City Council - Regular Meeting

get counter on that. All right, the time is 6 PM and uh let's go ahead and start with the uh study session. Markers, I believe you're up.

It is me. Give me a second. I'll pull up my presentation. Okay. Uh, tonight we're going to talk about Northwest Fifth Street. Um, I'll go through first connecting Washington and talk about the history of that and then specifically talk about Northwest Fifth Street. Um, I'll talk about kind of our standard for that typical type of road. Um, the various designs that we went through. Um, some additional info just to have for consideration. Um, then questions I have for council and then we can have uh questions and discussion and obviously feel free to interrupt me during the presentation. Um, so connecting Washington, it was uh passed by the state legislature. It was a funding package back in 2015. Um, they essentially implemented that in 2016 and the city received $7.7 million from that uh specifically to reduce congestion on 503502. Um, there were several projects to essentially accomplish that goal. Uh, the first was the fifth way extension. And so that was the road that was behind Fred Meyers u to connect to 503 and that was packaged with the 12th Avenue and main signal removal. So if you remember back in the day there used to be a signal out coming out of Fred Meyers um which has since been removed. Uh there were improvements at 8th Avenue and Main Street. Uh there were the first street improvements. That's the road um near Fred Meyers that goes from 15th to 12th. Uh we had the actual intersection of 503502 uh 15th Avenue and Main Street intersection improvements uh Northwest Fifth Street which we're talking about today. And then at one time there was uh

the first way extension that's the road behind the uh hotel. Um that project was abandoned pretty early on in the process. Um so just a quick status of the various projects. The first five um have been completed. Uh Main Street and 15th Avenue, we finally received approval from Wash DOT. Uh still working on purchasing the part or the little bit of property we need on the southwest corner of the intersection. So, we're anticipating to construct that in summer of 2026. And then Northwest Fifth Streets under design. Um kind of just a summary of the dollars we've spent so far. Uh the fifth way extension which included the signal removal that was about 1.6 million. Um 8th Avenue and Main Street was 150,000. Northwest First Street was about 700,000. 503502 was 1.65 million. We also spent uh 4.1 million in federal funds on that project. And then 15th and Main Street about a million is the estimate with design and right away and everything kind of um put in. So um if you add those all up it's about $5.1 million. Um so specifically u moving on to Fifth Street. So our standard is a um essentially the transportation system plan called for a neighborhood collector. Uh, so if you were to build the one out of our plan, it would be a 50-ft rideway, 32 feet curb to curb and then 5t sidewalks on both sides with the planter strip in between the curb and the sidewalk. Um, so we worked on a first design. Um, talked to some school district staff and you can kind of see it here. This is the kind of large blown out view. Um, in that first design, like I said, in discussions with, uh, some Battleground

School District staff, uh, we came up with a revised section. Uh, so kind of in front of CAM school, we had an 8-oot sidewalk on the school side. Uh, there was a CMU wall along the CAM campus and then there was removal of the sidewalk on the north side. And then in the ball field section, we had the same foot sidewalk. Um, they requested a guard rail um, at the curb. And then again the similar removal of sidewalk on the north side and that was essentially to limit the impact to the fields as much as possible. Um other items we talked about or other items that were on that design. Uh there was a driveway to the Lewisville campus. You can kind of see it there to the left. Uh there's a path that comes down from the schools to the north. So, we put it a protected crossing um where that path is and essentially it has the rapid rectangular flashing beacons. Um we showed a future conceptual parking lot for the school district. This wasn't anything that was um that would get built with the project. It was just kind of a concept to show that in the future if they needed parking, it could work with the uh storm pond that we needed and then um with the road improvements. And then we showed a space for cities 12. As you know, we're replacing walls one and two or we have a project to replace one and two. Uh, one of the sites we're looking at is up here near the the school. Um, so we came up with a second design. So that first design we took to the school board um did a presentation to them and so after that we added a couple things uh near CAM. Uh we added a drop off lane. It sounded like there were some issues with parents trying to drop off kids for CAM and not wanting to go through the fifth and main intersection. Um, so they'd be up near the other schools, that sort of thing. So, we provided a lane to possibly help with

that situation. And then we came up with an alternate uh bus exit. So, in talking with the school district, the way the buses have to come in to make sure that when the kids are getting on the buses, they don't have to cross a a drive aisle. they're turned essentially facing east and so giving them a a path to get up and actually able to to use the no uh new road there. Um and then uh we looked at a fully alternate design to that. Um you know the school district had concerns with going across the main part of the campus and so we came up with an option that used 7th Street. So you had the two ends still coming off 503 uh and Parkway but essentially going up kind of circuitously uh using seventh. And so that's that design there. Um so now I'm going to get into some just additional info to kind of keep in mind as we have our discussion. So um it's anticipated that about 2,650 vehicles will use the street um at the buildout 2044. um a roundabout is recommended in the future to create a full movement access at 503 and Fifth Street and obviously that will make that um street more usable when you can actually make both left and right out of there. And so that was the recommendation for that. Um things to remember about the right of way. So um in the orange here on the screen which is kind of your middle section that is something the city would have to purchase. Um on the right hand side uh the green area we purchased that property quite a while ago. So something we already own. And then the yellow as part of the CAM development that the school district did uh they were required to dedicate the rightway from CAM over to uh 503. So that's actually a requirement of their um the project that

they did. Uh then just a little bit of info from the school district. So, we did present to the board on February 10th. Um, I got the feeling that the board generally didn't appear to support the project. That's my opinion of the conversation. I'm not putting those words in anyone else's mouth but mine. Um, and then just a note that um that board has changed over since the election. So, um there are a few new members on it since that presentation. Uh other relevant information. So, WashDot has approved the write-in write out on 503 for the non-alternate options. WashDOT won't approve the write-in writeout on 503 for that alternate design that I showed you. Um, city traffic consultant confirms there is no city benefit to the alternate design. Um, if the project doesn't move forward, wash will not require payback of the funds already spent, but we we would need to justify why the project won't move forward with them. Um, and then there's likely a funding gap of several million dollars. We'll know more after the next to last project goes to bid. And you know, because we have so many different designs for fifth, it's kind of hard to give an estimate at this point. So when we have a more final design, we'll know what the actual fifth street project costs so we can create that cost estimate. So my questions for you is, does council want to continue moving forward with this project? If so, how would we like to move forward with the school district? and then I'm happy to answer questions and help with the discussion.

Mark, on the roundabouts, I understand future usees On Bonsorf is a candidate for a roundabout and if there was a roundabout there, does that affect uh will the state with that many traffic inhibitors, for a lack of better term, will that change the speed limit going north and south? Yeah, we had a discussion with the state last year um and their big um we essentially adopted a 40 mile per hour speed limit on 503. The state hasn't implemented that yet, so it's still at the 55 it is now, but what they had said is as these roundabouts start coming in, they'll create the engineering piece of the the puzzle to essentially slow it down. So, yeah, I would expect that you would see 40 out there um when you add the roundabouts in.

Okay. I have another bill. Wait, my Do you want to go ahead? Yeah, I have I have three. So, go ahead. So, the the next question I have is the section from main to Onsdorf. It's currently a single lane each direction. Yes. Proper planning would suggest that we should be going two lanes each direction in the future. What kind of cost would we save if Fifth were to hold off until eventually that road was widened? And and I guess this is a two-part question because we're adding a roundabout.

That's if this goes through and we add a roundabout, that would be a complete rebuild of the roundabout. Plus, there would be some property modification to our if we built that to the fifth intersection there. So yeah, so to be clear, the the roundabout, the state's not requiring the roundabout as part of this first phase. So we could build fifth, have the ride in, write out, essentially meet the grant requirements, and be okay with the state if the roundabout comes in. Yes, there's kind of a something that we should figure out when during the design is our transportation plan calls for like you said 503 to be essentially two lanes in each direction out there. Would you how would you design the roundabout and essentially to not have to throw away a bunch of stuff if that became uh two lanes after the roundabout came in or does it happen as all one project and then obviously you have larger costs for that? But um most of what we would do on fifth would be universal with the to the roundabout. you wouldn't have to throw away a ton on that project in order to to do the roundabout in the future. I don't know if that answered your question.

It does. Is it is it on the state's radar to widen that road anytime soon?

No. So, like I said, it's in our transportation plan, which is up to the next 20 years. The last I checked with the state, it is not in their 20-year transportation plan or their version of transportation plan. Thank you Mark for the good information. Um couple question three questions actually. The first one is on uh I don't know what number your slide was but you say the on the additional um information of the traffic study. It was anticipated 2650 vehicles per day will use the street at the 20 44 horizon period. So which street are you talking about? Just fifth that fell.

Yeah. If you like put traffic counters right in the middle of fifth, that would be the daily count. You would What's our What's our count like today? What's a normal count today? So, obviously fifth doesn't exist. So, there there wouldn't be anything now, but So, it would stay just you'd be just figuring traffic counts on Parkway and five. Yeah. Essentially, what would happen is Fifth would probably pull from Onsdorf and from Main Street. So those essentially those two roads would lose 2,650 trips. Got it. And in the um original slide where you talk about the in the original intent of the grants

um was to reduce traffic at 502 and 503. So actually you know we're 10 years into into this. Do we have a percentage of how much we have reduced or have we not reduced because of continued population growth or what's the data on that now? Yeah. So the to be clear the reduction was congestion and so okay

there's a couple ways to do that. One is to physically pull trips from from the intersection. And that was kind of the concept behind Fifth Street is if you could get the traffic, especially traffic going to the school, some of that traffic, especially the people going north off in the, you know, afternoon time period, that would pull some of it, which would make it better. The 503502 project in itself made the intersection bigger, so it's able to function better. So I know for a fact just one from driving it every day and two from seeing the data that 503502 is actually functioning really well.

Um you know I think the biggest bang for our buck was just the intersection improvements in themselves. So this improvement while it will help is going to be a fairly small increment of the of the overall improvement to the intersection. So for all intents and purposes we have met the intent of the grant. Um yeah I mean if you to me nothing in the grant said you must reduce it by 14%. You know there's no number it would just you reducing congestion at 503502. I think that's been fairly successfully done.

So there's no negatives to the city by not moving forward with this. I think there's other things I and not to quote Shane, but you know he's mentioned a few things that you know are project specific but more like from the political side of things that I think you could argue. Um but from a pure did we reduce congestion at 503502? Yes, I believe we've met that goal. Thank you. Our total grant was 7.5 million.

7.7 7.7 we spent 4.1 uh 5.1 well 51 when the 15th will be done. So we still have 2.6 left

approximately. Yes. So, here's the issue that I have is number one, this was part of selling the project. And so, um, and and I'll throw a number out to you so that council knows this and and why this is important. So when we sat on the corner of 502503 with the majority coalition, which was the Republicans and a few Democrats that crossed over in the Senate and the Democrat House leadership for transportation when they came down and met us out here, we had a construction company in town that was talking about what happens at 3:00. Okay? And I don't even think it's 3:00. I happened to be at um McDonald's the other day at 11:30 and saw the rush that is going across the street, you know, whether it's crossing the street, crosswalks, that is stopping traffic. And so, let me just throw a number out there for you so you can realize in real money what it costs. They have 800 plus employees. If 800 employees spend 15 minutes a day in traffic and their billable hours are $100 an hour, that's $20,000 a day they're losing. So when you have places like Dicks Tire that trucks were talking about going into and fueling up and they don't go there past 2:00 getting in and out of the post office at that time of day is is a nightmare. Many times my wife will say, "Hey, we need to go check the mail." And I'll be like, "Not at 2:30. or not, you know, I'll check it at 7 tonight because you don't

want to be anywhere near that that downtown area when school lets out or even in the morning when when it when it happens when they when they go to school.

So, the problem is is we sold this to the state and I understand the state says, "Okay, you know, we want to know why you didn't do this." Okay, but we were on the first six years. By the way, this was supposed to be completed in 2022. It was a six-year project. There was three bianiums that that was supposed to happen in. Okay. COVID happened, bunch of other stuff. We're in 2026 and we're still not done. So, all of the other all of the other jurisdictions that were fighting for that pot of money and we got put in the first years, okay, there was a lot of them that got put on the back end and may never see that money because it's inflation and everything else has just killed it. And so, they didn't get the opportunity to see that. And so my issue with it is is this is we need to get traffic off of Main Street. It's not going to get any less busy. We we put a band-aid on it right now. We did if if we had our way, we would have never started with Northwest 12th or West 12th and Northwest Fifth. And in fact, when we did that, Northwest Fifth was supposed to have a merge lane all the way to 503 or 502. And we pulled that out of it and said, "Oh, we don't need to do that." And we only went halfway with it. And so, you can't even come out of there and just merge into traffic and go. And so, we're seeing that it's getting busier and busier going north. We're seeing that there's more and more traffic in the downtown area. Um, and we can say right now, oh, we've eased congestion, but we're we're we're 10 years in to a six-year program or six-year project and we haven't completed it. So, by the time this is completed and we wait out another four or five or six years, we don't know what that's going to be like and we just kicked it down the c we

kicked the can down the road to the next council to sit here. I understand where the school boards are coming from because they they don't know they haven't been a part of this, right? And and it's been back and forth um quite a bit. Um I know when we first looked at this, the the original road going north and south was going to go by the auto shop and connect at Fifth because they took out the there was a house that used to sit to the north of the auto shop there that the school district had bought and and so that was going to be the connection there. Um the challenge is is the school district and and I mean I would too. I wouldn't wait around uh built CAM right in the middle of this project. They built um their new ad or um I don't know it's not admin offices, the new offices warehouse over over on the the east side of the property. Um, so they they've done some stuff that that has made it maybe more difficult to determine where or or kind of put us in a box a little bit more of where we can put a road, but at the end of the day, you know, we we can do whatever we can make the decision that we want to make. Um, the school district never supported this from day one. Um, and to be honest with you, I think they wanted us to emit a domain because it it makes them not have to make the hard decision, which is um, putting a road through because that neighborhood was very vocal. Mr. months and you were here. I think during some of that that neighborhood to the to the north there was very vocal in how it was going to increase crime and you know traffic and all the stuff into their neighborhoods and and um that it wasn't going to reduce traffic and so the the political capital was spent quite a quite a while ago on this. Um the roundabout makes sense. the roundabout makes a lot of sense because then we can access that from multiple directions and people can go multiple

directions and it would open up the northwest fifth on the the Fred Meyer side to get more traffic off of Maine. And so um I think we still need to move forward. um you know, council will do what it what it wants to, but but I think when you burn political capital um and you get awarded these grants and you don't follow through with these grants, they may say, "We're not going to punish you and make you pay us back." But guess who's going to be at the bottom of the the line next time uh when you're fighting for this stuff because we didn't do what we said we were going to do. Um and that's my only concern with it. And and you know, we we're not tearing out ball fields. I appreciate the fact that you guys have come back with because that was the big thing. Most council doesn't know this. Uh this room was full of people that were told misinformation about, you know, we're tearing out fields, we're tearing out all this stuff. They don't the kids aren't going to have a place to play. Um they reached out to every sports organization there was to to tell them we were ripping out all these fields. Um Cam ripped out fields. That that was soccer fields and and those are gone. So So that wasn't us. um we're not tearing out any fields and and I appreciate the fact that you guys went back and and tweaked that a little bit to make sure that we could we could make it fit. But I think we should continue to move forward with the project. I think we need to figure out how to fund the roundabout. Um whether that's through us and not wait for the state. There will be roundabouts all the way up this there will be one at Rasmmanson. Um the state wanted a roundabout at 502503 uh when we when we originally did this project. They wanted a roundabout there. Uh there'll be a roundabout at Fifth, there'll be a roundabout at Onsdorf and it'll look like Ridgefield and and uh that's that's what they want. But it would work better there with a roundabout for sure. But I think uh I think we should move forward as long as we're connecting in so those buses can get to the north there to the other

schools of uh can captain and chief. I think that we should move forward. If we just make a road that goes across there with no connectors, we're making a road to nowhere. So, um, we need to have a connector there either at fifth and go around the auto shop and in that direction or, um, is that second that you had, uh, going up by the new, um, warehouse. Yeah.

So, I think that we we need to push forward to that. It's not a safety issue. If it was a safety issue, I've said this all along, if it's a safety issue, the school district have a lot more crossing guards up onto. They have one set, one set for all the walkers that come north of Onsorf. So there's a lot of crossings there. I think there's five crossings there that you can cross and only one set of crossing guards. So this is on a major road. This is not. So we can we can mitigate the safety side of it, I think. But appreciate the the uh the work that we've done and I think we need to move forward. Thank you. All right, hearing no one else yet. I'll chime in. Um, thank you, Mark, for the presentation and the diligence of giving us the history of this uh 10-year plan of building this this little road. I've got to agree with Shane um just seeing the bus route as it is currently. And can you do you have a map of the overlay as it would be projected currently with cam there?

Um yeah, if you almost looks like parking lot, but those gray kind of just east of Lewisville are the actual CAM buildings.

Okay. um the amount of buses that have to come out of the school, go down Parkway, take a ride on first, come across city hall, go back out at McDonald's and turn left just adds to the congestion um at Fifth on the south end, I believe, of Maine. Not to mention the amount of students that live north of the school could utilize this and just come out and skip on storef altogether and try to take some of the pressure off. And I also agree that roundabout would almost be a mustave just to help alleviate the northbound pressure coming out of Fred Meyer that have to come back down over back to 503 502 and take a left and and and do that. So, as far as like finalizing the plan to relieve congestion, I think this does play a large part in that. Um, I know it's uh not exactly a favorable decision by all people, but I also agree that the, you know, auxiliary lanes, I don't know if we want to go routing traffic right through a neighborhood, but I think even just having one of those outlets to to get people right into their own neighborhood if they live there, I don't necessarily see it as a public safety risk either. um only because of the proximity to the school. There's plenty of kids walking across Main Street right now. There's plenty of kids that walk across 503 right now. Um and plenty of kids I've seen walking up Parkway. So, this might even open up that outlet to utilize the existing path that's over there on 503. So, yeah, I for all intents and purposes, I'm in favor of this project. uh moving forward uh with the roundabout

um just to allow that northbound and southbound opportunity coming out of there and out of Fred Meyer um or behind Fred Meyer um on Northwest Fit. So, but thank you um for that. Am I allowed another question? Absolutely. Okay. Um, Mark, when was the the alternative design design, the third design? I think you said that that was presented. When was that one presented? The second design was discussed in February 25.

Yeah. So, this first design is what we took to the school board. Um, we made these couple changes here. Yeah. And all we've had is just internal conversations with a couple staff members and I think maybe a board member or two at the time. Um, this alternate design, I think all we've kind of shown this to is is wash to kind of get their gut reaction to it. I don't know that anyone's seen that from like a school district perspective. Um, and that was that was late last year that we came up with this one.

Well, I agree with Shane and um, Mayor Overhoser that, you know, there's we have not just the political ramifications. Obviously, that doesn't make the final decision, but we also have um definite need for that roundabout. Um, we have need to tie this all in. um so that it's addresses needs not just from us but also you know how does it impact the school board or the school district and so I think that having a conversation with them will be an important part of moving forward and I think more discussion is needed whether we actually move forward with the whole project at the end will be another discussion because we'll have a final um sign that we'll have to approve. Correct. And final funding. Is that correct?

Um there's not typically a design approval from council. Okay. Um not to say that there isn't more discussion about kind of where we end up. Mhm. But yeah, the funding would definitely go through council because if we include the roundabout, we have to have a a larger discussion about how that happens.

Yeah. just seems like we've had, you know, sounds like the last conversations were really a year ago. So, seems like another conversation is important before we make a final direction on it. That's my thoughts. Yeah, I appreciate that. um waiting. I do have some questions myself and some conversations I would like to have with the school board and I'd like to wrap my head around the bus routes to be clear with that as well. I just want to make sure that we're making the best decision moving forward in regards to congestion. So definitely talking to Dicks as well, hearing their concerns are, what their complaints are. um and seeing if this is something that really is going to be addressing their their concerns as well as the school board. Um I know that I've I've been to their meetings as well and yeah, I've heard that too that they haven't been they haven't been supportive of this as well either. So, I'm just kind of curious to know about what exactly those plans would look like and maybe having those open conversations and dialogue with them, having us them at the seat of the table just to look like we're to show that we're working with our school, you know, we're supporting our schools. And um I do know that I know one of the concerns at the time of the schoolboard meetings were the safety issue and you had students there, student voice and um that was there and they were speaking about their concerns with kids crossing the roads. Um and I thought that maybe that would be addressed through crossing guards, but

then we had this issue with the the levies. they haven't been passed. So, we don't have that there for the kids anymore. So, that actually is now a concern for me that it wasn't before the failed levy. Just a and I don't I was there I'll finish with this. I was there the past couple days. I've seen a lot of congestion on fi going up north of 503 all the way backed up from onsor to 503 and 502 around 3:00. And I don't know I would love to say yes. Is this auxiliary lane that the answer to our questions? I really liked what councelor Mson said about two lanes. I really wish we could be putting that in and looking at that cuz I could see the traffic going north and I didn't see them making a lot of them were just going straight north. Just going straight north. So, and my my question to staff that maybe I also would like to ask and have I can do it myself or just put it out there is the question for what exactly is. Codes on how many roundabouts we could be having and the distance between them. I guess everybody else is laughing. They

there is no limit. So that's that's a concern that is that going to cause another a bottleneck when we're trying to, you know, alleviate the congestion. Council member McCoy,

thanks for the presentation, Mark. I know there's a lot of work and a lot of time into this. Uh my question is more I guess global in that um just driving in to the council meeting today I noticed congestion from Onstoorf all the way back to Main Street to where 502503 was backed up. Uh so my question is kind of two-part one can we reallocate funds or does it have to be used on this project for connecting Washington? And the second part of my question will explain the intent of that question. Uh because I know there is a roundabout planned for Onstof. Is the potential traffic impact of putting a roundabout at Onstorf greater than less than equal to this project? In other words, is the $1.7 million or whatever that number is that we're looking to apply to this project is the best use of that funds or congestion on 502503 this project or could it potentially be another project? So, I don't have an answer to whether you could take money from this project and move it to another project. My guess would be no, but it's not a question that we've asked at this point. So um there would we would want to I guess run that to ground to make sure one way or the other onsorphan 503 is going to be the better bang for your buck in a purely transportation perspective. you're talking about 20,000 25,000 I can't remember the exact number but people that use that intersection a day versus the 2500 or so that we're talking about here. So yes, that that that would be the more impactful project in the grand scheme of things.

Um, and I I would just if you bring up the project, I believe we do cut some of the softball field out on this project, which I believe makes it ineligible for state playoff games. So, that little black line right there. So, I I would like more information on that on those on my two questions uh before I weigh in uh further. Yeah, it definitely cuts the corner. So we once we have a final design, we'll know exactly how much that trims and then how we have to essentially what we have to do to fix that.

And and I and I really think that I don't think that should the softball one although I I don't want that to happen. I don't think that should be exclusionary for this project because I believe this council owes it to this community to continue the discussion of more sports fields. Uh it's it's a topic that was on the table last year that we've dropped. Uh it's not something that we've been focused on this year and I believe that needs to be picked up. Uh I believe this community was very clear in the survey that a pool and sports fields were top of the bill uh for what they wanted to see from this council. Uh and I would really like to see that be if not ahead parallel with this project. And that's obviously not a not a staff thing. That's a for me that's asking council to consider moving that discussion forward in a more expeditious manner. Thank you.

Can I do a followup to that real quick? Thank you, Shane. Um, so there's 2.6 those that's a match grant. Yes, we have to match those funds in order for this. Yeah. 2.6. six would there's no match for it. It's 100%. Oh wow. Okay, never mind. Now obviously like I said with um 503502 just with the cost inflation and various things we had to come up with a match and we ultimately did that through the federal grant.

I did forget I I wouldn't support this project without a roundabout though. I think ride in ride out's not worth the disruption. Mark, can you explain how Well, I doubt you can because it's the state, so no one can explain how, but um how does a how does Rock Creek get a roundabout and and Onsdorf doesn't? I mean, how how does And I get it. They got trucks up there and they've probably had they had some accidents. That's that's mainly what it is is accidents probably. Yeah, if I remember correctly, they had at least one fatal, if not more. Um, so that fatal's al always moved the move the needle to to get a project done. Um, it's hard. I've struggled with this question. This has come up several times. You know, why why does the city always have to pay for state routes in the city? You know, they're state state roads. Shouldn't they be the ones fixing them? And um I don't have a good answer to that question. Um you know I I think we we have our priorities and if our priorities are get things moving faster then the state can move them you know based on their priorities because they've got to look at everything else as well. Um, that's kind of where I've landed that we just we care more about it because it obviously affects us and not that they don't care, but you know, they have 50 other things that they have to look at at the same time and our stuff just doesn't rise to the top for them. Well, and this is what just just so you know council knows, most of you probably do, but this is what happens also when the county is urbanizing rural areas and the county has a I don't know what it is now. It used to be a $150 per thousand

road tax. So, they can do what they want with their roads, but they say, "Well, these are your roads. You deal with them." But they put this huge impact on us by urbanizing stuff to the north of us. And and um I mean I live up there so I see it every day when when you you know that that traffic is getting backed up further and further almost to Main Street many times and and um you know it's it's I wouldn't say it's it's the state's fault. All it's it's all the state's fault. um you know, they're they're not going to put a roundabout in when they got bridges falling down. You know, they'll just say wait in traffic. You know, we got to we got to figure out how to build a bridge or repair a bridge. Um so I I see where the state's coming from, but but um yeah, I just it blew my mind that that Rock Creek can get one, but we can't we can't get one with, you know, more people. So, thank you.

I can add a little bit to that. Uh RTC recently changed the funding mechanism for those projects and now it is more of a riskbased uh data driven than dare I say political in the past. So um I think that's part of it. So a lot of that money comes through RTC for these projects. So not that that helps or but in the future maybe it would be an onsorf over Rock Creek but there were several fatalities up at Rock Creek. Yeah. So I do know that

one last one. So, as someone who lives in the Riverbend subdivision and makes that trip multiple times a day myself, I'm part of the congestion that's a problem. But I can also tell you that as I have sat at 239 at the light and head when the light changes and I purposely wait because people continue through on a red light. So, I don't want to be one of those fatalities that finally gets us to the roundabout approvals that we need. Um, so I again I think conversation with the school district is very important, but and I also think that if we need to uh if we need to reallocate that money to the roundabouts that are needed to help with congestion, to help with the speeding, it's it's about the speed as well. Um, and if that's what we need to do and we get a bigger bang for our buck as as uh, Council Member U McCoy stated, then I think I think we're further ahead. So, that's that's my decision on it. I have one one last comment. I have uh taken a non-scientific poll of uh employees at CAM and I can tell you right now that uh no one there is in favor of this road. And so as I I can play devil's advocate here, the kids play back there. Um right now they don't have a playground. they have a small play space between the three buildings and uh kids will end up heading back over there to kick a ball around or um do what kids do during recess. And I do know that this road um

will severely limit their ability to play. Um, and I know I don't know if the wall is still part of the discussion of the most recent design, but could be part of negotiations, but I think it it's going to almost have to be a must uh with it being that close proximity to second graders and third graders. Um, but so on both sides of the coin, I I do feel this. I understand um some of the the the position of the school district. I also kind of internally battle with this because this has been on the plan for 10 years to have done and CAM has been built here recently and um there's a lot going on I know and and why wait on the city to get a project that they're get done uh while they're sitting on their hands 10 years to do it. But nonetheless, it's what's in front of us right now. And I don't disagree with Council Member McCoy. Sports fields are a must. Um, and we should strike up some additional conversations about that. Um, but I I just see like that number that we're talking about 25 2600 cars traveled. You throw a roundabout on there. I would venture to say that those numbers go up as far as the alleviation of congestion off of 503 502.

Correct. And that's the key point that we're talking about here is the whole reason we're looking at this project. So, um, yeah, I'm I'm interested to know more, but I'm I'd be interested to hear some more about some other potential projects that we have coming up that as we try to figure out and and set priority of what projects need to come first. I mean, we have $2.6 $6 million set here that the state's not going to want to give us much more uh showing that we haven't spent the money that they did give us already. So that that does kind of move the needle a little bit in my opinion. But again, thank you Mark and staff for presenting. I will also uh acknowledge uh we do have a representative of the school district here um uh superintendent uh Chel Whitten and want to say thank you for coming out. Um, and uh just know that as we consider this project that the school district's uh thoughts and opinions on this are heavily weighed. It's not just us up here making decisions without the whole community involved and you guys are a big part of that. So any other comments or hearing? None, we'll go ahead and uh recess the uh or end the study session.

and video is Five. Ma'am. Ah, yes, they made it. All right, the time is 7 p.m. I call this meeting of the Battleground City Council to order. Please stand if you can and rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

We go. All right, Liz, could you uh please call roll? Yes. Mayor Overhozer, present. Deputy Mayor Vale present. Council member McCoy here. Council member Ferrer present. Council member Mson here. Council member Kypers present. Council member Bowman here. And the clerk is present. That concludes the role.

All right. Um I'd ask that we uh amend the agenda this evening. uh the agenda to add uh to the existing executive session this evening uh pursuant to RCW42.30.110 uh to receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against an employee uh upon the request of such employee a public hearing or a meeting open to the public shall be conducted upon such complaint or charge. Um, let me continue reading here. I have a lot. Is there a second? What's that? Second. Oh, second. All those in favor?

I I I. Any opposed? Nay. All right, we have six to one. Uh, please note, uh, Council Member McCoy was the N. Motion passes. Any other amendments? Uh, does council have recommendations tonight before we get started? All right. Hearing none. Uh, I call for a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So moved. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor? I. Okay.

Any opposed? hearing none. Motion passes unanimously. All right, we will move on to summary reports and presentations. Um, are there any council member reports this evening? Yeah, I've got two just for to keep things going. I'll save the other one for her for next time. Order. Mayor. Oh, yeah. One second. I'll resend that. Point of order. Rescended. Carry on.

Okay. So, an update from the urban county policy board. Just a quick update regarding the county owned building here in Battleground. The uh well, the Wick building is what they were discussing. Um Michelle Schuster, she's the internal services director. She'll be presenting the urban county policy board's recommendation to sell the building at fair market value to county. Um she's going to be presenting that to the county council tomorrow. Um I think that's at 9:00 a.m. Does staff know that one? Pretty sure it's 9:00 a.m. in case anybody wants to know uh to go to it. I could be wrong. I thought it got might have got moved. Did it get moved?

Yeah. Let me double check real fast.

Oh, okay. Oops. I'm I have outdated information. Okay. Sorry. While they're moving on while they're looking into that or will that just take a quick second? Okay. I'll just move on while he looks for Okay, the next one is Echo. Um Echo, I'm sorry nobody made it here. That was my favorite meeting ever. And um Mr. Stober was here. He was in it as well. And it was um it was a group of panelists that was made up of the Clark County response teams. So we had all of our chief of police there throughout Clark County. You had the um that would be like Vancouver, Ridgefield, obviously all of them, right? And you had um Shook was also there speaking a lot on the panel. um he is the director of the jail services and um it was it was really good to to hear everybody. They um come and speak. Um they all kind of echoed the same stuff which was oh also the heart team was there, our cares team was there and um they just they they really had the same message that you could tell that they all had a heart for service. that's why they're in their positions and um talking about they all had practically the same concerns like you would expect. Um but I I recommend watching it. It was it was definitely worth watching. Um and just to see everybody collaborating on both sides of the aisle, you know, and just really focusing on trying to take care of its community. I want to cry. It was really good. It was really good. I'm so thankful for what Ekko put on. I know that there was a few people that were really pushing that and I was really thankful for it. I'll I'll get back to you on the

mosquito board next round. Uh that meeting got moved to May 5th.

Uh do we have any other uh council member reports? Seeing none on the board. Uh, I'll move on to one real quick before we move on to the mayor's report. Uh, EMS 2, uh, we met March uh, 9th, last Monday. Um, or I'm sorry. Yeah, that's right. Last Monday. And, uh, we have some updates for y'all, so pay attention and hold on to your hats. Uh, board composition change. As of January 12th, 2026, the district's board added two positions for representatives outside of the Clark County Council. This change removed the county's voting majority and shifted EMS2's designation on Clark County's financial statements. This was brought up by the Clark County auditor. By the way, no one at EMS had mentioned this would be a repercussion of a composition change. But so previously, EMS2 was considered a blended component unit, meaning it was a separate legal entity under the county's control and included in Clark County's financial statements, similar to like the fairgrounds um in fund. With the new structure, no single participating government can unilaterally control EMS's financial or operating policies. This reclassifies EMS2 as a jointly governed organization similar to Cresa. Uh what this means um and that is to be stated if this understanding is correct and this is coming from our contract administrator. Here are some changes that we can expect. EMS2 will need its own financial statements which will be audited by the state auditor's office. EMS2 will need to pay for services currently provided by Clark County such as contract management, financial processing, budget support, legal review, workday licenses, and similar services. Uh what this means

is um again we'll need to come up um with our own financial statements which will be audited by the state auditor auditor's office and uh Deian Cortis has asked if the county would be willing to prepare EMS2's financial statements for a fee and we're waiting to hear back from the county on that and then they'll bring that forward for board approval if that is the case. Uh, EMS2 will need to pay for services currently provided by Clark County again such as contract management, financial processing, budget support, legal review, workday licenses, and similar services. Um, and the question was posed uh what the annual allocation amount will be and we're waiting to hear back and we'll bring that forward to the board for approval as well. Uh so the next steps that we have is uh amending the EMS2 interlocal cooperative agreement to remove the language about participating in the county's budgeting process and amend the bylaws to outline EMS2's internal budget process going forward and then we will uh draft the language for the board review and approval. So, and again I can take full blame for this pretty much is I I wanted to add composition and uh make it a fivep person committee versus the three that it was the way it was was two county counselors and one representing the small city which was me. Um the idea is uh you can't have a one-on-one conversation about EMS2 outside of the meeting because it'll be a quorum. And so I thought it'd be a good idea to get some other individuals involved. And uh we have one more representative from a small city uh L center and then we have a representative from the fire district as a commissioner that sits on the board from uh our local fire district here. Um and so this has caused this ripple

effect of an unknown. Um, nonetheless, as we debated a little bit, um, again, we don't know for sure if this is 100% correct because we're a non- taxing district. We don't draw a tax. Um, so we don't have necessarily revenue to pull from. Um we do collect uh there would be you know uh damages from the ambulance service if they are late in a certain proportion late to a certain amount of calls and we collect damages liquid damages from the ambulance service uh for their lateness. But that isn't necessarily a guaranteed revenue stream that we can bank on. And so there's going to be further discussion about um how we go forward as a a board and where revenue would come from. And you know, obviously, one particular source would be to become a taxing district, which not exactly am I a fan of, but uh we do have to figure out a way to come up with our own um financial statements and contract management and processing, budget support, legal review, and all those things. So, uh there will be more uh in-depth conversations to come. Our next meeting is not going to be until July 13th. So, we have a little while to figure all this out. Uh, we're pretty much, I think, in good shape for 2026. As far as county has said, they'll help pick up where we left off and and continue because they've been doing all the work already. Um, but definitely need to figure it out um quickly and then also have a plan for 2027 to go forward. So,

Mr. Mayor, that is what we know about EMS2 currently. Who's who is um so who's going to pay for the audit if that's the case? That'll be EMS2. We currently have a little over 200,000 in the budget, but that budget is supposed to be used to support the fire districts with technology and and uh streamline their processes. Um, and so that answer we don't have yet

because are they are they trying to split it up proportional to who's represented or because my my only concern is is is allowing the county to do this. This happened with Discovery Clean Water Alliance when they they tried billing us at Discovery Clean Water Alliance for their technology and funds and all that stuff and it was a lot more than what it would cost us.

And so we told them no at the time. Um, but I think that's something we we want to look at is is potentially could one of the other cities pick it up, a fire district, um, something like that instead of running it through the county because the county is quite a bit more expensive or has been in the past, um, than than we are. Um, but what that funding mechanism looks like and how they're splitting that up, you know, are they doing it per district? are they doing it? Um, and it always made sense with the county because every one of them are in the county and and all of these uh fire districts are county fire districts. Mhm. So, um, that are in EMS2. No one has their own fire district. They're all county. Correct.

So, um, that's be interesting to see how they do that. My understanding is we have the ability to uh get proposals or request any entity. They said you could go to an outside vendor. You know, obviously that might not be the efficient way to do it and the CPA, but um yeah, we'll we'll be definitely looking at options of who can facilitate those um meet those needs of the different requirements that we have. Uh, and we want to try to keep it in-house if we could um within the districts because the the state would have to audit that, wouldn't they?

Yes, the state it does have to go to a state audit.

The state auditor's office bases it upon the amount of transactions that flow through since there's not any revenue incoming and it would depend upon your expenses. Like the threshold used to be 2 million for your annual audit. If it's as small as you're talking about, they do something called a desk audit. So there's some jurisdictions that get audited like 5 10 years and it's a very quick desk audit that they do. So it sounds like it would likely be that bucket and the type of financial statements they would need to do. They wouldn't do the type of report that we do because it's so small probably be cash basis very simple annual reporting to the state. So you're looking at very small. I can't imagine the county would be spending that much time on it but they probably just have to look at it holistically.

Yeah. And my my sense that I got is the county's like, "Well, that's your guys's problem now." And they they said they'd be willing to look at what it would take to help with the coverage, but there would be a fee associated obviously now. Um, and so with that, that allows us to shop around and and get rates. Um, and so there'll be more information to come, but I would if if anybody has any further information, I'm all ears on that one. Um, okay. We have no more. We'll go ahead and wrap up the uh the council member reports and we'll go into the mayor's report. Time to get to some fun stuff here. First up, we have uh the big heart citizen recognition award. Uh and then I will read this intro and then we will make an award. All right. As a member of this council, I've had the privilege of meeting so many great people in our community uh who are doing truly remarkable things. Um and and really have a great contribution to our community. Uh we have volunteers that give their time and expertise to improve our shared spaces like Down uh Two Down Services LLC who donated their time and materials to seal coat and stripe the Kuanas parking lot in 2023. We should probably give them another call, too. By the way, striping is looking gnarly. Uh, we have residents who represent our city through incredible accomplishments, like Laura KDson, a battleground local who competed in the Ida Rod dog race in 2024. I remember that. That was a great time. We also have everyday neighbors like Jeff Griso who began a personal fitness journey and by 2025 had walked enough miles to equal the circumference of the earth in just over six years while

collecting nearly seven yards of litter along the way. And these stories remind us that there is greatness all around us all through Battleground. And it's that spirit of service and achievement that the Battleground City Council is proud to introduce our new citizen recognition award. Uh big heart or BG heart. Um through this program, community members will be invited to nominate other community members, organizations, and businesses whose exceptional service, achievements, and contributions strengthen the spirit of Battleground. From those nominations, recipients will be selected to be honored with a commemorative big heart stone, a lapel pin, and a certificate during a city council meeting. The heart-shaped stone is symbolic. Like a stone, the strength of the community is built over time. Each one is unique, just like the individuals who contribute their talents and energy to make battlegrounds stronger. The heart shape reminds us that service begins with compassion, a willingness to give of yourself for the benefits of others. Individually, each contribution matters, but together they form the strong and vibrant foundation of which our community thrives. Tonight, it is my distinct pleasure to recognize our very first Big Heart Award recipient, Virginia Menddees Rodman. Virginia, come on up to the podium if you would. Now, I'm going to say a few words and then I'm going to read the certificate and then I want to give you an opportunity to say a few words when I'm done. Okay.

Uh, Virginia of Battleground Martial Arts Academy here locally and my favorite gym, by the way, is a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In December 2025, she entered her first no competition at the prestigious NOGE World Championship in Las Vegas, where she earned first place in both her master division and the absolute division. Building on that success, she traveled to Lisbon, Portugal to compete in the International Brazil Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation European Championship, where she again claimed gold in both her divisions. and the open weight or open class weight division. And uh I heard you were wrestling a gal that was a lot bigger and stronger than you. But I love that jiu-jitsu is a chess match. So let me read the certificate.

The certificate of recognition presented to Virginia Menddees Rodman. The city of Battleground proudly recognizes Virginia Menddees Rodman of the Battleground Martial Arts Academy for her outstanding achievements and for representing our community with excellence on the global stage. Through her dedication, resilience, and extraordinary work ethic, Virginia earned the title of 2026 International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation or the IBJJF, European Champion, in the Brown Belt Female Master 5 Open Division. An achievement that reflects determination and heart that seemingly knows no limits. The city extends its sincere congratulations to Virginia for her accomplishments and gratitude as she inspires others of all ages to pursue their goals with confidence and perseverance. Presented on this 20th day of April, 2026 by me and the city of Battleground, Washington. for anything. Perfect. Anybody else wants to come up and you That's fine.

Yeah. I got you.

Ready? One, two, so much. Awesome. Virginia, you're up.

Thank you. I just want to thank you guys so much. This is I'm humbled by this and I am very excited that you guys appreciate all the hard work that we do at the gym because it really inspires. I hear that all the time. Kids are inspired and women are inspired and teens are inspired to just and the reason we called it Battleground Martial Arts Academy in the first place is because we wanted to add to the community and we love this community and I thank you so much everybody. Thank you. Yeah,

that is the first of what I hope will be many. Um, to the public and anyone listening, um, get your nominations in. I think we'll have something on our website. Um, Alicia is saying, "Yep, tomorrow." We'll have something on our website tomorrow. And you can also come down to city hall and ask for a paper copy of a a nomination. So, all right. From one great thing to another, have a proclamation tonight. Uh, April 26 is uh, fair housing month and uh, tonight it's my pleasure to proclaim April 26 as fair housing month. Proclamations are not statements of policy but are a means by which the city can recognize an event group or individual. Proclamations can be issued at the discretion of the mayor and may be for organizations, individuals, or businesses within or outside Battlegrounds jurisdiction. Individual council members will not issue proclamations and requests for proclamation should be directed to the mayor or the city clerk. Battleground community member Heather Rener and Justin Wood, government affairs director of the Clark County Association of Realtors will be accepting this proclamation tonight. Uh Heather and Justin, will you uh come up to the podium, please? I'm going to read the proclamation out loud. We'll present it and then uh give you guys a chance to make a brief statement. Proclamation celebrating the 58th anniversary of the federal fair housing act. Whereas the fair housing act was enacted on April 11th, 1968

as uh title 8 of the civil rights act affirming the principle that access to housing is a fundamental right and prohibiting discrimination in housing related transactions based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, and family status. And whereas the Fair Housing Act reflects our nation's enduring commitment to equity, dignity, and opportunity, and serves as a cornerstone in the continued effort to eliminate barriers to housing choice and promote inclusive, thriving communities. And whereas the observance of the 58th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act provides an opportunity to reaffirm our shared responsibility to uphold the law, advance fair housing practices, and ensure that all individuals and families have equal access to safe and affordable housing. And whereas real estate professionals play a critical role in advancing the goals of fair housing by adhering to ethical standards, complying with federal, state, and local fair housing laws, and fostering inclusive practices within the communities they serve. And whereas members of the National Association of Realtors have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to fair housing through education, advocacy, and strict adherence to the realtor code of ethics, which mandates equal professional service and respect for all individuals. Whereas members of the Clark County Association of Realtors have shown themselves to be compliant, engaged, and ardent advocates for fair housing, working to promote equal opportunity, combat discrimination, and strengthen trust and fairness in the housing market throughout the communities in which they operate. Be it further proclaimed that we encourage all residents, institutions, and housing stakeholders

to join in reaffirming their commitment to fair housing, to learning about their rights and responsibilities under the law, and to working collaborative collaboratively to build communities that are inclusive, equitable, and welcoming to all. Now therefore, I, Eric Overholzer, mayor of the city of Battleground, by virtue of the authority invested in me, do hereby proclaim April 26, Fair Housing Month in the city of Battleground, Washington, and encourage all residents to join me in recognizing, celebrating, and honoring April 2026 as the observance of the 58th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act. Open door. Okay,

go ahead and say a few words.

Okay. Uh, you said a lot of what I was going to say, Mayor Overhausouser. So, uh, so good evening, Mayor Overhauser and fellow Battleground city councilors. My name is Heather Rener. I am a designated broker for Premier Property Group of all of the Washington offices here and past president of Clark County Association of Realtors. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here in recognition of Fair Housing Month. April does mark a time to celebrate and reaffirm, as you said, our commitment to fair and equal access to housing for all. And this year absolutely represents the 58th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act. As a realtor, fair housing is not just a principle. It's a responsibility that I carry into every client transaction. In my business, that means providing equal professional service to all, ensuring every buyer and seller has access to the same opportunities and being intentional about removing barriers that could limit housing choice. It also means staying educated, holding myself accountable, and advocating for practices that promote inclusion across communities. Fair housing protections remain as important today as as ever. They help ensure that regardless of, as you shared earlier, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and I'm going to add a few more because there's some more, disability, uh whether that's sensory, mental, or physical use of guide or service animal by a person with a disability when related to housing as well as in addition to these federal guidelines more specific to the state of Washington, marital status, creed, HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis C status, sexual orientation, including gender identity or veteran military status. To us, everyone has the opportunity to find a place to call home. I'm proud to stand in support of this proclamation and to continue doing my part to uphold and advance fair housing in our community. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Heather. All right. Now we will move on to the certificate of municipal leadership awards. Ty Stover, AWC board of directors and council member for the city of Vancouver. The floor is yours.

Thank you very much. Um, good evening, Mayoro overhoser. I'll get it out eventually. And, uh, members of the council, it's an absolute pleasure to finally be here. Uh, thank you for having me tonight. Uh I'm said Vancouver Council member Ty Stober, but I'm also your representative uh for District 5 on the AWC or Association of Washington Cities uh board of directors. District 5 is comprised of 27 cities in the uh counties of Clark, Cowitz, Clickat, Lewis, and Schemania counties. So, I'm here today finally um to recognize Mayor Overhold overhoser. I practiced beforehand, I swear. Uh Deputy Mayor uh Bale, Council Members Ferrer and Kypers who received their certificates of municipal le leadership or CML. And I should say that when this whole process started, I was coming just for the mayor. And then you guys kept increasing and that's pretty darn amazing uh that we have four people here tonight. Um the association Washington cities is 93 years old uh formed in 1933 and well an interesting thing happened in 1933. It was the repeal of prohibition and the association was founded to advocate on behalf of the cities of Washington state in Olympia for our share fair share of um of liquor taxes. Um and so ever since then we have been that voice in Olympia on behalf of our cities. Our our mission is to build connections between our

state's diverse cities, towns while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of datadriven education, nationally recognized pooling programs and nonpartisan advocacy. So, we're really grateful to the city of Bad Grattleground for being AWC members and also being uh participation participants in the AWC workers comp retro program um to increase worker safety and the employee benefits trust to provide employee health and wellness benefits to city employees. We appreciate the city of Balagan's commitment to ongoing education with your attendance at many trainings and conferences around the state. I know many of you attended the ENL conference in Kenowick last June as well as the elected officials essentials city action days in Olympia just a few weeks ago and hope that you got a great deal out of all these events and encourage you all to u put on your calendars to be in Spokane from June 23rd through 26 for this year's annual conference. So, what I'm here for tonight is to award this certificate of municipal leadership. Uh AWC's certificate of municipal leadership program recognizes elected officials earning 30 credits by completing training in five competency areas: land use, budgeting, legal, community, and leadership. and your commitment to uh achieving that really speaks to your dedication to the citizens of Battleground and is to be commended. And um before I recognize the four new

members, I want to take a chance to recognize um other members of your council because it it's pretty outstanding. Uh, so Council Member Shane Bow um Bowman uh earned his CML in August 2013 and his advanced CML in January 2023. Uh, Council Member Troy McCoy earned his CML in July 2022 and his advanced CML in June 2024. and Council Member Brian Mson has uh is well on his way to earning his CML with 10 credits. So, at this time, I would like to recognize the mayor, the deputy mayor, and the council members uh for their CML achievement. Uh so, first applause everybody. Um, so what's next, as was alluded to, is after an official has earned their CML, they're encouraged to continue to build on their skills and strive towards earning their advanced certificate of municipal leadership, which is an additional 30 credits, uh, plus demonstrated significant community service. Um I so I hope you all will join council members Bowman and McCoy in working towards that distinction. Um I see it's time it's time to um present you with your certificates. Um so we're going to take lots of pictures here. Uh so um how do you want to do this? Okay. Okay. So we'll start with the

mayor. Mayor Mayor Overhoser, would you come on down?

Yeah. Okay. Um, I'll also issue an apology. We've been at this so long. You're still listed as council member. We'll get that corrected. What the Oh, stop.

Thank you. Awesome. Giving out the awards is a lot funner than receiving I'll just say that. All right. And last, but certainly not least, recognition of outstanding achievement, Battleground Police Lieutenant Jim Keller. Chief Flynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Now, before I get going, I just want to also let the council know that Miss Virginia, the officers only know that one response to her is uh yes, ma'am. So, Jim's in great company tonight uh with all the awards and we want to take uh tonight to recognize uh his accomplishments. As I explained before, there's three big schools in police leadership. There's the FBI National Academy. There's uh Perf's school in Boston and then there's uh Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command. They all offer quite a bit, but it is also generally known that the School of Police Staff and Command is the most rigorous to complete because it's very heavy academically. It's 12 weeks long, almost 500 hours. It's a major investment in our time. And when we look at that, I believe one of my jobs as the chief of police, in addition to making sure that we're staying on top of crime issues, traffic issues, community engagement. I think a major part of my job is making sure that we continue to develop the very talented people that we have. Certainly leadership development rises right to the top. uh we have to make sure that those that are in the leadership positions uh are given the right tools and can also mentor those that come beneath them. So I had challenged our command staff to push themselves and obtain uh executive level leadership training and tonight I have the privilege of recognizing Lieutenant Jim Keller for doing exactly that. uh when I first talked to him about uh Northwestern University, he pondered it, thought about it uh and said he wanted to attend it, but he asked to be able to attend it online and

I had reservations. I had attended the course, but I did it in person and it was very, very challenging and I had a whole class to help me. He said that he had quite a bit of commitment that was still on his plate and I asked him then if this was the right time for him or if we should put this off until another time. He said he wanted to make the commitment and he promised that if given the opportunity he wouldn't falter. He said I will do everything to make sure that I uh achieve all the results for the class but also to make this city proud. So based off that I had no choice but to to support him and have him go through it. as he went through the course. Uh this was more than him just checking a box or getting a certificate. He took this knowledge in. Uh it mean it meant that he had to complete assignments almost daily weekly tests um a long uh paper that is sent out to all of the university. But we had meaningful discussions after this. He was taking what he was learning and coming and meeting with me and challenging me on the ways that we were doing business. Are there other processes that we can do? He kept looking for ways for improvement. And that is the epitome of what we're trying to achieve as we're sending him to the school. And so after 12 weeks and I can tell you that uh his daily duty duties didn't stop. He maintained supervising uh some very very sensitive and complex criminal investigations, completed internal investigations, uh engaged in other other duties as assigned that I tried to pull off of his plate, but he said, "I

want to make sure that I'm pulling my weight." And so as impressive as it was that he graduated, it was even more impressive that he graduated near the top of his class with a 97% something I would never be able to do. But I think this achievement is more about just a grade. Uh heworked with 25 other police executives from around the United States. And that's going to carry him not only throughout his career, but it's going to also be a huge benefit to the police department because these are other people that he's going to be able to reach out and lean upon and talk about the current issues that everybody is is facing and it benefits more than him. It benefits our police department. It benefits our city. It benefits our residents and it shows our officers that their learning is never done and that they need to continue to push themselves. So, as I look at his commitment that he wouldn't falter and he'd make us proud, I'm forced tonight to look this man in the eyes and tell him job well done because he did exactly that. So, I'd like to take this moment to not only congratulate him, but also to thank somebody uh two other people that often get forgotten, and that's his wife uh Sarah and his son Logan. Many times in policing uh we forget about the families and spending this much time away. Uh he took it so much to heart that even Yes, I heard on their camping trip he brought his laptop with him to make sure that this was done. How his wife let him come back with both of his thumbs, we still do not know, but it shows the commitment that police families continue to make to ensure that their spouses are successful. So, Lieutenant Jim Keller, congratulations.

Uh, one thing the chief forgot to mention, he's also a graduate of Northwestern, so less than 1% um I was told by my spouse, she's very cerebral, uh, less than 1% of law enforcement executives go through the school. Um, so you have two graduates from Northwestern at the class um working for our department.

Uh, just real quick, I just really appreciate the opportunity to go to the course. Um, thank you chief for convincing me to take it. I appreciate the department uh, allowing me to do the work while I was at work. Uh, I want to thank Jason Purdue, uh, Gail Trux, Katrina Green for picking up my slack, and especially my wife for letting me type way on my computer at 10:00 at night in front of the couch, um, several nights. Um, it was very enlightening, gave me a lot of good information to pass along, and I think it just bolsters the professionalism that we strive for at our agency. Yeah. Thank you,

Lieutenant Killers. Come on up. I want to shake your hand, but I think I can speak for everybody in Battleground um by saying that we are very blessed to have you, Lieutenant Keller. Thank you for all your hard work and thank you for the uh support at home. That is uh I know how much that means and and how it's crucial. All right, moving on. We have the uh 2026 post legislative session report. Uh Josh Weiss of Columbia Policy Advisors, come on up, bud.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council, staff, and um residents. Nice to see you. It's always fun to follow the um recognitions and the awards, right? That's uplifting stuff. And now for not uplifting stuff. Let's talk about the legislature. I'm kidding. Um of course, it was a terrific session for uh the city of Battleground. Again, some incredible results. Um, so I want to just quick talk quickly. What I was hoping to do tonight was go over what happened this last legislative session. Um, talk specifically about the priorities that you had laid out for um, me to work on with your delegation and then see if there's any questions. Don't want to get too far ahead thinking about the 2027 session, although we're already starting to do that um, in the back of our minds. I'm sorry. There we go. So, it was the short legislative session, 60 days. Um, it did not feel like that in many ways because so many of the agenda items that um the legislature pushed forward and considered really were significant topics that you would not sort of expect in a short session. The conventional wisdom for all of my career has been that the legislature doesn't want to consider or take on tax votes in an election year. We certainly saw that that was not the case this session. Um we saw the overall number of bills that they considered 1500 introduced. Um over 200 passed. Um that is certainly not your typical short session um workload. the supplemental operating budget. Of course, in a supplemental year, their job is really to come in and make tweaks um halfway through the bienium what they need to make in their spending plans. This year was a little bit different in both the operating and the capital budgets, less so in the transportation, which as I noted was really pretty much a truly typical supplemental

transportation budget year. But in the operating budget, they started the legislative uh session. We saw Governor Ferguson's first full uh budget proposal in December. He was forced to make a couple of billion dollars worth of reductions. State revenues were not projected at that point to be keeping up anywhere close to what the um cost of expenditures were. That was relieved for the for the legislature to a slight degree with the fee February revenue forecast. They gained back about $800 million. Having said that, they still this budget is a significant change in their spending plan. And it's not um not entirely the addition of spending. It's not entirely the cutting of spending. Um and it's not entirely new one-time funding or shifts. It's really a combination of everything. They really changed up their spending plan. um including of course what everybody has read in the newspaper about the passage of the um new first in the state income tax um currently applied to individuals making a million dollars or more. Um that was certainly a surprise I think for all of us even though we'd heard rumblings about it last fall about the possibility that there would be discussions um this the operating budget. However, I do want to say if um I think last week you received a long written report from me that summarizes really everything that I was tracking on your behalf um during legislative session. It goes into a lot more detail, but I'm not going to cover that tonight unless you have questions, but they did make some significant cuts. Um they cut, for example, the new expanded program that they wanted to provide for um child care, early child care development. um they cut some programs like that that were really big spending priorities over

the last couple of years that particularly the the majority Democrats wanted to get. So they made some painful decisions there. They shift um $300 million out of the public works assistance account. They shift $800 million out of the climate commitment account climate commitment act account. um they do make some really significant um moves of money that you normally wouldn't see in a supplemental year. And then um they also I guess I talked about new expenditures as well. So the um I should also note about the income tax that does not take effect until 2029. As part of that bill, they rolled back several of the uh tax changes that they made last legislative session. So, you saw a really quick turn of events. Um, there's now a significant BNO tax reduction. Any business making less than $250,000 is exempt from BNO tax. They rolled back uh sales tax on personal hygiene products and diapers. And they rolled back the changes that they made on the capital gains tax from last year. So, just again sort of back to the theme of this was very much not your typical supplemental session. and they were making really significant policy changes, some of which they just have implemented over the last couple of years. Um, I mentioned on the transportation budget, pretty much a supplemental year. There's not a lot of expenditures. Talk about this a little bit when we mention Eaton Boulevard. Really no new projects um shifting around pro funding for projects that are ready to go. We obviously have seen just like you're struggling with at the state level, they also are struggling with the increase in costs. Um everything is more expensive now. So they're not your discussion earlier in the work session about not being able to get as much bang for your buck on transportation projects is really something they're struggling

with as well. Um on the capital budget, I noted in the bullet here, they moved half a billion dollars away from projects and activities that would normally have been funded by bond revenue. the capital budget is largely funded by bonds um over to funds that are being brought into the state through the climate commitment act. So they're basically taking on um expenditures through CCA dollars um freeing up those bond dollars so that they can move them into other areas. Part of this I talked about significant policy changes. One of the things that they did is they actually are will be moving forward with eliminating the law enforcement and firefighters one pension program which has been estimated for years now to be um I don't think this is quite the technical term but overfunded um there's not as many left left one has been closed for many many years now there's not that many retirees left from an actuarial perspective they budgeted out and could look and say we have more actually more resources in that fund than they think they will need. Um so they're banking on about $4 billion moving from that left one account in excess revenue um over to um backfill some of the changes that they make with the climate commitment act and some of their rainy day funds which they're using. So sort of a they can't those dollars from the left pension fund are not in place for them yet. They're banking on those being in place for them in the future and doing some sort of back fill for some cash accounts that they have on hand. Um they also shifted about a billion dollars from the capital budget over to the operating budget. So you talk about um just the type of project infrastructure projects that we normally would see at the local level. We see about a billion dollars less than we would normally see and even in a

supplemental capital budget year. So, um, all of that is to say that when we look at our city of battleground battleground priorities, if you look particularly at the capital budget requests, I'm going to focus on that first, even though that's not my first bullet. It is really significant that the city came away with $1.4 million in requests that you had made um, to your legislative delegation. they were dealing with a lot less, like I mentioned before, a lot less bond dollars available. And I had I work with several other local government clients, several other local government clients that came away with nothing this session. So when I say battleground did well, relatively speaking, you did really well. I mean, this is even in absolute terms, this is a good result from a legislative session, but relatively very well. Also keeping in mind also that last legislative session in the bianial year we were lucky to receive $ 1.5 million for Remy Park. Um part of this I want to be very clear to distribute um attribution and thanks to all of our 18th district legislators. They all are very dedicated and committed to working very hard for the community. part of this capital budget result. I I want to call out specifically Representative Mcccleintok's been there a little bit longer than Representative Lee. She's got seniority on the capital budget committee and she's working with that negotiating team all the way through session. So I that is very helpful from our perspective. Um also mentioning Senator Cortez being in a bipartisan district is really beneficial for the city. um not to be too politically crass, but having um some some competition here and having both of the parties wanting to pay attention and make sure that those legislative candidates have something that they can be proud of is really helpful from our perspective. Um the 1 million I was should have looked

this up beforehand. Um we received if you recall I think it was four years ago I'm looking at Mark that might remember we received I think $1.5 million $1.2 $2 million for expansion of 92nd Street. So, this is not the first time that we've received money for 92nd as well, which is Yeah, this is second phase of the project.

Awesome. Um, I really want to on the capital budget specifically, I want to thank all of your staff. Um, when we start with capital budget projects, there's a pretty significant form that we have to fill out and enter into a legislative web portal. All of that I really rely and thank staff for doing just a great job and helping me do my job which then is helping your legislators do their job. Um a really good reflection here of how this is a a three-part team. Um so appreciate them. I also want to say thanks council members came down this legis or up this legislative session um at the last minute and visited. That was really helpful and appreciate that as well. Um, speaking about Senate Bill 5820, the Chilache Railroad, the Clark County Rail Industrial Railroad Overlay, um, legislation, I honestly can't tell you how surprised I am that this passed. Council member McCoy is laughing at me. Um, you can see the picture there. Uh, incredible to get this signed by Governor Ferguson. Um, Senator Cortez deserves a lot of credit for this, but really I am most impressed with your community. Um, every time that I thought this bill was gonna have a hiccup in one of the committees that it had to go through, um, we heard from not just residents of Battleground, I want to say, but residents of the region. Um, and you can see in the photo there some folks that came up to Olympia on that day for the bill signing. So, people clearly spoke out very loud that this was a priority for them. Um, and is part of the reason that that got through. Um you'll see up there actually you probably can't see but Representative Stonier when she her parents are still residents in Battleground she always likes to help Battleground and pay attention to she really helped on the house side once the Senate bill got across that Senator Cortez helped with. So um a big victory uh congratulations to you all and to your community for pushing that through.

Um here's my sort of nod to 2027. It's not really too soon to be starting to think about that. I think the idea of coming back and potentially looking at some of these projects that we didn't get across the finish line, the downtown revitalization, I know continues to be a priority. I think there will be more opportunities in the next bianial capital budget year to talk about that. Again, um I don't know, we haven't talked about Eaton Boulevard in a little bit. I'm not sure if that's still your transportation priority. My sense is we're way ahead, but I I think I don't expect there to be a big transportation package this next bianium, but I always feel like you need to be there and prepared and have the information and ready to go if that window opens. You got to be ready to jump through, especially like I said in a swing district like we're in. Um I didn't talk about indigent defense and the case standards. Um that is an issue that the legislature I I believe I put in my report I think there were seven different policy bills this last legislative session um trying to in some manner bring attention to the increased cost that the Supreme Court's mandate is having on local governments. We actually I also didn't mention in my discussion of the income tax. Um when that bill came out of the Senate, there were uh there was still $200 million of that new revenue dedicated towards county and city, primarily county, but also city indigent defense costs. Um I've been working with local governments for at least 15 years now. I've never seen the state set aside that large of a chunk of money for something for a local mandate like this. um that obviously was pulled out of the bill um for a variety of reasons. The legislature did recognize that there is the need to mitigate local governments. Those sales tax roll backs that they included in the income tax bill will have a negative impact on your city

revenues. Um prospectively, they acknowledge in the out years of the budget that there's $200 million that they want to set aside for mitigation. the fiscal note notes at this point there's something more like $800 million for our local governments, but that $200 million is sort of set aside in the projections for the um coming years, so will be something worth continuing to talk about and think about. Um that was really what I wanted to cover. Again, there's a lot more information in my writ um written materials. This was just a little bit of smattering of the highest priorities. I'm happy to answer questions and and otherwise just really appreciate your time tonight and and the continued partnership and working with you. Congratulations again,

Council Member Mson. Thank you.

Thank you for the report, Josh. Appreciate it. Um, looking ahead, there was a bill this year that stalled and it was the payroll tax. As I read through that, I didn't see, and I probably maybe missed it, but maybe you help me because I got a feeling it might be coming back. Does that payroll tax affect just private industry or will it affect cities, uh, governing bodies that have employees that reach that threshold? Um, so yeah, good question. I actually don't remember my I could go off my gut, but I don't remember. That bill was introduced. It didn't go very far. Um the leadership in the House and the Senate both decided earlier on that they wanted to put their effort behind the income tax. Um I actually I mean we'll be surprised. I do think the 2729 bianial budget is going to be difficult for the state. I think they're going to have a budget problem as hard as that is to believe. Um, so those kinds of ideas may be back on the table, but my gut sort of right now says that since they did the income tax that that would not be something they would consider because it was a big a big tax on employers.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for all your work, Josh. We appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. I was say I hear I hear no further questions. Just thank you. Thank you for the work. But I do want to recognize your hard work. Thank you, ma'am. Uh and just look forward to our continued relationship. Likewise. Appreciate you letting me off easy tonight with the questions. Victoria, go ahead.

I'll just say it was a joy seeing you work in Olympia and uh he was really out there working hard for us. So, seeing him catching our our house reps and our, you know, running pew pew and hey, hey, it was a lot of fun. Yeah. And it was just really really cool to see you out there and all the hard work you do put in for us. So, thank you. Thank you. Truly is a team sport. Thank you, Josh. I also wanted to thank you for your professionalism and your diligence in representing our city. So, it is evident and we really really appreciate it.

Thank you. All right, that is the first time a lobbyist has got an applause. Uh, and hopefully there's more to come.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Moving on to uh citizen communication. I will now open the meeting for citizens communication. Individuals are limited to three minutes to provide comments. The total time for public comment shall not exceed 30 minutes unless extended by the mayor. This is an opportunity to hear from mayor uh members of the public in a limited public forum, not an opportunity for extended comments or dialogue. Please refrain from derogatory remarks, personal attacks, campaign speeches, and applause. Although the city desires to allow public comment, the city's business must proceed in an orderly, timely manner, I will make a note that we do accept jazz hands. If your comments pertain to an item listed on the agenda as a public hearing, please reserve your testimony for the designated public hearing period. All comment should be directed to the mayor. The council may not be able to respond to individual comments and may refer citizens to a staff member for assistance. The city manager has placed her cards up at the podium. Please feel free to take one if you'd like to contact her with any questions. If you have handouts, please hand them to the city clerk directed to the right of the podium. Thank you for your understanding and participation in the council meeting this evening. Uh Liz, do we have anybody on Zoom?

No, Mr. Mayor.

All right, we will go to the public. First up, I have Gary Obermmyer. Thank you, Mayor, City Council. My name is Gary Obermeer. I'm a resident of Battleground and I'm here speaking on my own behalf. I come before you this to express my disappointment regarding the council's actions at the April 6th meeting concerning municipal code section 17.135.150. You all know it. The policies related to parking and storage of RVs, trailers, boats, and res in residential districts. Excuse me. It was about a year ago when my wife and I began home hunting. We were looking to downsize and move closer to family as we approach retirement. And when our search f began to focus on battleground, our real estate agent advised that we buy into an HOA neighborhood because they're better maintained and it's more predictable value in the property. Now, those words and that advice came back to me at our at the meeting on the eth on the yes, on the 6th, sorry. because I've been following this parking issue since the January 5th meeting. Back then, I was heartened by the by the moratorium on enforcement that provided time to study the issue. All seemed to be going well. There was a background report from the chief of police. There was initial council feedback, a draft policy, a detailed March 5th study session leading to a carefully crafted replacement for

the city code related to the parking of RVs, trailers, and boats. I witnessed three months of slow, deliberate, and transparent efforts supported by a dedicated staff. Then on April 6th, after just three testimonies in opposition and the mayor's reminder that the proposed language represented a relaxing of restrictions, the motions that followed effectively gutted the RV parking and storage policies. By accepting the word any, the council signaled indifference to how neighbors affect property appearance and value. By a 5 to1 vote, the council disrespected and ignored the competent work of staff and the police chief. Worse, the actions taken at last council meeting have the effect of widening the gap between HOA and non-HOA neighborhoods. I urge you to resend the April April 6 motions and give yourselves time to at least consider the testimony from the public hearing. return to the deliberate, transparent process that you initiated back in January. Continue the moratorium for on enforcement if you wish, if you need to, but do not wait a full year to review what you've done to our city. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. Next up, Margaret Tweet or Douglas Tweet

Douglas Tweet Camas. Um, I'm here um giving update on the internet interstate bridge replacement project. uh there's been some significant changes and I thank Battleground for last uh year of going on record in opposition to the light rail aspect of that and um this is an update. So, last um Friday, the IBR project released their final um environmental impact statement and I downloaded it and it's a mere well over 20,000 pages of information. I've been working through some of that. A big significant thing that's been in the news is the price has gone from 6 billion to about 16 billion dollars. We're talking about the state and revenue. And uh tomorrow night, IBR executives will be at the CRAN meeting, board meeting, uh to give uh an update and answer questions about it. And they've got some things trying to figure out how they're going to do this. Uh meanwhile, I sent to the city clerk uh my this document, but I don't have time to go through all of it. I'll just hit the highlights. You should have PDFs on your email. Um I give detail about it's mostly about ridership and about the need for the light rail in the different portions. Uh this I presented before. This is an updated plot showing how this is ridership and buses across the I5 bridge both express buses and the route 60 which is the only one that the light rail is going to replace. and CO dropped things, but the the people that would be taking the light rail that take the route 60 right now to the max yellow line station are only about 900 boardings a day or less than 500 people per day and that has been stag stagnant for um uh the last three years. Now if we look at historical data back in uh

2006 there was about 3,300 total people crossing the bridge boardings across the bridge. Now the total ones including express are about 1,500 less than half. In 20 years it's gone down by less than half. The uh the IBR is now predicting that by 2045 20 years from now it's going to go up 20 times to nearly 30,000 which is patently absurd but that's what they're basing things on. And if you look at the diagram for what the bridge looks like and how things are distributed um you can see there's a lot more for light rail etc. You can look at these details but this plot kind of summarizes it. We look at two 2019 data uh that um IBR has presented. So about 143,000 general tracks, general traffic every day, about 14,000 freight, and then uh about 1,400 um on the uh that would be replaced by light rail, about 1,300 on express bus, and less than 300 people walking across. But you see the distribution of the spaces almost um uh uh almost half of this just goes to less than 3% of users. the other 97% the trucks and cars and ambulances are stuck in the rest. It's absolutely ridiculous and there's ways they can do to

improve this. Thank you. Thank you,

Margaret. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I want to note that Kamas and Wugal also opposed light rail on the I-5 bridge. Uh, and there are still many good reasons to oppose this expensive 14 billion project, which by the way, they are not specifying how many billions are allocated to light rail in this new budget. That would be a good question to ask. It'll be paid for by bridge tolls and higher taxes. And regarding this allocation um on light rail, you notice the 34 feet allocated to light rail that shares with nobody. Today the lanes are shared with other vehicles freight. Everybody shares a lane. This new plan is only light rail on 34 feet and we have here almost three lanes for pedestrians. We have 25 ft, two lanes of traffic, a ninth of the width of the bridge. Now, what is that based on? Well, according to the environmental impact statement, they did a 24-hour count on October 19th of 2022, and they counted 296 persons crossing on that one day. And it's based upon that analysis and that they have dedicated 25 feet to lanes to pedestrians, bicycles and mobility devices. There was other data they had set up counting stations and there was other data which was never

shared in the environmental impact statement the draft. So we had no opportunity to comment on it. Now that the final's out, they say, "Well, we looked at that data and we determined that uh they said it it revealed several irregularities in the data and it was determined to be unusable." Wow. Since 2019, they've had an opportunity to count the number of pedestrians, bicyclists, and mobility devices crossing I5 Bridge on average. We don't get an average, a single count. That is the kind of sloppy work along with these wrership inflated wrership forecasts that we are not getting the information that we need to make reasonable decisions. We could save a lot of money if we didn't have 25 ft for pedest pedestrian and bicycle path. It's 8 to 10 feet is the standard for a shared path. So, uh, we could do a lot better, but that's just one example of many, the writership being the main one of the misallocation of funds to the smallest user groups. Please consider that when you uh attend the RTC and CRAND meetings. Thank you.

Thank you, Margaret. Next up, Bev Jones. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to make a public statement. Um, I believe that the salary commission is important. I do not think it should be eliminated and I plan to throw my hat into the uh ring and apply for the open position number three. Thank you.

Thank you, Bev. Next up, Dave Row, Battlegrounds City Council and Mayor. I've been a resident of Battleground for 25 years. In 1880, the Chilache Prairie Railroad was built to serve the citizens of Battleground and Clark County. Between 1915 and 1920, four 4 million people a year rode trains in the Wamut Valley all the way up to uh battleground. They built that that bridge that uh Burlington Northern uses in 1908 and a lot of passengers went went across that bridge along with freight. Until 1940s that rail railroad were used for freight and passengers. Since the end of World War II only freight trains have used that track those tracks. Portland Metro has released a future study to bring back regional rail service to the greater Portland area. The Chilache Prairie Railroad tracks already connect to these tracks in Oregon. The battleground city council should consider joining in a B-state pastor rail system in addition to this interstate bridge that's going to cost $14 billion. And it's only they say by 1940 the or 2040

um the commute time will be not in decreased it'll be the same after spending this $14 billion. A region a regional rail system could be built for 1/4 the cost of the IBR and would reduce travel time by one/ird. The Cascades drives goes across from Vancouver to Portland in 20 minutes from Vancouver to Portland. Will the Battleground city council support regional rail to battleground? You should have a conversation with Portland Metro. I gave you a handout and it shows the corridors is already there. light rail is expensive because you have to bu build a new corridor. But with a the railroad tracks that are there, all all it needs is a passenger train put on it and put a few stations. It's a lot cheaper and it can be built a lot quicker. So, I gave you a handout and I had a handout that I gave. It's a 20page handout of the metro study and I think you should read it and and uh consider could we join with what they're doing to the south of us. I I work in Lake Asiggo and I've been driving there for 13 years. Sometimes it takes me an hour and a half to get from Battleground to Lake Asiggo. Thank you.

Thank you Dave. Jessica Cole.

Hello, council. My name is Jessica Cole. I want to briefly share about the event, an event I attended last week called um Keep our Kids Safe. It was a community night put on by Shared Hope International. Um if you're interested in the training, I highly recommend uh going to Shared Hope's website to take their um course titled Exploited. And there's some information on these cards about that. The event focused on preventing child exploitation and sex trafficking. There was a strong emphasis on awareness, online safety, and recognizing grooming behaviors. Chief Flynn spoke uh about last year's operation that led to arrests for child exploitation while noting that uh these efforts only address a portion of what's happening. One of the biggest takeaways from this event was this. Prevention matters. And one of the most important protective factors is whether people, especially youth, have strong, supportive, caring, and connected communities. This includes LGBTQ youth who are more vulnerable to risk. These are kids here in our community who are paying attention to whether they are accepted or not. We know that when young people don't feel safe or supported, whether at home or in their community, they are at higher risk for things like homelessness, sex trafficking, abuse, substance use, and suicide. Prevention is also about whether people feel seen, valued, and like they belong. Because when they don't, that's when

risk increases. And that doesn't suddenly just stop at age 18. That's why actions that signal belonging matter. Something like declining a transgender day of visibility proclamation may seem small. However, issuing it contributes to that sense of visibility. community support and community support. For some people, that message can make a real difference in whether they feel safe and connected to their own city or like they have to question if they even belong here. If we're serious about prevention, we have to look at the full picture, including the role our community and this council plays in creating safety, belonging, and a sense of being valued for everyone. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Jessica.

All right. and we will um move on to the next uh area of the meeting uh the consent agenda. Does any council member believe any items need to be withdrawn from this consent agenda? Hearing none, I'll call for a motion to approve. Mayor, I'll move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I Any oppose? Hearing none. Motion passes unanimous and we will move on to the public hearings. Liz, uh, is there any testimony that was submitted by the public uh, for the public hearing that has not been yet provided to the council? No, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. And we will start off by introducing the deputy city manager Robert Farrier for the ordinance 2026-03.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Uh staff presented this item to the city council last month. Uh the city and Northwest Natural Gas have negotiated a non-exclusive franchise agreement uh that authorizes the continued use of the city's rideway by Northwest to provide its services uh to its customers. Staff recommends the city council open the public uh hearing, take testimony, then consider and adopt the proposed franchise. That concludes my presentation.

All right. Thanks, Rob. Um, I will now open the public hearing at 8:26 p.m. Uh, for public testimony, individuals are limited to three minutes to provide comment on the ordinance 2026-03, which would approve a franchise agreement by and between the city of Battleground and Northwest Natural Gas. All comment should be directed to the mayor. Are there any uh members on Zoom, Liz? No, Mr. Mayor. All right. Are there any members of the public who wish to provide testimony?

All right. Hearing none, I will close the public hearing. Uh seeing no further members of the uh public wishing to speak, I now close the public hearing at 8:27. And I will uh ask Liz to read the title of the ordinance, please. Ordinance number 2026-03, an ordinance renewing and modifying the grant of a non-exclusive gas utility franchise to Northwest Natural Gas Company and fixing terms and conditions of such franchise.

Thank you, Liz. And I would entertain a motion. I had a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-3 approving a 10-year franchise agreement buy and between the city of Battleground and the Northwest Natural Gas Company as presented. So, all right. Motion by council member Ferrer. Second by council member McCoy. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none. Call for a vote. All those in favor?

I. Any oppose? Hearing none. Motion passes unanimously. And now we will move to the battleground municipal code updates. Uh again, Robert.

Uh again, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh this will be a tag team effort uh between myself and Mark and Kristen. Um at the last council meeting on the 6th, uh staff presented a series of proposed changes uh for the municipal code. Again, this is the spring 26 edition of this. Typically, we do this a couple times a year, once in spring and again in the fall. um the general administrative sections for lack of a better word. I will handle um Mark will address the uh changes for uh public works related matters and then Kristen will do follow up with community development. for my area of of presentation tonight. The one item that I wrote down from last discussion was some reticence on the part of the city council to adopt any changes that we had in regards to rabbits for the municipal code. Uh the original draft that was presented to you had a limit of five that was struck from the code as was presented on the staff report. Does council have any other questions? Are there other items that we did not bless you that we did not include that you would like us to include before the item is brought back uh for an ordinance?

Yeah.

Anybody?

If not, I'll go ahead and pass the ball. Um, so in title 12, um, I wasn't at the meeting, but Ryan reported back to me, uh, there was a concern with the mixing of planter strip and parking strip in those terms. And so, um, we looked and changed everything to planter strip. That's the definition given in title 12. So, um, we made it all consistent for that one. Um there was a request in 12118010 to add the definition of MUTCD. Um so that was added and then uh there's a few other places where just some cleaning up the wording um as suggested by legal. Um so those were all the changes I made from what you saw last time.

Good evening council. So you have two staff reports in front of you if you recall. Uh we kind of bundled them separately. We have the spring battleground municipal code updates that um Rob mentioned and then we have a second set of updates that are GMA or growth management act related. So I'm not aware of any direction to make changes from the last meeting in any of those community development/growth management act sections but happy to take any questions or answer um anything that you might have related to those. Moving on.

So, yeah, if there's no additional questions, um staff would ask council to please open public hearing to hear citizen comments. Thank you, Chris. All right. I will now open the public hearing at 8:32 p.m. For the public testimony, individuals are limited to three minutes to provide comment on the proposed Battleground Municipal Code updates. All comment be directed to the mayor. Um, Liz, are there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to provide testimony? No, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Are there any members of the public here tonight who wish to provide testimony? All right. Do we have one? All right. Come on up. I guess don't feel obligated, but Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Oh, uh, please state your name and place of

I'm Daniel Lang. Uh, I am an engineer for Wolf Industries. On behalf of them, uh, Derek wanted me to give some comment. He's the one of the owners. Um, thanks to Kristen pulling me up here. So, we got the opportunity uh to comment on the specifically the cottage code development and the one thing that came up is putting them on a single lot was our issue. Uh it's really difficult to get them to fit and meet the cottage cottage develop uh kind of the vision of it. Uh we've done quite a bit of work in the in the community uh with cottage clusters and we've kind of been a leader with it. So trying to get all that to work and hoping that uh we take some time to look at how that would work on an individual lot, how we would meet code setbacks. Uh you have to look at parking tracks, utilities. So it makes it really difficult trying to get the ready to stick with it. So that was Sorry, I'm a little stressed out.

You're good. You're good.

Um, but yeah, I've been involved in a lot of design, worked on the engineering for it, previous firm for Wolf specifically, and they're they become a leader in the industry on that. We've got a lot of experience with it, and so we would we do understand the reason for it. individual, you know, ownership is is a we're obviously very supportive of that, but it's difficult to make it all work um in the cottage cluster code situation. And so that was that was our main kind of our main focus, you know, asking to be, you know, looked at in in the code. So, all right. Thank you.

Yep.

Are there any additional members who uh would like to provide testimony tonight? All right. Seeing no further members of the public wishing to speak, I now close the public hearing at 8:35 p.m. Um, no final action will be taken on this item tonight. Staff will prepare ordinances for a future future council meeting at which time staff will ask for a decision from council. Um, and before we move on to business, I would like to take a quick fivem minute recess. Do you have something, Troy? Go ahead. I would just uh like to hear what the wolf changes to the cottage code would be and maybe we could get those all to all of council on their proposed changes uh before the next meeting possible.

If the council agrees,

I can add a quick comment and then if you'd like additional information, happy to follow up with that. um the second staff report that was in your packet, the development regulations update GMA required. I'm going to give you the page from the staff report. So, I apologize if that doesn't align with your cohesive packet page numbering. Um but on page 10 specifically in the table, uh letter L. Um, currently our code requires that each cottage unit or house be located on a separate lot or that it needs to be a condominium. Um, planning commission did hear some feedback from Wolf about their concerns around that and decided that they were more comfortable waiting to examine making changes related to that current language at this time. So again, happy to provide any additional details that you'd like. Um, but that was the history I have up to this point as far as the request and the conversation that has happened. Are you trying to get

Yeah, there's a lot of pages on the staff report. Um, okay. So just for clarification, it it has to do with individual ownership of an of a lot and then the way the cottage structure would be.

So currently we allow cottage clusters, multiple units. However, we expect them to be located on their own individual parcel, which yes, allows for ownership versus if if we were to take that requirement away and multiple units could exist on one parcel. um you kind of run into a situation more like and I'll use this example because this came up during the planning commission meeting like a a manufactured home park where people perhaps own the structure but they don't owe the land underneath it. So they pay a rental for that space. And the concern from planning commission um was that the idea of home ownership is not as readily fulfilled in that model and you run the risk of of rents potentially going up for the space. And so again, currently our code requires those cottage housing units to be on their own individual lot or a condominium type structure which does allow ownership, but there's a few more hoops to jump through and I'm happy to get you more details of what that would look like. Um, so the proposal from Wolf was to eliminate that requirement of an individual parcel per unit so that multiple units could exist on one legal parcel. And does the uh verbiage of that does that align with GMA requirements or is that just battleground?

I believe at this time battleground has that regulation. Other jurisdictions don't necessarily have that requirement. So I believe we would be able to look at changing that and we wouldn't be out of compliance with GMA. Um, Shane

Kristen, could we I mean, I see it similar to condominiums like like why couldn't we treat it like condominiums or why couldn't we have a a zoning that would allow like like for this that would allow those to be if you're if you're going to put in a cottage development that would allow those to be sold off as individual lots and and just make it that way. If we're worried about the ground that they sit on, um make it so that it is zoned as a cottage development, similar to like what we have right over here with the the trailer park, except instead of allowing, you know, someone to own all the land and and they own the homes, allow each individual in there to own the entire thing. Um, and then maybe they have some type of a HOA that covers all the other spaces, that kind of stuff. But, but treat it more like a condominium or something like that where we just do it through zoning and allow them to have higher density, but they actually own the footprint.

Yeah. And to your point, um, Council Member Bowman, the current language states, each cottage shall be located on a separate lot or shall be a condominium. So, it is a it is an option per our current code language. I do have Sam Kreman, our planning supervisor, on virtually. I don't know if he can speak more to what that would look like. I believe and I'm I'm not sure the reference to the Washington code. There's all kinds of additional steps that would have to be taken to establish a condominium, but we do currently offer that with our current code language as an option

because a condo does not have I mean it always amazed me like you know I think of a condo as what I stay in when I go to Hawaii, not an apartment complex, right? And you go to Portland and a condo is apartment complex that you just individually own each unit. And so if we could treat it similar to something like that or make it so that we could have that flexibility in our zoning to allow for more of this type of stuff. Um I think it I think it is a way to to get into home ownership less well less expensive than traditional right now. you know, correct? It's sad that we're

at the point where you used to be able to buy a home 20 years ago for the cost of a small condo now. So, um, but I think that's how you we could get around it and make it so it's affordable. It's a great point. Um, Sam, do you have any input on this? I saw he unmuted.

I don't have much more to input. I think um everything Kristen said is accurate and summarizes the planning commission and I think the comments council member Bowman made would be authorized in the current language in our code. I think the key difference is uh the direction Wolf would like to go, which is where Clark County is and Vancouver is, would be to not require condoising or a lot. And then that would just be a scenario where you'd have kind of a tenant landlord situation. and our housing action plan that we completed a few years ago. One of the major goals and that was to on one hand affordability of course. Um but the other one was to support home home ownership. So at the planning commission level there was good debate. Um I think they lean toward ownership keeping the code as is. Um, and we were I I should say the individually to staff level and the planning commission were able to accommodate several requests that Wolf Industries made. Um, I think they'd agree to that, but I think this was one where the planning commission wasn't willing to go.

Thank you, Sam. Council member Mson.

Sam, thanks. me. Oh, sorry. Thanks, Sam. That cleared it up for me. Um, you know, it is difficult to become a first-time homeowner in this economy. Um, and to council member Bowman's testament there, uh, I'll give an example. In Woodland, the RV park out there was bought a couple years ago. So, people own their their double wide, their single wide or whatever. They don't own the lot that it sits on. and the new ownership out there almost doubled the lot lot fees and they spent a year and a half in court trying to go get some support to get those lot fees reduced. They were victorious at the end of it and they got some reductions in their cost, but at the end of the day it was still a 60% increase in lot fees. So, I would be supportive of smaller lot sizes that people could actually own. Um, you know, tiny homes or whatever. You know, they can be moved around if they need to be. But it it's so frustrating to hear the stories of people buying something, a smaller unit, you know, whether it's a trailer, uh, mobile home, whatever, especially fixed income, right? and then they find that they get a new corporate owner of their their property and now they can't even afford to live there. So, I I would be in favor of the not colonizing it, if you will, but making uh some kind of zoning acclamation for single units so that people could afford to actually own something. And from my understanding, that's as Sam said and Kristen said, that's kind of how our current zoning is, right? So, it's not forcing it like a mobile home park scenario. So, kind of agree uh with the uh planning commission on that, I

think. Okay. Any further questions? Not seeing any. All right. Now, I would like to go into a fivem minute recess uh before my eyeballs float out of my skull. Uh we'll uh recess at 8:45, return at 8:50. Mhm. That's fine. I've got a little bit more to do. Is at least some yet? Oh, okay.

All right, the time is 8:50 and we will now uh reconvene the meeting onto the business portion of the agenda. Uh, Liz, are there any communications that were submitted regarding business items that have not yet been provided to council? No, Mr. Mayor.

Very good. We'll uh move on to council compensation. Uh, finance and information service director Megan Lowry, you are up.

Good evening, council. Tonight, council had requested a discussion regarding council compensation, specifically discussing the potential rescending of ordinance 21-40, which was the original establishment of the salary commission. The staff report provided information regarding the three ways in which you can alter council member salaries. So, if you have questions about that, I'm here to answer those. We also have the attorney on the line that can also answer questions. And I will note that any changes that are made by council for salaries would not take effect into until new positions are elected. So for example, the three positions that go out for election next year, those changes would take effect January 1st, 2028. So all salaries would stay the same. And with that, I'll turn it over to council for discussion. All right,

I'm ready to speak. All right, we have uh Council Member Kypers.

Yeah. So, I'm Thank you, Mayor. Um, first I'll be interested to hear um the reasoning or the why behind um asking for this to be rescended. I I think that the salary commission is an important um accountability tool. Um I think it's it offers the transparency. it. I I have never seen a situation where we have um the person setting their own salaries or debating their own salaries. So, taking bringing that back in for council to debate um is not something I would want to do for my own salary um or anyone else's that I am trying to work with as a peer to think get things accomplished in the city. So, personally, I'm not in favor of rescending, and I look forward to just hearing what other uh opinions are and what maybe some of the wise were for bringing this up.

So, I'll I'll I'll touch on that a little bit. This for me isn't about us pulling the salary commission duties away and negotiating new salaries. Um, we have repealed the salary commission before. We've set our salaries a couple times before. Uh, the challenge that I I found with when I was looking into this wasn't our compensation. It was actually to me, and this is my opinion, the lack of transparency for it because we can't find in our code like we used to before that shows our compensation. And so, um, the other part of this that I had questions on, I've gotten some answers. Actually, I've gotten most the answers, is the time it takes to set up the meetings, the staff's time when just codifying what we currently have in a non-election year is the most open and honest way in my opinion to do something. So, um, you know, I look back at some of the meeting minutes of the salary comp uh, commission over the last few years. uh we had multiple times where there was a three or four minute meeting um and and even though the minute the meeting was only a few minutes I think about the staff's time to set that up um and and what they're going through and then many times where we had meetings set up but they didn't have a quorum. So, as much as I think a salary commission is important, you can't really pull um the data that you might look for through the salary commission because it's not codified. So, at the end of the day, the reason why I brought this up isn't to necessarily make a change. It's just that it's a non-election year and I wanted to see where this current council sits with this position. Um just that's kind of where I was at with this. So, is that am I?

Yeah. Thank you, Council Member Bowman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so I think uh Mr. Mr. Mson and I are the only ones that have been on council when we did not have a salary commission. And there's a couple reasons why I think a salary commission is important. and and you know, please please bear with me here because I've I've been around a little bit and and have seen this. Um, when I first got elected, uh, you could go to an AWC meeting and, um, I think when I got elected, it was 2012, so I was I was 40 years old. Um, there probably was not one person in that room that was within 20 years of me. It was old, retired, wealthy, uh maybe not so wealthy, but old retired people that had plenty of time. If we want diversity on our council, um we needed we needed to to get younger people and this community at the time had a lot of young families in it. And uh no offense to Mr. Enzinga, but he was he was one of the old retired people back then. So um but the s the challenge you had is is we run a 4-3 cycle. So four of us are up for election every two years, three of us the following two years. So the way it worked was um if we wanted to do a salary increase, number one, council had to enact that before the election and then it would only go into effect for either the three or the four. So, if if I take a vote and it's not my election year and it's your election year, you're going to get the raise. I'm not.

Um I won't get it until another two years. And we run. And so we had uh Mr. Ganley was here at the time and and I I I don't remember the exact number of years, but it was a lengthy amount of time that that salary had ma remained the same. And so um and and when we formed the first salary commission, the the it was new to the city. It was new to us. And um the information that that salary commission asked for uh became more political than it was just doing the job of looking at salaries. And so when they look at the salaries, they look at the same salaries that we use when we do salaries for any of our employees. They look at the salary range AWC gives and they and and it will have compensation of all of your council members in that. And so you can take the high and low and and then you have to throw out your strong mayors because they're an administrator and you look at the city of Ana Cortis and their mayor makes like 9,000 a month. So you throw that one out. But council members are council members no matter where you're at in this state.

And so then what they what you do is you figure out what that average is. Well, we we hadn't had any compensation uh you know that had increased in in any of that period of time. So, we did it twice. We did it um two years in a row and and brought it up to I think at the time it was about 800 bucks is is what we brought it up to. Uh, the other thing that happened in that same amount of time was in 2012, the state changed um that you didn't need a salary commission for council to have benefits. There there was other cities that were getting benefits um for council members if they chose to take them and the state had changed that and so council members could take a benefit uh and get insurance. Um the challenge with it was is the Association of Washington Cities is one of our pools that we get insurance through. The second one is Kaiser. The Association of Washington Cities in their infinite wisdom decide that we as a council are a separate group in a city. We don't fall under the rest of the city. And um you have to understand why they say you're a separate group because a lot of the people a lot of the people that made those rules sit on AWC's board and they are strong mayors and a strong mayor does not want to offer benefits to the rest of council. And so AWC said in order to take the AWC insurance which is the blue cross we had to have 50% of our council take that plan unless you had a salary commission. So if a salary commission says we authorize it, then AWC would recognize that. If not, you had to have 50% of your council take that plan. Well, not everyone's going to want it. Some may want Kaiser, some may not take it at all. And so that's why the salary commission came back into play is the ability to give us the options of uh

those that take insurance having two different options. The other thing it did is it took it out of our hands. We didn't have to vote on our salaries. Um, and it was always kind of a contentious, you know, because like why why do I care? You're going to get the raise. Like, you know, why do I care? And then two years later, you're doing the same thing. So, now you got an independent board that um has to be a citizen of the citizen the the city of Battleground. And they send out the surveys to us and they they ask things like, "Hey, how much work do you do? What do you do? What is it like to be the deputy mayor? What is it like to be the mayor?" You know, those are those are two positions that we bump salaries. We bump salaries for the mayor and the deputy mayor because there's a lot of work that goes in there that a lot of people don't understand. And so they they make those adjustments and those adjustments um they can they can increase them at any time. It gives them the flexibility to usually they will increase them with our budget.

So they'll do an increase and say at the next budget. So, um I think it's a way better system and I understand that it's another meeting, but but what it does is it takes it out of the elected's hands.

I've had probably no less than six people talk to me about this this last week and um one of them when I explained that the other option we have is council votes on it, they they did not like that position that we get to vote our own salaries and um this takes it out of our hands. It puts it into unelecteds um that live in the city that get the information they need, get the information they need from the city. Megan does a good job of providing them with the salary surveys that the Association of Washington Cities puts out and then they make the decisions and and we really don't have a lot of say in uh outside of just the survey of what that does

and and so then we don't have to be the ones that that you know say, "Hey, we took took more than than we thought. So that's that's a long history of how we got to here. All right, Council Member Mudson.

Oh, into this is again, my position on this is not for an increase or decrease, but a cotification so that it's out there for the public to see. If for some reason we go short-handed with a salary commission um by default and it's no longer effective, we would then revert back to the RCW since that's the last codified known salary. Correct.

Mr. Ellis can correct me if I'm wrong, but as long as we have at least two of the three, I don't believe that we would be in violation of not having a quorum. Just like if we had vacant positions until you appoint, you can continue to still have meetings and vote. So, we would have to have two of the positions vacant for it to revert, which then again, it would just be until those positions would be filled. And Mr. Again, Mr. Ellis can correct me if I'm misspeaking.

I believe that's right, Megan. So, uh, with all of that being said, again, however the council chooses to go to it, uh, to me it's just whether we think where we're at is good or higher or lower, whatever, the codification piece of it for me is just that it minimizes the risks involved of the salary commission not acting at capacity, whether there's, you know, people dropping off or whatever the case is um but the other than that there's no intent other than the codification of where where we're at. Okay. I'm just going to say this. I agree with Jeie on this. Uh Council Member Kypers, sorry. My apologies. Um the only hesitation I have even looking at this is the default is now we're in control of our own salaries and that doesn't seem right to me. Um, and I believe and I trust most of council would do the right thing and uh, personally I'd probably have a note raise kind of vote myself, but um, for transparency in the public, I don't know if that's necessarily what we want to have. Um, I do understand Council Member Mson's point of view, though. If if there we're putting all this together for a three-minute meeting and it just says no action or we don't have a quorum because two people didn't show up, that poses its own issues as well. But, um, yeah, I just I don't like the idea of myself being in charge of my own salary. I don't think that's the right thing for me to do. Uh, Council Member McCoy, you can.

So, I did a little research on the history of council salaries and uh the two biggest increases 50% and 50% were council directed. Since the salary commission's been in effect, the highest percentage increase has been 8% with the five and 3% as well. And I know the original intent of this meant to adjust it and I turned off was not necessarily to increase it or decrease it, but I think the result of changing this would be um I think it adds politics into it. I believe having a three member salary commission is transparent. I it's been working well. We haven't had any issues. Um and do we have a cost associated with how much those three minute meetings cost us? Um it's just you Megan, isn't it?

Correct. It is just me. It's about 5 10 minutes of the time of the meeting and then getting in here, setting it up. And if we don't have a quorum, all that information is still available. I hit cancel and then I just freeate it for the next meeting when we can get a quorum there.

Um, I mean, if people are concerned about that, you can always uh not take the medical opt out. That would save the city 30 $350 per month. Um there's there's lots of ways to uh make this financially uh better for the city, but uh the transparency, you know, if if we have somebody who falls off the salary commission, um I believe between all of us, we can find somebody willing to sit on it. Um if the mayor can't. So I I don't see we haven't had an issue with this. Um there haven't been any decisions delayed. I believe right now the council member pay is appropriate. Uh, I don't see any need for wholesale changes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member McCoy. Um, Council Member Ferrer,

I just have a question that for you, Megan, do we have any issues at this moment with our annual committee members not showing up after you've put the time into it? No, I think it's ultimately the first meeting is always a little bit of a struggle because it's not a routine meeting and in this last case, one of our members actually had a meeting go along because we have it during the day during working hours at 4:30 in the afternoon. So on occasion, work will go long for our folks and that happens. But after the first meeting, we typically don't have that issue.

And how can you remind me how often you meet? It's just once annually. depends upon the year and our commission members and it depends on how deep of a dive that they're going. If they come in and they look and see that we're still within our comparables and looking at what other cities are getting, as Mr. Bowman explained, we use the same comparables as we do for our our regular union folks and non-represented staff for comparable cities. If they see we're within those comparables, it's a very short discussion, which is ultimately why they end up being five minutes. When we first started the commission, they were much longer meetings and more in depth because they wanted more information. The surveys changed of what they wanted to ask council members and so it was a little bit longer of a process and there was multiple more meetings and we met once to twice a month all the way until September. Um, and then we had to have the two public hearings. When they're in agreement, it goes very fast because there's not that those discussions happening because they agree. So the longer meetings are when they disagree if that helps.

Yes, it does. Thank you. So by at this point it's probably running pretty smooth and since there's always somebody cycling through, they're just learning from the other committee members and they'll probably continue to use this survey and the other tools that they have at their disposal to make these informed decisions. up until our most recent commission member had to remove herself from the commission because she moved outside of the city. They were all in their second term. So, they've all been meeting together for multiple years. And so, that's also why the meetings in the last couple years have gone a little bit shorter. Again, our first three years, our first two years of this commission, it was much it was different.

Okay. Thank you. Um just so we're all weighing in here since everybody's weighed in I feel like you know so we can figure out where we're at if we want to continue be done with it. I'll just say my two cents is um I would think although I understand where council member Mudson is his concerns lie, I would say I would as a citizen if I heard that council members are making their own, you know, um deciding what their paychecks are going to be. I probably wouldn't be happy about that. And so I've just got to look at that piece on how the average day citizen would probably be looking at it. Although and and I don't think this staff I don't think anybody on this council would want me to be um voting on our salaries because I'd be like we don't get nothing. So yeah. Um but yeah, so I I I'm yeah I would say I'm I'm I'm not interested.

Thank you. Uh Council Member Kypers. Thank you. And uh thank you member uh council member Mson for explaining some of your thoughts on this. I what I'm hearing is it's not broken um with the exception that you have concerns around transparency or be a being able to find the information about what council's being paid at this time. Um, so if the average citizen didn't know to go to the minutes from the salary commission and see in there, you're you're thinking something more visible um would be helpful. I guess that's where the conversation needs to come in is what do we need to do to help that concern. Um, but maybe changing the from a salary commission to an internal decisionm is kind of throwing the baby out with a bathwater, so to speak.

Deputy Mayor Bale. Hello. I was just going to say that most of the questions that I had were answered by other council members, answered by staff. um wonderfully answering and having questions I mean answers available which I really appreciate. Um I would say that uh just to make sure that I fully understand. So if we had a new salary commission come in and it was a difficult they didn't agree how much time are we looking at staff dedicating? Are we looking at these being hours and hours and hours by monthly?

It would be just it's very similar to when council's having a discussion and there's folks that disagree. oftentimes what happened even in that initial where it was two had one opinion and one had another opinion they weren't long the same length of meetings as like what you guys would do when you have those those conversations they were about half hour to 45 minutes and then ultimately it was okay well it's this information and it was very cordial I can't imagine it would just very much depend on who is on that commission but it wouldn't be staff time other than the meeting itself and then getting the information and ultimately what that looks like. I wouldn't know until we got there because again they drive the process. We staff doesn't say you shall do it this way because that's not the intent of the commission. The commission is appointed in order for them to come at us. And we do provide again we always provide the comparables for the other cities because that's important. They need to see what are other cities getting. We include the health benefits. We include the cost share. We include if they're a strong mayor, not a strong mayor, their AV, their sales tax. um mayor council form mayor manager council manager depending upon what it is and as Mr. Bowman said throwing those out and what that looks like and explaining why some of those mayor salaries are so high. Um so it would be very dependent. I don't have a crystal ball to know in that situation how much time because it would very much depend upon who is on that commission the discussions. if it got to a point where it was really really long. I mean, I don't know what we would do at that point, but we haven't come to that problem. So, I don't know.

Wonderful. Well, let's hope we don't. I think that fully satisfies any questions that I had, and I just want to uh yeah, fully communicate that I would also be uncomfortable voting in my own increases. I think that that is not a responsibility that I that I would um like. And I do um though appreciate Council Member Mson's request for transparency. I think that transparency is extremely important and I would love for our salaries and every other city employee to be easily accessible. I think that data should be disclosable.

I was going to say we have not previously done it, but we absolutely can. We can post the salary schedule either where the other salaries are, we can post it under accountant city council. Um, I'll work with Alicia and Liz. Ultimately, we always hand it, it's required for our code to hand it over to the city clerk for filing. Um, but we can absolutely get that posted as well. Thank you. Thank you, Megan.

All right. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none and hearing no motion, we will uh move on. We come to the 2026 Q1 financial review. Miss Megan Lowry, take it away.

Okay, so we are done with the first quarter of 2026 and actually today was the first day of our state audit. So our draft ACT for or finalized ACT for they don't let you start your audit unless you submit and say this is our final because you can't make changes after that any changes then result in an aggregation of errors even though you caught it. So we always are very sure that we submit and we submit the most accurate that we can at the time of the beginning of the audit. They will be taking about six to seven weeks. They'll have up to four auditors that are going to come in and look through everything. And as we've discussed before, accountability, financial statement, and then because our largest federal expense was ARPA, we're able to do a smaller single audit, which is fantastic because it saves us money. And so they'll come in and review for allowable costs, but they won't have to do any of the other cost or compliance requirements, which is great. Again, saving money. Our budget was $75,000 for the audit. It should come in lower than that because we don't have the full single audit. I don't have the draft yet. We will have an entrance within the next two weeks. They have to go through some planning and then they have to have their brainstorming. Once we have the entrance, everyone will be invited. It's a requirement of the state auditor's office. Typically, the mayor represents, but if other folks want to come, you're more than welcome. We just need to make sure if we have a quorum, we post it. Okay. So, a little bit of not great news. the first quarter, which is really only one month of sales tax activity for 2026. We did see a 4.1% decrease of city of battleground sales tax. That's mostly coming from construction though, so that's not too big of a concern at this point in time. Overall for the countywide though if you look at public safety tax and criminal justice which again that's collected countywide and then we get a proportionate share back based upon how that is laid out in RCW there was an increase whereas last year we were seeing the county was decreasing

and we were increasing so it just kind of shows you local versus countywide collections and then I will say April 1st was the first day they started collecting our local 0.1% public safety tax but we won't see that for two months. So, forthcoming. Looking at the general sales tax revenue, again, this just shows you historic since 2019. We've that's only one month of activity, but again, 2025 was a record year for us at 5.9 million. So, we're still in that realm and projections are we should come in close to that based upon where we're at right now and how the economy is looking. Again looking at total receipts and what we send to the state about 3.4 million to the state 370,000 to CRAN and then for mental health criminal transportation our own TBD.1% and then public safety 52,000 and then the county we sent 79,000. So total gross receipts estimated about 52.9 million for the city of Battleground. And then this shows you where the changes are happening. Again, like I said, the biggest decrease for quarter 1 compared to quarter 1 of last year was construction at 18.4%. Slight decrease in retail and then a slight well more of a decrease in food services and lodging. And then the public administration, that's actually vehicle and equipment sales. So those were a little bit down for quarter 1. Our development activity though is rocking hard. Um there was an increase of 46% in single family permits. So we went from 59 to 86. Multif family we collected one compared to zero in quarter 1 and then four compared to two in commercial. What does that mean for dollars? Overall for development

activity we've collected 2.3 million which is a 53.4% 4% increase over 25 first quarter, which is amazing. Um, if you take a look, I want to highlight the park impact fees. We collected almost $820,000 in the first quarter this year. We, if you recall when we talked about park impact fees back when we set those, we were estimating at a million a year. We're already at 819,000. So, that has a lot to do with the multifamily permit that came in because of how that calculation goes. So that's primarily why that is high. I will say development review is a little bit down which just means that the things that are in the hopper are a little bit lower than they were last year at the same time. So we may see a little bit of a slag on the permit revenue and building permits as the year goes on, but that could very well pick up. Looking at our interest income, we're at 871,000 across all the funds compared to 942,025. We're just seeing those decreases a little bit. We still are very high comparatively historically. We're at 3.3 overall compared to 3.8 and 25. Very high level. Again, we're just kicking off the year. We're at 10 million actual in our general fund revenue and our budget of 27.2. For our expenditures, we're at 6.4 um compared to our budget of 36.6. So, we're moving along. We're well within our targets for both as we kick off and getting into second quarter. Real estate excise tax, we are at 397,000 thus far. That is a little bit lower than where we were at in 2025, but it's still a very strong showing for the first quarter. Looking at the street fund, I spoke with Mr. James earlier today and the

reconstruction project. So, that $9 million between the preservation and the $8 million surplus is going out, it's out to bid right now and will be, I like to say, closed, but it's technically open on Wednesday um next week. So, we should have those numbers back and hopefully they are favorable to everything we have in that and we can get that scheduled and going. Um, looking at our parks fund, we're at 26.4% for our parks revenue. Our event center is doing very well in their collections and their rentals. And then park expenditures were at 21.1% budget to actual. And we always look at the target. Obviously, we're a quarter in. So 25% is usually your target when you're looking at these, but that depends on your projects and where you're at with repairs. Storm drainage fund, we are also doing well. We're at 134 13.4% 4% for our revenue and 10.9% for expenditures. But that has to do with the little bulleted items. So, our capital budgeted expenses include $2.7 million in capital projects that haven't kicked off yet and then the offsetting revenue of 2.1 million. For our water fund, we're at 16.5% for our revenues and 15.6% for expenditures. And again, the expenses include 4.9 million for capital projects, which aren't really kicking off yet, and then the offsetting 4.7 million in budgeted revenues to offset that. I will say I did also speak to Ryan, Mr. James, about where the reservoir is at, and it's supposed to be completed in July, which will be the last of our ARPA money. So, the American Rescue Plan Act money. I just submitted our 2025 report to the state tre not the state, excuse me, the

federal treasury office and where we have $433,000 left of that $5.9 million that we invested back into our utility system which saved us some rate revenue or rate increases. So excited to get that done. And then looking at our sewer fund, sewer revenue we're at 19.5% budget to actual and expenses 24.5%. Again, this these are closer to your targets because the capital expenses are much smaller. So we have about half a million in capital expenses budgeted for those projects and then the offsetting half million in revenues. Looking at our total debt outstanding, it hasn't moved much. We have outstanding spot and wave bonds of 2 million. and the water revenue bond of 1.1 and then our sewer $4.4 4 million bond. And then overall cash investments. Again, the majority of our funds are still at LGIP. And then we also utilize the county pool. And then we have some long-term investments that we do ourselves. And then we ob we have our money in our local bank to pay for our various things. And I will say the majority of these cash balances, these are not just funds we get to go spend on whatever we want. As you know, when government charges funds, our rates, our special revenues, they're very restricted to very narrow focuses. So, the majority of this is already spoken for. So, are there any questions with any of that? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. All right. Moving on to administrative reports. Are there any administrative reports from staff this evening?

No, there are no additional reports. No reports. Moving on to council communications. Are there any council member communications this evening? We have council member Bowman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have a couple things. Uh, one of them I just wanted to let council know. um had the opportunity over the last month, we had um we had with fire district 3, we had three uh cadets in the academy at the state of Washington academy. Then I had the opportunity to go up for um get trained and go up and and do a burn with them and go into the burn room and watch our recruits um work. And um it was uh very very uh humbling I guess you could say to see what these these recruits do. um had the opportunity to number one they they the gear that they gave me was a captain's gear and I'm pretty sure the state of Washington thinks that fire district 3 has the dumbest captain um possible because uh they were explaining a lot to me what's going on in these rooms and um I had a captain's hat on so that I should have known that but but um watching our recruits uh go through the different levels of training and what they needed to do to provide uh for our community when they came back. Um last week uh we had the three of them graduated. Um two of them graduated with on the engine crew which is the top four of the class and two of the top four were were recruits of ours that are coming back to um fire district 3 and we'll be working in the in the city of Battleground. to go along with that. Um had the opportunity to talk uh in detail not only with the state um fire marshals and and stuff at the academy but also with our fire marshall who uh is fire district 3's chief. And you guys all received a letter today from Chief Drron who is the fire marshal for the city of

Battleground. And this has to do with um with the ordinance that that we approved uh last meeting that has to do with RV parking and cars. And um I thought it was important because uh when we make decisions and I brought this up um a couple meetings ago that that uh we needed to check with fire to determine um what their opinion was before we changed our ordinances. And in the letter, I just want to read real quick. Says, "From a fire and safety fire and life safety perspective, the removal of minimum separation distances introduces conditions that can increase the potential for fire spread. RVs and travel trailers are often constructed with lightweight combustible materials and commonly include propane systems, fuel sources, and electric components, which can contribute to the rapid fire growth when units are placed in close proximity. Separation distances remain one of the most effective tools for reducing fire exposure between structures. Um, I think it's important that we and and I wasn't here, so I'm not on the uh I was on the losing side or the prevailing side on this vote, but I think it's important that we look at and we talk to the professionals that deal with this stuff before we make um laws or ordinances or change laws and ordinances that could affect other people's property. Now, I'm all for property rights, and um one of the things that that I brought up uh was um there's a a neighborhood in this town that has it's it's a private neighborhood. Um, it has no HOA, has a defunct HOA, and there are many RVs,

there are many cars and yards, there are many things that are blocking um ADA access um and could be potential fire hazards and there's nothing we can do about it because it's a private neighborhood. Um, we could do something about this. And I would I I tend to think that as a council when we make these kind of decisions and we get a letter from your fire marshal or um those people that that um do this for a living and they say there is potential by having lowering the minimums and allowing more um or increasing the minimums and allowing more vehicles and this type of stuff to be stored that it could affect more people than just myself in my house. And when a professional tells you that, um I would think there's a certain amount of liability that we take on because we make a decision that goes against those that would um would are in the know and and do this for a living. And so, um I would love it if council brought it back. I know this is uh additional information that was given to us. Um but I think that there is a reason why uh we have codes for this kind of stuff. And not only does it put um potentially our neighbors in risk, but it it puts potentially the three new recruits that we just brought in at risk too when they come out to assist in um if there is a fire in in a situation like that. Um RVs are different. uh people live in them, people uh you know, they're plugged in, all those type of things add to this. And so, um the other thing that was brought up that I think council may want to to look at is um I have a lot, and I'll just use me as an

example, I have a lot that I could fit three 45 foot trailers on down the side in my RV parking. Um, we as a council just made it possible for me to subleasase my RV parking and I can put it out there and say, "Hey, if you want to pay 200 bucks a month, you can put it at my house and um, it saves you from paying $400 a month somewhere else to do this." Um, one of the things that was that I have heard that might be beneficial for us is to say that only RVs that are licensed to the property owners can be stored there. that they can't subleasase uh their property. Um so I just want to throw that out there and put it on the record. Uh it's up to council to bring that back. I I don't have a a dog in this fight except to tell you that this was a letter that was from your fire marshal and I would recommend you all read it. It should be in your email. Thank you, Council Member McCoy. Well, I would make that motion, but I can't. Um, I just wanted to report out, uh, for those that weren't aware, Better Ground Education Foundation had a fundraiser this Saturday. Thank you to the city manager and some people in the audience for being there. A main reason for that was to fund raise for the SRO, the school resource officers with the levy failure. Uh the fear is Clark County uh and potentially us may not pay for the full weight of that. Uh so if you're not aware and you want to be involved, uh please reach out to me. Uh I may know somebody involved with that foundation. But I wanted to thank Officer Quiggle for uh coming to the fundraiser. It was very impactful. We had some students speaking and just talked about the impact of those school resource officers

and how her uh how she saw officers completely did a 180 was very powerful. So uh if if you want to reach out to her, she's a student rep on the school board. So she was amazing. So thank you.

All right. One last thing that I have, um, I got some writership data for Catran lines 47 and 7. Thank you, um, Chris for supplying that to me. Um, I went on their website. I I was having a hard time finding it, but um, this is from average daily writership. uh just the numbers and then I just did some rough math to multiply by 30 to estimate the total annual wrership um at 15591 for 47 and 7 um that's on a again annual basis. Uh combine that with the daily average time 30 to estimate uh for the current. So did the same math for the current from September 25. Um that brings us to a grand total of 158508 for rides for last year. Again the current not being in full full swing yet but so just kind of doing some rough math. It cost us I again my math could be way off on this but I think it's not uh about 30 bucks a ride for somebody to ride CRA. That's what the city pays. uh per ride per writer with the amount of money that we pay cran. Now, I don't say that to discourage anything, but I think it's important that we understand um that the rates keep going up. And I'm glad that we have the current and I'm glad that we have lines 7 and 47 to to service battleground, but I'm very uh hopeful that we can get some additional wrership to help balance that out because the cost to us is not

going down anytime soon. Um, and so I would just like to encourage people to ride the bus and the current. Also note that the current is free to students who want to ride it. Especially in the summer, you want to get a ride into town, you want to get a ride uh or into Vancouver, you want to get a ride to the skate park, whatever that is. Um, utilize that thing because we're already paying for it. So that's all I have on that. Mr. Mayor, could you just um send an email or something with clarification on the numbers? Sure. Thank you. I'll just forward you what I got, Chris. But Okay. Thank you.

Writership data. Yeah, I can do that. Let me write that down. Okay. Now, any other council communications for this evening? Not seeing any on the board. All right. Pursuant to RCW42.30.110i or 1 I and RCW42.30110 30110 if the city council will enter into an executive session to discuss with legal counsel representing the agency matters related relating to agency enforcement actions or to discuss with legal counsel representing the agency litigation or potential litigation to which the agency the governing body or a member acting in an official capacity is or is likely to become a party when public knowledge regarding the discussion is likely to result in an adverse legal or financial consequence to the agency and to receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against an employee. However, upon the request of such employee, a public hearing or a meeting open to the public shall be conducted upon such complaint or charge. The session will last 30 minutes commencing at 8:30 or 9:36. And I wish it was 8.

Mr. Mayor, this is the clerk. Go ahead, Liz. What do you got? The clerk requests 2 minutes to set up the Zoom. All right. So, let's go ahead and start this at uh 9:45 to commence until 10:15 unless otherwise extended by the mayor with possible action to

mics are hot. All right. After the executive session, I call this uh regular meeting back to order. Um there is no action that'll be taken at this time. I will announce that the uh next regular city council meeting will be held Monday, May 4th at 7 PM. No steady session is currently scheduled. This meeting is adjourned at 10:15.