The Yakima City Council convened on March 4, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. for a regular meeting that included public comment, discussion of a resolution expressing concerns about the Yakima County Homeless Coalition, adoption of the consent agenda, a policy change for proclamations, and a city manager update on budget challenges and a new assistant city manager.
Good evening and welcome. I am going to reconvene the Yakima City Council of Regular Meeting for March fourth, twenty twenty-five. We'll have a roll call again, please. Brown. Here. Byers present. DCO. Here. Glenn. Here. Herrera. Here. Roy. Here. Berg. Thank you. Please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. Again. And to be the Republic for which it stands one nation under God. Next, we'll have interpreter services. Yes, good evening. Uh see I'll necessitate the young interpreter, then I'm saying so you keep on a user. Thank you. Next on the agenda is public comment. There will be thirty-five minutes allotted for public comment with two and a half minutes per speaker in order to allow as much opportunity as possible for audience participation. Written communication and email messages are strongly encouraged. When you come up to the podium, please give us your name and uh the uh uh where you live city or county. Thank you. So Bruce is going to be um Commissioner Calicurtis. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council Member Staff, Kyle Curtis, your Yakima County Commissioner. Tonight my comments are directed towards the resolution expressing concerns on the performance of our Yakima County homeless coalition. I've been part of this group for the past year and a half as your commissioner, and I can tell you that this group consists of some of the most dedicated professional and commute committed community members who all strive with the common goal uh to make homelessness in Yakima County as brief and rare as possible. If this was an easy task, we wouldn't be here tonight. Just like many of you, due to this frustration is why I have spent countless hours meeting touring and asking questions, tough questions of every program and service provider in our homeless response system. Spending countless hours with law enforcement, business leaders, first responders, and community members to do my best to be as educated as possible on the complexities of the system. The county's human services department has some of the most dedicated and professional public servants I know who understand the objectives of your commissioners and and who have made great strides in the way that we track data, manage our contracts, and ensure that we are fiscally responsible in our county. We do not need a different entity to run the day-to-day administration of contracts and funds, but rather I agree with the resolution that we need to think seriously about empowering a strategic project coordinator, a project coordinator that has no ties to government, and one that is centered around delivering our defined outcomes in a specific amount of time. Someone who frankly isn't afraid of putting themselves out of a job. I ask that as community leaders, we use our frustration to help bring tangible solutions to the table, and that we continue to work together as we always have. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. The next next is Scott Stevens. I'm Scott Stevens, City Weller. And I'm here to voice my support of the no competence vote, considering the coalition uh the homeless coalition group. And I support your decision for a no confidence vote. And basically, I'm keeping it brief. So thank you for your time and effort. Thank you, Mr. Stevens.