well researched, it's carefully coordinated and cross-departmental.

So it's not uncommon for a question to come in from a single reporter that involves her reaching out to four or five different departments because their work intersects.

And she has to figure out a way to answer that question that's accurate and factual, but includes all the many ways that the City of Tacoma is involved in that response.

Moving to TV Tacoma, remotes and live streams from quarter two included the City of Destiny Awards and the World Cup 2026 parade that happened just a week and a half ago.

Other projects they always continue to cover our study sessions.

They're covering this right now.

They study your council meetings on Tuesday nights, and they also cover TPU board meetings.

Also, the TV Tacoma staff working on City Line for quarter two, covered things such as the Daffodil Festival, the Junior Daffodil Parade, the middle image is from a story about Tacoma Power Parks.

The one on the far right is from the 2026 Juneteenth celebration.

Also did interviews with Connect Tacoma to talk about the safe streets and sidewalks levy.

There are, as you know, it's an hour-long program every Thursday at 9 o'clock, and it includes a ton of information about happenings in and around Tacoma and Pierce County.

In quarter two, nonprofits were represented by 20 different segments.

City of Tacoma Departments, 6, Tacoma Theaters, 14, and other government agencies, including Pierce Transit and the GET program, also were featured on City Line.

And as you know, you are all coming on City Line a lot, which is great.

We want to encourage that and include that, and that's one of the reasons why we're going to put those interviews on the podcast, because if you're not able to watch at 9 o'clock on a Thursday morning, I'm sure that's content and things that people want to listen to, so that's where we can share it.

Moving on to the 253, some exciting news from Mark McKittrick's show.

Mark received silver and bronze honors at the 47th annual Tele Awards for Regional Television Programming, recognizing segments from TV Tacoma's community interest series called the 253.

He published three new segments of the 253 on YouTube, highlighting the region's tabletop role-playing game economy, Tacoma's soccer Culture, and the Tacoma Stars Legacy, and the Tacoma Urban Performing Urban Performing Arts Center's work connecting performing arts with local civil rights history.

And this is another great thing that Mark did when he was out working on all this other work that he was on.

He captured and published what became a viral video footage of a pot of orcas feeding and frolicking in Commencement Bay while he was on a completely separate assignment.

And that generated more than 350,000 views within the first week.

So it's an example of when you're out there working on something, if you see something else happening, shoot it.

Get it.

We can post it.

You know, for example, the real with the spring that did so well in quarter two was an example of that.

Oh, great, it's sunny, it's beautiful.

No, it's not.

And that's something that people can relate to because that's their experience as well.

Email marketing, I think this is something that's really important to highlight because the numbers in they keep increasing.

So people are appreciating this type of communications because it is delivered directly into their inbox.

So it used to be called Gov Delivery, now it's called Granicus Communications.

So e-newsletters, e-blasts and notifications sent during quarter two, or yeah, was 148 for quarter two, which is 45 more than quarter one.

Those e blasts and notifications were sent to 814,000 recipients, which is 261,000 more than quarter one.

Total number of subscriptions equals 344,000, which is an increase of 22,000 over quarter one.

The total number of subscribers is 153,000, which is an increase of 19,000 over quarter one.

And the difference between subscribers and subscriptions is some subscribers subscribe to more than one subscription.

But this is I was talking with one of our MCO folks today, Stacy, about how this is a great opportunity for departments also because many departments have their own e-delivery ways to communicate with the public.

So if there's information they want to share about any kind of citywide effort, getting it in all the Granica's communications eBLAS is a good way to do that.

It's also your your newsletters because people are getting it, they're increasingly signing up for it, and it comes directly into their inbox.

So what's not to love about information that goes directly to you.

So just talking about some of the ways that MCO supports individual departments.

We talked about this briefly at our Q1 wrap-up, the Tacoma Streets Initiative videos that were produced by Stacy Manichello in our office and Joe Franco and Public Works and Mark McKittrick was the videographer and editor of those.

They produced five videos.

They were shared weekly on multiple platforms from March 18th through April 13th.

They were shared on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Tacoma.gov.

Another example of how MCO supports departments.

TPD's Safe Place web page is now live, thanks to D's work.

TPD has been involved with Safe Place for a long time, but there that information hadn't been included anywhere, and there were a lot of questions about is TPD involved in this program that began with the Seattle Police Department, and it is, but you wouldn't know it because there wasn't really a web presence for it, and now there is a web presence for it.

So that is there.

Some more things that MCO has done to support departments.

The alternative response page for the city has been transformed to not only remain current, but to also give those seeking information and numbers on those efforts.

The TPD's federal immigration information page is now up as of May 15th, which provides information that speaks to ongoing community questions and concerns around role clarity about TPD's role in immigration.

So it's really important to get this information updated and posted, and it also gives us an opportunity to provide links to those important pages when there are community questions asked.

The police use of Deadly Force page has been updated to remove outdated information and to direct people to the two independent investigating organizations, PC Fit and the Washington State Office of Independent Investigations.

And also Home and Tacoma has a newly laid out web page that better organizes information for users in one place.

So this is something that Golden and her team and the MCO liaison's work with departments on.

If a page looks clonky, if it's hard to find information, if we're finding that Carissa Matheson is getting questions about a particular effort or program or page, something's up, that page must not be working in the way that it should.

So how can we better design it?

So Golden works with uh the MCO liaisons and our small but mighty team to make information just easier to find and more clearly digestible.

You know, where can we put FAQs?

FAQs are a great way to get complex information out to the public that explains the most important things they're asking.

And uh Dee and Stacy are now working with Krissa to find out what are people asking about.

You know, what are their questions?

How can we better answer them and how can we direct people to the answers?

And what's ahead in Q3 and beyond budget, of course, which is not a surprise to anybody.

Um also working on our council member profile videos.

Mark McKittrick is going to be working with your folks about those and getting those together.

Podcast efforts continue to grow, and we continue to learn, and that's one of the things that we're appreciating.

We're dipping our toe in, um, we're seeing uh what what the information is, what the data is showing us, and we'll continue to do that.

And our hope is that it just continues to grow.

Um, and also the Tacoma in Action Video Series, um, that was what the heel team video was, and coming up soon, we're gonna have two Tacoma Police Department-related Tacoma in action videos to share.

The first one is about uh PIT training.

PIT stands for precision immobilization technique, and it's a skill to safely end high speed chases and prevent further risk to both the public and officers.

Uh so that video will be posted soon.

And then shortly after that, we'll have an evoc training video also with the Tacoma Police Department.

Evox stands for emergency vehicle operator course.

First responders take Evoch every year to make sure they're able to arrive on the scene at an emergency as quickly and safely as possible.

Um, so one of our staff members took the evoc training, and um TPD has to do it under a certain amount of time, and um our MCO employee did not.

Um, but it it does show you that there is definitely a very high level of expertise required, and um we just didn't have it.

We'll stick to communications.

Uh so that's what we're working on from quarter two, and what we're working on for quarter three, and Golden and I are happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Amy.

Appreciate the presentation.

Any council questions.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Amy and the rest of Golden and the rest of the team.

Um, really excited to see a lot of these numbers and I love uh the photo of the week.

It's one of my favorite things.

Uh, just amazing um photos from all over our community.

Um, uh, one thing I wanted to ask about is I've I've a lot of our search engines are really changing how people access information.

They're obviously using things like Gemini and other um artificial intelligence, quote unquote.

Uh, anyways, I don't get to that.

Uh, I say quote unquote because it's large language models, um, but um the how that I think this the point I'm trying to make is like I think the FAQs are really important because what's going on is they're you they're basically scraping all that data and information and then putting it at the front of results.

Um, and so when when people type in a question, um it it basically brings up the answer for them.

Um, they don't necessarily search through the website itself to find it.

Um thinking about that, I think there's potential ways for us to optimize that knowing that this information and questions are going to be asked and it's gonna be scraped by AIs.

Maybe there's a better or more direct way, which might maybe it's not as as easily accessible to like the public to find those, but it's gonna be very accessible to the engines that are scraping our websites to answer the specific questions.

So I just I maybe there's not a question in there, but maybe if you wanted to talk about that a little bit.

What I can say is that Njo Wong in ITD is working on AI very seriously and very intricately.

He is definitely exploring how does the city of Tacoma use AI?

Where do we use it?

Uh and once um his investigation and work is done, um, we will definitely adopt in some form, but we've got to wait to see what what he advises.

He's very experienced in this.

But yeah, we're absolutely aware of um all the ways that AI is used, and I use it every day when I Google a question.

I love the fact that that the information comes up, not just a link to where I can find it, but the information itself.

So you're right, FAQs can be used in that same way because the information is just so much more readily available.

Anything you want to add?

Yeah, I might just add too.

We are very strategically also making sure we're putting in really good meta descriptions on our web pages.

So when those searches are happening, we have those keywords in there, we have the key topics in there, so that'll help generate you know those AI responses to be gathering information from our website.

Um and then on the same topic of search.

Um if you are on our website, we do have a customized search functionality uh tool that we have specifically made for Tacoma.gov.

And uh during this quarter, we were able to celebrate our first year anniversary of having Tacoma.gov live um on April 30th.

And so there are some opportunities.

I think now that we have got a year of of data and uh analytics and information from our website to really see, we can go and see what people are searching for.

We can actually even customize some of the results if they are doing that search within our within our website of Tacoma.gov.

So I think we have some opportunity there now that we've got you got some uh year worth of data and year worth of search history and um some time and opportunity now to go in and start some of that customization.

So I think that would be a good strategy for us uh moving forward in the in year two of Tacoma.gov.

Yeah, no, that's really exciting.

I think some some random inquiries I always often get is like, well, what is Tacoma do in regards to like speeding, and maybe there's like an FAQ, like here's how do I get more enforcement in my neighborhood, or how do I make sure this potholes filled in it's like oh call three on one.

It's like here you have how you can do it.

You can do it either via phone or you can do it via an app.

And like and so like those are like really basic questions that can be answered, and I think AI could potentially scrape that through our website, be like, here's the things that you can do that makes it easier.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

I I would also encourage if anybody ever asks you um how do I find blah blah blah.

You know, the search bar is pretty good at at leading people to the right place.

So use a search bar and um see if that works, and if not, we're happy to figure it out.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you so much, and again, appreciate the team.

Uh phenomenal work going on out there.

I'm looking forward to uh a new social media person.

Us too.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, Councilman Diaz.

Uh, thank you.

I am glad to hear that our search bar function works.

I think that could not be said in the past, so that is a bigger statement than it should be, but it is an important thing.

Um I was wondering, and um I know that you mentioned that there's ways that we're gonna be able to move City Line into the podcast format.

I'm wondering if with the new social media person there's gonna be a way to also make it into clips that could be say reels, or if there's other ways that y'all are thinking about creating real content.

I think that is a great idea.

Um we currently for our YouTube platform um we do uh post the full hour long show of City Line, but then we also do break out the segments so they are more shareable, more digestible, but that is only for our YouTube channel.

So I do think that is a great idea to use reels, um, use you know stories to kind of tease some of the stories to either get people to to watch our uh full segments on on our YouTube channel or and we have some on our website too.

So I think that's a great idea, not something we've explored yet.

I just assume it's a bandwidth thing, right?

Because yeah, we can all dream of a hundred things you could do on social media, but if there's not the humans to do it, then to what end.

But it's a great idea.

And it could always uh you know tease to other content.

Uh you can't link on on Instagram unless it's in the bio, but there are ways that we can use that to drive people to where they can find it, either a longer version.

That's kind of my thought is I think the um RIP to the Facebook street live stream, but I think it used to kick people there in a different way.

And so I think how we can think through how we drive people to the good content that's out there.

I think that would be helpful.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Um and then I was just curious about the studio there for City Line.

I know we're it's pretty popping on Thursday mornings when they're filming.

What happens there the rest of the week?

Just out of pure curiosity.

They're working on other content, they're working on the 253 Tacoma report, um, booking for City Line.

Um they're working currently with the League of Women Voters on a voter pamphlet, you know, video voter guide and and all that important information to help voters um for this year's elections.

They're constantly doing something.

Um they're also fixing things.

Um, for example, when we do the town hall for the city, um, they have to be there for the A V.

They're here for the A V here.

Um, if you know there's anything on the road as far as uh your engagement, they're involved in that too.

So um they're they're definitely creating content and then um are pulled into the mix to create other content.

For example, the um the profiles for you on your on your web pages, that'll be a TV Tacoma producer, video editor that will put that together.

Oh, yes.

I know the humans are very busy, especially when we take them in the world.

I was wondering the literal studio.

Is like are there other people who ever use our studio?

I assume not since there's equipment in there that's there's equipment in there, yeah, and it's also a locked building.

Yeah.

Pretty high security.

I was gonna say there have been some security issues in that uh location, um, fire um break-ins, that type of thing, um, car vandalism.

So um there have been some issues at the at the building, but no, it's is as far as it being open to the public, it's not at this time.

Okay, is that something that we could ever think about how we might I'm thinking particularly around students or like how do we get people, how do we activate the space in a way that would allow for more training of people how to use these things?

Or I don't know if we take on student day if we take student government day if we take them there.

I don't I don't know.

I'm just wondering how do we get it's such a cool thing that unless you've ever done city line, you don't really see the behind the scenes that way.

Yeah.

It seems like a real asset that we could brainstorm in the future, not necessarily now.

But we're how do we how do we figure out how we open up that access to two more folks?

We do try to encourage people when they have like a take your kid to work day or some sort of event um when high school kids come in.

We do try to encourage them to do it on a Thursday so that they can go see the studio being used.

Um but you're absolutely right, we could do it more for sure.

Yeah, I mean, but the question is people um getting people in there and making sure everybody is watched and not you know wandering around grabbing, not saying that they grab equipment or but using equipment, you know, it's it's it's something we would definitely have to regulate for sure.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Diaz.

I I concur, I think the Reels idea is it's smart and it's literally the same content, so you might as well just be more efficient with the stuff we're already creating.

So that's cool.

Um question, comment, and clarification.

Um question is um we're doing a pretty good job, it looks like measuring the metrics of um quantitative engagement.

So likes, shares, engagement, et cetera, follows.

Um are we following trends in comments so qualitative information?

So uh on can't do that for everything, obviously, but like say the the largest types of topics.

Um are we using, say, generative AI or some other tool to crisply formulate, you know, what what are the the general trends we're seeing in comments on these things?

Do we have data on that?

Not a lot, to be honest at this at this time.

Um it did would take a little bit of uh additional time and um staff time to gather some of those reports.

Um we do have a tool that we use called Hoot Suite that does help generate some of those reports that we could probably look into a little bit more some of the analytics over the last year, even to it with with Meta, overseeing Facebook and Instagram have changed some of their analytics too.

So some things have have changed of what we can what we can monitor and what you know how easy it is to pull some of those.

Um we've and we've done some social listening reports as well just to kind of help feel that sentiment of like what people are, you know, are they really positive about this topic or or not?

So that is another thing that we have done just to try to get a better a better feel on you know what's resonating or what people might be upset about.

But we do always make sure we are you know reading the comments, um responding to comments.

Um if people are asking a lot of the similar questions that we you know maybe do it, you know, uh respond back or do another additional post to share additional information.

Um so we do uh individually monitor uh monitor those.

Um but yeah, we don't have a great a great tool, but there is there are some additional uh analytics we can look into.

Yeah, undoubtedly.

I mean with today's technology, it wouldn't be too hard to just scrape the comments and and ideally uh if we're really gonna go down that rabbit hole, finding out, you know, the the where and the who, right?

Because I care less about the commons from some troll and enum claw, for example, versus hey, there are a lot of people on the east side who care about blank, right?

So it's a good point.

Data is good.

Um, so question.

So the comment is um, this is more budget related, and uh this also is kind of my lead-in to my follow-up um clarification of both you as well as the deputy mayor for our um our staffing conversation.

Um but as the the budget unfolds over the next few months and departments are bringing forward their own goals relative to the budget.

Something I think could be really, really helpful seeing as um again, this is rinse repeat for me.

Uh the budget that in the city manager work plan should all rhyme.

It should it should all basically point towards the same things.

The things that we disproportionately fund should be things that we've said are disproportionately priorities, right?

And so, seeing as the city manager work plan tends to put a lot of a focus on building trust and things that can be verified by surveys or some other metric like um perceptions of public safety and cleanliness, things like that.

Um just kind of an open missive to put out there.

Uh staff can make of it what you will.

Uh but it'd be really neat as we talk about MCO's role.

And I I recall earlier conversations where we talked about trust building and just being being that really solid narrative.

I think you'd mentioned that in prior meetings, Amy.

Uh it'd be really cool if we could find some way to measure that or find some way of knowing how we're doing on that, at least with key council goals.

So just putting that out there.

Uh, you guys are the experts, but uh that's just my uh two mayoral sense.

Can I give you uh a preview?

Next week you're gonna be getting the um community survey results, and a lot of those questions will be answered.

Um and that is a statistically uh sound example every two years that the City of Tacoma does.

And I think you'll we've we've seen a briefing on that from uh Jacques and his team, but a lot more of those details will be revealed next week when you guys have your study session.

Cool, that's awesome.

And then finally, uh between yourselves as well as the deputy mayor, because I myself uh wasn't able to make the last um OSAC meeting where we discussed council staffing.

Uh MCO is one of the recurring priorities that the council talks about about uh narrative, responsiveness, just having a very clear message for for residents to understand what we're doing and what we care about, basically.

And um so uh this might be a good time, Deputy Mayor, if you feel comfortable to talk about how the conversation went and and uh obviously it's gonna take the perspective of the entire council, but um what that might mean for MCO and and um uh mayor and council office in terms of those really crucial council priorities.

Joe, do you want to add anything?

Sure.

I I do have a report out I could do during the committee meeting, but or the committee report out section, but I can I can you if you want me to wait till then.

Whatever preference.

Yeah, we should let's just do that.

Okay, sounds good.

Yeah, so really pertinent committee report then.

Yeah, we're definitely watching and um here to help in any way that we can for sure.

Yeah, I mean, I would I would love it if we had a ton of money and we could get more people, um, but always looking for ideas, for sure.

Okay.

Any other council comments?

Okay, well, Amy, thank you so much, Golden.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for having us.

Appreciate it.

All right, all right.

Moving on to other items of interest.

Any other items?

Deputy Mayor.

No, just for my committee report.

Okay, and there's a committee report from the Deputy Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh, the operational strategy and administrative committee met on May 8th and received a presentation on the City Council action memorandum uh findings report and its recommendations.

Uh the committee expressed general support for the recommendations and emphasized the importance of healthy constructive skepticism and staff vetting during early policy development.

Um on June 12th, the committee reviewed proposed updates to the city council rules of procedure.

Uh the committee directed staff and prepared the amended rules for consideration by the full council.

Uh, the committee also continued this discussion regarding city council staffing needs and potential staffing models authorized through the 2024 charter amendments.

Uh the committee requested the topic be added to an upcoming study session to gather feedback from the full council.

Uh the committee meets again on Friday 20 June 26th at 1030 a.m.

is open to the public and the agenda is to be determined.

Um, and then to your question earlier, um, we had explored uh multiple different staffing models during the committee um potentials and and obviously budget pending um, of course.

Um, but uh one topic that did rise uh to the top of everyone's mind was uh at how we communicate back out to the community on the work that the council is doing as well as the city.

Um and uh Councilmember Walker, I don't know if she's still on, but um she had mentioned uh taking a stab at a potential staffing model as well that she'd like to bring to the full council.

Um but we felt that it was really important to make sure that the whole council had an opportunity to weigh in on this before we went too far down the rabbit hole.

Um and so we um recommended that it be brought to a full study session um so that way um everybody has an opportunity to weigh in on what potential staffing models could look like for the council.

Um and Councilmember Scott, I don't know, I think I that pretty much covered it unless you had anything additional that I might missed.

No, I think you did a great job summing it up.

Well, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

That's really uh extensive.

Uh, Councilmember Walker, since uh it seems like your point on bringing forward that proposal, anything you'd like to add.

Thank you.

I think Deputy Mayor had the nail on the head.

Just um wanted to let our colleagues know that we we do want to bring forward a proposal, but we wanted you all to see our work going forward or to date, so that we could all move forward together.

So, uh big thank you to Ben Thurgood for helping us through the process.

I think we we made a lot of progress, but we're excited to show you how we got there and then come to a consensus as a full council.

So thank you, and thank you, Deputy Mayor, for doing a great report out.

Cool.

And so uh seeing as um a chunk of our colleagues are uh representing the city at the um uh the association of Washington Cities.

Uh let's make sure that our support staff um get the word out to the people who are uh currently not with us physically.

And um it sounds like Councilmember Walker, you're taking point, so shall we have them direct the other council members to you for any feedback they might have about your proposal?

Uh I'll just clarify there there's multiple potential staffing models and uh councilmember Walker wants to bring in additional options, so she's kind of working through that uh to add to the options that the council will be able to look at.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, sounds good.

All right, so moving on, unless there are any other committee reports.

Okay, moving on, agenda review and city managers weekly report, Allison.

Thank you, Mayor Mayor.

I just want to clarify too that that item will be coming back to study session next Tuesday.

So you will receive our presentation on OSAC's conversation next Tuesday.

So just to have it in your head and awareness.

Um for tonight's agenda, there's one ceremonial on tonight's agenda proclaiming Saturday, June 27th, 2026 as tomorrow day.

There are no modifications to tonight's agenda.

There's one opportunity for public comment this evening.

That opportunity is under regular public comment regarding motions, uh resolutions and ordinances on tonight's agenda.

Please let me know if there's any questions related to tonight's agenda so that staff can be prepared to respond accordingly.

And for your review attached to the study session agenda, the weekly report to council was attached.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy City Manager.

All right, seeing as there are no other items, is there a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Second.

Move and second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

I'm supposed to say no, we are adjourned.