The Yakima City Council met on December 9, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers. The meeting included public comments, recognition of outgoing council members, administration of oaths, council reports, a consent agenda, department presentations, and significant actions on utility taxes and the Yakima Valley Trolley operating agreement.
The meeting adjourned at 8:53 p.m. with the next regular meeting scheduled for January 6, 2026, at 5:30 p.m.
Good evening and welcome. I will call the Yakima City Council business meeting of December the ninth, twenty twenty-five to order. We'll start with the roll call, please. Here. Brown. Here. Present DCO. Here. Glenn. Here. Herrena? Here. Roy. Here. Thank you. Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Again. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Then we'll have interpreter services. Language connection. Uh the alien necessity, are you an interpreter? And I'm going to see stem. Ratha, thank you. All right. Next on the agenda is public comment. There would be 35 minutes alighted for public comment with two and a half minutes per speaker in order to allow as much opportunity as possible for audience participation. Written comments and email messages are strongly encouraged that you can send them to all council. When you come to the podium, please identify yourself in the city in which you look. Tonight we will start with Forbes Mercy, Adam Tobin, Tobia, Toby, I'm sorry. Yeah. And Ken Mulkinson are a director of parks and recreation. Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council. I always love bringing you great news. And certainly this holiday time of year. So many things to be grateful for, and uh always grateful for gifts. So it in your packets under consent, we have a resolution for the acceptance of a donation of a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars from Mr. Forbes Mercy for the installation purchase of an outdoor calisthetics gym. Uh the Chester Lee Park, and then some other items as well. I'm going to invite Forbes to come up and let him talk about it, and also Adam Tobia, and let them share with you the great things, but I just want to say so much gratefulness and thanks to Forbes and for Adam for for all the things that you have done for this community and continue to do. So Forbes, if you'll join me, and Adam, too. I'll stay right here. But so yeah, come on, it's had a tough uh year, a three million dollar cutback followed by the levy failure with six, missing by only three hundred and sixty-four votes. In my view, that happened because the public didn't fully understand how deeply the loss would affect them. The city's limited to one percent revenue growth while facing wage increases of three to seven percent. Eventually those lines collide, and we're seeing that now. I believe the levy should be run again, personally, now that residents clearly understand the consequences. While we wait, we're facing cuts that uh hit the core of Yakima's quality of life, especially in parks and recreation. Even if funding is restored later, many programs won't return for years. So I've asked the community to join me in stepping up with tag um donations to support the programs they care about. My contribution today is part of that effort.