I'd like to call to order the city council study session of June 30th, 2026.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Deputy Mayor Bushnell.

Present.

Councilmember Diaz.

Here.

Councilmember Heinz.

Councilmember Palmer.

Councilmember Rumba?

Here.

Councilmember Sidalga?

Here.

Councilmember Scott?

Here.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Ibsen?

Here.

Our first agenda item is the 2026 Community Survey.

I'd like to call on Strategic Initiatives Coordinator from our Center for Strategic Priorities, Ted Richardson, to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, and good afternoon.

My name is Ted Richardson, and I'm joined today by Derek Harvey with the ETC Institute.

And we're here today to present the results of the 2026 Community Survey.

The community survey is a statistically significant representative sample of Tacoma residents that is administered by an objective third-party consultant, ETC Institute.

The data generated allows us to answer the question, who cares about what?

Or really how satisfied are different demographic groups of residents with different city services.

This is the one tool the city has to gauge residents' feelings using quantitative data to assess how the city is doing over time.

For example, with this data, I can say that in 2026, 74% of our residents ages 18 to 34 are either satisfied or very satisfied with the overall quality of the library services provided in Tacoma.

Or again, using this data in 2026, I can say that 65.3% of District 4 residents selected conditions of major streets as one of their top infrastructure concerns.

And in fact, using this data, I can say that conditions of major streets was the top infrastructure concern across all five council districts.

I use these as examples going into our presentation because while we will be presenting a lot of data, we won't be able to go into detail for all of the data in all of the reports generated.

So council, while we'll give an overview of the questions we asked in the survey, I want you to also come away knowing the questions that you can ask of the data, like the two examples I just gave.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

So here's the agenda that we'll present today.

First, I'll give a quick overview of what the community survey is, and then I'll go into the reports that we produced using the data because there are quite a few.

And then I'll hand it over to Derek, our consultant, and he'll go over the methodology that we use to gather the data, and then he'll go over the results of the survey.

And you can see there are a few different types.

First, the perceptions that Tacoma residents have of living in Tacoma, then the services and uh provided by the city and the infrastructure of Tacoma, public safety, neighborhood issues, and funding priorities that residents have for the city, community participation and city communication, and finally summarizing the results.

Next slide, please.

So starting on the left hand side of this slide, the community survey is an objective and random sample of Tacoma residents.

Derek will go over this more on the methodology slide, but what this means at a high level is that if we were to repeat this survey, we would have the similar results, and that these results did not happen by random chance.

On the second bullet, the three main types of questions are uh resident satisfaction levels of city services, the perception levels of Tacoma, or living of life in Tacoma rather, and residents' priorities for how the city spends its money.

The survey is conducted every two years, so the last one was done in 2024, 2022, and then going back.

Moving to the right side of this slide, we hired ETC Institute to conduct this survey.

It's the same firm that we used in 2024.

Moving down to the second bullet, the questions were mostly the same as two years ago, which were mostly the same as two years prior, and that's to maintain consistency so that we can track trends over time.

Some of the questions do get tweaked, or we might add questions or remove questions.

If we do do that, it's always in partnership with the departments that that question most aligns with.

And this survey was conducted in April of this year.

Next slide, please.

Here are all the reports that we produced.

So the one on the top is the findings report.

And for anyone who's interested in learning more about the data that we produced for the community survey, I suggest you start with the findings report.

This is all of the data that we were produced from this year.

Moving down the list to the second one is the benchmarking report, which compares the data from Tacoma this year to a national survey that ETC conducts every year.

It is only some of the questions because ETC doesn't ask all the same questions that we ask on its national survey and vice versa, so we can't do a comparison across all of our questions.

The third report is the trends report, which compares our data from this year to our data from two years ago.

So you can see how we're doing over time.

The next two are mapping reports, one by census block group, and the next by council district.

So there are for every question on each of these two reports, there are a map, so you can see how residents responded across Tacoma.

The next is what's called a cross tabulations report.

And this one is quite long but quite interesting.

Uh, as it's a for each question, there are five tables for the demographics that we uh asked residents to respond to.

So for each question, there's a table for age, race and ethnicity, gender, council district, and home ownership status.

And then finally, there's a dashboard that ETC produces, and that dashboard has all of the information in all of these reports.

So for anyone interested in uh viewing any of this information, please go to Tacoma.gov slash community survey, and that is all posted currently, and you can find that data here.

Uh next slide, please.

And now I'll pass it to Derek to go over the methodology and the results in the survey.

Yeah, thank you, Ted.

Uh I just want to make sure.

Can everybody hear me correctly?

Yes, we can.

Perfect.

Um, as Ted said, I'm Derek Harvey.

I'm a project manager at ETC Institute.

I've been working with Ted and his team over the last three or four months on the survey process.

Um a little bit more about ETCS.

One of the nation's leading provider of market research for local governments.

Since 2012, we've surveyed more than 1200 communities around the world.

Um, in the last three years, we've also done surveys in all 50 states, including Hawaii and Alaska.

As you can see, we have areas around the country where we do quite a bit of surveys.

Uh, Kansas City is being our home base.

We do a lot of surveys around there, North Carolina, South Florida, Texas, but we do do surveys all across the United States.

Next slide, please.

For the 2026 Tacoma survey, the methodology that we use is we administered the survey by mail, phone, and online with follow-ups by text, email, and social media to a random sample of residential addresses.

The sample was designed to ensure the results are statistically valid and representative.

The way we did this is we took a GIS map of this Tacoma city boundaries.

Um, the map would look very similar to the one on the left here.

Um, and that's what we uh used to uh purchase all the residential addresses within that boundary, and that's what we picked our random sample from.

We did this for a few reasons.

One, we wanted to make sure we heard from all areas of the city, and two, we wanted to make sure that everybody had the same percent chance percentage chance of being selected for the survey.

The map on the left is um the boundary by of Tacoma by census block group.

The red dots are all the respondents to the survey.

We had 902 completed surveys this time around that gave us a margin of error of plus minus 3.26% at the 95% level of confidence.

We also had a goal of getting at least 150 completions from each council district.

We did achieve that goal.

Um the survey was also conducted in the top seven languages that are spoken in Tacoma.

And throughout the survey administration process, ETC Institute monitored the response distribution to maintain geographical balance.

As you can see, we did a really good job of hearing from all areas of the city.

There are some blank spaces on the survey or on the map to the left there, but those are areas that are highly industrial, retail, or parks or areas of that nature.

But we did do a good job of hearing from all areas on this of Tacoma for the survey.

Next slide.

When looking at the perceptions of Tacoma, next slide.

One of the first questions we asked was just perceptions to Tacoma.

Some of the highest rated items we saw for from perceptions was access to daily essentials like grocery stores and schools at 69% being very satisfied or satisfied on the survey.

Whether you feel like you belong in the community at 62% being very satisfied or satisfied, and the overall quality of life in Tacoma at 56%, followed by overall quality of services and the overall image of Tacoma.

The lowest rated items when it came to perceptions was the appearance of Tacoma at 40%, the value you receive for your city taxes and fees at 29%, and how well your community is managing growth at 27% as well.

Next slide.

Ted mentioned we produced two reports for you that showed the GIS maps by census block group and council district for each question on the survey.

This is an example of one of those maps for census block group.

What this map does is it splits the uh Tacoma into the census block groups and shows you what the average response was for each of those census block group areas.

What this helps us look at is if there's any areas that are feeling more satisfied than other areas, if there's areas feeling more dissatisfied as well.

For the example of how well your community is managing growth, we can see that most of Tacoma answered as a neutral to this question.

But however, we can see that there are several areas that are feeling more dissatisfied.

And that's what these GIS maps allows us to do.

It allows us to pinpoint different areas in the city that may be feeling more dissatisfied and take a look at those areas to see if there's anything we can do for each of these questions, or if there's something we're doing in other parts of the city that may help those areas feel more satisfied as well.

Next slide.

When we looked at trends, seven out of the eight areas saw increases from the 24 survey when it came to perceptions of Tacoma.

The biggest increases are whether you feel like you belong in the community saw a 10-point increase from 52% to 62%.

The overall image of Tacoma saw a 10 point bump from 30% to 40%.

And the overall appearance of Tacoma also saw a bump from 30 to 40%.

The only area that saw a slight decrease was that overall access to daily essentials like grocery stores and schools, but it only saw a 4% bump.

It's still up there at the 70% near 70% at 68% as well.

Next slide.

When we did look at benchmarking, overall Tacoma is lagging between four and 11% behind the four out of five perceptions here.

Overall quality of services provided by the city was 1% down.

Overall image of the community is 5% down, and overall appearance is 8% from the national average.

The national average is from a national survey that ETC Institute does every summer of 5,000 respondents nationally.

We do this, we have about 85 benchmarking items that we send out on this survey.

And these are the perceptions that could be benchmarked, like Ted mentioned before.

We can't benchmark everything because your survey is not the same as our national survey.

When looking at Tacoma's services and infrastructure, some of the highest rated items on here once again was that proximity to daily essential services like schools and parks at 81% satisfaction, access to public libraries, 75%, the quality of those public library services at 71%.

Access to local businesses like shops and restaurants, level access to arts, culture, science up there near 70% as well.

Ease of walking in your neighborhood also very high.

The lowest rated items, transportation safety at 33%, efforts to reduce climate change at 33%, and ease of bicycle travel at 30%.

I do want to point out here, though, that once we get to some of these lower rated items, we do see some of the neutral ratings begin to get higher here.

For some of these items for neutral ratings, at ETC Institute, we look at those as respondents that don't know enough about the subject to really give it a satisfied or dissatisfied answer.

So they answered as a neutral, saying, I don't really know much about this.

And when we look at some of these items, that's understandable, understandable.

When we look at like water quality access or health risk associated with wildfire smoke, efforts to reduce climate change and ease of bicycle travel.

Bicycle travel is an easy one to look at because not everybody rides a bicycle around Tacoma.

Next slide, please.

Once again, when we looked at the GIS maps, this one is done by council district.

So when we looked at the ease of walking in your neighborhood, we can see that there's three council districts that were neutral to ease of walking in your neighborhood, but there were two that were more satisfied than the rest of the council districts when it came to walking in your neighborhood.

Once again, just giving you more information about different areas of the city and how they're feeling towards certain questions on the survey.

And hopefully it just gives you that level of detail that you might need to make more better decisions for your community.

Next slide.

When we looked at the trends with uh Tacoma services, since 24, Tacoma has seen increases in 10 out of the 11 areas that were assessed on the survey.

The only other area stayed consistent.

This is going to be a trend on the survey when we're looking at trends is that Tacoma did see increases in almost all the areas we looked at on the survey when it came to trends.

Public library services in Tacoma saw a big jump, level of access to arts saw a big jump.

Water quality saw a jump as well.

So this is going to be a trend as we go through, and it's an area that we really wanted to highlight was that we did see these increases from the 24 survey.

Next slide.

When we looked at infrastructure roads and public works, your highest rated items was the overall quality of water services, 70%, the electric utility services, 68%, solid waste services, 65%, wastewater and sanitary services, all 65%.

So some really of those core public works and core services that the city provides, stormwater management, flood control was also up there near 60%.

Condition of street signs above 50% as well, walking in your neighborhood at 50%.

Some of the lowest rated items was the quality of on-street bicycle infrastructure.

Once again, there we see that high neutral rating.

Not everybody uses the bicycle infrastructure every day or even rides a bike, so they probably don't know enough to give a very satisfied or dissatisfied answer.

And then cleanliness of streets at 21% and condition of major streets at 20%.

We did see big dissatisfied scores there, but when we go to the next, when we look at importance, you'll see why.

Next slide.

For trends though, Tacoma's seen four areas increase when it came to infrastructure roads and public works, four areas saw decreases, and one area stayed consistent.

The condition in major streets did see a decrease about four points.

Cleanliness of streets and public areas stayed about the same with the 1% bump.

And that quality of on-street bicycle insurance did actually see a three-point bump as well.

But as you can see through all the other areas, we saw everything stayed consistent, moved a little down, but or went up a little bit as well.

Next slide.

When we looked at infrastructure importance, we asked residents to rate satisfaction with all those services.

How satisfied are you with the condition of major streets?

How satisfied are you with the cleanliness of streets and public areas?

Right after that question, we also asked them, okay, out of all those services you just rated, how satisfied you are, which ones are most important for the city to provide.

There was a clear top three when we asked residents about infrastructure roads and public works, condition of major streets.

Cleanliness of streets and public areas at 49%, and the walkability of your neighborhood at 35%.

This wasn't a surprise to us at ETC Institute.

I think every community that I have surveyed this year, the condition of major streets has been the top choice among those communities as well.

It's just an item that most respondents in all communities want as their most important and to be more satisfied in that area as well.

As we go down the list, there's about four or five items that kind of fall into that third or fourth tier, all the way down to utility billing and customer service at 8% when it comes to importance.

Next slide.

What asking the satisfaction and importance questions back to back allows ETC to do is run it through our important satisfaction analysis.

This analysis takes the importance rating and the satisfaction rating and weights them against each other to help us set priorities for the when it comes to these service areas like infrastructure roads and public works.

For infrastructure roads and public works, we had two items that were very high priority.

It was that condition of major streets and the cleanliness of streets and public areas.

Not surprising, those were the two most important items identified by respondents on the survey.

They also had the lowest satisfaction rating as well.

So it wasn't a surprise to see them jump to the top here.

We also had two high priority items.

That was the walkability of your neighborhood, which was the third most important by residents, had a higher satisfaction than the rest, but because it was that third most important, jumped to a high priority, and the adequacy of street lighting in your community was right there as well.

We also had several items that were a medium priority.

What a medium priority means is that you're already providing that service at the expected level from residents and should maintain your current level of emphasis on those items.

When looking at public safety, one of the first areas we did look at was police services.

Police services did see high neutral ratings and high don't know ratings that impacted the result the ratings as well.

And the top rated were police patrol at 27%, response times at 26%, the quality of police service at 26%, all the way down to police investigations and enforcement of local courts and ordinances.

Like I mentioned, we did see high neutral ratings here.

We also saw high don't know ratings for most of these questions, almost 20% for each of these, which is understandable.

Not everybody is going to be aware of police investigations, police patrol transparency or efforts.

So not surprised to see those high neutral ratings and rates there as well.

Next slide.

When we did look at the trends, though, all of the police services we saw, we did see increases from the 24 survey.

Police patrol bumped up about eight points.

How quickly police respond emergencies, seven points, police services, seven points.

So all of these did see jumps from the 24 survey, including your enforcement of local codes and ordinances by about three points there as well.

Next slide.

When we did look at fire services, which we asked after police, fire and EMS services saw some of the highest ratings on the entire survey.

The quality of fire services at 83% being satisfied, fire response time at 83%, how quickly fire service personnel respond to emergencies at 83%, and how quickly EMS services respond to emergencies also above 80% there, and the overall quality of EMS services also extremely high.

You will notice that the neutral ratings here dropped as well.

And we also saw a decrease in the don't know ratings for these items as well.

Next slide.

When we looked at trends though, once again, since 24, fire and EMS services did see a bump in or increase in all the areas assessed.

I believe in 24, the fire and EMS services had some of the highest ratings on that survey as well.

And to see an increase in those areas is very impressive because those were your highest scores, and you just improved on those higher scores.

Overall quality of fire services seen about a seven-point jump, fire response suppression six points.

How quickly fire services respond, six points, all the way down to overall quality and EMS services saw a six-point bump as well.

Next slide.

When we looked at police and fire importance, asking respondents which of these items, which of the police services and fire and EMS services are most important for the city to provide.

For police, it was how quickly police respond to emergencies at 57% and efforts by your police or by police in your community to prevent crime at 57%, followed by police patrol and transparency of the police department, quality of fire services and for enforcement of local courts and codes and ordinances.

For fire, it was how quickly EMS services personnel respond to emergencies at 68%, and how quickly fire services personnel respond to emergencies at 44%, with everything else kind of falling below there.

Next slide.

For the important satisfaction ratings, because of the low satisfaction with police ratings and the police items, it was not a surprise to see that these items all came up as a very high priority or high priority.

Just with those low satisfaction numbers, any high importance numbers going to force them to a very high priority.

The number one being efforts by police in your community to prevent crime and how quickly police respond to emergencies.

However, when we did look at fire and services and EMS services, it was the opposite.

Because of the high satisfaction scores there already, we were only expecting to see a few items jump up there, and there was only one identified as a high priority, and that's how quickly EMS service personnel respond to emergencies because it was the most important compared to all the other items there.

Everything else fell into a medium priority, meaning you're already providing those items at the expected level of residents and respondents.

Next slide.

When we looked at feelings of safety, though, this is one of the main big areas of the survey that we saw some of the biggest increases from the 24 survey.

Overall respondents seem to be feeling safer in almost all areas of the city since 24s, indicating the city's efforts to improve perceptions of safety have had a positive impact.

When looking at in your neighborhood during the day, saw 10 point bump and retail areas over 10 points, 15-point jump.

Overall feeling of safety of your communities saw about a 13-point jump, and in community parks also saw a really big jump as well.

Next slide.

Of those, 73% had reported it to police.

These were also improvements since the 24 survey, and 24, 35% of respondents reported being a victim of crime, of which only 70% reported it.

So we did see an increase in those two or an improvement in those two items as well.

Next slide.

They had they could select their top four items.

Respondents' top four issues were addressing homelessness at 67%, housing affordability at 56%, public safety at 43%, and trash and graffiti cleanup at 43%, followed by access to living wage jobs, social and health services, traffic calming measures, all the way down to art and culture amenities and other being the lowest rated items that respondents gave to neighborhood issues.

Next slide.

When we asked about funding priorities, when combining the high and medium priority items that respondents believe should be priorities, the top five items that residents believe are top priorities were mental health and substance abuse, youth violence reduction, senior care, child and family support, and homeless encampment and outreach cleanup.

All the way followed by food insecurity, veteran support, affording housing development, developing homeless shelters, and emigrant and refugee support.

Next slide.

When we looked at civic participation and city communication, when asking respondents, have you participated in any of the following civic activities in the last 12 months?

62% of respondents indicated they had participated in city events in the past 12 months.

Most of these areas also saw increases since 24.

So we saw an uptick in civic um participation over the last two months.

Up to 62% for city events, 48% for community group volunteering got up to 48%.

Participating with religious institutions at 31%, all the way down to city committee, board, or commission meetings at 11%.

Not surprising to see those items at the bottom of uh civic participation items.

Next slide.

When we did ask um respondents how much of an impact they believe their participation has had on the community, 69% of respondents believe their participate participation has had at least somewhat of an impact on the community.

We wanted to highlight this because this is a 20-point increase since 24 when we asked the same question.

And uh 2024, this same question only got 49% of respondents believing their participation had an impact or somewhat of an impact on the community.

So we are seeing an increase in civic participation, and we're also seeing an increase in respondents and residents believing that their participation has is having an impact on the community as well.

Next slide.

When we asked respondents where they currently get news and information about city programs and services, city social media was the top item at 58% from friends and neighbors at 48%, current aliens at 44%, and news media being 42%, and other social media sources was 33%, and the city website at 27%, all the way down to TV Tacoma and TV12 at 9% there.

Next slide.

We then asked residents where they would prefer to get news and information.

Um city social media was still the top item at 44%, print mailings at 29% was the second one, and then news media at 25%, followed by city e newsletters and city website.

Um you will notice that from friends and neighbors did drop down this list considerably.

Um we've seen this from time to time.

Everybody still wants to get uh news and information about the city from the city and not hear it secondhand from their friends and neighbors.

Um so we always recommend to continue to align with these communication preference preferences.

It'll help the city in the long term to get information and education about the community out to uh residents in a timely and efficient manner.

Next slide.

In summary, uh since 24, uh Tacoma has seen improvement and increase in almost all areas of the survey.

We covered a few of those, but feelings of safety saw some of the biggest increases on the survey.

Police and fire and EMS services also saw increases, and we also saw an increase in civic participation and the belief that their participation is having an impact on the community as well.

Residents identified the following as the community's highest priorities: homelessness, housing affordability, neighborhood conditions, behavioral health, and public safety were issues that kept popping up on the survey and those neighborhood issues and funding priorities questions that we asked.

And once again, continuing to align those city communication with resident preferences will continue to help increase ratings and perceptions in the coma as the city gets their education and um improving efforts out there for residents to see.

Next slide.

Once again, thank you guys for having me today.

Um, my contact information is on the right there.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

Also, have Ted um send me an email as well.

If you want to go through Ted, I can get Ted all the information he needs to pass on to you as well.

But I'll hand it back over to Ted.

Uh thank you, Derek.

Mayor, counsel.

We know we just presented a lot of information.

Like I said at the beginning, there's a lot more online in the weeks and months ahead.

We'll be working with departments and any of you, of course, if you desire to make sure this data is digestible, as we know it's important as we move into budget development, how departments think about their programming and the continued evolution of Tacoma 2035.

Uh Mayor, with that, we'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for your presentation.

Any questions?

Councilmember Walker, followed by Councilmember Rumba.

Thank you.

Um, this is great information.

Um, I think a lot of good news in there, a lot of good indicators that we're working on the right things.

Um, excited to just sort of, you know, let some of this soak in and pull it up at different points when we're working on things.

Um, you mentioned right at the work we did in our retreat with the council priorities.

Is there a time?

Because I know we talked about having committee of a whole at some points.

This is maybe a question for the mayor, actually.

I'm looking at you, Ted.

But where we can do some workshopping with this information and our council priorities.

Or is that do you know if that's on the on the agenda at all?

Um I don't want to put words in staff's mouths, but we can connect and find out more.

Okay.

Great.

Well, I would welcome that opportunity as we're looking at agendas over the next couple months.

Certainly, yeah.

Happy to have the conversation.

And we would be happy to come back in whatever format works with you or work with any of you individually to digest this data, going through the reports or the dashboards, because we know it's a lot of information, and one of the intentions in posting the website in the presentation is for you all as council and staff and members of the public who are watching to go to the website and read through the reports, play with the dashboard so that you can begin to read through everything, but we're here to serve in any way that might be useful for you.

Councilmember Rumba.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you so much, Ted, and for um the survey.

And it's I'm glad to see there's a lot of I think positive information in here.

Um, I'm curious about tree canopy.

Was there any particular questions about tree canopy?

Um, because I know like I hear a lot about trees and like a concern about us getting from 21% to 30% by 2050 now.

I just was curious if there were questions about tree canopy, or is that not something that we surveyed?

There was not a specific question about tree canopy, the one question slightly related to it was our efforts to reduce climate change.

So, no, there was not one specifically about trees.

Okay, that's great.

And then um, I know there was information about sidewalks, but it was it like about missing sidewalks, or um, how do we address the question about sidewalks?

There was one about walkability, and Derek, since you have the report up, I might ask you to look at the questions and see which question specifically related to sidewalks best.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

It was question uh seven on the survey.

Um it was in the infrastructure roads and public work section.

We asked about walkability of your neighborhood with examples given as sidewalks, curb ramps, and crossings in your neighborhood.

Okay, okay, thank you so much.

I'll go back and look at that.

And then the other thing is today the paper.

I don't know why I'm referencing the paper, but I saw it in my um email, and um they mentioned that we had the highest crime rate of any city in Tacoma.

I mean in Washington State.

Um, but I think it's interesting because this has come up before where people don't feel like we've had data that shows that we have lower crime rates.

What was interesting to me this time is people's feeling that they feel um like things are improving, like they feel safer.

So I think it's interesting just how data I just want to bring that out because I think it's interesting where you get your data source and how you ask it, you'll get a different question.

And I feel like something's happened nationally as well as when we get data that's sometimes on a national level and it trickles down.

It seems that people are feeling safer everywhere, and so I just think that that's interesting that our survey kind of shows people feel safer, but then they're saying that we have the highest crime rate.

So I'm just curious how the paper comes up with their data.

So thank you so much for this report.

Thank you.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um I was hoping to have a couple questions answered on.

I I went and I dove into the the whole book on the whole uh enchilada.

So on page um 32 in the report, it it breaks up down like the ages of the respondents, so including yourself is the question.

How many people in your household are?

And then it breaks it down by age group, but I'm curious if the responses are similar to like the makeup of what we would see as like Tacoma as a whole.

Um, because I'm seeing like in the when we're looking at like it broke it down from 15 to 19, it's about twenty four percent, and then ages 20 to 24 or 4%, and then it looks like maybe there weren't a lot of households with people with with children, and so I was curious about um if that mim if that is similar to the makeup of Tacoma.

So you're asking if the survey sampling pool is tied as best as we can to the demographics of Tacoma?

Yes.

Derek, do you want to answer the methodology but how we best match the demographics to Tacoma.

Yeah.

Um so age is one of those things that we're monitoring on the back end.

Um we are monitoring against the census data.

Um so we look at age breakdown, the age of people in the household as well.

And then we're also monitoring rent verse owned we know we're gonna hear from more um owners um than renters just based on um owners tend to respond better to these types of surveys.

But these are all things that we're monitoring on the back end at ETC Institute and we are doing our best to make sure that it is in line with what we have available with the census data.

Did that answer your question or you looking for something else I hear that we're trying I guess I'm wondering how close we we got yeah um I'm actually trying to pull it up right now but the census site is telling me it's under construction right now.

I can get Ted an answer to that.

So we can give it to you.

Okay yeah follow-up would be great thank you so much and then um one thing that I paid attention to in 2024 when this came out um was the the trust factor on page 18 um not it not in our slides sorry in the in the in the big report um it there was the question asked would you say you trust your trust in Tacoma's municipal government is and then it breaks it down but there's not um a comparison between 2024 and 2026 and so I'm curious if you have that information.

Yeah so it's not in the PowerPoint just because we there was quite a few questions we didn't include in the PowerPoint just because this we wanted to limit the size of the PowerPoint.

But that was one of the questions we asked is what your level of trust in Tacoma's government is and that's been a question we've asked for quite a few years now but we can uh get back to you on how that has trended over time.

Okay.

I remember last last survey it was a pretty big area of opportunity and it looks like it's it remains that I guess I'm just wondering if it's trending up or down that way.

Yeah thank you for answering my questions.

Thank you.

Consumer Hines uh thank you mayor uh no I for the positive side I think it's it's good to see that almost every area we're trending more positively we were two years ago so I think that's all it's good.

I think my questi my specific question I had was when we look at the comparison you know there's a slide where we're compared to the national averages on some of these things and my question would be maybe either for Ted or Derek you know which one of these are outs are like statistically significant right so like overall quality of services private by provided by the city we're trending one percentage point above the national average I don't think I would assume that's statistically significant.

I'd say we're probably landing in the right the same spot but when I look at the other ones like overall appearance Tacoma where we're eight points behind the national average or how well your community is managing growth where we're 11 points behind is there I guess maybe either now or some point in time I'd love to know where we are statistically significantly different than the national average when it comes to you know pure cities or cities like ours.

So the so our survey is statistically significant, and that survey would be statistically significant, but are you asking if the gap is significant?

The gap is statistically significant, or is it just uh just a difference there.

I think one of the things just now I'm gonna answer my own question, but then I would love maybe follow up, which is while I talk to lots of residents who believe the sun rises over northeast Tacoma and sets off the narrows bridge, I do recognize that Tacoma is not a universe in and of itself, right?

So a lot of the things we're seeing are reflective nationally.

So, you know, when people come to us and say what are you doing about homelessness, what are you doing about your budget challenges?

What are you doing about the environment?

Uh none of those three things are completely contained with inside the city of Tacoma.

And actually, when you look at how we're responding, we are roughly in line or a little bit ahead of a lot of those other peer cities around us.

So my question often is to for to train our focus.

One is like looking at where the residents have identified the issues, which is I think really important, but if you know homelessness is not only an issue in Tacoma, we just some of us just got back from the association to watch the cities conference in Spokane, it is a statewide, if not region wide, if not nationwide issue.

So I'm not surprised that the our residents have picked that to be the most important thing.

I I guess for me, it's are there places where wow, we are really out of step with the rest of the country around this specific thing, or either in a negative way that might cause us to refocus, or in a positive way where it's like, oh, we should really celebrate that.

Um, so that's a long lineup to say I'd love to know some of these places where we were benchmarked if somebody could tell me if the gap is statistically significant or if it's just kind of you what you would expect within the realm of possibilities just from the national average.

So certainly anything outside of our margin of error of 3.26% would be uh something worth looking at.

But Derek, would you like to add anything to that?

It's perfect.

Yeah, I agree, Ted.

When it comes to those benchmarks where you're looking at yourself in the national average, I would say anything within uh one or two, three percent error change is not significant when looking at that data, but anything outside about three percent would be a significant difference.

Uh I was just looking through the report.

Um here fire and emiss services are all about 15 points above the national average, that's significant.

Um your library services the same way, they're about 15, 20 points above that national average.

So that is a significant difference in my um that I would tell you is something to be celebrated.

Great.

Well, that see that's there you go.

And I think you Ted, I think your your easy heuristic of anything outside the margin of error is gonna be a pretty good example of something.

So that makes a lot of sense uh to me.

I think that's a great question.

Uh that's a great answer, thank you very much.

It was I thought it was a good question too, because I asked it, but I also thought the answer was very good.

Um the other thing I would love to see is I agree with Customer Palmer, I love on some of these things to look at over time how we're seeing the trend line, because I think it's one to look at a snapshot, two snapshots and say it's different, but I also would love to see maybe three or four snapshots or a trend over time.

Um so if there maybe that's something I could follow up on, or we could follow up on of some specific ones we're very interested in and seeing like how many years back do we have data for, Ted?

We have the raw data just for this year and two years ago because the of the consultant we've been working with.

Uh so the trend report does have all of the satisfaction questions uh for the last for this survey and two years ago.

If there are specific questions that you want to see going back more years, we can certainly do that trend analysis quite easily.

Okay.

That I'll thank you for that, Ted, and and thank you, Derek.

I all look through and maybe talk to some of my colleagues about what are specific ones we might want to see the trend line going back over time.

Um, just knowing often how quickly things are addressed that uh two years is is a good snapshot, but also that many of the things we've been working on have been building over multiple years.

So uh otherwise, thank you very much.

I always look forward to this report every year to kind of understand where we are.

Um, and I really appreciate all the work.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Councilman.

Stalgin.

Um, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um I have a set of questions that kind of um build off of uh questions that that Councilmember Palmer had.

So the answer maybe to talk about it offline, and um kind of a conversation I had with Mayor and Mayor asked me to bring kind of this up.

And it's something we were talking about before we came into this meeting, and if you look at, I guess it's slide 34.

It comes down to methodology and understanding the um having confidence that this group of respondents really do represent the average or general um resident in in Tacoma.

Um because I actually really like the questions, I like the methodology.

I like everything about the actual survey, and for trust and transparency, I want individuals to have trust in the results.

And where I start questioning things are things like 20% of the respondents said that they attended a city council meeting, 18% attended a city neighborhood council meeting, and city's board and commission's 11%.

Like if I think about this in my head, that's 180 out of the 900 or so respondents came to a council meeting, roughly about the same that went to a neighborhood council, and 10%, 90 something percent are on a committee, board, or commission, and that just seems like a really high representation of like super citizens to me.

Um I wonder if that, you know, because in district four I don't see it as much.

And maybe that's right.

Maybe that is the correct one.

So I guess the question I'm asking for is, you know, what information do we have that shows that this is a representative sample of a resident.

Um do we has this information be re uh been renormalized for things like age, sex, um uh um uh, you know, uh compensation, whatever.

Um and if not, are there opportunities to get there next year and what are the investments we would have to do to get there, right?

Um that's a lot.

So I'll stop right there for a second.

So yes, so the if you look in the findings report, uh, which is again posted online, uh, there are there is a demographics section, and the demographics section is pretty evenly spread across gender and age and household income and household size, uh council district.

That was one of the things that was of utmost importance to us is that every council district was evenly distributed, and there are a few other demographics, um, monthly utility costs, for example.

Um, so uh with the methodology, uh we did our absolute best to normalize the spread across all of those demographic groups, and in terms of the super citizen question, um, I don't know uh in term uh whether people were uh serving on those committees or attending them once or uh how they interpreted those uh but um yeah we absolutely we accounted for all of those things and did the best that we could with the survey to uh make sure that it was representative of the Tacoma population.

Okay.

Um I'm just in the thousands of doors I've knocked on in my district.

I do not think 20% of the people I talked to had ever attended a city council meeting, knew who that we even had a neighborhood council or what committees, boards, or commissions were.

I just it just seemed a little odd to me when I saw that.

Um, but I am happy to have uh a more detailed discussion um with some of the details uh offline to kind of uh feel more comfortable with that.

Uh but I do it generally does um agree with the general sentiment that that I think is out there.

I just want to make sure that if we're gonna do this and invest money in this, that we don't have you know, someone off the street going, you know, I don't know if it actually really represents the regular person, and we should control for that.

And if the answer is it really does, despite this, I want to kind of have a better answer on why it still does, even if this is what someone sees.

Right.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you.

Um, I want to thank Ted and ETC for all their work.

Well, I think I see where Council Member Sidalga is coming from on that 20% number, I actually don't think it, it doesn't give me the pause that I think that he is feeling.

I just think when you look at the scope of a city, we do sometimes four proclamations a meeting.

We have upward of 15 boards and commissions.

Everyone knows someone who's on a board and commission, even if they're a normal person who doesn't engage with us.

I think we just have a really engaged city when you look at it citywide and not in any of the one districts.

Um I have a lot of pause around trying to bring some scrutiny to a survey that I think the methodology sounds really strong for.

Um, I think we can certainly probably think about how we're capturing it differently in the future, but I think with just the original caveat that we're gonna get responses from more homeowners than renters, that's probably where part of the discrepancy also comes in.

I would say if you ask folks who come in and just attend a city council meeting, not even give testimony, they are almost always owners and not renters, right?

So that that correlation there is probably there too, and part of that math problems.

I just I don't want to be sort of poo-pooing the survey results because I also think they're not something that we use to provide funding for different things or something that we use to actually literally set policy, they're just a benchmark for us to have a better understanding of what the pulse of the city is, so we can use it as essentially a flash point, a marker for us to sort of back up or or negate any anecdotal thoughts we have or interactions we have, but I don't think it is because it's not like our equity index, it's not something we're tying policy to.

I think it's a perfectly good snapshot and a good indicator of our trends.

Great.

Thank you.

Um all my questions were answered.

Any additional questions?

All right.

Seeing none, thank you so much, Derek and the team.

Uh, thank you, Ted, and uh for the and everybody that responded to the community survey results.

So really appreciate it.

I really always look forward every two years to seeing these results, and I'm interested in seeing those trends over time as well uh on the different questions.

So thank you.

All right, our second agenda item is council staffing, and I call Ben Thurgood, he's coming up right now.

And um we had some discussions at OSAC about this, and uh Ben's gonna probably give us a good loaddown on where we landed, and we felt it was really important as a committee to before any decisions or recommendations were made, we brought it before the full council.

So take it away, Ben.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I'm Ben Thurgood here to give the lowdown on council staffing.

Thank you for having me this afternoon.

I appreciate it.

Uh so the agenda and goals for today.

One, want to provide a little bit of an overview of the council staffing conversation that's happened so far and the review that staff and OSAC have been doing to bring it to this point.

We also want to provide council with some concepts to inform the development of a staffing model that supports your priority needs in alignment with the 27-28 budget development process.

Again, these are just concepts that support and inform the development of a proposal.

There are no proposals today, no proposed model coming forward.

Um, and then we want to identify those next steps for council to develop that proposal and incorporate it into the budget development process.

So I'm gonna take this in a few sections.

This first one is more of the historical overview, so providing that context to you, council and to those who may be listening.

So the timeline of how we got to today, the current staffing that's available, and then some findings we found from interviews with all those present of uh what your needs are in terms of council staffing.

So this discussion really began in 2024 when there was a charter review and an authorization of new council staffing models was uh elected or voted for by the public and made a new option.

And so then with OSAC starting back up in the spring and summer of 2025, one of the first things that they wanted to tackle was this council staffing from the charter review.

And so in July and August 2025, we did some council member staffing needs interviews, and then we did some additional follow-up ones recently with council members who were not here in 2025.

Um September and October is when OSAC had their first discussions about that interview feedback and started discussing some models and considerations that could be brought forward.

But then it kind of went on pause for a little bit to align with the budget development process that we're starting to do in earnest as a city here in 2026.

In March, in preparation for this conversation coming back, we did some interviews with existing council staff to further flesh out that information.

And then in June, just this past week or so, two weeks ago, we had an OSAC meeting to resume the conversation, and like Deputy Mayor said in the introduction, determined it was most important to get the conversation in front of the full council, which brings us here to today.

So looking at the existing resources for the mayor and council, the mayor has a dedicated policy analyst and office manager, where the eight council members have two policy analysts that they share at a ratio of four council members to one policy analyst.

And those ratios kind of come up a few times through these conversations.

So this four-to-one ratio refers to council members to policy analysts.

Similarly, the council members share two office administrators who do more of the clerical administrative duties, scheduling, paperwork, public disclosure requests, and similarly, that is a four-to-one ratio as well.

For constituent relations, there is one mighty staff member who supports all nine of the mayor and council.

And so those council members buy for the time of that constituent relations support.

And that's the current staffing that's available.

Through the interviews, process those notes and identified these eight broad bodies of work that council finds are places where they could use additional support, priority support they need from staff.

If we look at this color coding left to right, top to bottom, this prioritization is purely the number of council members who mentioned each of these things.

It is nothing along the lines of how passionately they mentioned it or anything like that.

It's just prioritizing in order of number of mentions.

So take that as you will.

But the top mentioned thing was policy analysis and legislative drafting, right?

So really developing that policy as a council.

The second is collective coordination, working among staff and among council members to coordinate your legislative agendas and the work of the council.

Third, that constituent response and engagement, interacting with community members with whether it's one-off questions or larger events.

Fourth was scheduling and administrative support, so talking about your calendar management, paperwork, public disclosure requests.

Communications and public narrative.

So we know that the city has media and communications that provides a lot of the organizational communication to the community, but the concepts that were brought up here were more things like I have a specific message to get out, or there was the citywide message, but I am going to be speaking with a particular group or constituent or my district.

And so what are my tailored communications and narrative there?

The next area, losing count here, committee, board, and commission support and integration.

The city has a large number of committee boards and commissions that work through various aspects of policy and city processes, and so better coordinating with those resources, those minds that are available to support council and policy development and create that integrated whole system.

Meeting preparation for all council business.

There are days where you have multiple meetings in a day, lots of meetings that you're doing as part of your job as council members.

And so knowing what's coming, knowing what you most need to focus your time and attention on, and doing research or providing talking points to support you in being prepared for those meetings.

And then finally, not all of the meetings are City of Tacoma meetings.

You represent the city externally and various boards, commissions, other venues, and so helping to prepare you for those external duties that you have.

And some of those duties, for example, have leadership positions serving as an executive board overseeing executive leadership of other organizations.

And so preparing and supporting you in those roles that when you were elected, maybe you didn't think that would be a duty that you had, but it became an assignment.

So those are the eight high-level areas of need that were identified.

So looking at those existing resources, they really are dedicated in three of those areas.

When you kind of match up the titles and uh classification specifications, that's the HR term we use for the general description of a body of work a particular individual does in their line of work here at the city.

And the three areas that are really covered with your current staffing are policy analysis and legislative drafting, that scheduling administrative support, and constituent response.

So that is an overview of how we got to hear what current staffing is.

Next, I'm going to, well, sorry, miss the miss the click.

Those other eight areas, they're kind of an all-in-effort right now, right?

So you don't have a collective coordination staff member, but your scheduling and administrative support staff and your policy analysts do the best they can to provide that service.

Same thing with with all those other areas there.

It's kind of the other duties as assigned catch-all.

So now we are going to turn over to these potential future staffing models and concepts, right?

And how additional staffing might address some of the needs that were identified through this review process.

So the first option or set of considerations is the idea of adding additional classifications or staff with different roles and titles to do those additional bodies of work that were captured there at the bottom.

And so one concept would be something like a chief of staff, somebody who helps with that coordination, the triaging of assignments, and coordinating of work for any and all staff who are supporting the council.

This is also a position that could do the day-to-day management of any council staff.

The other area under council communications would be adding dedicated communications specialists.

So that's one concept that's out there: adding additional classifications, additional staff with new titles, new roles, to fill in some of those gaps that were the other duties as assigned where people are pitching in.

The next few slides focus on what it would look like to enhance, expand, or change the way that we think about the policy analysis support that council is receiving.

So as a reminder now, the mayor has a policy analyst, and then the council members have a four-to-one ratio of policy analysis analyst support.

So the first concept could be just purely same system, same model, but increasing the number of policy analysts that are available to change that ratio.

The most common thing that I heard in interviews was just really getting us to even a two to one ratio would really go a long way, really be helpful.

And so this first concept for council's consideration to discuss would be keep it like it is, people doing what they're doing, but just increase that ratio, increase that amount of support so that it's two to one instead of four to one.

This next concept was what was daylighted a little bit in the brief mention that we had at the last study session, but with that additional capacity, there's room within the classification specifications of policy analysts to lean in a little more heavily into some of those other catch-all duties.

For example, communications.

So we could look at adding additional policy analysts, but with the specific emphasis of focusing that additional capacity to provide support for communications, constituent relations for individual council members in relation to that legislative platform and policy development.

So it's exactly the same concept as the previous slide, but saying, hey, not just legislative drafting and policy research, really emphasizing some of these other duties around communications and constituent response.

And then the third concept that is available here is this again increasing the amount of policy analyst support that's available, but aligning them based on subject matter expertise rather than aligning them with council members that they're dedicated to supporting.

And so the concept here would be to, for each of the four major policy area standing committees, you'd have a policy analyst who's a subject matter expert in that area.

They'd learn the parts of the organization that often bring items to those committees, and they would be your go-to folks if you ever had an infrastructure planning and sustainability idea that you wanted to run with, you'd work with that policy analyst.

So all mayor and council member would have access to those four policy analysts depending on where your legislative priority policy interests are.

So I'm thinking an approach, if you're all amenable, would be to pause now after that concept and just talk through that one a little bit.

Before next, I will jump to the management structure of where um council staff would report through.

But talking about this policy analyst area.

Great.

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I just wanted to um highlight, thank you, Ben, for walking through this so succinctly.

Um, I Ben has truly taken hours of us babbling and turned it into real um concepts and suggestions.

Um so I wanted to talk to one B a little bit just because it was mentioned last week that I was working on another um proposal, and what in talking this through with OSAC and with Ben, realized what we're really going for is not a different thing structurally, but a different scope of work.

Um, and so as Ben noted, we do have the um leeway or the ability within their classifications to rewrite that scope of work.

Many of these things I think they're our policy analysts and um office um support staff are already doing, but to be more deliberate about it, lean into the communications piece that came up a time and time again in the interviews and in um the needs.

Um, and it can become or ebb and flow as the particular council members need um to fill that um fill that space.

We did toy with adding communication staff, but we felt like that added another layer and having individual people that are focused on what our policy um priorities are translates into communication, and then working with MCO on the bigger picture things would actually be better.

So just wanted to speak to that really briefly, as I think Ben explained it very well, but maybe looks a little funny because it it actually is the same as the previous one.

So, thank you, Councilmember Walker, Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you.

Um, I think I had a question and then a comment.

I'm wondering if one and one B take into account at all just our feedback, or if there's also any thought or um capacity built in, I guess, into particularly one B, the fact that we don't have a management fellow anymore.

And if any of those duties are sort of trickling into here, or is that am I maybe jumping ahead in that concept two?

So the management fellow isn't expressly part of this conversation.

There has been a conversation in the city manager's office about how to support a lot of the duties of the management fellow as that program is in transition going into the next year, but it's been a separate.

So this is really purely just our feedback piece.

Curly your staff interviews about council support.

Yep.

Um, so then I think that just the comment I wanted to make about this is they both make different kinds of sense to me.

Um, I think I lean a little bit more towards one B over one, just because I like the idea of having a different mix of skill sets from the policy analysts if we were to reshuffle everything in this way.

Um, because I think right now comms is only a small piece of their role, and so that is I I know one of the pieces that I flag that I could use some assistance with, because it's not my expertise.

I'm much more of a policy person communicating how and when I do those policies is not my strength.

Um, but it's also not in my bandwidth, and I think it's in my own personal as a council member, other duties as a sign to be doing my own communications in a lot of ways.

Um so I do that where I can, but bandwidth would also be helpful.

Um added bandwidth, I should say, because there is already currently some bandwidth that is really solid.

Um, and then my other thought around this was for folks who are here during the charter review conversation.

I brought this up a lot, so I wanted to make sure I bring it up again today, which is not just the obvious extra budget piece of creating two to three or however many more FTEs we would be creating in the structure, but I worry a lot about how much extra added infrastructure we would need in departments because having more than two policy analysts going and asking directors a bunch of questions because I'm trying to write a policy, or some of us are trying to write policies that are counteracting each other.

I think there's just on the on the actual operating end a higher need for staff to answer those kinds of questions.

Um, and so I worry a lot with a city as lean as we are, adding a ton more policy analysts and help for us to develop and create and dream more policies without having the actual staff on the other end who answer those questions, also built in.

I like to liken it a lot to sometimes we're pulling somebody literally out of direct service to come answer these questions, and then that doesn't necessarily serve us on the direct service end of our work.

Thank you, Councilmember Rumba.

Um thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And I just want to thank you so much for all the work you've done, Ben, and I want to thank OSAC for um the time they've taken on this.

Um I kind of agree with um Councilmember Diaz just about the um about like the demand on staff.

Like I'm a little worried about that.

Um the other thing I was thinking is when I look at one B.

I like this, um, but my question is how does the I think it's more because I do a lot of external things, and I know there are other people on this um council who do a lot of external stuff.

I wonder if there's some new alignment in the way the city runs that would would provide that support because now I know that I believe that I don't have that support.

Wouldn't it be something we'd have to actually we'd have to talk with the city manager about like possibly changing how they do things because right now there just isn't that like layer of support, and I'm thinking about I serve on South Sound 911, I serve on Crystal Jetson Family Justice Center, I serve on a sustainability thing with the county.

There's just a lot of things, and I want to be really sensitive about those asks because they end up taking a lot of time away from what staff's already doing.

So that's just sort of thinking about what our needs are, but how it aligns with what they already do as staff members.

And are we are we asking too much?

Am I asking too much to get extra help like that?

So that's just it's just more a question of where our priorities are.

Absolutely, and it kind of reminds me of two points.

One is that um, as continuous improvement person here at the city, I have loved having these conversations and thinking there probably are some process solutions to some of the needs that you're talking about, right?

Whether it's um putting a mechanism in place or rethinking a process and how things get done.

And that then opportunity exists now with current staffing to look at some of those things, but it will definitely have to exist with any any additional staffing under any of these models, right?

Because if we take one B for example, okay, for policy analysts now, but with additional responsibilities, we need to work through how those responsibilities work.

If you add in other classifications, uh chief of staff or dedicated communications or things, I think that's a key part of lost my slides up there.

Uh a key part of implementation is building the processes and not just throwing staff into those processes.

Councilman Ryan.

Uh thank you, um, Deputy Mayor.

No, thank you.

And first of all, thank you for all the work you all have done to get us kind of here through the OSAC process.

You know, I I think how we've arrived in the place we've gotten to, which is like why do we have, I mean, like the question I could is why do we have the structure that we do?

And I think there used to be one policy assistant for all eight council members, and then they added another one, and then we've added capacity as we moved on.

So the model has been a generalist who can then step up and support multiple council members at the same time.

If we're moving into a world in which we have more staff members, I do think reimagining it a little bit to provide maybe a diversity of job types and work would be very helpful, which it looks like option one B gets us closer to that to provide maybe some different types of work or some differentiation of tasks.

Because I don't I will just be really honest, we have amazing policy assistance, and I think finding someone who can do just the breadth of breadth and depth of work that is required by that is really hard.

We're Linda and Christina, you're amazing, and I appreciate all that you do, and I just think it's hard, would be hard to find more people who could replicate that work in such an effect in a such effective way.

I'd say we can't.

Um so I would look at a model where by which we're looking at different, maybe a little bit different job categories that could best kind of be tailored towards needs that arise.

I we're not talking about option number two, but I do, which is on the next slide, like some of the later options, but I've often thought about having some more specialization or or staff members who are either embedded with departments that are doing the work or deeply connected with departments doing the work.

Um if we were to let's say we were to onboard a brand new person tomorrow, um, there would be a huge run-up time on that, and they would have to get up to speed on a lot of different things all at the same time because my interests are different than deputy mayor's interests are different than Councilmember Scott's interests, different than council member um Palmer's interests.

And so I think just having specialization would be helpful there.

Um and I think being reflected with some of the feedback we've had folks that could do a little bit more the external stakeholdering who could be more um kind of presence involved in kind of communications would be would be good too.

So I think of the of the two options, and we're not talking further.

Um I think those two are I would I would lean towards one B if I was given the choice between those two.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh next up we have Council Member Palmer.

Thank you.

Um I think I agree with Councilmember Hines and Councilmember Diaz.

It feels like we don't want to duplicate what we already have.

Like we're we're very well taken care of when it comes to our policy analysts and what they do, and they have that kind of those years of service and those connections in the city to if I ask a question, they know who exactly which staff to go to, and um they get that done first.

And so that's very much appreciated.

Or I feel where we we wouldn't um duplicate services is not necessarily having more policy analysts to ask staff more questions, it would be that separation of um maybe the policy analyst is looking outside of what is normally done within the city, or um is contacting uh different uh stakeholder groups, or is um contacting other cities to see what they're doing and and doing that more in-depth research.

So to me that's knowledge that you know somebody could come in and start doing right away because it's not a lot of learned knowledge and like learning how the city's operating right now and what department does what it's coming in and understanding um hey, this is the question.

We have one person who's looking internally.

Let's have another person who's maybe looking externally to bring bring that information so we're bringing more rounded, well-rounded policy.

Thank you.

Councilmember Scott.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh I my question is clarifying for council as with Councilmember Hines.

Um, and maybe also you, Councilmember Palmer.

I so are you when you are thinking about this instead of like adding two more policy analysts, you're saying like maybe those two are not necessarily policy analysts, but the work that they are doing just goes to support that, or would they be specified like are you thinking of them as specifically communications analysts?

Are you thinking of them like I guess I'm just trying to understand what you mean by the support there, so I just have a better understanding of what's going on.

Uh great, thank you for the follow-up question.

I I think when I was reading the notes at the bottom that the policy analysis and classification allows duties, lots of different coordinate different um types here.

I think when we look across the spectrum here, it would be maybe not looking for four of the exact same skill sets and types, but maybe allowing some flexibility in that.

Um I think if if we went down that path, that model, I mean I guess that this would be where my my thought, just to be real clear about my vulnerable my thinking here, is if the goal is that we're just moving from two to one, then we might as well just continue to find the same four people, same skill set because uh we don't want to end up in a situation where councilmember Walker and I are staffed by the council staff that's really good at communications, and two people are ones that are staffed by people who maybe that's not their their area of focus, and then someone's concerned about the amount of communication support that two council members are getting versus the other ones.

But if we're thinking about this more of adding capacity and having some flexibility, where maybe a policy analyst that was more focused on communications and columns could float a little bit more versus being assigned to a specific council member, I think that would be more what I would be thinking about, and that within the pool we have a set of skill uh diverse set of skills.

Okay, is that similar to what you were?

Yeah, I think so.

I think there's, you know, there's there's different types of knowledge, right?

There's um knowledge over time, there's internal knowledge, but then I feel like there's an opportunity to dig into, hey, what is what are the study, what is the study show on this subject?

What is uh the data show?

And so I feel like there's when we have four one person for every four, there's just not a lot of capacity to be able to do that, and I think they they would if they could.

Um, but I think having somebody specifically um that could add on to maybe what the current policy analysts are are doing in that way.

So maybe like a research person.

Okay, got it, got it.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

I um any other additional questions, comments?

If you got some, we'll I'll give you guys a second chub bite of the apple.

Uh, thank you so much, Ben, for all the work you've done on this, and as Councilman Walker mentioned, taking all our things and and digesting it in a way that we could understand.

Um, I really want to come back to the council, the eight areas that we really developed as council needed that we identified as something that we needed.

And I'm just kind of curious under uh the council needs that we've identified, um, I don't know if our current policy analysts have reached their capacity, right?

Because I I'll I'll I'll continue to go down policy analyst work, I'll continue to do like newsletters and other communications, um, but it's not really their role to tell me oh that well, they they should tell me if okay, I can't do that because of this and pull it off.

And I'm not sure I've necessarily reached that point.

And so I'm kind of curious: is there any other administrative things that can be done to help us get to the needs that we've identified here or additional training to help support the council in uh for their role to um be able to execute on the different needs that we have here also within the current capacity constraints.

I'm not I'm just not clear if we've reached capacity or not.

If we have, then then by all means, okay.

Let's see if we can maybe add maybe there's more capacity needed with an additional staff member.

If not, then is there additional training or administrative work that we can do so we can meet some of these needs before adding additional FTEs?

Um, and so that's kind of a question that I have, and I don't know if you have the answer for that uh currently.

So I think staff are working diligently, throwing themselves into the work, putting in the long hours.

I through the interviews, um, through my experience here at the city, I do think there are some opportunities for some process improvement.

We identified some of those, haven't quite followed up on them yet.

I don't think it will get you entirely to these A areas of need being met, but there is room for process improvement.

Um making it less difficult for those policy analysts who are wearing multiple hats to wear those multiple hats.

There's definitely some improvement that could be done there, um, independent of whoever is holding those roles.

There's uh structural process support that we as a city could be giving to anybody who sits in those roles.

Um but then I do think as you're kind of speaking to it a little bit, there is that mix of different skills, right?

Um, and so no matter what kind of training or process improvement, you don't kind of fundamentally turn somebody from a um a communications person into a different kind of skill set, right?

That's a pretty big lift.

People go to college and train for things and choose professions for a reason.

Uh so there's gonna be limits to how much we can stretch that, but definitely there's opportunities to explore.

One of the thoughts that was coming to mind through some of the comments is really thinking about how you ramp this up over time, because it isn't a one-time budget proposal and never have this conversation again.

It might be that we can afford a certain number in 2027, but by 28 29, 30, we want to be adding different things in to support you and ramp them up.

And so, for example, if you started with policy analysts, yeah, we'll find some that have a lot more communications skills and can start building some groundwork there so that two, four years down the road, we do hire a dedicated communications person.

So, like thinking about what ramp up might look like there could support that as well.

Okay, thank you.

And I think that kind of goes back to um some of the conversation around specialization in certain areas and where where in our current council identified needs, can we like section off that specialization areas in order to accomplish those certain tasks and goals that are needed or have been identified.

Um and obviously, policy analysis and legislative drafting is a critical need area need, and that's why it's at the top of the list here.

And that's something that our current uh folks already do.

Um, but you know, maybe there's an opportunity to have somebody separately that works on communications so that way that kind of lifts that portion of it, and maybe other other some of these duties as a sign could be added to that as well.

But um I'll pause there.

Councilmember Sidalgay.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I was just kind of thinking about it.

I don't want to belabor or delay because there's a lot more to this presentation.

I will say um at this juncture in the presentation and hearing what I've heard.

Uh I lean towards the one B approach, but I am eager to get to the rest of it because I think um uh budget and costs are uh and management are really really large considerations here, and I think those are the next steps.

Yeah, and uh something I did want to also caveat is just because we have more staff doesn't necessarily mean that the city is able to continue is able to do things in a faster way because we do have other staffing constraints in departments, resourcing constraints, and all these other things too.

So even if the council makes a bunch of new policies more, doesn't necessarily translate into always necessarily one-for-one translate into more happening outside of the council.

So just wanted to caveat that.

So if we do couple more policy change, we have to couple that with resourcing to enact that change outside the council body itself.

So just something to consider for the body.

Um go ahead, Ben, let's finish up.

Thank you.

Um so I do have an analogy on that kind of specialization.

The city has a continuous improvement team, they are all essentially the same generalist classification.

But for example, we have one uh CI consultant who's really good at data, right?

And so, yes, we assign consultants to support departments, but then that data person might on the back end provide coaching or support, right?

We have others who are very good at presentations, others who are very good at systems thinking.

And so it isn't that every person needs to hold every skill.

There can be back end coordination to support each other and some of those other other duties.

Every CI consultant's gonna have to do the data really well.

It might be that they're going back and talking to our data expert.

And so that's an opportunity there as well.

But moving forward, like Council Member Sidalga indicated, the next area of consideration is what management looks like in this structure.

So currently, the management of council staff or the mayor and council has a single employee, the city manager, and council staff report to that city manager.

Concept one of how to approach it in the future state is to maintain exactly the existing structure, but add more staff into that.

So the city manager would continue to be the day-to-day manager of council staff with those direct interactions with council of council staff to develop policy and to support your needs there as currently done.

Concept two would be to create some other structure where um there's an additional person reporting to mayor and council.

I will say pretty consistently.

I heard that um while any one of you may be a good manager.

The general idea of elected officials having day-to-day management of staff, there would need to be a professional support there of some sort, right?

Um, because when you run for office, you may not be thinking that you're getting into a management job.

So that's where this concept of a chief of staff comes through.

Did I skip some?

Oh, you're good?

Okay.

Very good.

Um, so here's concept two.

Mayor and council could have direct management authority over your support staff, whether that's through a chief of staff or through individual um direct from council member to specific staff relationships.

That would be concept two.

And so I'll pause there.

Those are really kind of the two concepts.

Continue and build in the same structure with the city manager reporting through, or have some sort of a reporting relationship direct to elected officials, whether that's through a chief of staff or direct one-on-one manager relationships.

Um, so this includes things like hiring, approving time, making sure required training is happening, all that sort of day-to-day, providing feedback, coaching conversations, development, those kind of duties.

Any thoughts on the reporting relationship before I jump forward?

Any thoughts on a reporting relationship?

Council Mr.

Just a clarification in a concept two, like I indicated support for concept one B, where we would have four policy five policy analysts.

Would the chief of staff in concept two here be an additional person, or would one of those policy analysts be the chief of staff?

So all these concepts, independent building blocks, and you can put them together however you choose, not making any statement here.

Um I do see the chief of staff as its own unique kind of role.

It's more talking about that air traffic control and the coordination between policy and analysts.

They could probably step in and do some of that work, but I would see it as a separate classification responsible for managing all the other situations.

I'm asking that question so I can do the masks later.

Um second, the world in which the council has authority over an individual, not the city manager.

Um can you remind me of why that would still be allowed with the charter and our definition of a city manager?

And that one to Chris, our city attorney, Mr.

Marcher.

Let me just rephrase the question.

I think you're asking uh whether under the charters that exist now, the city council would have authority, direct authority over staff that support the council.

Is that the question?

The staff that yeah, because from what I understand, city managers are only employees, so I just want to kind of understand the legality of having a because in this line I see the mayor and council having some authority over the chief of staff, and and the way the charter amendment was phrased, it appears to me the best interpretation is that those staff would be directly reporting to the city council as a body and not to the city manager.

And this is the charter amendment that was passed last year.

That is correct, got it.

Thank you.

And that's just permissive, right?

It doesn't have to be.

Correct.

Great.

Thank you for that clarification.

Councilmember Palmer.

Is there a world where there's a hybrid between concept one and concept two?

Like, say like the hours and pay and stuff is handled through like the city manager, but when we're looking at uh maybe some coaching or that sort of thing, it's handled through mayor council.

Yeah, I think there's definitely flexibility available there.

Um, it's one of those things you don't want to go through in that implementation consideration is really just going through the duties and saying who's responsible for what and what do you want that to look like?

Councilman Hines.

Uh thank you, Councilman Bushnell.

Uh or sorry, Deputy Mayor Bushnell.

I'll get it, I'll get it, I'll get that one straight in a minute.

Um, no, I think this it makes sense to me.

I you know, I reiterate to go back um to my previous point.

I didn't say this, but I'll say it now.

Um, in a perfect world where money was no object, which I know we're gonna get to in a minute, I would say that probably the ideal situation would be a central staff that is subject matter experts and embedded with certain organizations with each with council members having their own staff that do some individual support work.

It's what the city of Spokane has, it's what the city of Seattle has, it's what Pierce County has that really strikes the because I think one of the challenges I've always seen with the generalist nature of our policy assistance is that we all have very different interests and different things we want to see, and like how do you find someone who we do people we have folks that do a wonderful job navigating that right now, but you know, what would a better world look like with that?

I also think that by having central staff that let's say there's a public works person that would be fun would be the one who would kind of help with policy development around public works or infrastructure related issues, could be a good um source of institutional knowledge and support, and also probably direct council members around hey, you know, you want to talk about sidewalks, Councilmember Walker is also.

I mean, I maybe that we'd have to come up with, but like Council Walker's also interested in sidewalks that work on a policy, like you're both doing the same thing.

Maybe you could work together I don't know.

That's I think part of it.

The uh but the structure why if we're gonna run like this I mean I think that I would my assumption would be the chief of staff would probably function similarly to the city manager where they would report directly to the council and they would be evaluated by the council as a body which I think is going to be interesting because we is we are nine different people with nine different sets of expectations and nine different kind of views and we we work really hard to bring that together to evaluate the city manager.

I'm gonna be interested to see how that works with another person and how we kind of kind of come those to bring those together I do though think the chief of staff is absolutely critical as a way to troubleshoot issues around staff and council staff interactions right where I could see I have a policy related to infrastructure that I want to see done.

Councilmember Walker has the same thing someone has to adjudicate that from a staff capacity and say hey look that person can't do both things for both of you we have to figure this out and a chief of staff would be able to kind of help manage time energy and resources in a way that um can help us navigate those things.

So those are just kind of my off the cuff thoughts but I I would be remiss if I didn't say the the staffing model ideally that I would think would be make makes the most sense in lots of other cities have it.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Robot.

Yeah um again my biggest concern about where the city manager doesn't have any um where where there's no I'm worried about the administrative functions because I see um clearly from some of the organizations that Pierce County has that they didn't have oversight the um the executive didn't really have oversight over the director of certain organizations and it is impactful um not to be able to kind of not want to say control but to have some say in what happens and um I was on a board and I'm still on the board and they um they didn't the person had never had a review.

And so I think like this is important that we really think about because the person who's made chief of staff should have some tie to the city manager because maybe that helps them get the next job you know that they like we're looking at you know I want to make sure that we're we're developing people that they feel like they're being treated fairly that there's equity in all of this and um if it's just us who are in charge of somebody I just I'm concerned and I'm just that's a model I think I just have a lot of questions about that because I don't obviously have enough information yet but I can say from what I've seen at Pierce County they're trying to rein in some of these independent organizations where someone doesn't really have any oversight.

So and I think it helps the person and the organization run better.

So I really appreciate what councilmember Hines had to say about when we're both working when we're working on things that might be similar and the overuse of our staff I would I really I think our staff is amazing our policy analysts I do think it's great when you know what's happening with someone else so that maybe you can work on something together rather than it being it feels a little siloed right now.

It would be great if I knew more often how when somebody else was working on something so you could kind of work together with them.

I think we work better together rather than apart.

So thank you.

Great thank you any additional questions comments I do have some thoughts on this as well thank you so much for bringing these two ideas before us um I would consider like a concept to be personally and that would be kind of making it so that the city manager is in charge of the chief of staff I I own for my perspective you know we just because we can does that mean we should uh in terms of managing an additional staff person, and I really would prefer that all personnel matters run through the city manager as they have the big they are supposed to have the big picture understanding of everything that's going on in the city.

Um and so they would know best based on the feedback the city managers receive from the council on both what our needs are, what our priorities are, uh what the strategic objectives of this council and the city are, and then making sure that they are hiring uh staff and individuals that align with those purposes.

And if we are not um clear on those things, or or the city uh city manager's not clear on those things, we let them know it's a part of their evaluation process.

And if we are unhappy with the chief of staff or the staff members that are working for us, they're able to he's able to make or the city manager's able to make the decisions to make the changes in order to fit the needs of the council itself.

And so I um I almost say would say the city manager is the chief of staff uh when it comes to, and I think in i in a lot of ways it currently is.

Um, so I would kind of really just remove that line and have it run through, and if the the city manager deems a chief of staff necessary in order to accomplish the goals of the council, then so be it.

But we have to make sure that the the budget can fit that, the structure and alignment can fit that, but I I still think that all personnel matters, administrative matters should run through the chief of uh excuse me through the city manager, and this chief of staff would be evaluated on how successful they're being in managing that council staff based on our feedback.

Um and so it's kind of does create that feedback loop of accountability, um, and but it makes the chain of command very clear as well.

Um, so that's kind of my thoughts on that uh for consideration if we were to kind of go down that route.

I think that really gets at the heart of the feedback that I heard through the interviews and through discussion, is there can be a real or appearance of tension between if a council member is giving certain direction and the city managers giving other.

How are those type how are those ties broken, right?

How are those decisions getting made?

And so I think um Deputy Mary, you bring up a good point with the chief of staff.

You can have it be a formal reporting relationship to you all, you can have it be through the city manager with then very clear expectations of the city manager about what your interaction with that chief of staff looks like versus the city manager's action.

So I do think you have options here to address kind of that core need of um ensuring that the council has that firm say in how things are being triaged, supported, um, handled by council staff.

Okay.

Well that was a lot.

Moving on to some staffing considerations, and this one slide is a lot, but some of its review.

So looking at one option that you have, like I said, everything so far, concepts, building blocks, their legos, you can put them together any way that you want.

So you could do something like additional policy staff, get that two-to-one ratio, or you could add additional constituent relations support.

It's one that I didn't put on the slides, but it's one to nine right now.

It could be one to four and a half, right?

Um so enhancing existing support, existing classification, doing existing work, just more people to spread it across.

The second option that was kind of buried in the beginning there is you can add new types of support.

You may want particularly dedicated communications staff.

You might want topical experts for committees, which you didn't have anyway.

Um coordination and staff supervision, so that chief of staff role, right?

So you might want to be looking at a new type of support, um, whether that's focusing current classifications in a slightly different way or adding new classifications.

That question around personal management.

Do you grow within the existing structure or does council directly want to manage staff, whether that's through a chief of staff or or directly?

Um, and then we're gonna turn to this fourth one in some detail: timing, scale, and implementation.

So, of course, there's the financial impact.

Several of you mentioned the ability of the organization to keep up.

If you are producing more legislation, can the organization implement it?

But then also just adding some notes about that scaling of operations and developing process, um, throwing a new communications person into the mix without having processes in place might be really difficult for that new communications person.

So thinking about how to kind of ramp up and onboard employees over time.

Okay, so these are rough ranges based off of existing classifications at the city, and so I have to put my note out there for my HR colleagues.

Um there would need to be a process of determining what the appropriate classification is, going out and doing that marking research and tying these to actual classifications and doing that process.

But this gives you a rough idea based on kind of my best match of existing classifications, fully loaded costs.

So it includes things like their benefits, their PTO, doesn't include things like their computer and their chair and things like that.

Um but a chief of staff position would be roughly 180 to 190,000 a year, policy analysts 140 to 155,000 a year, constituent relations analyst, 120 to 140,000, communications analyst, 120 to 140,000, administrative staff, 115 to 120,000.

So when you're thinking about those Legos, that's kind of the per unit cost of each one.

Now these examples are example proposals prepared by staff.

They do not represent actual proposals, they're informational concepts to kind of estimate what these costs look like as you add them up.

So that two policy analysts, whether it's to create the two to one council member ratio or to create that committee expert model, either one would require two analysts, three hundred thousand dollars per year.

And want to reiterate these are per year costs.

We often think in per biennium.

So that alone would be a $300,000 per year increased cost to have those two new FTEs.

If we looked at a completely different package, expanding constituent relations and adding communication support, so that's a total of three FTEs, it would be about 420,000 per year.

So independent, right?

If you wanted to leave the existing dedicated staff and just independently stand up a pool of committee expert FTEs, that would be 600,000 a year, just twice the two above, right?

And so then this last one is kind of a what would it look like all in, and again, this is just staff's representation of what all in might mean.

Um chief of staff, six policy analysts, two administrative support, three communications and four constituent relations, 2.3 million dollars per year, close to five per biennium with that staffing load.

So these again are just concepts, not recommending any of those as the portfolio to put forward that gives you the ballpark of costs.

When talking about timeline for implementation, if you do want to create a new classification, that's about a three-month process.

Um for human resources to do that comparative research, build the class spec, bring it to you for adoption.

Um, about a three-month process.

And then recruiting and hiring takes about three to six months, and then onboarding after that to get them up to speed.

So when you think about you wouldn't want to maybe start with 10 new FTEs on January 1st because you won't be able to even hire them on January 1st, right?

You might want to phase it in over time.

If you were to consider something like bringing on a chief of staff, maybe that's the first position you bring on because you want them involved in hiring and managing and developing the processes for all the other staff.

Or maybe it's a position you bring on next biennium after bolstering the policy analysts, right?

So just thinking about that timing and those considerations.

Really looking at this budget opportunity, the 27-28 biennial budget process.

The proposal window is now, and you'll see actually pretty pretty fast on the next slide there.

Um, those will go before you for consideration this fall, and the funding would be effective in January 2027, unless you propose that it starts later, right?

You can have that start date be any time you wanted.

The next opportunity to bring forward a real adjustment would be that reappropriation process.

We tend not to do a ton of big ads and reappropriation, but the budget is open and there is a process there.

So then the 2028 mid mod that occurs at the end of 2027 would be the next real good window for talking about adding a staff.

So then last slide here, timeline for next steps.

Reminder that the forecast happened earlier this month.

OSAC started this conversation again on June 12th, and here we are on June 30th in the study session, looking to have a proposal to budget by about the middle of July to incorporate into the city manager's proposed budget, run those costs and get it built in.

As a reminder, July 13th through the 24th, the Office of Management and Budget will be meeting with each of you individually.

And so if you had thoughts or considerations on this topic, you could approach it in those conversations as well.

And then that leads into pretty much the budget calendar after that with OMB building the budget book for the city manager to transmit to you in early October for those public workshops to begin in October and adoption in November.

So that ends my prepared comments.

So any questions or feedback on those implementation considerations.

Councilman Walker.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh thank you, Ben.

I think this is so helpful to have this in front of us in terms of costs.

I think we are definitely not uh close to a decision as a group.

I'm wondering my assumption is the real key right now is um the budget by July 14th, and that is a decision on number of staff within, you know, it changes a little depending on which staff.

But it is I I just want to confirm that it is possible for us to put forward a proposal as a group, two, three, four staff to decide on that number to put that into the budget for council staffing and work out the details after that.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh thank you so much uh for the presentation.

I I kind of keep going back to the the needs of the council and the capacity constraints that we currently have, um, obviously with the budget, but then the individual staff members that we currently have, and are there things that we can administratively do and still meet the needs that we have, or is there additions like communications is obviously been a really big uh topic of conversation?

Is it is it necessarily uh a council staffing thing, or is it maybe an additional staff person for MCO?

Um and I know we had talked about at OSAC a little bit.

Um maybe there's an MCO person that's specifically dedicated to council communications, but also within the larger structure of the city.

So I I just try to be creative with the different um potential staffing models there are, not try to pigeon in a specific way, but Councilman Walker.

Um Deputy Mayor, I think you got to it.

I was just gonna say we had this discussion at OSAC, and to me that's a different ask.

Um so that to me is not the direction we want to go.

I think we want to be specific to council staffing wherever we land on scope.

So um, I I part of the reason why I keep bringing it up is because is there gonna be enough work but is what's what's the body of work look like?

Is there gonna be enough body of work for someone council specifically, or can there be additional duties as assigned that could help support other departments that I think you know, small but mighty department that could certainly use extra hands as well.

So just throwing that out there as a concept.

Councilman Rehines.

Uh thank you, uh Deputy Mayor and for letting me uh jump back in here or just jump in for a second.

No, I I appreciate this, and I look forward to working with you all in OSAC and the rest of the council to kind of decide how we do go next.

I think the question for me is um let's be really clear about the one-way door versus two-way doors decisions, but some of these decisions are gonna lock us in and future councils and city managers for the indeterminate future.

You know, once we decide on going one way versus another, that it's really hard to unwind that when we get to that point.

And so I I for me is worth as you all are thinking about kind of what next steps look like.

I would think about what are things that can scale over time that we could add capacity to over time, and what are things that if we make this decision around this staffing model, we're not going any other direction.

We can't, it's gonna be really hard.

It's to come back from that.

Um, when I think about the central staff model to get to Deputy Member Bochnell's point, if we think about council staff that are say subject matter experts in certain areas, public safety, I mean the committees are a good standing, but let's say it's not the committees, right?

Public safety, infrastructure, um, uh public, you know, uh neighborhood community services, their basket of work.

We think a couple of those you could easily set up someone who is part-time in a department and part-time supporting council, or easily.

You could set up some way where they would their basket of work would kind of be 50% supporting counselor on policy development behalf, doing work within the department, um, and then that could grow over time as you want to like roll them out and expand the role into maybe full council, um, or if it wasn't being utilized to roll them back into the department, right?

So there's some flexibility around that.

Um, I could, you know, it's in schools, we have people who teach classes halftime and do library to support, they do other things, right?

And so that's a way we've kind of found ways to create those hybrid rules.

Um, I think that's part of it.

Um, I also just um think that uh it's good to also recognize that um the right now, for the most part, I think we get along pretty well, and since I've been on the council, council members have gotten along very well and been very cordial with each other and worked well together.

I do wonder about a state, a place in the future where we get people who really don't like each other or very, very on very different spectr parts of the spectrum, um, and then them sharing employees or sharing staff, and how do we navigate that?

And so that that is a something we haven't had to navigate just yet here, at least in my time, but I could you know if we you know uh elected somebody from the very far right and the very far left and their policies that was the same person, I would be interested to see how that person would be able to navigate those.

I'm sure our current systems would be able to navigate it, but it gets me more into the idea of a central staff as a kind of a point of entry into policymaking and then support individuals to meet needs of council members, which brings us back to the central staff, individual staff members models.

So those are some of my those are my final thoughts, and I look forward to continuing this conversation.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Walker.

Um, thank you.

My understanding is this is not going back to OSAC.

So I am happy to um take point on gathering information and trying to put something together if that's helpful, unless you know if the mayor is taking lead on this.

But I'm happy to so that we don't leave this meeting with sort of a confusion of who's not first.

Who's on first?

Yeah, I'm I'm not sure if the mayor wants to take the lead on this or not.

Um, certainly a good question, but I appreciate you willing to step up and do that.

Um so I'll take an action item to connect with council member walker and the mayor and see who will be taking point on it and have them coordinate with their colleagues.

That works.

Perfect.

Uh Councilmember Diaz.

Um my question was gonna be who's on first.

So thank you for stepping up, Councilmember Walker.

Um, but I think my other question that maybe Ben answered and I just didn't hear.

If I don't want this, because I don't think we have the money, is there uh there besides just telling that to Councilmember Walker and all of y'all now?

Or what?

Because it's not really a vote, right?

We're not gonna vote.

There's no ordinance associated with this.

There's sort of a 10 census model of us chatting further about the proposals you've brought us.

Um, but just given the fiscal impact of it, which you know, I I have a sense of how much each FTE costs us, so it wasn't a shocking number.

It was not new, not new shopping, just um sticker price shock, right?

You go to buy a couch, you're like, wow, it's an expensive couch.

So it's you know, but until you know, you did you don't see it.

But um I just don't know that in this budget, this is the time where I can support something like this, given that I don't think anything is critically broken right now in the full scope.

I really think you've done good work that we can keep on the shelf for like mid mod, next biennium for whenever it is that we might actually be able to have the revenues to do expansion or do different things, because I think this work is really critical and probably more evergreen than we think it is in terms of carrying it forward of what our our pinch points are and what we're gonna need going forward.

I just don't know that with everything going on economically right now, this is the thing that I can feel like I need to champion given I have my own budget things that I would like to protect, things that I would like to add, and I feel like I'm telling people I don't know if we have 20k.

So I don't know, I definitely don't know that we have two million, so just general thoughts.

Yeah, so clarifying the process a little bit, the only ordinance that will come out of this will be in November when you adopt the full budget, right?

And so the discussion now is what do you want thrown into the mix for the city manager to work with OMB to price out, include next to all the other packages and proposals that will be coming as a proposed budget?

And so definitely an opportunity now to say nothing at all or all in, and then definitely an opportunity as time goes on and you see the proposals that come out of the various departments, the proposals that you all add and say, okay, but now that it's next to all of those things, yes or no or more or less.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh thank you.

And I I would really echo those sentiments, and part of the reason why I keep kind of going back to the council needs that we do have are those needs being met currently.

And I I would agree that I think most of them are doing really, really well.

I think there's certainly areas of improvement, but then, like, is there maybe a reshuffling of current resources to reorganize or restructure what we currently have to maybe kind of fit a little bit more the needs that the council is looking to fill.

And if not, then okay, maybe we consider those other staffing models.

But I I just I'm not wedded to any particular idea.

I just want to see that the needs of the council are being met.

And so if that if there's a way to do it to share staff with certain subject matter experts in the different departments that gets us what we need for subject matter expertise, and we don't have to hire anybody new for that.

That's I think meets the goal and the intent also.

Um and so I just was trying to think of outside the box ways that we can still manage to get the needs met in a way that with existing resources.

Oh, or if we can't quite make that work, then okay, then what does it look like to add in order to fit those needs that aren't being completely met?

So, Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

I I think just to provide some balance of her opinions.

I I'll voice that I I do support having some some sort of new support staff for council.

I do think we have to think what how maybe how can we move folks around.

Um, but as far as like having the position, I feel like it's a necessary position.

We also um we have other resources available to us in the form of possibly interns or you know, taking advantage of the folks we have available out in the community.

Um, and so I feel like there's like I I believe there's a need, but I think we can get creative as to how we feel that need.

All right.

Thank you.

Any final comments?

All right.

Thank you so much, Ben.

Really appreciate all the work, and I know there's additional staff that's been in the background as well, so thank you.

And I I also want to caveat, this is not a reflection on our current policy staff.

I and administrative staff, they're doing a phenomenal job, and I really appreciate all the work that they do.

Um, and I I think I can speak on behalf of the council to Grace on that.

And I can concur in every interview.

Each of you brought it up.

This is I love my staff.

I love my staff.

All right.

Uh, next up, our third agenda item is a council consideration request 2026 Saber Fest PNW sponsorship.

I'd like to call on Council Member Diaz to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, I uh want to thank folks for um entertaining this council contingency request, especially um council members Walker and Scott who have co-sponsored before you you have a council contingency request for sixteen thousand dollars for 2026 Saber Fests Pacific Northwest.

Um, as you'll see in the document, Saver Fest PNW is a free family-friendly annual event in partnership with the local nonprofit Me Central that celebrates civic ethnic or vibrant ethnic culinary and cultural traditions of diverse communities that call the Pacific Northwest home.

It was started by a local chef named Chef Lydia, who actually won a City of Destiny Award this year for her work on this event that has been completely free since its inception.

I want to say three years ago.

I want to say this is our third one.

Um so it actually has grown a lot too in that time.

So this would be the first time that they have um would be getting any any council contingency funds.

Um the festival brings together a rich tapestry of communities to showcase artistry, food, and music that define the region.

It specifically aims to amplify and spotlight local BIPOC chefs, food vendors, artists, and performers, providing visibility and economic opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Um her event particularly really strikes a chord with me as the economic development chair, and she really had a vision for doing an event like this in Helltop because she specifically says that that community needs to have nice things the way that every other community in our city does.

And I think it's really impactful and important that she's partnered with Me Centro to do it in their parking lot and in the adjoining streets nearby.

Um this upcoming 2026 event will occur on Sunday, July 19th.

It's anticipated to have about between 2,000 and 3,000 people.

Um the funding will go towards partial and full scholarships for food vendors.

As folks might know, food vendors have a really hard time setting up, getting to markets, being at events, but then on top of that, they often have to pay a ton out of pocket to for the pleasure of being there and working hard.

So that she works really hard to keep these um fees low for people really matters.

It's gonna support chef-led cooking classes, securing performers and entertainment for folks of all ages, marketing and advertising, staging, and equipment that is required for the performers, things like blockades for the streets, signage, decor, security, um, and all of the things that go with being an also an officially designated city of Tacoma event as she's been designated.

Um I look forward for this resolution to come forward on July 17th.

And for any and everybody who is either at the table or in the community listening who wants to come to the event, it is a really good time.

I got to meet Mawana there last year, so highly highly recommend.

All right, thank you so much.

Any questions for Councilmember Diaz?

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you.

I just want to thank you, Councilmember Diaz for bringing this forward.

I was really touched by um Chef Lydia's speech at the award ceremony and wanted to make sure that this event continued in hope in this bigger and better form, and she's done all the work and growing it.

So I'm just happy we can support it in the little way we can.

And I am I can't wait to attend.

All right.

Uh Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

I uh echo Councilmember Walker's uh sentiments.

I I was super uh touched by Lydia and what she said at the award ceremony.

Um, I would ask, I would hope to have Lydia and maybe some of the vendors that participate maybe come through like EDC after so we can kind of pick their brains as far as like what worked and like how can we support you going forward?

Um I'm guessing maybe some of these vendors, it could be first-timers, and so just seeing what we could do to assist those folks.

Yeah, I am happy to look at doing that for the economic development committee's calendar.

I'll put on there something around.

We actually were talking about this after committee today with Deputy Mayor doing maybe a round table with different folks who put on markets because um this is an event that is structured like a market, there's also regular markets, so I think there's a thought process here that we, without all being in the same room at the same time, are thinking around how hard it is for vendors to get to places, the costs associated, and um, I think it always leads a little bit over into the health department conversation.

But if we can keep it to what the city can do to better support folks in in the event work and the the getting folks out there and how we help spread the word.

I think that's a good round table we could probably do in EDC.

Love that.

Thanks.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Rumbach.

Um, thank you, Deputy Mayor, and I want to thank Council Member Diaz for bringing this forward and really support this.

Um, my only question is, it says it's July 19th.

Do you have the time that it's taking place?

Um, you can get back to me later, but I I know if people are listening, they probably want to know when.

So, I can't ask an article.

Oh, um and you said it's in the Mi Central parking lot, right?

So, okay, that's great.

It's not really question, just a reaffirmation here.

Thank you.

It's from noon to five.

Okay, thank you.

19th.

Super.

Thanks.

All right, thank you, Council Member Diaz, super supportive of this, and thank you for bringing it forward and all the work uh you've been doing with it.

All right.

Uh, any other comments, questions?

Seeing none.

Uh moving on to agenda item four, a letter of support, and this one's mine.

It's for the Wapato Park playground improvements.

I recently received a request for a letter of support for um some park improvements in Wapato, and as you all know, I'm a big fan of our parks and our community.

Um, and uh it was a district five request, but I was like, Wapato Park is an essential uh park for our entire city.

So I thought it might be a good idea to just have everybody sign on.

Um, and so it's a Wapato Park playground improvement project, and there's less access to parks and open spaces in District 5 uh particularly.

And uh one thing we do have, which is uh, like I said, a gem is uh Wapato Park for the entire city.

And if you've been there, you know it's a beautiful park with a great trail around the lake, picnic spaces, and a fantastic dog park, which Thor has uh enjoyed.

Um it also has a playground, which is functional, but not at the level many other playgrounds across the city are.

Uh, I'm an ex I'm excited to see this grant because the park had um if the park had a better playground, it would be even better uh and attract more folks to our city and region uh as well as all across town.

Uh this project will renovate aging play equipment and surfacing within the existing playground and expand the play area boundary, providing enhanced play opportunities and increased recreational value to Wapato Park in Tacoma.

And I'm hoping our entire council can sign on to this grant support letter.

Um that will impact the entire city.

All right.

Um any questions.

Seeing none, uh, thank you so much.

Um we do have uh our fifth agenda item and it's for information only.

Uh we have a citizens initiative measure number 2026-01.

Say homes for all information, which is in your agenda packet here.

Um, and then for council's awareness, we will also have additional two letters being walked on tonight in support of parks Tacoma grant applications for the Titlow Park, North Hidden Beach Bridge Project, and the Peck Community Sports Park Field Lighting Project.

Uh these letters of approval be sent along with the letter I just discussed and brought forward for their grant applications for the Wapato Park Playground Improvements Project.

Uh, so that way can have all requests sent at the same time.

Uh and I do want to open it up to uh Council Member Hines and Scott and see if they would like to speak on either of these letters.

Councilmember Hines.

Yep, thank you, uh Deputy Mayor.

Uh so first of all, thank you to my colleagues for allowing you for we haven't gotten there yet, but hopefully allowing us to walk on the letter in support of the Hidden Beach Road bridge project.

Um, as many of you know, we have an existing pedestrian vehicular bridge down at Titlow that's been closed for a long time and goes over the railroad tracks.

Uh it's one of the North Hidden Beach, which is on that other side of um Titlow, you know, kind of back in the woods, but there's a wonderful little sand beach there that's been cut off from people for a long time.

And the goal is that with a rebuilding of the bridge, we'll be able to increase more access to that part of the park.

The bridge was originally built in 1939 and it's way past its existing life, and the grant that Parks Tacoma was applying for will help construct a new steel frame bridge, install safety barriers and fencing, and much more.

Um, you know, I in my time I've been on the city council.

I've heard a lot from residents of District 1, but also kind of um citywide because Titlow is a regional park, people wanting more access to that part of the park without having to kind of climb through the woods to get there.

I also have heard a lot about um people using that part of the park um after hours and in ways that um you know most people wouldn't like so uh I think this bridge project would actually not while it will increase access, will increase access in a positive way and get more people down there, activate the space and make it less of an issue for the neighbors.

So with that, I hopefully you all will consider sign on this letter with me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines, Councilmember Scott.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh and just briefly, the letter that I'm gonna be bringing on is to support um the Peck Community Sports uh park with uh field lighting project, and so it'll be installing new energy efficient LEDs, um, which will add to the playable hours at the field, as well as which will help increase community access and improve safety and it'll also create the uh the facility's ability to be used year-round, so it'll help address the shortage of quality wallet fills in Tacoma for all season recreation.

So I'm excited for that, and I'm hopeful that you all sign on as well.

Thank you.

Councilmember Diaz.

Thank you.

Um no one asked, but I'm gonna share that um these three letters are all addressed to the recreation and conservation office because they're for three distinct, well, four, um, because the Titlow Park is applying for two different programs, um, distinct grant programs that the RCO runs.

Um I know this from my outside of council prior work on the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, which was a I was the former board chair.

Um we were the coalition that supported the WWRP, which is a government program to provide capital funds to parks and um sit particularly city and local governments and nonprofits to update their parks, their infrastructure and facilities for youth.

Um and they're all very competitive programs.

So I just wanted to highlight how cool it is how excited I am that parks and Tacoma and everyone is working together to apply for all of these distinct programs.

So we're not in competition of each other signing on to the three letters, and it is a really good opportunity that we're um going for these funds, and I hope that we get them.

Great.

Yeah, thank you for that background.

I was just about to say, Yeah, no, I I I agree with you.

I think this is a really great demonstration of the partnership uh we have with our partners like parks.

Um, and then also I think it just shows the commitment that this council has to support um these kind of projects all across the city.

Um, and we're not competing against each other.

We we're trying to make it successful uh for all of us.

So thank you for that, uh, Councilmember Diaz.

Um any additional questions or comments on that?

Uh other items of interest or anything to share.

Uh Councilmember Hines, yeah.

Uh I'm gonna take this opportunity for I am interesting to share that uh I just came back from Spokane for the AWC uh annual conference.

I was joined by I you didn't complete you didn't complete the uh scavenger hunt.

Oh, scavenger hunt.

So uh yes.

Uh so I just came back from the uh Association of Washington City's annual conference.

Councilmember Rumbaugh, Councilmember Palmer, and Council Salga are with me last week.

That's why you didn't see many of us at the study session or council meeting.

Uh great opportunity.

Um I just want to take a minute to share some of the highlights because I think one of the things we've been trying to do a better job of is when council members travel or aren't here to share what we were up to and what we were doing.

So the Association of Washington Cities is uh organization that represents all 281 cities in the state of Washington, both doing education for elected officials and also advocating on our behalf.

I serve as the council members um board member on the association of Washington Cities, and so I go every year and it's been very exciting.

Um this year I was actually happy to sit on a panel and talk about housing and how we take housing from um kind of planning documents into um how we actually get it built here and shared a lot of our successes for Home and Tacoma.

So that was very exciting, along with talking to electeds all across the state about issues that are going on.

My comments uh earlier about the polling results about kind of where the city is was uh definitely reflected upon those conversations I've had, which is a lot of cities across the state are facing the same issues.

So while we're facing a budget challenge, almost every city in the state of Washington is facing a similar budget challenge, it's not Tacoma alone.

While we've faced challenges with public safety, homelessness, cleaning our streets, it's an issue that I heard from every um from almost every city, whether they were the small town of Starbuck, which is actually a town in eastern Washington, or the large city uh to the north that shall remain unnamed.

Um, lots of the same issues.

So I don't know if one of my colleagues came on the trip wants to share any of their reflections, but I just thought I'd make sure I explain that.

Yeah, thank you for sharing.

Councilmember Sidalgay.

Oh, I think Councilmember, it's okay, it's okay, Deputy Mayor.

Um I just wanted to say uh going to the Association of Washington Cities is really helpful.

Um, one of the things I did was go to a meeting where um we met with all the all the different people who serve on committees and boards of the association of Washington Cities and talked about some of our struggles and challenges, and then some successes that we've had.

Um I'm on the Shoreline Hearings Board and also on the pipeline committee, and so it was really great to meet with other people who are serving on the Shoreline Hearing Board.

Um I don't know, maybe people don't know this, but if you actually have the shoreline um issue in your district or your area, they won't let you serve on it.

So then they have to have people from other parts of the state that serve on it, so there's other council members that serve.

Um I wanted to also say um I know we've been having an issue with the quiet zone, um, with the Wayside Horn in Old Town.

Lots of cities have issues with BNSF, and it's not just us, and so that was actually um in some way refreshing to know it's not just a Tacoma thing, it's happening all over our state.

Little cities are really struggling with that because they are changing their rules on you at the last minute.

So I just want to say in public that um it was great to meet with other city council members and talk to them and other mayors about what they're doing and thinking maybe we should be all getting together and talking about BNSF rather than separately.

So just an idea.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sadolia.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor.

This was my first uh association Washington City conference.

I'd heard about it in the past.

I was so happy I was able to attend.

Um I'm I currently sit on the legislative priorities committee on the association of Washington City, where we come up with uh our policy positions as a large organizations to take to Olympia every year.

It was refreshing to be in a room uh with with local representatives all over our state, um, all over geographies, and that we had very similar uh issues and concerns, um, and to be able to talk to uh several state legislators.

Um so that portion was amazing.

I also learned that this one, um, this had the highest total attendee.

Um I think it was 30% more, over 400 individuals that uh from all over the state uh showed up uh this year, and we have an opportunity to beat that next year because we are hosting.

We are hosting.

I cannot believe you forgot that.

Mr.

Board member.

Thank you.

Uh we are hosting next year here in Tacoma, and we will have uh individuals from all over Washington here.

I am um really glad that uh deputy city manager uh Allison Griffith and um uh director of uh Tacoma venue and events uh Adam Cook were there to kind of look at what um is involved in the conference, had lots of ideas on what we can do to showcase our city to um cities of all sizes uh and and how we do things here.

Um, I I just want to reiterate how uh amazing it was.

Also really uh love the fact that I drove over there and it was a beautiful set of days, and Washington is just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful state.

And it was wonderful to um kind of experience all that for a few days.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, um, I am so glad that I went.

I was gonna I wasn't going to go, but I was encouraged by some other council members in y'all in other cities and such in order to to go and check it out.

And as a new council member, it was just the the information I needed right now, and so it was uh helpful for me to understand kind of like like my other council like y'all have been saying, what um other cities are facing a lot of the same challenges, um, but also that you know there's some things that everybody does differently, and so there's things we can all learn from each other.

Um it was very interesting to hear from some of the the smaller cities out there and how they're they're getting by, and we you realize how fortunate you are to have at least the staff that you have and the help that you have, and so um it was real eye-opening to me to see what all of the possibilities and and how all the different cities function.

Great, thank you.

I'm glad you guys had a great time.

I wish I could have been there too, but then we wouldn't have been able to have a council meeting.

Um thank you for sharing that.

Uh any additional committee reports.

Uh seeing none, I will call on item number six with the general review with the city manager's weekly report.

Uh Deputy City Manager Allison Grove.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh Deputy Mayor and Council for your awareness this evening.

We do have one ceremonial.

We are proclaiming Tuesday, June 30th, 2026, as honorary pet mayor Sambuka and Deputy Mayor Kai Day.

So we will have some friends in the chambers with us this evening.

So uh real party animals, I hear.

Anyway, okay, I'm done with the jokes.

Yeah, okay, all right.

Uh, there is one modification to tonight's agenda.

That's the additional letters of support for Park Stocoma grant requests that you've heard about this afternoon.

There's one opportunity for public comment this evening, that's under regular public comment regarding motions, resolutions, and ordinances on tonight's agenda.

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

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

Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor.

All right.

Next up, we have our executive set session for potential litigation.

It's been moved and seconded.

All those in favor to convene in executive session, please significant saying aye.

Any opposed, the motion is declared passed.

And just for a heads up, we will not be uh doing any additional uh things after uh executive session, except to adjourn.

Thank you.

La foto, la información.

I'd like to call back to order the City Council meeting, excuse me, City Council study session to adjourn.

Thank you.

Have a great day.