City Council - Regular Meeting

It is now 6 pm and due to Mayor Overhozer's attendance on Zoom, as deputy mayor, I will chair tonight's city council meeting. We will begin with a study session led by uh deputy city manager Rob Farrier.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor Bill. Um, this item concerns ordinance number 2026-04, storage of trailers and recreational vehicles and residential areas. Some background, uh, on April 6th of this year, the city council adopted ordinance number 2026-04 that amended chapter 17.135.150 of the Battleground Municipal Code related to the storage of trailers and RVs in residential areas. Ordinance number 202604 was adopted by the city council after public hearing and went into effect on May 6th of uh this year. Uh during the council communications portion of the last meeting, the council asked the matter be placed on the agenda for a future study session for additional review and discussion based on information provided by fire district 3 fire marshall after the adoption of the ordinance. I will state that uh Chief Drone is with us remotely. He's on the video now. Um, and our building official, Josh Weekes, is also in the room. He's here in person. And we have our city attorney, Aziza Foster, is with us, also remote. Um, if the council wishes to reconsider policy for the storage of RVs and trailers in residential areas that was implemented through the ordinance, it would be subject to the same consideration and approval process as was as was it as that was that existed when it was adopted earlier this year. Um, absent that, no further action for the city council is required and the matter would be enforced pursuant to the ordinance. We'll open it up to city council members for your study session and you're welcome to ask any questions. Thank you.

Do we have any questions?

Yes, I'll start. Um, Fire Marshall Drone, thank you for being on the phone. I wonder if you could just kind of summarize uh to bring everybody kind of up to speed again on your uh letter that you sent to the council, presented to the council. Um, and I'm sorry I don't have the date in front of me, but um, if you could just um, kind of summarize that, give us some thoughts, and then I think we had a couple of additional questions, but I think the main concern was um, although we were comfortable at the time when we made the decisions around the ordinance, um, we did get some, um, new information afterwards. And I just want to make sure from my perspective that we've addressed all our questions and that we are still comfortable moving forward with the ordinance the way it um was finalized. So if you could just kind of give us some of that information, that'd be great.

Yes, of course. Uh can you hear me? Okay. Yes.

Great. Okay. Uh for the record, my name is Chris Stone, fire marshall for District 3 and Battleground. Yes. Uh that letter was sent on April 20th I believe. Um and it was just to give council uh fire perspective uh for uh that ordinance. Our main uh concern was the elimination of setbacks. I believe that the code had read previously that uh regardless of where RVs or trailers were stored, they had to meet setbacks the same as an accessory structure would. Uh the way fire looks at setbacks, uh you know, we don't really care about what zoning or aesthetics thinks about it. It's more of a fire separation distance. That's typically how they originate in codes. So eliminating those setbacks and putting um an RV or a trailer or boat uh closer to your neighbor's property line uh increases the likelihood of fire spreading uh to an adjacent property if there is a fire in an RV. It also limits our access around a residence for hose deployment, rescue operations, things to that nature. So really that was kind of the the nuts and bolts and the reason I wrote that letter. I'm definitely happy to answer any other questions. So how does this um change and setback align with what other cities do? you see the same kind of setback and reduction in um access. Is that typical in other cities or would that be specific to um Battleground?

I did a limited uh bit of research uh on that and most of the ones that I found the the local municipalities uh like to see a 5-ft setback from the neighbor's property. Uh I've also seen provisions in there that you don't need to meet the setbacks as long as you can prove that there's adequate fire access. That being said, when we look at fire access for a person carrying a hose, we like to see four to five feet anyway. Um, but I don't have specifics for you. I didn't do a whole lot of research on on other jurisdictions. I just know it's it's pretty common to have that five foot requirement. I know another question that came up was also around uh any and this may not be specific um to you um um Chris, but how does are there subsequently any impacts to homeowners insurance or city responsibilities? Wondering what there might be in terms of any legal impacts. We actually reached out to a insurance agent not affiliated with the city um and asked their opinion on the matter and they said it in terms of writing a policy for a homeowner it would have no effect.

Okay. And how about city liability? We asked that same question also WCIA and the same response. It wouldn't have an effect. It wouldn't increase your liability. Okay. I don't have any further questions.

Fire Marshall Dr. I do have a question. How many and a a rough guesstimate is completely fine. I wanted to know in the past 3 to 5 years, how many RV fires have we seen or have you seen even in Clark County um in which the structure has been impinged from uh fire relief due to setback requirements not being followed? I can think of one um that actually made it that far to where it got away from the u I think it was a trailer in that case and into the house. Thank you. Of course.

Do you have any further questions for fire marshall drone for staff regarding this issue? I got some number one. A simple Google search would provide most of this stuff for you guys. This was five minutes of Google search tonight. Six different cases just in the state of Washington. One of them being in Clark County, District 6. Two people died in that one last year. These are all within the last year, by the way. So, one of them just happened two days ago in White Center. uh caught on fire, started the the neighboring house on fire and spread to it ended up being a two alarm fire. Now that's maybe the chief can fill in on that what a two alarm fire means because two alarm fire was different for me. So if you could tell us what a two alarm fire is.

Yes, of course. A two alarm fire is when additional resources beyond a typical structure fire are required. So, we essentially double the resources that we would feel are required for a standard fire. So, on that one, um probably was going pretty quick. That's the thing about the RVs with that uh lightweight construction. Uh when they do start burning, they're typically fully involved by the time uh we get there. So, if a firefighter arrives to a structure that is fully involved, that typically triggers a two alarm. Thank you. So, as I was going through these, very simple. Um, a lot of these happen, uh, some of them are still under investigation. Some of these are, um, and as someone that's had an RV, um, don't want to winterize it. It doesn't get that cold here. I'm going to plug it in. I leave it plugged into my house. It's going to have more draw. something happens, um, RV catches on fire and can spread to the house. Um, like I said, a couple of these had, uh, injuries. One of them was the RV caught on fire next to the house. People in the house did not know it was on fire. Uh, by the time that the the fire department got there, the house was on fire. The people would not leave the house. They were trying to get stuff out of the house. So, these are all things that start to to not only jeopardize public safety, but jeopardize our firefighters who are there to try and save property and save lives. And so, the challenge is, and I I'll tell you right now, I have RV parking. The challenge I have with this is a couple things. Number one, there's nowhere in this that says I can't rent out my RV parking. Nowhere. I could put three of

these down the side of my house easily. And nowhere does it say I can't rent out RV parking. Um the second thing with that um that that in looking at setbacks, we want to say that we have RV parking and we want to say, well, we have a big enough lot for RV parking, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we meet the setback. So, we really don't have RV parking. We have additional parking on the side of our house that we can shove stuff down and we call it RV parking. And like in my neighborhood alone, um, every one of our lots is what we would consider now R3. Um, they were R5 then, so they're about 7 to 8 about 8,000 foot lots. Um, you could put RV parking and meet the setbacks, but it's not on the side of the house that you have your driveway. So, there's the problem is it it's it's on the opposite side of the house. We don't allow you to drive up over the curbs. um to put these RVs in your backyard. And so when you think about this and and I've I've heard everything. I've heard stuff, you know, people want to be able to buy their RVs and, you know, they've they've got their place, they buy an RV, they want to be able to store it um by their house, and I I get all that. I get it 100%. Um my neighborhood, whether you want to or not, you will get enough pressure from the neighbors that you're not going to have it there. Um, that's why I have two RV units that I rent uh for the excess stuff that I have that um they don't want to see every day. And so the issue that I have with this is is we took some direction. We didn't look at anything that had to do with public safety. There was no public safety involved in any of this. And we turned and not only took direction that we had at our

retreat of where we wanted to go, but then we just threw that out and just said, "Put as many as you want in your yard." And um this to me there there's property rights, which I get 100%. But when you bought your property, there was codes in place. And so you knew that going into it. Just like if you go buy a house in an HOA, you don't get to change it or elect somebody to change it and say, "Well, I want to I want I want to RV now and and I'm going to change that. I'm going to get on this board and I'm going to vote people in here so that we can change this and not have it." It's a livability issue. So, what I see happening is as we open this up and you can park anything you want. There's neighborhoods in this town that you can go to that that has happened, private neighborhoods, and you can see what it looks like. And when your rights to your property infringe upon my rights to my property, that's when I have an issue. And that's when your neighbors are going to have an issue. Because most people their largest investment they have is their home. And what you don't need is cousin Eddie moving in next door and with his RV staying for the winter and shooting your property values because nobody cares about this until they want to sell their house. Nobody cares about this till you want to maximize the profits that you've spent your career building. And that can change quickly by by what we've done. And so that's that's the issue I have with it. We we didn't reach out. We didn't we didn't talk to public safety about it. Um you know, like I said, a simple Google search was simple. It It was easy. How many RV fires in the state of Washington have happened where it caught the structure

on fire next to it? And I got six of them sitting right here. So if you like them, great. The question I have though is for legal. So we have the ability to set codes and standards. If we set a code or we we have a um a code that we change that goes against um a warning from a professional, would the city be liable or would council members be personally liable by going against the recommendations of professionals? Yeah, I appreciate the question, Council Member Overhozer. Um, in general, when the city council is acting as you guys are now, which is in your legislative capacity, uh, legislative immunity will traditionally apply to cover uh, city council members individually and for most causes of action, the city as well. Uh, in certain negligence cases, we also in Washington have the public duty doctrine. So, in general, if you adopted a code uh tonight or if you adopted a code, even if it maybe went against uh the recommendations of the fire marshal, those theories would uh be there to uh provide that immunity. And I'll just note um it is uh a recommendation by by Chief Drone. I don't say that to doubt his expertise, but I just wanted to note that because RVs are considered vehicles as opposed to uh structures, these setback requirements, they don't necessarily apply as a matter of course, but the city council can certainly uh through your policym capacity uh impose

those setback requirements. Does that answer your question, Council Member Bowman?

Yes. So, so if we if we do this and my neighbor has an RV and it catches my place on fire because it doesn't meet setbacks and it doesn't and and the the ability for fire to get to it. Is the city or any city council member liable at all for changing this or would it only be the neighbor? I mean, I I like to I'm going to speak in generalities just because indiv liability does really depend on the individual facts of the case, but in general because city council would be adopting an ordinance of general applicability, the city council and the city itself would have legislative immunity uh from claims by a property owner.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have any further questions for either Chief Drone, legal, or staff? I have a question. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead,

Mayor Overholder. Uh, first of all, I I just want to thank Chief Drone uh for taking the time to weigh in um and and give us, you know, his his opinion on this. And um I'll be the first to say that I did not consider setbacks as part of the RV parking ordinance update. And uh I think it was to Z's point um and that was probably the reason I didn't consider it is I didn't consider an RV a structure. I considered it a vehicle. It's a recreational vehicle. and uh and and so it I think it'd be another case if we were talking about ADUs or other uh dwelling units or structures that would be built on your property and the setback requirements of those as far as I understand have very clear setback requirements and property lines and and so I I guess I just didn't consider that but I do want to thank Chris Dron for weighing in on that because we do need to keep public safety as part of the scope of what we consider when we're making these decisions and I agree with that 100%. Um, also uh just to clarify Z uh that was uh council member Bowman that was speaking to you earlier and asked the question uh for legal. Um but I nonetheless I digress but it I think it is something that we do need to consider. What again did we have setback requirements in our previous code ordinance for RV parking? Um or is that something we need to consider now only because we've opened it up to in front of the structure and to the side of the structure? Um staff, I don't know if you guys can weigh in on that.

This is Kristen Leato. I'll take that if you'd like. Um, previous language, Mayor Overholeser did say that the recreational vehicle needed to be parked behind the front line of the building and outside of the applicable setbacks. I will confess that usually our focus when we were doing enforcement and compliance was to make sure it stayed behind the front of the building. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Any other questions? Mayor Overholder. Um, that's all I have at this moment. Fair.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chris, for weighing in on this meeting. Um my my question and it seems like Z had already um answered it which was how does this new code change from the original setbacks are specifically towards the structures and like Z pointed out and even um fire marshall did in his letter and I said that at the last city council meeting is you know even it doesn't doesn't really pertain and the the original language said that yes, there was the front line situation that they had to park be behind front building the front building line and it also said that it had to observe the other setback requirements that apply to accessory buildings and structures. But again, I I would like to ask legal, how does our new code change anything from the original because it says ex it needs to apply to accessory buildings and structures, but the RV is like you said a vehicle. It's not an accessory building or a structure. So, we I feel like we haven't taken anything away. Uh people still can't park in their front yards. Um yeah, sorry. Could you could you weigh in on that one? Z, sorry. Um,

yeah. Yeah. Uh, certainly, Council Member Ferrer. So, under the old code, the city council itself essentially made RVs subject to the setback requirements when they stated that uh it needed to be uh parked behind the front dwelling line and then observe the applicable setback requirements. That is the difference for this current code is that this current code is not requiring RVs uh that are not otherwise parked on a driveway to observe the setback requirements. Council member Kypers.

Yeah, actually I have more concern about having an RV even though it's considered a vehicle. I have more concern about that than I do an ADU if there's not adequate setback access and and I think that's more related to construction and um the the technicalities the codes that are set up to protect ADU units or that's double whammy ADUs but I think that um having an a fast burning um recreational vehicle is much more of concern to me than an ADU that is eliminating setbacks.

Council member McCoy. Yeah, thank you. That's what my question was and go to. Uh Chief Drone, uh in your opinion, do you get more fires from RVs or ADUs? uh have not been on an ADU fire. Have you been on an RV fire? Uh we've had 23 RV fires in the last five years. You've had 23 RV fires, no ADU fires. So in your professional opinion, when you have a fire, uh RV versus ADU, which one burns hotter and faster? Oh, RV by far.

So that's due to the lightweight construction and the plastics. Although although your professional experience was attacked in that you can't speak to vehicles, um I would trust the data and say an RV is much more of a risk than ADU. I mean to say otherwise would be complete nonsense.

Thanks, Fire Marshall Drone. I do have a question as to Council McCoy's comment. Um, can you give us information as to if those RVs were being lived in or used as residences when the fires occurred or if they were simply parked? I' I've seen both. Um, I've seen fires start in RVs that are being lived in and uh also fires from RVs that are parked. often they're parked uh with an extension cord plugged in to the the battery um which adds another potential ignition source. So, you know, they need to be maintained and and and parked safely and again within my in my opinion within the setback requirements.

Thank you. I appreciate your willingness to to be here today and to answer this council's questions. Of course. Any further questions? I just want to make sure that we're clear that we did have setbacks before. Correct. in the code language that was replaced and council member FRE did a much better job of articulating or reading what it actually said. But yes, we asked for it to be behind the front line of the building and to observe the setbacks as well.

Okay? Because once again, if you just do a quick search, setback distances in most municipalities require a minimum separation of 5 to 10 ft between an RV and the primary dwelling to avoid fire hazards. That's just a quick Google search. So, I mean, I'm not saying we have to do the same thing as everybody else, but there's a reason for this stuff. You know, when you when you look at the National Fire Protection um association, that's fire marshals, insurance companies, uh trade companies that all sit on that and make these rules. And there's a reason they make these rules. And um if you've seen an RV burn, you will you will know how quickly they burn. Um we're fortunate that we have um about a five minute response time in the city. So um our our firefighters can be there very quickly, but until until it happens um you know, I don't like to sit I don't like to throw stuff out and say, "Well, we'll we'll keep it this way until it happens and then we'll change it." Um, you know, if we did that with all building standards, we'd have a lot more homes that burn because we haven't changed the building standards. Just because it hasn't happened here doesn't mean it hasn't happened somewhere. And they've changed those standards for a reason. So, um, there's other things that you could do that that uh that I don't think council would want to do, but you could require like CAS fire sprinklers in all the homes. So, put fire sprinklers in your homes and uh then you don't have to worry about the setbacks. Um but people don't want to do that. You'll get push back from the building industry to do that. So,

um I think it's simple is you try the best you can to limit the risk that is there because it's a known risk whether it's happened or not. It's sitting there and it's a known risk. So, um I I think um our council has always been a council that our number one priority was public safety and this does not look like this is one of our priorities in this case. Thank you.

Yes.

Um I can't give advice within my professional uh day job. I will say this. I would recommend that every single person reach out to their property insurance agent and ask them what their rates or their policy looks like if they have three RVs in their backyard. What their rates look like if there's an RV next to them, it catches fire and it's back there the next year. and then ask that agent once you've been cancelled, what's it like to get insurance again? This uh it used to be a much more and I'm probably going off script here uh forgiving industry. One just has to look at Florida, California, the Wamtt Valley or the San Canyon fires. insurance is not forgivable or forgiving anymore when it comes to fires. Uh they're not playing around. So, uh I feel for the person next to the house with three RVs in their backyard. I I can't say what will happen. I'm not going to give any advice. I'm just telling you ask questions. That's all I can say. If you want to ask me personally offline, happy to share. I cannot share here.

Thank you. Council member Ferrer. I just have a question for um Chris. Um in the original language, it did mention um parking behind the the building line. Can you speak to that a little bit more for me, please? Sorry, you referring to to me or Chris Swanson? Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Chris drone. Yeah. And the reason why I bring it up, so maybe give you a little guidance on what I'm seeking is because my concern was when we put that in the original language, you have homeowners who their driveways in the front line of the building.

Okay. So, the question was uh regarding the the front setbacks. Is that is that correct, council member? So, it it's uh the language is that um it needs to be kept behind the building line. Yeah, I can only speculate on that, but I I would assume that uh that was more an aesthetic uh requirement than a fire concern. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Do you have any further questions? I just appreciate having uh Josh Weekes here. I just wondered if he had any uh thoughts, input about this conversation. We want to learn everything we can.

Yeah, nothing really to add because in my situation, the code that I enforce does not pertain to a vehicle. It's a structure. But um what has been brought up with the concerns is definitely uh something that that I think about and that uh fire marshall Chris thinks about fire marshall drone. Um another thing you might want to think about too is if we do allow them in the front that there's a front setbacks there too and inevitably these will be parked in a way that will block the uh walkway. Just another thing to think about. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. If we have no further questions, we can conclude our study session. We got 30 minutes. Um, so you're suggesting not to allow them to park in the driveways because

I'm just saying if you do that that will happen eventually. Um, you know, the the driveway, everybody thinks that the the driveway includes that curb ramp and uh the walkway that goes in front of their driveway, but it does not. the property ends, your property line ends at that uh sidewalk, but uh shorter shorter driveways are out there and uh the vehicles will be parked blocking that sidewalk. I just uh touch base on so Council Member McCoy actually brought that concern up and had the language added that gives you the responsibility to make sure if they're doing that that you write the write the visibility clause into any kind of enforcement you need to take care of. So I appreciate Council Member McCoy bringing that in. I hear your concern, but we look at Battleground Village, those driveways are 12 ft. Trucks stick out of them all the time. So, we'll do the best we can with the code we have, but I hear your concern. If you feel it's going to be inevitable, there's going to be in violation. So, we just have to trust in you.

Doesn't it also say though that they can't be parked in the right way? So, that's that's in their protection. I think the challenge with that is it it said you couldn't park in front of your house for the last 10 years, 15 years. Did that stop it? No. So then what it does is it throws it all back to the city to go in force and go out with code enforcement and make multiple we we got to go through the system. It's not one time, multiple times, two, three, four, five times to and and this may only be you'll see this come and go too in the summer months versus the winter months. You'll see you'll see different things like that. And so, um, which I don't I don't disagree with. I mean, that's code enforcement's job, but just remember that when code enforcement comes in and says, "We need more people to enforce codes, and we don't want to give more people to enforce codes because we changed how that is and and allowed people to do that. Thank you." Not to Shane, not to minimize what you're saying because I truly I've been here with you and we've watched that happen, but the triggering mechanism was the influx of complaints we have. So, in the nature of what's going on here, I love this open dialogue and communication. Uh, I guess I got two things. is one, when we have issues like this that come up that we're going to be deep diving into, did you reach out to the fire department prior to this so that they could weigh in when we had our public meetings? The reason why I'm asking that question is even after we did the annexation, we still had fire come to our meetings.

They weren't here. So, did you did you extend an invite, Chris, to them when we were going through this? No, I don't think we had any discussion about fire being there, but I do think we discussed fire being part of it at the retreat was my recollection.

So, a recommendation I'm going to make is I'd like to go back to the old way where when we have things that are going to be of safety concerns that we have all pertinent parties involved so that we're not we're not having to waste the time. Um, I also think too that we said in the final meeting that after one year we were going to revisit this and so to Council Member Bowman's and Council Member Kyper's concerns, I don't think you're falling on deaf ears. Um, I think within a year we're going to have the kind of data we need to see to see because again, you know, this code was 95. So that's a long time that that code's been written that way. There's no reason in a year from now we can't come back and if there the concerns are legit, we adjust the legacy. So I hear that and I don't disagree with anything you said. I think to be fair to staff, what this council was originally looking at wouldn't have affected setbacks in the least. All we had discussed at the retreat and the first meeting was allowing one RV in the front. That's it. This council then took that, threw it out of the car, kicked it, punched it, and buried it, and then allowed three RVs in the backyard. That's not the same conversation. I don't think it's fair to tell staff, hey, everything this council can come up with, please give us a uh a thought process on or look at safety at um we had a pretty clear

direction. I think we had a pretty good first step. First step and we went eight steps. So, um I don't think that's fair to staff to say why didn't you uh look at all the potentials that council could come up with on the dis that day when that wasn't the direction that staff had. I mean, we have to be fair to staff's time, to legal's time, and I think we had a good compromise as a council. I thought it was a great compromise. Uh, and we could have let that play for a year and then made adjustments. Instead, we went from I mean, we went spinal tap 11. So, thank you. And I I would just add to that. I think my memor is different because I remember from and is not going in there because I remember from day one saying I was not comfortable with that restriction. So it wouldn't have been anything new to staff for me to

Well, that's fine. But that's not what the major majority didn't agree with you at that point. And and the majority of council brought forth a compromise that was one in the front without a setback behind the front door. That was the language we brought forward. Yes, we didn't bring forward, hey staff, can you please bring forward language that includes an unlimited number of RVs on your lot. That was not the language presented to this council in that meeting. It It simply wasn't. I mean, that may have been your intent and that's what you got. That's fine. But at the time that that came forward, that was the minority.

Yeah. So, I mean, you can't ask staff to uh have every legal repercussion based on every whim of, you know, if I'm at if it's 61, I hope that they don't spend the time researching, you know, whatever red ball I'm chasing down the road. Um, so yeah, I I this this council good governance is is slow and methodical and when we have to make changes, they should be well thought out. To council members Mson's opinion, I I agree. Yeah, it that if we're talking about that, yeah, we should bring fire into it, but also there's nothing stopping us. We're the policy makers. We give staff direction. If we want fire involved in the discussion, we simply have to say, "Please involve fire." That's it. That's our job, guys. We're not up here just to rubber stamp stuff. So, thank you.

Yeah, just a thought about the I hear what you're saying, um, Council Member Mson, about the year. We did put that out there as a way to go back and see what data looks like, but I would be concerned that what would be the additional data we'd be looking at now, how many fires there were that impacted homes because we allowed something. I mean, what what um I again I'm just concerned about additional risk to the public and to the neighbors. And if we wait a year, we're basically saying It doesn't matter for a year. That would be my concern.

Deputy Mayor, Mayor Overhoser has his hand raised. Go ahead, Mayor Overhoser.

All right. Uh, thanks, Liz. Good looking out for me. Um, yeah, just to go back for a second to uh, Council Member Mson's point. Fire was brought up in the retreat by council member Bowman and and he noted, hey, maybe we should talk to fire about this. That I think without clear direction given to staff, that was a good nod to, hey, maybe we should have fire take a look at this as an aspect of public safety. To council member Bowman's point, maybe we as council and and myself as mayor could have done a better job of directing staff to Yes, I agree with Council Member Bowman. Let's go ahead and get Chief Deron involved in this conversation. Let's get uh Josh Weeks involved in this conversation earlier and uh that might have helped prevent what we're dealing with right now. I will also agree um with council member Kypers that you know we we have to be able to in from my perspective we have to be able to admit when hey we didn't quite consider all the things when we made a decision and maybe we need to look at that. the revisiting in a year was discussed with the amount of of RVs that could be parked on the property. I don't necessarily know if it meant that we were going to revisit the entire ordinance all over again. And so I don't disagree that, you know, somebody may want to bring that forward and it's an option of uh council members that uh voted for it to reconsider it and reconsider the setbacks and

reconsider some of the public safety aspects of it before a year only because I don't know if I could sleep at night if I knew that the ordinance that we made cause somebody else damage to their property, god forbid, health issues or or risk of life, and we sat on our hands for a year waiting to see if something was going to happen. Um, and that to me, that's something that I I'm okay with admitting I made a mistake. I probably should have directed staff to have fire involved earlier. I'm okay with that. But what I'm not okay with is waiting a year now that we have other information with setbacks and public safety involved and and doing nothing that that I I struggle with. So that's my two cents. Council member Kypers. Oh

yeah. Council member Ferrer. Oh, okay. Um, so I just have a question and maybe doesn't pertain. I can't help where my brain goes. I just want before we go into scare tactics and start talking about bringing things back up, I would just want to take a look at so we know the number of RVs that we've had fire issues with in this area. Do we also know how many vehicles that have had fire issues in this area. Do we have those numbers for either chief? I don't have those readily available, but I could get them.

Right. Thank you, sir. Council member Cypers.

Sorry. I just want to clarify that I don't look at this as scare tactics. I look at this as it's never too late to make the right decision. So, I just want to have the opportunity to hear everything that pertains to this topic and make sure that as a council we are uh in agreement on how we should move forward. So, I'm not trying to um get anyone um you know concerned or frightened about what the future's going to bring. I'm just saying let's look at what the risks are and what we need to do to reduce risk for the citizens. Do you have any further questions or comments? Seeing none, I will conclude the study session at 6:47 p.m. We will reconvene at 7 p.m. for the regular meeting of the Battleground City Council. 6

Okay, that one. It is now 700 p.m. on May 18th, 2026, and I am calling this meeting of the Battleground City Council to order. Due to Mayor Overhozer's attendance on Zoom, as deputy mayor, I will chair tonight's city council meeting. Those that are able, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Miss Hily, can you please call the role?

Deputy Mayor Vale, present. Mayor Overhozer, present. Council member McCoy, here. Council member Ferrer, present. Council member Mson, present. Council member Kypers, present. Council member Bowman, here. And the clerk is present. That concludes the role. Thank you, Miss Haley. Uh, next I will entertain a motion to excuse Mayor Overholeser from the meeting, which I don't actually have to do because he is on Zoom. Okay, great. Uh, does any council member wish to amend the agenda this evening?

Yes, please. I'd like to make a motion to add to the agenda consideration of council uh waving uh uh legal privilege on our legal opinion on invocation on what? On prayer. Second. This has been seconded. We'll go to discussion. You made the motion.

My I want to wave our legal privilege, our turning client privilege on the uh legal opinion we got last year when we considered prayer. so that not only council but the public can understand uh the implications. Any further discussion hearing? None. We'll move to a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All opposed. Nay. Nay.

So, just for the record, four of you do not want to let the public know our legal implications of adding prayer to this meeting. Council McCoy, the motion has failed. We will move on. Does any council member wish to amend the agenda any further this evening? The clerk requests clarification of the nay vote, please. Madame uh chairwoman, thank you for the nay vote. If you voted nay on that motion, please raise your hand. And then Eric was online and Mayor Overholzer as well as indicating Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Any further amendments to the agenda this evening? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as written. Motion to approve the agenda. Second.

All right. Those in favor, please say I. I. I. Those opposed, nay. Nay. The eyes have it. Motion uh carries. See? Okay. So, we will move to council member reports. Are there any council member reports this evening?

Yes, deputy mayor. Just a reminder that the um county council will be reviewing information from the regional parks funding task teams work that they've done over the last nine months. And um that will be at county council meeting on Wednesday at 9:00. I do plan to attend in person. Um, but I since the since our council has not weighed in on our position on the recommendations or the plans, I will not be um representing the council in terms of our position. I'll just be there to listen and it's open to any other council members who want to attend.

Thank you, Council Member Kypers. Any further council member reports this evening? I got one just real quick. Echo, um, we've created an enforcement or outreach services subcommittee that I'll be sitting on with other members of ECHKO. We haven't decided what our first meeting will be yet. We're doing a poll vote.

All right. Seeing no further council reports. Yes, Mr. McCoy,

thank you. Uh RTC met. Uh I did send out council uh a copy of resolutions re uh regarding uh extending the light rail uh stations. So for those I don't know how much detail you want me to go into, but there's a lot of people in the room. Light rail seems to be a on topic. So sure. Uh currently the bridge is scheduled to build light rail to the waterfront station. uh they're doing it in stages or phases or uh so that's as far as it's going to go in phase two. Phase one is just the bridge. Phase two is light rail to the waterfront. Originally that terminus of light rail is supposed to be at Evergreen with the light rail terminating at waterfront. The light rail station is now uh 90 ft up. So, as you can imagine, the city of Vancouver is not super enthused about an investment in light rail uh that makes it difficult to use. So, they brought forward a resolution. They brought forward a resolution to uh ask RTC and Catran. Uh the mayor also sent out something about this uh to approve language encouraging the parties to extend light rail in that second phase, pass the waterfront to Evergreen. Uh the email I sent to council was along the lines of based on past direction, uh battleground is a no on that. Uh if you feel otherwise or you have anything to weigh in or would like amendments or proposed language to that,

let me know. Our uh city partners are in align with that are aligned with that. Oh, I remember Mson's Oh, I didn't know if that was your report. Was that for your reporting? No, it's okay. Okay. Sorry.

Just just quick question for you. um with I I understand the history of all the conversations and stuff, but are there still continuing conversations with RTC and the IBR project? Uh when it comes to other modes of high-speed transit, for example, uh Amtrak just upgraded its entire West Coast fleet to incorporate high-speed uh Asero trains that have a capacity of 125 miles an hour. So they've they've just bought all these upgraded is there conversations that are taking place that they are still trying to open dialogue with other modes or is it just they are dead set on this?

Uh it it's two separate topics but has not come up and also one of my issue so it hasn't come up to answer your question. uh it could uh I think this the resolution I don't think it fits within the purview of RTC what the city of Vancouver is asking in my opinion RTC is kind of like uh regional transportation council sorry for using acronyms so essentially federal dollars come in RTC has a committee that says here's the ordinate here's the ranking of the best projects to spend money on RTC commits those dollars tend not to be a policym board within those projects right so ordinarily RTC would not put their finger in that soup of where light rail should be they just say do this project and the federal dollars have to come through RTC for that project um I have seen the articles about highspeed transit And that may come before RTC, but I I don't have enough experience to answer that question. Sorry.

Council member Ferrer, did you have a question? Nope. Okay.

Okay. Are there any further council member reports this evening? Seeing none, we will go to the mayor's report. We have two proclamations this evening. Uh the first tonight on behalf of Mayor Overhozer, it is my pleasure to proclaim May 15th through June 15th, 2026 as Tourett Syndrome Awareness Month. Proclamations are not statements of policy, but are 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 of Battlegrounds jurisdiction. Individual council members will not issue proclamations and requests for proclamations should be directed to the mayor or the city clerk. Stephanie Hol and her son Samson Ross please will be accepting uh the proclamation. Please step up to the testimonial to receive the proclamation.

Thank you. Is this on? It is on. Okay. Yes. So, I will go ahead and read the proclamation for you and then I will give you a moment to read or say whatever you would like. Does that sound good? Yes.

Okay. Uh whereas Tourett syndrome is an inherited neurological disorder that is characterized by involuntary physical and vocal ticks that occur many times a day. And whereas Tourett syndrome is often accompanied by other mental health disorders such as attention deficit and obsessive compulsive disorder, learning disabilities and anxiety. And whereas Tourett syndrome and persistent tick disorders affect approximately 1 in 50 children. More than 33,522 school-aged children in the state of Washington alone are dealing with Tourett syndrome. And although some of these cases are aided by medication, there is no standard treatment or known cure for the disorder. And whereas there is an important need for more professional help with interest and expertise to identify, counsel, and treat people with Tourett syndrome, a disorder that is often misdiagnosed and misunderstood. And whereas positive action to assist children and families living with Tourett syndrome would result from a broadening of public and professional knowledge and acceptance of Tourett syndrome. And whereas the Tourett Association of America is actively providing services to families, educating medical professionals and teachers, and supporting research to better understand the signs and treatments of Tourett syndrome. Now therefore, be it resolved that Eric Overhozer, mayor of the city of Battleground, by virtue of the authority vested in him, hereby proclaim that May 15, 2026 through June 15, 2026 will be recognized as Tourett Syndrome Awareness Month in the city of Battleground, Washington as a special month to promote understanding, compassion, and acceptance for all of our fellow citizens who deserve and need our

support to break the stigma that surrounds Tourette's syndrome.

And Samson, did you have something you would like to say? Uh, yes. Go ahead.

This is on, right? Oh. Um while I do agree with what the deputy mayor said, it is important to understand that uh Tourette's can be very different for people's um it comes on a spectrum. I would say sometimes people have ticks a lot more than some some other times. And uh how bad it is can they really change um like surprisingly often. Yeah.

Really good buddy. Done. Well, Samson, that was wonderful and we are very proud of you. I have this proclamation for you and I'll bring it to you right now. Uh, yeah. Sure. But what is this? That's what she just read. Oh, what? Thank you. It's what I just read. You want to go take your picture with me?

Yes.

You want me to say bring that with you?

You want to hold that? We will now take a brief 5minut recess. We will reconvene at 7:20 Yeah.

7:20. Mics are hot. Video is live.

It is now 7:20. Thank you for your respect as we continue our meeting. Uh so our second proclamation this evening is for building safety month. Uh so tonight on behalf of the mayor, it is my pleasure to proclaim the month of May 2026 as National Therapeutic Court Month. Battleground Municipal Court Administrator Carol Landworth and court coordinator Kirsten Kilborn will be accepting a proclamation. Uh please come to the testimonial to receive the proclamation. Whereas the lives of participants are strengthened and supported through the battleground community court which provides structure, accountability, and guidance. And whereas this program helps individuals and families strengthen their relationships as participants make meaningful personal changes to improve their lives. And it supports individuals in moving forward with greater stability and confidence. And whereas community court enhances both public health and public safety by using evidence-based practices to support individuals and families affected by substance use disorder and other behavioral health conditions, helping them make long-term changes that contribute to safer, healthier communities for all. And whereas community court participants create a positive ripple effect in their communities, inspiring hope and giving back as productive employees, present parents, good neighbors, dedicated mentors, and effective role models for others in recovery. And whereas community court has an upstream impact interrupting generational cycles of substance use disorder and legal involvement and helping to prevent adverse childhood experiences. associated with parental substance use disorder, incarceration, and foster care. And whereas community court

provides an alternative path forward by encouraging participants to invest in themselves through compliance with treatment, peer support, case management, and accountability measures that address the root causes of criminal behavior, child abuse, and neglect, and support longterm recovery. And whereas community court improves treatment outcomes, reduces addictions related to crime and supports mental health recovery through treatment compliance being housed and help with finding employment. And now therefore, Mayor Eric Overholser, Mayor of the City of Battleground, by virtue of the authority vested in him, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as National Therapeutic Court Month in the city of Battleground, Washington. and encourage all residents to join him in recognizing the vital role our community court plays in addressing substance use, mental health needs, and family stability while reducing crime and cost to the judicial system. Thank you.

Want me speak?

Sure. Absolutely. Uh, mayor, city council, and city. Um, I truly want to say thank you for the support that has been given to this new program. We just started in July of last year. Um, everybody thought that we would only have seven by December. Uh, we have a total of 24 participants. Um, nine have graduated, three to graduate this month. Uh, so we have surpassed that very first goal of how this was going to happen. Um, I apologize for Judge Wheeler and our prosecutor, Mr. Busby, not being here to accept this. I do want to recognize our previous prosecutor, Jill Carney, that was a huge advocate in getting this going. Um, there's another recognition as well, and I'm going to say it, uh, first, it was a heavy lift to get this up and going. I mean, I can do process, procedures, policies, the manual, all of that. But the true person that is really making this community court work is Kirsten, is Miss Kilborn. her continuous uh outreach that she has for the individuals. She's not sitting at her desk waiting them to contact her. She's continuously doing the outreach along with also our stakeholders. This could not be done without the group effort of community court participants, judge, prosecutor, staff, um, and then the stakeholders, a few DSHS, Pier 360, uh, Seymar exchange. So, I'm very proud to see what we have already done with this program and I'm

very excited to see where it's going to go. So, thank you very much. Danielle, come on. Okay, that brings us to citizens communication. So, 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 deputy mayor. This is an opportunity to hear from 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. Jazz hands are acceptable. Although the city council desires to allow public comment, the city's

business must proceed in an orderly, timely manner. 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 comments should be directed to the deputy 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 business cards at the podium. Please feel free to take one if you would like to contact her with any questions you may have. If you have handouts, please hand them to our wonderful city clerk, Miss Haley, directly to the right of the podium. Thank you for understanding and participating in the council meeting this evening. Our first uh speaker is Skyler Martin. If you'll please come to the podium 14.

Good to go.

Uh good evening council and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm a battleground resident as of last year and my wife is a longtime battleground resident and this is where we plan to raise our family and that's one of the primary reasons that uh I want to encourage you in your proposal to restore prayer before these meetings. This is not a novel or new idea uh although it's become rare and even controversial which kind of blows my mind. Uh in reality it's a return to one of our oldest traditions. The Continental Congress opened with prayer in 1774. Today both the US House and Senate begin each session with prayer as they have for over two centuries. Uh and consider Thanksgiving itself. As you know in 1789, President Washington issued a national proclamation setting aside a day for the people to give thanks to God for his care over the new nation. Abraham Lincoln renewed that tradition in the midst of the Civil War. The holiday we gather around each November began as an act of public prayer and gratitude. Nearly all of those who shaped our country understood public life as being accountable to God. They spoke openly of divine providence and appealed to God for wisdom in their work. I believe that's why they are so successful in establishing this country. Those who govern are responsible for decisions that directly affect a families and generations to come. Most importantly, scripture teaches that those in authority are themselves under divine authority and that leaders do well to seek grace and wisdom beyond their own. A moment of prayer is an acknowledgement of that humility. By renewing prayer before the task of governing this city, you will stand in a long history of great civic leaders. I believe this council and the city of Battleground by extension will be blessed as you simply pause and seek wisdom for the task at hand. Thank you.

Thank you. I will ask to please refrain from clapping. Jazz hands again are acceptable. Next speaker when Gerchic. Hi, my name is Wing Gersuch and I came here tonight to ask for a few things. I think the city should pass an ordinance that no mask should be worn in a public uh place. If you have to wear a mask because you're afraid or that you've got an illness, stay home. You can call in. You know, there's no reason for anybody to be here an anonymously wearing a mask. And the main thing, too, is that it's it's important that people speak up and say what they want here because the fluoride that was put in your water is poison. And this Harvard brain damage studies was done quite a while ago and it was put on public record. And I gave your former mayor a book called the fluoride deception by Christopher Bryson. And if people would read that or listen to it a on the audible, you will know that Portland does not flidate their water because the lawsuit between Reynolds was held in Portland and the air pollution from the the the Reynolds uh corporation was blowing over a farm and the farmer's cattle died, their animals were dying, their their um crops were failing, the farmer was sick, he couldn't sell his his farm to anybody and he won the lawsuit. And if anybody ever read the fluoride deception by Christopher Bryson, it talks about Dora, Pennsylvania, where my dad lived during the fluoride um leak from the steel mill, which killed over 50 people within a month. And they didn't shut the mill down. They get the air pollution going and going. And that's what you're drinking. And it's

very important that you should check these things out because uh Paul Connet wrote the book he he wrote a book that talks about the political um this right here. It says the case against fluoride, how hazardous waste ended up in your drinking water and how bad science and powerful politics keep it there. I met Paul Connet in Soma, California. And that area where Napa and Sonoma is, it's off a golf course way. That area is not flidated. And that's where I got the Harvard brain damage that that I shared with you. This study, Paul Con was handing them out and the people voted against it. And they also have a big sign on the on the um on one of the buildings that says non-GMO foods here. You have farmers here. And why are you buying garbage food from the um you know the food that is served at the schools these children should be having farm fresh and if you've got farmers you should buy from the farmers. It's important that the people support the people who live here. There's so many things that people can do. Teach your youth to run for office because you shouldn't have to take the stuff that these uh old people are uh passing laws to poison us and not fix it. and one of the most important books. It's called Sustainable by Tom Dwise. That book you can't even buy anymore, but you should. It's going to be on public record. Check it out.

Thank you. Next speaker, we have Xander Garcia. Good evening, council members. Um what we heard in a previous meeting regarding invocation uh was outright vile, wicked, and not condemned at the highest level. The encouragement to uh be gay and hail Satan may not be things that we can agree on as individuals, but what we can agree on is the invocation to do crime will always be wrong. It's not fit in a successful, tolerant, and peaceful community. But I also believe the answer is not censorship or retaliation. The answer is to continue to allow respectful expressions of belief while expecting a standard of civility from everyone who addresses this council. Prayer or invocation is not the rejoicing over the miscarriages of conservative women or the death of opposing political parties. And it's uh certainly not praising civil disorders like riots. Prayer is about humility before God, drawing near to God, seeking wisdom, justice, mercy, and guidance, not just for myself, but for those entrusted with leadership as well. Christ calls us to pray for our enemies, to speak truth with gentleness and respect, and to love our neighbors. And our neighbors are not limited to those who look just like us. Our neighbors are men and women and children in this room and in our community. And that includes those who mock us here today who ridicule Christ and his followers who ultimately hope for the destruction of our communities. We hope and pray the best for our neighbors. And um we don't pray for

their demise. We pray for their life. the the existence of offensive speech should not cause this council to abandon a long-standing American tradition like legislative prayer. Instead, it should encourage the council to adopt a fair and righteous policy that welcomes sincere and respectful invocations while maintaining appropriate behavior for a public meeting. Our community should be confident enough to allow differing beliefs without descending into hostility and blasphemy. I encourage the council to press forward with the national day of prayer proclamation and wisdom, fairness, and respect for the diverse people you represent in Christ's name and by the grace of God. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Xander. Again, just please refrain. Jazz hands only. Uh, next person, Alexander Gardner. Council members, thank you for allowing me this time to speak. I stand before you today not only to applaud your proclamation, Mr. Mayor and Deputy Mayor, in recognizing a day of prayer, but also to wholeheartedly support the renewal of invocations at future city council meetings. My name is Alex Gardner. I'm a husband to one wonderful wife and a father of four sometimes wonderful children. I serve our community as a nurse in an acute care facility. Through these responsibilities and privileges, I find myself constantly driven to prayer, asking for encouragement, strength, wisdom, and patience from the God who created the heavens and earth. In your May 4th proclamation, Mr. Mayor, you quoted our first president, George Washington, who said, "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States." Scripture reminds us in Romans 13 that governing authority ultimately exists under God's sovereignty. The seats you guys occupy today carry immense weight. Your decisions affect more than 20,000 22,000 people each day. Council members, you above all need prayer. It's not difficult to recognize that such responsibility requires more than lawyers, clerks, treasurers, or administrators. Your proclamation encouraged hearts to remain dependent upon God's guidance when you brought up the community of people who have returned to their knees. Being a husband and a father and a healthcare worker, as I mentioned, I admit I don't even make it to my knees half the time. How much more guidance is needed for those entrusted with the well-being of an entire community?

Historically, our local government already reflects a long-standing American tradition. The Clark County Resolution 2017-08-07 rightly affirms that opening prayers lend gravity to legislative proceedings, reflect values long rooted in our national heritage in invite reflection upon shared ideals before the difficult work of governing and seek peace for the nation, wisdom for leaders and justice for the people. These prayers are not barriers to unity. Rather, they're invitations towards humility. They remind both leaders and citizens that authority carries accountability and that wisdom is something sought, not assumed. Prayer does not replace good governance. It strengthens it. Prayer does not divide communities. It calls us towards common good, mutual respect, and service beyond self-interest. As a citizen, a father, and a health care professional who daily witnesses human fragility and need, I encourage you to continue this practice. Allow space for invocation. Allow the space for reflection and for gratitude and humility before the work that you guys undertake. Ultimately, prayer is not about preference or politics. It's about recognizing that leadership re requires wisdom greater than our own. Council members, please know that many in this community are praying for you, courage, unity, and justice tempered with compassion. Thank you for your service and your time.

Thank you. Next, we have Mr. Tyler Long. Thank you. I'm here tonight to encourage the mayor and this council for a few things. Uh number one, for the prayer proclamation and for the consideration of invocations. Those are both objectively good ends. I'm also here to encourage you uh against the attacks that you endured in the last meeting. One woman in particular came and uh asserted many different things. Number one, that you allowed prayer to become a tool of intimidation against the queer community in this very room. That never happened. There's video of that event. That this was not done in a spirit of unity or peace. That you invited guests quote with a history of threatening her friends. Color me skeptical on that. Uh accusing you of not being neutral and accusing you of orchestrating quote a spectacle designed to marginalize and exclude. Of course, this is based on her fictional narrative. First and foremost, everyone marginalizes, everyone excludes, and everyone discriminates. From the time we as the public vote you and into your jobs, we marginalize and discriminate against candidates who don't correspond with our views. You and your jobs are going to marginalize and discriminate against policies that you don't agree with. Everyone does it. The only question before us always is, do you marginalize, exclude, and discriminate against what is good or against what is bad? That is the only question. She went on to make false equivalence between ideas and persons and pretended as if not agreeing with her worldview is akin to wanting to eliminate her person, accusing you of this. She then borrows from the morals of a Christian worldview which she attacks to slander you and attack our worldview. Of course, our side makes no such clownness assertions conflating ideas with persons. Please do not fall for her attempts to bend you into a mind pretzel. She does this because she can't defend her worldview. Projection and slander are the only viable game plan. Of course, she laughably accused you of

trying to intimidate. Well, she infamously intimidates, slanders and doxes people online and tries to get them fired. She emailed a nonprofit that I sit on the board of trying to get me fired. I know of 10 other people that she's done these similar things to. She also sits with a person who has openly called for violence and wrath on people in this very room and she comes to meetings with them. But of course, no, it's you that are guilty of intimidation, not her. Of course, regarding this friend and our resident Antifa terrorist who spoke at the last meeting, the partisan part of me gets excited when he speaks because, of course, he gets rid of any veneer of peace or unity and and gives his worldview unfiltered. And this clear contrast makes our job as decent citizens a whole lot easier. Of course, there is another part of me that is a parent and community member. And this side of me knows that such speech is a stain on our community. calls to quote do crime, encouragement to kill more cops, which are sitting in this room, and wishing death upon community members is reprehensible and should not be tolerated by this council. And you are not powerless, and your community expects assertive action. Stop tolerating this vile behavior. Thank you.

Again, please refrain from any clapping. Thank you. Next, Mr. Sergio AOA. Thank you. Uh it's an encouragement to see that you guys are enforcing uh these rules right now about, you know, restricting people from speaking in the back when when they're not up here and they're also clapping. It's unfortunate that that's that this was not enforced last meeting. You are wrong to tolerate the despicable conduct witnessed at that meeting. Sustain on this council, our city, and our community. And most importantly of all, you are not powerless to stop it. Washington state law empowers you. RCW35A12.120 concerning non-charter code cities says the council shall determine its own rules and order of business and may establish rules for the conduct of council meetings and the maintenance of order. The battleground school board less than a mile away from here exercises this same oversight and restricts vile speech at every meeting. Are they living under a different constitution and laws than you are? Number two, courts have routinely upheld your power to regulate speech and conduct in your meetings. In Steinberg versus Chesterfield County Planning Commons, 2008, the Fourth Circuit Court said, "Officials presiding over such meetings must have discretion to cut off speech, which they reasonably perceive to be or immen threaten a disruption of the orderly and fair progress of the discussion, whether by virtue of its irrelevance, its duration, or its very tone and manner. Additionally, in Aosta versus City of Aosta of Costa Mesa 2013, the 9inth

Circuit Court said it shall be unlawful for any person in the audience at a council meeting to do any of the following. Number one, engage in conduct such as but not limited to hand clapping, stomping of the feet, whistling, making noise, use of profane language or obscene gestures, yelling or similar demonstrations. which which conducts substantial interruptions, delays or disturbs the peace and good order of the proceedings of the council. Mayor and members of the board, I want to respectfully ask that you use the authority entrusted to you to ensure the that literal violence against our law enforcement and to other people here is never encouraged or called for against members of the public and especially not against our police officers during these meetings. Regardless of political views or disagreements, there must be a clear standard that protects public safety and civil discourse and basic human decency. I also want to encourage each of you not to be intimidated by individuals whose actions and rhetoric appear focused more on tearing down this community rather than strengthening it. Leadership requires courage, especially when emotions run high. Finally, I ask that you consider the points previously raised by myself and others here in in this meeting. Concerns and ideas that may not be repeated tonight, but that still deserve thought thoughtful consideration and action.

Thank you, Sergio. That is your time. Thank you for your service to this community. Next, we have Vernon Jeremiah.

Good evening.

Name is Vernon Jeremiah. I've lived here in Battleground for eight years. I love the community and thank you for your service here. Uh really appreciate what the council's doing, appreciate what the manager is doing, and I want to give a big shout out to Dennis Flynn, who I think is doing a phenomenal job. So, I'm a member of the faith-based community, just like the rest of the people that just talked. I'm here to support the upcoming invocation process. Our nation was founded with 13 individual counties, colonies. One was built by many from the fa was built by many from the Christian faith who had a biblical Christian judo Judeo outlook. With 90% accuracy, all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were believers. The majority of the signers had seminary degrees. About 32 of them. From 1620 to 1850, colonial states, federal governments, there were over 400 official calls to prayer. I am 100% certain that God's hand was in the success of the American Revolution of 18 and the War of 1812, the Declaration of Independence, the forming of the greatest legal document in the world next to the Bible, the US Constitution. As stated in the founders bible, it's clear. Um, excuse me, sir, I lost my my here. As stated in the founders bible, the founding fathers clearly were convinced of the efficacy of prayer and of God's word. What a great example to follow. You look at World War II, Patton stuck in the Battle of Bulge in the Herkin forest. Over 85,000 people died. What did Patton do? He asked for prayer. troops came out. There was a pastor did an invocation praying for the weather to clear. The next day the weather cleared

and we won the battle of the bulge. That's what prayer does. You look at the war of independence. Would we have won that war of independence? 13 small tiny little colonies fighting the largest empire in the world and 13 rag tag colonies. people with hardly money to feed their own war war machine, feed the the revolutionary soldiers and they were successful. They beat the British and I think a lot of it had to do with prayer. Now what happened yesterday? We had a 250 anniversary and the anniversary was because of a prayer that was done two an invocation done 250 years ago. And so they resurrected it and they redirected it. And one of the things that was said yesterday by our president, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then

that is your hear from heaven and will forgive the sin and will heal their land. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Jessica Cole.

Hello council. I'm Jessica Cole. I wanted to start with talking about the National Day of Prayer Proclamation that was at the last meeting. Um the vers, like I said before, the version that was submitted came from a pastor from uh counselor Jeannie Kyper's church. And well, I didn't mention that before. As I mentioned before, I did notice that the language is used in the proclamation closely mirrors the pride proclamation that I and others worked on last year without giving acknowledgement to that. Um, I've brought copies of both so that you can see the comparison directly. The yellow highlights show identical language um, used and the blue highlights show where words were swapped out. And I was generous about not marking um, synonyms as same words. The structure and wording are clearly based on the same document, just edited for a different purpose. This brings me to the current discussion about adding prayer or invocations to council meetings. This council has already had legal review on this issue last year and whatever guidance was given led the council to move away from it. The city's legal services are contracted and not in house which means revisiting this will cost taxpayers again to reexamine something that has already been considered and dropped. At the same time, the city conducted a survey of over 400 households to understand what the residents really wanted. They asked for better streets, safer neighborhoods, and uh even specific projects like a pool or an aquatic center. If our current system works and residents have clearly told us where they want focus and investment, there's no compelling reason to add something that creates costs and distractions from those priorities. And I just want to add that I have talked to some clergy people that are opposed to proclamation happening here um but they were afraid

to come and voice that themselves. Thank you very much. And I have copies for you of Thank you. Next speaker Simon Hello. I do not support the council adding invocations. It is not equal or fair for everyone. But if you are going to add it, then you should also add something separate that actually reflects the whole community. Kind of like a community appreciation/ mini educational thing. One week you could recognize your Muslim residents. the next non-religious residents, another our students, the following trans neighbors, another people experiencing homelessness, then queer folks, and so on. If the goal is inclusion, then it should include everyone, not just the groups the council favors. Amy, you have said you deeply value each individual. If that is true, supporting recognition should not depend on whether a group aligns with your views. You don't have to agree with someone to acknowledge they exist and they live here. Right now, your actions state that you do not truly value everyone. You've also directly said to me that you want to make battleground safer. When you support the exclusion of people like me, you quite literally are making it less safe. Excluding certain groups of people encourages others to do the same. It has and will continue to lead to violence, harassment, assault, and even murder of anyone that doesn't fit into a specific little box of normal if you support exclusion.

I've noticed how your personal beliefs shape how you govern and in turn how I am treated by my own city and my decline of safety. Your opinions should not determine my level of inclusion, recognition, or rights. Just as my beliefs don't give me the authority to limit yours, yours should not be used to limit mine. Your role is meant to serve each and every resident, not just the ones who share your personal opinions. You are entitled to your beliefs, but that's where it ends. Using your position to decide who is or isn't recognized in our community is a huge problem. At the end of the day, your personal beliefs are yours. They should not be affecting me. Thank you, Simon. Next speaker, we have AO Idaw.

Uh, uh, Deputy Mayor Bale, this is the clerk. Is it your intention to extend the public comment period beyond the 30 minutes, which comes up at 7:57?

Yes, it is. Um, if we can extend for an additional 15 minutes, please. Thank you. Good evening, council members. Uh I'll be brief. Just wanted to express my thanks on the proclamation for the national day of prayer. You know, the um scriptures tell us that righteousness exalts a nation. Sin is a reproach to its people. And uh we just want to express my my family and I just want to express our thanks for making that uh proclamation to this city and giving communities of faith the opportunity to to really um pray and have this opportunity to do so. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Karen Idawan. Hi, my name is Karen Idawu. I'm a battleground resident. I want to get begin by saying thank you for for signing the proclamation national day of prayer. We value what you are doing for the city and we stand with you. Our freedom to pray for our city, government, and nation is what our forefathers would want us to continue doing. We were founded as a nation, one nation under God, to continue to stand strong as a nation. These proclamations, like the National Day of Prayer, we must continue to do. As we embark on celebrating 250 years as a nation, our forefathers would be pleased that we continue to pray for our city, nation, and government, and for the citizens of the United States, all citizens. One of the things that stood out to me after reading the proclamation which stated, "Whereas fostering a city where people of faith feel known, valued, and free requires more than tolerance, faith and prayer are not private habits to be managed at margins of civic life. They are a foundation upon which this nation's moral character was built. the places people have returned to in every hour of genuine crisis and the ground upon which the self-government was always understood to stand. This resonates with me and with others who have come here today. The last thing I would like to do is close in prayer. Father God, I lift every one of these city council members. Thank you for the council members leading dignity and in truth. I pray you will grant them according to your riches and glory and they will be strengthened with your might through

your spirit working through them and in them. I pray you will give them each the strength and courage with every challenge that comes their way that they continue to strengthen our city by brightly shining with your love and truth. Father God, impart wisdom every council s city council member with every decision they have to make that they will continually tap into your wisdom and not their own. Gently remind us all to do that. Lord, bring forth your peace in every storm that arises in their life. Your peace surpasses all understanding. Lord, thank you that they heard the people and pass the national day of prayer for our city. We want to be able to pray for our city. Our founding fathers would want this to continue as well. Thank you Lord for our city council um working hard for our city. This does not go unnoticed by you Lord by the residents of our city. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you Karen. Again please refrain from any speaking. Thank you. Just jazz hands. Uh next speaker we have Jordan Shaw. Hello. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thanks for being here. Just want to thank everybody over here. I want to thank our law enforcement over here and everyone else who showed up. It's pretty awesome. Uh I'm here to support prayer and just say thank you for recognizing prayer being a big deal. And uh I too saw the other meeting and just the video and could not agree more with what other folks have said. And I just want you to know that's not the majority voice in our city and that this more accurately represents the majority voice that there are many people who fear God, love God, and pray. I've got four little girls and we prayed this morning for this meeting. We pray for you guys. We pray for our law enforcement. Uh prayer is a really big deal. I want to uh read a scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. It says, "Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Something George Washington said that I like is it is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible. And you can see that proofs in the pudding, baby. You can look at that. Um, believe it or not, the majority of our city and folks around here, we believe what our founding fathers believe that this is one nation under God. And those things need to be protected. That when there's a godly representation in authority, the city gets better, children thrive, families get stronger, we protect better. And so, I want to say thank you. I also want to say sorry that I have not done this that unfortunately we aren't um representing more and I want to challenge everybody in here to get more involved because we've abdicated our role and the enemy

likes to come in in different ways and different voices and I can honestly say that this is the majority of the voice. So we're here to say thank you very much and like Miss Karen I'm going to end with prayer. Heavenly Father, we love you. I thank you so much for each and every person that's here God. We're saying uh no to family time. My daughter's at a softball game. We all got things we could be doing, but this is important. God, I thank you for Battleground City. I thank you for the councilmen uh and women. We thank you for our mayor. We thank you for the law enforcement. I pray, God, that you would lead them, guide them, and protect them. I thank you for the city of Battleground, God, not to exclude anybody uh not to exclude anybody who doesn't think the same way we think. God, I pray that you would uh show yourself real to them, too. I pray for unity under God. Father, we thank you for all that you're doing. Lord, I pray that we would know you greater and make you known in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you. Next speaker, we have Sharon Murf. Hi, Sharon Murphin here. I actually came here with my friends to thank you guys and when I walked in, I was dumbfounded. So, I still want to encourage you all. Thank you for everything you do, but I was pretty upset that you're revisiting another issue. Um, I think somebody said on the council that it's your job to, you know, how many list that your job is to listen to the people and I think the people spoke on the RV issue and I think that, you know, you have a year to look at it. We're wasting so much time on that. I remember the people. You guys work for the people. We're the people. So once again, thank you so much for the agreement on the RV. Thank you for the National Day of Prayer. Um, I just want to give a huge shout out because it is a federal mandate under federal law 36USC 119. It's actually a law. So it's not like and it's not like anybody's forcing anybody to pray, but I thank you guys for upholding the law that our founding fathers did. Um, you know, they didn't all believe the same, but they all agreed that this nation can only survive with God. And um I just want to read real quick. Oops, sorry. Um upon the completion of signing the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin stated, "The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see on the truth that God governs the affairs of men. Without God's concurring aid, the new nation, and I think that was misqued last time I saw it all over Facebook, the new nation doesn't mean we're trying to create a new nation. That is this nation, America, would fail no better than the builders of Babel." So, I just want to encourage you guys stand for the people. I mean, look, have you even seen this many people at a meeting? They are so thankful for you. Thank you all. Thank you for standing up and we're just grateful. So, have a nice

evening. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, we have Reggie Howell.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I'm not here to talk about prayer because the Lord already knows my heart. He knows who I serve. Matthew 6:24 states. You can't serve two masters. You either love one or hate the other. So, my Lord Jesus Christ knows my heart. So, I'm not here to talk about that. But, thank you for everyone who came up and did speak on it. I'm here to talk about the storage and recreation vehicle trailer uh ordinance that you passed 2026-04. The council really went off on the deep end on this one. I I watched the video. I wasn't able to make the the uh meeting because I had to work, but uh Councilwoman Fier made a motion to amend an amendment that was already amended. It just went through a rabbit hole. Um, she made an amendment to strike out the number one after however. She wanted it to be put in as any, but she never gave a clarification of what any meant. Is this does she mean uh how many vehicles and trailers can be in the driveway? Can it be 10, 12, 15? We don't know because she never uh gave that clarification. Miss Leas even asked for the clarification before the vote. Nobody gave her an answer. The council had a brief discussion but nothing was explained. Mr. Mayor asked for a roll vote and of the amendments and council McCoy and Mr. Mayor voted nay while the rest of the council voted yay. Reviewing this in a year passed by 5 to one vote. But that's a whole year of property

values going down when you parking an AR a broke down RV in your driveway or you got broke down cars because you can put four and five cars in your driveway. And uh it was a lot of people stating that they did not want the council to uh act like you was putting them in a HOA. Well, I live in a HOA and I'm very proud to live in a HOA and we have our own governing documents in which we live by. We're not forcing our rules and our HOA rules onto the non residential neighborhoods that don't have an HOA. So, why is the council trying to force us to live like a non res a non HOA residents? One shoe don't fit all. So, I think the council need to take that time and review this ordinance and go back and say, "Hey, we messed up, so we need to review this." Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Heidi. Hello. Thank you for having me. Um, I'm a medical professional and I came here because of the article in the reflector um regarding Jessica Kohl's um accusation about discrimination regarding Pride Month. And just wanted to let you know that um I'm not against gender dysphoric peoples. I'm actually for you and those like you that you would have long healthy lives. Same with my cousins who are also like you. I just wanted to let you know that um refusing to provide sex rejecting interventions or publicly c celebrating gender confusion is in fact non-discriminatory and is appropriate both professionally and scientifically. Withholding unproven interventions is non-discriminatory. withholding affir affirmation of ideologies that have been scientifically proven to harm children and adults is non-discriminatory. According to the um Bailey Richard um study, there is no p persuasive evidence that gender transition reduces gender dysphoric children's likelihood of killing themselves. According to the 2024 USA study, gender affirming surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide attempts by a 12-fold risk over the general population. The 2011 Swedish study shows that all of their posts reassignment surgery adults showed a a completed suicide rate of 19 times higher than that of the general population 10 years out, along with nearly three times the rate of

psychiatric inpatient care. A 2020 study by Branson and um Pachinsky claimed that the first it was the first total population study of 9.7 million Swedish residents that showed that neither gender affirming hormone treatment nor gender- affirming surgery improved the mental health benchmarks of the population. In fact, it worsened them dramatically. A 2021 comprehensive data review of 3,754 transidentified adolesccents in the US military families over an 8.5year period showed that gender home treatment led to an increased use of mental health services and psychiatric medications and increased the suicidal ideiation and the attempted suicide rate and the suicide rate itself. Um, prior to the worldwide use of transgender interventions, most gender dysphoric youth resolve their dysphoria by young adulthood simply by going through puberty. As many as 88% of gender dysphoric girls and 98% of gender dysphoric boys will desist and embrace their um birth identity um if their dysphoria is not affirmed. There's a substantial amount of scientific literature showing that this is harmful for children and that by affirming them, it actually causes them more harm. Just wanted to lay that out. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, clerk Khali, are there any other members of the public on Zoom that wish to provide public comment remotely? No, madame chairwoman. Thank you. This concludes public comment. We will now move to the consent agenda. We will take a brief 5m minute recess. We will reconvene at 8:15

Thank you, Clerk Haley. So, that takes us to our consent agenda. Does any council member believe any item needs to be withdrawn from the consent agenda? Move to approve as presented. Second. Second. All in favor? I I I. That passes unanimously. See uh next we'll move to a public hearing. Um clerk Haley, if any public testimony was submitted for the public hearing that has not been provided to the council, can you share it with us now? None provided that wasn't shared.

Thank you. Okay, so that brings us to the spring battleground municipal code amendment public hearing and motion. I will now introduce Deputy City Manager Robert Farrier, community development director Kristen Leato, and public works director Mark Hersik. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Bale. Uh the Battleground Municipal Code is updated every year. Um many changes result from changes in state law. Some of them are due to issues of interpretation administrating BGMC at the local level. Um staff has proposed changes to BEGMC titles 2 6 8 12 13 15 17 and 18. We prepare draft ordinances reflecting changes to each one of those titles. Staff recommends that the uh council conduct public hearing and considering public testimony and then take appropriate action or ask questions if you have questions. Clerk Khali, are we ready to open the public hearing?

Um, actually, Deputy Mayor Vale, I need to take a quick step outside. The door cannot be shut as it is locked. Um, one moment, please. Thank you.

Okay. Yes.

Thank you. I will now open the public hearing at 8:18 p.m. for public testimony. Individuals are limited to three minutes to provide testimony on the Spring Battleground Municipal Code amendments as stated in ordinance numbers 20265 20260 20267 20268 20269 2026 10 2026 111 and 2026 12. All comments should be directed to the deputy mayor. Are there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to provide testimony?

No, Madame Deputy Mayor. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to provide testimony? Yes, sir. Please come to the podium and please state your name and city of residence, not your address. Hi, my name is Reggie How and I live here in Battleground, Washington. and go ahead with your comment. Thank you.

Um, ordinance number 2026-08. I have a problem with that. Number one, when when a a subdivision is built, the homeowners do not have the authority or even asked what is put in the planter strips. We don't we didn't ask for trees. We don't ask for flowers, grass, bark, dust. The city decides that. It's not and it shouldn't be our responsibility to fix a sidewalk that a tree root have uprooted. The city permitted this to happen because they gave the authority that the trees could be planted in the planter strip. Just because our home is on the other side of the sidewalk, it is not and should not be our responsibility to fix the sidewalk. The city gave permission. The city should fix the sidewalk. I feel like this ordinance is all it's doing is taking money out of the homeowner's pocket because we didn't give authority to the developer. The city gave that. So in essence, the city is penalizing the homeowner for living there. I can understand that the city is looking at the money side of it. That's that's just the way it is today. I mean, money goes fast and it goes fast for a homeowner. It goes fast for a city. But why would a city penalize the homeowner unless the homeowner owned that property and is a single resident's property and then gave the

developer whom they hire hired to build their home and said, "Hey, put these trees in." I agree with Councilman Monson. He stated that this is wrong. And I totally agree with him because I didn't ask for those planter strips. If if I had my way about it, I would say, "Hey, come in, take all the trees out." Because if someone gets hurt by your orders, if someone gets hurt, then I'm liable. If that sidewalk raises and someone trips, stubs a toe, and it says it in your orders, if they stub a toe, they can sue me. And if I agree not to pay that lawsuit, the city can come after me and put my house up on a lean and states it here in your ordinance. That's wrong. You're you're I I feel like you guys are overstepping your bounds. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who would like to provide public comment? Seeing none, we will close this public hearing at 8:22 p.m. Okay. Miss Haley, if you can please read the title of ordinance number 2026-05 for the second reading. Ordinance number 2026-05. An ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 2 Administration and Personnel section 2 Yeah, I'm sorry. 2.28.010 Planning Commission terms section 2.6

60.010 PACE board youth member criteria section 2.84.050 left officers. I will entertain a motion to adopt this ordinance 2026-05 amending the battleground municipal code title 2 administration and personnel as presented. So moved. Second. We have a second by council member Ferrer. Any discussion?

Okay, we'll go to the vote. I'm so sorry. Um, it has been standard procedure to do a roll call vote on all ordinance adoptions. Would the deputy mayor like to proceed in that manner? Yes, please. Miss Ley, you're not going to be able to hear uh the mayor when you turn this on. We could just do a roll call. Voice roll call.

Yes, sir. Yes. Yes, sir. Okay, let me get back to Thank you, Mayor Bowman.

Still disabled. It's disabled. Yes, the panel is disabled. Bear with me here. Is he still on there? Is he? Yep, I'm still here. Bear with me here. There you go. Ah, technology. Okay.

This vote is regarding ordinance number 20265. Chair, deputy mayor veil, how do you vote? I,

Mayor McCoy, how do you vote? I I'm sorry, Council Member McCoy. Wow, my great apologies. Mayor, um, to everyone present. Um, my goodness. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? I, Council Member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. And Mayor Overholz, how do you vote, sir? Yes. Speaking time. I don't think you can. It works when you have the speaking time.

The speaking time thing on. Yep. Notice the screens the Can you hear me now? Mayor Overholzer, how do you vote, sir? Yes. Motion carries 7 to Z. Thank you, Clerk Haley. Um, will you please read the title of ordinance number 2026-06 for the second reading?

Ordinance number 2026-06, an ordinance adding battleground municipal code title 6 animals section 6.10.400 rabbits 6.20 feral cats. Thank you. So I will entertain a motion.

So move second.

Okay. Call for discussion. I'll have a question. Yes. Council member Ferrer. I just wanted to know what what's going to be the mechanisms that are used to catch these rabbits. Agree. Does anybody got the answer to that one? Traps. Traps. So, we're going to have to be purchasing more traps for that. Do we have enough for that? You have enough for that? Okay.

Do we have enough manpower for that? I mean, I know that our we're already kind of overburdening them with what we're doing. My concern is we put this on there. You guys going to be coming back to us for an FTE this budget season?

The gravity issue is more centralized in a specific neighborhood. So, they're going to focus or capture in that neighborhood. I don't know if it extends too far outside of that specific area.

May I ask staff to place the uh the written language of the ordinance on the screen? Thank you, Deputy City Manager Ferrer. Okay. So, I had a concern that I wanted to discuss um under section 6.10.410 410. Uh, and it's about rabbits running at large. My question is, do the words on public property need to be added? I do have friends in the city that I know that they have a pet rabbit, and this is not just for them. It's for others in the city that may have the same situation, that it's a pet rabbit that runs at large in their yard. All of their yard is fully fenced in. So, I want to ensure that this is not impinging on private property rights, but is specifically targeting public property.

What happens if your rabbit's running on my property? Yeah, I I would say the atlarge it's not it's not public property. I would say the atlarge speaks to your issue because at large would mean not contained within a fence to me. If the concern is we're going to have code enforcement officers entering someone's private property to apprehend their rogue rabbits, the answer is no.

And that's what I thought because feral the feral cat code, we have language in there that specifically states that private property would not be encroached upon without permission of the property owner themselves. My concern is that um that these animals would be trapped on public property only or with permission again of the private property owner. Again, the way it's worded right now at large implies that it's on public property within the city limits.

Okay, thank you for the clarification. I have an additional question in regards to the section regarding housing of the animals. Do we have similar language for dogs in our code? And while you are looking, I will open up if anybody else has any additional questions to ask while the information is being found.

This is I do have a question. If we're talking about uh the same rules applying to rabbits as it does to canines or dogs as pets, uh do we also require licensing for your rabbits?

It's just dogs.

Correct. So my my point was just that I believe the containment and housing portion so section 6.10 10.420 um could be struck in full. I believe that as parents of a pet that would be the responsibility of the owner of that pet and I don't believe it is proper for us to a city as a city to dictate the way that a property owner needs to house a pet rabbit.

I I would I would dis disagree completely just because of the nature of the pet. If you're putting a rabbits and the way they multiply and having had both as a kid, the difference between keeping a rabbit and keeping a dog, it's they're not synonymous. They're they're not comparable at all. Um, and the issue with the rabbits is going to be how they're kept because of the accumulation of what they're doing in that cage, whereas dogs tend to be a little bit more free range. So, I understand where you're going with that. My issue, I'm against this because we didn't put a limit on it. So, I'm voting no regardless, but I don't think that's a reason to vote no on this.

Council member Ferrer, to be recognized.

Um, so I would just look at the purpose of this chapter. It was to adopt and enforce animal control measures deemed necessary for the protection of health, welfare, and safety for the residents and animals and battleground and to prevent injury or property and cruelty to animals. So, and I could be interpreting this incorrectly, but I'm seeing it as when they're asking to provide adequate shelter, food, and water is to make sure that these animals are being treated humanely. um because I had raised at the last meeting to you know sanitary conditions and that had already been addressed and then protecting from predators because you are going to be bringing in bobcats right and hawks like to eat these things. Um not to take away from what you said but that's how I read it if that helps at all.

If if I may just add uh based on your question about housing for for dogs. So under cruelty to animals 6.10.270 there is um definitions or examples of minimum care and um number three says that in the case of pet or domestic animals access to a barn, dog house or other enclosed structure sufficient to protect the animal from wind, rain, snow or sun and which has adequate bedding to protect against cold and dampness. Um so there's that piece of it. There's also some language about not letting your dog run at large, if you will. But those are the two current code sections that seem to somewhat address your question. Thank you. Any additional questions?

Okay, round two. Okay, Council Member Ferrer,

does questions count? Do they? Okay, just checking. Um, excuse me. So, we've got bits found running at large may be impounded by animal control. But then what? Like I don't remember what was the we have documents or an agreement with the Southwest um Humane Society. Is there because bunnies aren't licensed. Is that in our contract? Will they accept them? And then the question is for how long? like we have a lot of language for cats on how long they can be housed and but do we have that in our contract for rabbits?

So I can tell you in the past the humane society accepted uh quite a few guinea pigs and that was added and charged under our contract. So I would guess yes that it's not limited to just dogs and cats. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional discussion? Council member Mson,

I'm pretty torn on this. Um, I don't really want the government getting involved with people's pets like this. But where I do have concern that I think the seven of us need to contemplate this is it's very true that as we grow out wildlife has to come in and I I'm concerned that if we allow the free range of smaller animals that we will see more of the mountain style animals coming in and putting children at risk. So again, I'm I'm pretty torn on where I'm going to go with this one, but I I think we should really consider let's think about the kids like this. This is a real a real concern. So, um yeah, I'm I'm stuck on this one right now. Is there a way that like we could implement this and then come back to this just to see what the overall cost was to this and where do we provide a great service to our citizens and um I'm just concerned are we just going to go out there and start snagging everything up and the cost is going to go up. That's my only concern is the burden to the citizen and the cost of it. Nothing. Okay. Okay.

Can can I speak to that real? So, I I think the intent of this is the law enforcement sees a household with a problem. It's usually a singular point. Correct. This is not a robust issue in the city. So, I don't think we're going to have the rabbit police out there, rabbit wranglers. I mean, uh, so it's going to be where you have a outofc control problem and it's usually going to be a cage that's not been cleaned and this ordinance is going to give them the tool to be able to enforce that for their neighbor. I I grew up I had pet rabbits and they they were, you know, and as I got older, I forgot about them and that was that was my bad and it happens really quick. If you have several rabbits, it happens even quicker. And that's why my issue is we didn't put a number on this. That's my only issue. But it's I don't see this as overreaching because it's it's rarely going to be enforced. It's rarely going to happen. It hasn't been a problem. It is some person that maybe just is not as a like a hoarder type mentality. It's a huge issue. We have nothing on the books to enforce it would be my guess. Chief, if if I may, that's exactly the intent behind this is those one-offs that we get complaints and as it stands right now with nothing on the books, we have to tell the reporting party, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. So, uh I completely in agreements with uh council person Mson, less is more. Uh I don't want us doing these. We're certainly not this proactively. We don't have the personnel for that. But on those one-offs that you have somebody that it is such a problem, we now at least have a tool that we can do something.

And and I would also say that um there's some you have some leeway. You have some uh judicial not judicial restraint, but policing. What's the word I'm looking for? Discretion. Thank you. On on, you know, if there's one rabbit that runs across, they're not going to put out the live trap. So, um I think we need to trust our law enforcement on this. Thank you, Council Member Bowman.

Thank you. Um so, this is just I I just want to find out uh Mr. Mson, are you where are you wanting are you wanting a number or are you wanting what is what is the struggle? Is it my struggle?

Yeah. just not like I I understand what you're saying with the animals coming in. I live up by the Catholic Church and have seen many of coyotes in the city getting stuff and uh you know there's there's more that we don't see. I I know there's been stuff spotted over at Remy and things that'll get into the neighborhoods, raccoons, that kind of stuff. And when we have these kind of things they do bring in, it's easy picking here. So, so my my struggle isn't the number. Uh, I can agree with council member McCoy that it would be nice to associate a number with it. My struggle with this is we're introducing a new code like we did when we introduced codes for roosters. Where are we at with that? when we start to bring in codes that eventually get ignored and and to no fault of PE. I'm not saying you're ignoring the code, but you're getting inundated with my neighbor's got a rooster and then they got to go investigated. Well, what if it's the wrong neighbor they're investigating or you know, things like that. So, it's the this the struggle I have is we're putting more code on the books and we're impacting the entire city because of one or two. You know, it's that kind of philosophy. Let's punish everybody because of one bad person. So I can appreciate that this gives you the mechanism you need to move forward with the problem because it's probably I mean as you even said you had a neighbor or somebody around you that had kind of a not an infestation but a large amount.

So let's go back to the rooster and chicken philosophy. When you have people that just they they do their own thing. They're not clean about it. It is a nuisance. I don't want to see my opinion affect my neighbor, but I also don't want to smell his opinion. Yeah. If that makes sense. So, well, and that's kind of, you know, as we look at this stuff and and I know we can dive in, you know, and and all there's seven of us and we're all going to have different opinions on this, you know, based upon where we come from. I came from a farm. I don't want the farm in the city.

Period. I left the farm for a reason. I don't want it in my city. If if I wanted a farm, I'd live on the farm. Um, but that's just me. I know there's a lot of people that want to be farmers and think they're farmers because they got a cow and two roosters. Good for you. Um, but I think in the city, the the the whole reason we we have these things is because of that. because I I made the mistake of buying a rabbit once for my wife for Valentine's or some dumb thing and and we couldn't get rid of that thing fast enough because it they stink. They they are they stink a lot. And so when you have those next door to you and it does come over. Um but but I think this stuff that we're talking about I have them all over my neighborhood and they're not there's a big difference. you can tell a pet rabbit versus feral rabbits real easily. And so, um, I think that's more what we're talking about is let's go let's go deal with that stuff. You're not going to see some floppier fat 300 lb rabbit that, you know, couldn't even make it out of the yard that we trapped and said, "Look what we found." He's going to be they they don't go anywhere when they're taken care of. And so, it's it's the feral ones that we're talking about. and and you know I think later down the line if it was an issue that we need to look at numbers that's a different thing but um but it will bring in even the feral ones are bringing in animals into our neighborhoods that then will affect our pets that that we don't want being affected and so I think that's more you know probably the bigger problem here so I don't I don't see a problem with it the way it is um you know we may have to look at it later for numbers if if it becomes a problem. But but I think we need to do something so that we can we can get rid of the ones that that we

need to. Thank you, Council Member Kypers.

Thank you. Uh I'm pretty much in agreement with um Council Member Bowman. I think um I think that as we as we become more dense as you said we we can't bring kind of farm situations into the city. We want to have people uh be able to do what they want within their property. And yet the more dense we become there, you know, we end up with public health issues. we end up with, you know, we've got more heat coming this this summer and I've had rabbits, too, and they died because it was hot and they didn't get the right care. And so, um, you know, those are all concerns. So, I I think the way it's written, it gives law enforcement a tool to do what they need to to address these one-off situations and to expand it beyond that. I don't I don't know that it's necessary, but that's my my uh thoughts.

Any additional discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. Clerk Khali, if you would like to do a roll call vote. We are now voting on ordinance 2026-06. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? Nay. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? Yay. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote?

Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote? Save the rabbits. I say yes.

Motion carries 6 to1. Thank you. Uh, next clerky, if you will read the title of ordinance number 2026-07 for the second reading. Ordinance number 2026-07, an ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 8, Health and Safety. Section 8.32, Regulatory Standards for Emergency Services. Section 8.36, Special Event Permits. I will entertain a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-07 amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 8 Health and Safety as presented.

So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. Clerk Ply, can you please call a roll call vote? Council member McCoy, how do you vote? I. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? I. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? I.

Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote? Yes. Motion carries 7 to zero. Thank you, Clerk Cle. Will you please read the title of ordinance number 2026-08 for the second reading?

Ordinance number 2026-08, an ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 12 Streets and Sidewalks. Chapter 12.108, 108 Maintenance of Sidewalks. Chapter 12.116 Transportation Standards. Chapter 12.118 Construction in public right of way. Chapter 12.122 Street use and encroachment.

Thank you. To go back to council statements earlier um about the ROV municipal code amendment. I believe that slow and methodical review of all municipal code changes and revisions are in the best interest of the city. As such, title 12 is very very long and I believe that uh a committee member as well uh brought up a very uh important point and I think that personally this could be looked at further potentially in a study session or other venue. Um, and as such, I believe that it may be best suited to table this particular code revision until such time that we can have a better look at all of the language and ask legal and do anything else that we need to do to ensure we get this right.

I move that we table this particular ordinance 2026-808. uh for further study. Do we have a second?

Second. Oh man. We have a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, we will go to a vote. I have discussion.

I apologize. Council member Bowman. So, what I'd like to ask staff before we kick this down the road again, uh, what is that does how does that affect us? I mean, is like to to I don't have a problem discussing it tonight, but um So, I will point out there's other outside of 12108 that's proposed to being changed that um could impact us in particular the construction in the public right of way. We're trying to address some issues um that we're having with contractors. So, um, you know, if it's specifically the maintenance of sidewalks, that's the issue. We could get rid of that particular piece from the ordinance and address the others unless there's concerns with the the other parts of it as well. because that's that's my main concern is that we're throwing out this whole section and maybe we only want to talk sidewalks and um that it delays or further delays some of the things that that we need to be doing or are doing or will be doing this summer.

Yeah. So, in the ordinance in particular, it's section one is the 12108 which is the sidewalk portion. So you could um essentially strike that section out and then adopt everything else again if there's unless there's any concern with the other sections. So I'd like to amend to strike only the uh to only pull out the is it uh one my apologies um point of order from the clerk. This amendment is not germanine to the original motion. We we have a motion laid on the table so we can vote on that. Then you can make your motion. My apologies. Thank you. Clare clearly.

We don't need a roll call on laying it. We can just do a vote. Correct. Just call that vote quick and Yep. We can just take a verbal vote then. And this is on the motion to table section 12 the ordinance 2026-08 title 12 in full to a later meeting. All in favor please say I. We still have discussion. Oh, I apologize if there was still discussion before we go to a vote on the tableling. Council member Mson, Elise, you still with us or Z's Z. Yes, I'm here. Council member Mson.

Um, okay. Thank you. So, Council Member Bowman, I don't believe you were at the meeting when this first came up. Um, as we go into this discussion, again, I like the direction. Thank you, Mark, for clearing up that this could impact us specifically speaking to 12108, the 13 subsections that were added. Um, if this were to stay in here and this were to pass, your law firm pre previously stated that this opens up a mechanism for um city culpability and liability

for the city to be sued. if this code went into effect and was not properly enforced, does your law firm still stand behind that statement? I I guess I can't speak to the previous statement. What I can state is that in general, if people are injured due to hazardous defects on the city, there is potential for city liability either with or without this code section uh being adopted. Yeah. Just because just because the city may or may not adopt this, it would not uh relieve the city of any liability from from damages.

The city is not liable as it stands now. By adding this code, the city becomes liable. That's what the attorney spoke to us last time in our meeting. Well, cities can't transfer the liability for sidewalk defects, and that was that was decided in Rivet versus Tacoma in 1994. So, if there's a if there's a sidewalk which is damaged and somebody falls and hurts themselves, the property owner is not the one that's going to be potentially on the hook. It would be the city because you can't transfer liability.

Okay, Rob, I appreciate that. I I do, but I'm I'm referring to this last discussion when I brought it up. the attorney, I presented the idea that it currently states the way the code is that if there's an injury that it's between the the property owner and the claimant, but by opening this code and putting it on the books, if we didn't govern and follow that code and a complaint was filed and not acted upon after the 60-day period, that the city would be held liable. And who has deeper pockets, the property owner or the city? Those were my exact words. and he said the city would be liable. So, I have to defer to them on this one. I'm not saying I don't I'm not disagreeing with you. I I hear what you're saying, but we have to be careful with this. The second component that I have heartburn on this is as the gentleman spoke earlier, the even if the code is followed to a tea and all the due process is done, the burden on the homeowner becomes so egregious that even on fixed income, people can't pay for the the kind of work that needs to be done. So, in this code, if there was a sidewalk say um well, just anybody their their sidewalk was found defective, a complaint was made, the city will act according to the code. The process will follow. They're going to hire a contractor to come out council. I just just for fun today, I pulled up prevailing wages for cement masons. After taxes, you're looking at $100 per hour. They're going to have a couple people out there. You can look at a 4ft section of concrete that needs to be repaired. and it's going to cost that property owner $5,000 to to get it fixed. So, I understand the kind of the climate in the room where we're going to be going with this, but I just I asked that all the council members look at

this intently because of what it could do to the property owners. I think the spirit of the city is true that we do have issues with especially like in the northwest quadrant, we have a lot of those planner strips. Um, and I, as a council member, want to dive into this and find a resolution to fix these safety issues. I just don't know that this code is the best way to do it. So, thank you for your time. That's all I had. Thank you. Any further discussion?

Um, I do have one point just to say is that I also had um issue with title uh 12.116.040 040 and title 12.116 type180. So the sidewalk specifically was not my only reservation. Any additional discussion? Seeing none, we will go to a verbal vote. All in favor of tableabling this section, please say I. I. I.

All opposed? Nay. Nay. I believe this motion carries. Council member Bowman has requested a roll call vote. I just want to make sure the council's clear what we're voting on here. We're voting on to lay the entire ordinance on the table, not just the sidewalks. So, we can lay that portion on the table after we this entire ordinance. Correct. I can restate the motion for clarity.

Actually, um the clerk can respond. Thank you. If you would like um this uh uh motion can be amended to state um to table section such and such and such and such and such and such of this ordinance um instead of the entire ordinance. So however that might be I could make a motion to amend the motion to only lay on the table section one. Okay. section, right? Is that isn't that the We should

Well, let's just lay the whole thing on the table and not amend it and then go forward. Uh um I'm sorry, Council Member McCoy, could you kindly uh restate your amendment? I It makes it too confusing. Are you withdrawing? Yeah. So, the current motion right now is to table the the entire the entire code. So, can we just vote on that and then make an amendment after because once you lay it's gone.

Once you vote on this um motion to table ordinance 2026-08 um uh to a future meeting. Um you have laid that on. You have moved it. You have now tabled it. It is now set aside. That's it. That motion passes correct. If if it should carry, that is correct. And if it doesn't carry, then we can make another motion. That is correct. Okay. Yes. That is correct. Yeah. So to make I'm sorry. So to make this simple so that we don't get amendment upon amendment and then we all get confused. If we vote on the current motion, vote no.

Then we can come back right after that vote if it fails and make a new motion. Correct. and that will clean and clear give us a better path forward with it. Yes. So, Council Member Bowman has called for a roll call vote on the motion to table ordinance number 2026-08 to allow uh to a future meeting to allow for further review of the ordinance.

Yes. My understanding is that the question period because we already voted on this so we can't go back to discussion. was your question about we had already done a verbal vote and then council member Bowman asked for a roll call vote just to clarify. Sorry. Thank you, Cler Khy. Um, shall I call the vote? Yes, please. Okay, two. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? No. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote?

We're voting on to table the entire ordinance. Yes. I didn't get Council Member Mson, how do you vote? No. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? No. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? No. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overholdzer, how do you vote, sir? Yes.

The motion to table fails. Failed four to three. Motion to table fails. My understanding is that myself, uh, council member Ferrer and Mayor Overhozer all voted in favor and the rest of council voted opposed. Thank you. So, it did fail four to three. And now would be the time to entertain another motion to table certain aspects if council so wishes. Give me just a second here.

So, could we get a proposed motion and just a suggestion from somebody on what to exclude from this ordinance so it's very clear and we're not Well, that's what I was just going to ask. Could we ask before we make a motion and we jump the gun again? Can we as council maybe there's some lowhanging fruit that just needs a question answered before we jump to a motion because there's three subsections under this. Yes. 108, 116, and 118, right? Am I missing any staff? Uh 122. And 122. Okay. And 122.

I don't have a problem with that, but this should have all been done way before this meeting. Any questions that we had should have been given to the city manager and to staff, and that should have been sent out to everybody. So, we're not sitting here at 9:00 at night on the third ordinance and we haven't even got to business or anything. So, I don't have a problem doing it. We're already here. We're going to be here till midnight. But, this stuff should be being communicated to staff and then sent out so that we can all see where everyone's at and it's not being thrown on us at a meeting.

I'd like to make a motion to strike items chapter 12.108 108 in its entirety. Second. We have a motion and a second on the floor and we'll open it up for discussion. Are you striking it or tableing it? The motion was to strike. Strike it. Which means that the city can we can work with the city to work through this process. You can still bring it back. Yeah. Yeah. Bring it back. Did we have a second? Yeah. Yeah, I did for council member for second.

This was seconded and it's now open for discussion if there is any discussion.

My only question is to council member Mson does that section the problematic section with the sidewalks is is that what that is? So, uh, yeah, Council Member McCoy and Council Member Bowman, to strike this, I'm not saying that we don't come up with a plausible solution for the city to fix what is unsafe. To strike this, as you mentioned, Council Member McCoy, this can come back. I don't want to impede our next couple meetings and cram more into whatever the agenda is and try to rush through this. I want to help. I want to work with Chris. I'm sure everybody up here wants to at some point have a voice. How do we do this the right way? And so I don't know if this gets done in the next meeting or two. So essentially to answer you guys' question, the reason I asked to strike it, not table it, is so that we are having the time so as council member Bowman mentioned, we can get these questions answered outside of a public meeting so that when we come back, everybody has a clear understanding what the intent is.

Council member Ferrer. No, that's an old one. Oh, we're clear. Sorry, I should have reh. I do have a friendly amendment I would like to propose council member Mson which is also striking uh section 12.116 in full. This is regarding arterial streets and also subsection J regarding cran stops which I believe also need to be reviewed. question.

That would actually be a formal amendment, uh, Deputy Mayor Vale, and would require a second. Well, I just have a question. Is it okay? Is there a second? Second.

Okay. I was thinking, by the way, correct me if I'm wrong, by you striking section 108 that we could make that motion. It's not it's not adopting the whole um chapter. It's just saying let's strike this out. It got seconded. We take it to a vote and then we can move on to these other subsections. Was I was I incorrect with that assumption? So my motion is to remove chapter 12 sections 108 in its entirety and that would allow us to adopt the rest of it so that Mark can move on with projects that could possibly be delayed if we okay we hold those up and I don't want to delay Mark.

Okay, why don't we just adopt what Mark needs and then then just cluster this later because with what Jeie did. He needs one thing. I got two motions on. We got an amendment for the motion. Yeah. And for clarification, the current motion on the floor was to strike 12.108 entirely. And then I also proposed a motion to in also include striking 12.116 as well, which has been seconded. That is currently in discussion. Good one, Mark.

Uh, do any of those sections have any effect on your projects coming up in the summer? I'm looking. Give me one second. We're putting on the spot. Oh, exactly. That's what trying to pay for their crap.

That's 116. Yeah, the cat stuff doesn't affect anything. Um, the section on asphalt depths and rock section. Um, I'd prefer that one get sooner than later. Um, and then the arterial section. Um, that was adopted in the old plan oldtown plan. So, all we're doing is adding it to the code. Um we're working or we're about to start design on uh the East Main Street project which will use that cross-section but we continue we can continue forward even without it in the code.

Thank you Mark. Is there any further discussion on the amendment? We'll move to a vote. We can do a voice vote please. All in favor of the Council member Bowman has requested a roll call vote. This is voting on the proposed amendment to the motion. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? No. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Mson, how do you vote? No.

Council member Kypers, how do you vote? No. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? No. Council member Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote? Yes.

The amendment fails. 4 to three. We return to the original motion, which was to strike section 12.108 108 in its entirety. I will also ask for a roll call vote for this vote, please. When you are ready, clerky. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? I. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote?

Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? I. Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote? Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Presciding officer, I move to adopt ordinance number 20268, amending battleground municipal code, title 12, streets and sidewalks as amended. Second. We have a motion and a second on the floor. We'll now open it up for discussion. Pardon me. I'm sorry. This is the clerk. The ordinance title has not been read. Thank you, Clerk Khali.

And uh to clarify, the second was Thank you. Ordinance number 2026-09, an ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 13, Water and Sewers. Chapter 13.10 sewer system connection. Chapter 13.126 storm drain storm drainage system and adding chapter 13.130 vacation of utility easements.

Thank you, Clerk Khily. Um, we will return to ordinance 2026-08. My understanding is that we have simply struck one section out of that which is 12.108, but we still do have the remainder of title 12 to discuss.

Yeah. and we just needed to um so that's currently in my understanding and that's currently was up for discussion still as the amendment failed. So we return to the original motion as stated by council McCoy which was to adopt ordinance 2026-08 amending the battleground municipal code title 12 streets and sidewalks as presented which was seconded. as amended. Thank you. Very.

And so discussion is now open. Do we have any discussion on this motion? I would like to propose council review as part of discussion uh section 12.116. Um let me go ahead and um there is language in subsection J. Let me find it or so I can direct council. Uh 124.

Correct. Page 12 of 24. And this is under uh again section 12.116.180 developments under frontage improvements subsection J which reads where frontage improvements are required if a project is located further than 250 ft of an existing or proposed transit stop on a transit route. Applicants for projects shall work with the transit agency in locating a transit stop and shelter directly adjacent or as close as possible to the main building entrance provided that Catran agrees they will service the new stop. If Catran will not service the new stop, then the transit spot the transit stop is not required. Uh to my understanding and please correct me if I'm wrong, manager Swanson, this language was proposed by CRAN.

Correct.

So hope you want to say something. No, go ahead. Go ahead.

So I think the only time this is going to come into account is when you have a big apartment complex coming in. This is not going to be something that is going to be triggered by four houses or so. because CTN won't serve that stop. They're not adding stops with current in the city. Now, they're looking more at a spoke wheel type arrangement. They're they're looking at probably adding less stops, not more stops, and using current to get people to the stops. So, what this does is it puts the the onus on a developer that's making the big development project in our city to pay for their impact. I don't see this as five houses coming in that a developer is going to be required to put in a covered bus stop because we just don't have that many bus stops.

Any further discussion for round one?

Council member Ferrer, I guess my question would be why 250 ft though? Like why didn't they put 500 or a thousand? 250 just seems insane. You don't know. Okay. So, I mean, I know the motion failed to scratch 116 in its entirety, but um I I would like to make a motion that we just strike that section J out of 116. Didn't we just fail that? No, we failed the 116 in its entirety.

So, now you're just going to go back through on each one and vote for each one? No, just that one. May I will again ask councel to please direct comments to the mayor and wait until you are called to speak. Thank you. The deputy mayor I will clarify. Is there a second? I will second council member Ferrer's motion. Point of order. Is the motion in order? She was on the losing side. the motion. Um, could you repeat your question?

Uh, the motion was made by the person on the losing side of the previous motion. So, I do not believe she can bring it back up in this meeting. I'm not bringing it up though. It's a alter I'm asking the clerk. So, um, the motion to amend was to strike

the motion to amend included this section. That motion failed. section. Um it was it included 12 116 regarding arterial streets and also subsection J from ordinance 2026-08. That was the motion made by Deputy Mayor Vale to amend which failed.

Oh, okay. I thought you said in its entirety. Okay, so never mind. Okay. Is there any additional discussion? We will go to a vote. One second. Um, the only issue I have is as we talk about trying to keep housing costs down, we have Sean saying it's on the developers hook to add this stop, which in turn will feed Sean riders. I'm not quite sure why we're pandering to that at this point and increasing cost and impact to a developer which will then just turn that impact and cost over to the resident raising the housing cost to then feed Catran additional riders which will then be fee payers to ride. I'm not sure why Catran wouldn't pony up the money if it's a a spot that's desirable like an apartment complex to put a stop. Why the developer is on the hook for that not Sean itself?

Council member Kypers. Um, that was the same question I had, but I thought that the motion had failed. So, I'm a little confused as what we what we're able to do at this point. I had the same concern. Um, probably should have spoken up earlier, but again, we're talking about adding more costs, not only on the housing side, but for developers. We want development in the city. We need to address ways that we are continuing to add costs to the developers unnecessarily. And it feels like it's being directed by cat to do this. And so I'm I'm not comfortable just rolling over and adding it in. So, could I get clarification on what we're voting on right now?

Right now, um, if you would like the clerk to clarify, please. Right now, you are voting, um, or there is a motion on the floor to adopt ordinance number 20268 as amended. Um, that is what you are voting on or that is what is proposed. Um, yes, you can amend that motion on the floor. Um, there are, as the point of order pointed out, there are some restrictions.

Thank you. And just for clarification, the section that's not included currently is section 12.108, which was uh which was struck. That's correct. That's the amendment. So this is so the cat ad is still in the language.

I would like to make a motion that that language be struck. Do we have a second? Second. Second. to move. We have a motion on the floor with a second. We will go to discussion. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. We will call a vocal vote as it's just simply a vote uh to strike that section. All in favor, please say I. I. I.

All opposed. The motion carries unanimously. Section J is struck. So we will return to the original motion which is now to adopt uh Battleground Municipal Code Title 12 Streets and Sidewalks as amended which does not include section 12.108 108 or section 12.116 subsection J. Any discussion on this motion? We will go to a roll call vote. Cler Khalili, if you can call when you are ready.

Council member McCoy, how do you vote? Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? Hi. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote? Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Uh, next, Cler Khalle, will you please read the title of ordinance number 2026-09 for the second reading?

Yes, I will. An ordinance amending battleground municipal code title 13 water and sewers. Chapter 13.120 sewer system connection. Chapter 13.126 storm drainage system and adding chapter 13.130 vacation of utility easements. I will call for a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-09 amending battleground municipal code title 13 water and sewers as presented.

So moved for air. Second McCoy. We have a motion and a second on the floor. We'll go to discussion. As no discussion is seen, we will go to a roll call vote. When you are ready, clerky.

We are now voting on ordinance number 2026-09. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? I. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? I. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote? Yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. Clerk Haley, will you also read the title of ordinance number 2026-10 for the second reading? An ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 15, Buildings and Construction. Chapter 15.104, Building Code, Chapter 15.136, Public Works Construction Specifications. I call for a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-10 amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 15 buildings and construction as presented. So moved for air second kypers.

We have a motion and a second on the floor. We'll open it up for discussion. Seeing none, we will move to a roll call vote. When you are ready, clerky. Now voting on ordinance number 2026-10. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? I. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? I. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overhozer, how do you vote?

Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And clerky, will you plead please read the title of ordinance number 2026-11 for the second reading. An ordinance amending battleground municipal code title 17 zoning. Chapter 17.118 commercial districts. Chapter 17.120 light industrial employment campus and westside employment districts. Chapter 17.122 Mixeduse Districts.

Thank you. I now call for a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-11 amending Battlebr Municipal Code Title 17 zoning as presented. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second on the floor. We will open it up for discussion. Seeing no discussion, we will move to a roll call vote. When you are ready, clerky.

Now voting on ordinance 2026-11. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? I. Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? Hi. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overholeser, how do you vote? Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And lastly, Cler Khalil, if you will please read the title of ordinance number 2026-12 for the second reading.

An ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 18, Environmental Protection, Chapter 18.250, 2550 storm water control and drainage. Chapter 18.257 clearing and grading. Chapter 18.280 fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas. Thank you. I will now call for a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-12 amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 18 environmental protection as presented. Can

I ask a question on this one? Yes, unless there is a motion maker and a second and then we can open it for discussion as well. Discussion. Yeah, we can have discount on this council. Yeah, I just waiting to be identified by the mayor before I speak. Council member Ferrer.

Um, this one was concerning specifically under if you if anybody wants to look at the maintenance section 18.250 310. specifically under section two and then um well it goes yeah B2 sorry B2 longterm maintenance. I had some questions on this one. Sorry I'm waiting to tonight. For some reason it jumped out at the page with me and it's never jumped out before. So maybe it's because we don't have GMA and I had we're just scrolling really fast through it. Um my concerns are it says it reads um if part private long-term maintenance if private parties are to provide long-term maintenance of a storm water facility within a subdivision or a short plat. All the following requirements shall be met. A a maintenance covenant will be required in a form acceptable to the city engineer. said covenant shall be recorded prior to engineering acceptance. I'm okay with that. It's the next section that's concerning to me. B where it says formation of a homeowner association with maintenance responsibilities listed in the covenants conditions and restrictions which shall be recorded with the plaque. Um, my concern is are we by this language, are we forcing a an HOA to in order to take away I I get it from a city's point of view. I do because everything costs a lot. My concern is you're going to have citizens who are getting double hit with HOAs and property taxes. So, I'll defer to Z, but I'm pretty sure

there's a state law that says if there's common property within a subdivision, there's a requirement to form an HOA. Do you want Okay, she's coming on. Yes. Uh, I believe that is correct as well. Um, yeah, that I'll if there are further questions, I'm happy to answer them, but I'll just answer that one right now. So, we're forced to have developers take on HOAs in their subdivisions or flats. Yes. If there's going to be any common property, they have to form an HOA.

Okay. Okay. That one's that one's solved. Um then the other one, this is my last one I had um concerns with is, and thank you for clarifying that for me, Mark and um Z. Um 18.280.070. Excuse me while I scroll to get down there. So I'm making sure I'm reading it correctly. Okay, this one is in regards to title 18 environment protection specifically um for fish and wildlife habitat. So standard requirements it says under C the original language put in a conservation covenant shall be recorded in a form approved by the city attorney. But then we're adding in front of it in the cases of site plans or projects not involving a plat. So, we've taken out anybody who's doing a plat. This these conservation covenants are not going to be enforced. But then under section C or D, excuse me, it's it talks about platin notes. My concern, and please, this is addressed to you because this is your thing. Um, a conservation covenant is a signed binding contract between the property owner and the city. So a conservation covenant is essentially something the developer signs um at the beginning that gets recorded against the property that puts a certain restriction. So essentially what this code is doing is when you're recording a plat a plat note has the same effect as a conservation covenant. So it's giving both options. See, that's where I would think a little different because if you have a plat that's like to me, you've got your covenants, your

CCNRs, that's in a D. That's more legally binding and easier. I'm concerned if you do a plat note, that's more like here's a label on the documents that could be like 15 pages long. Platin notes are just as enforcable as everything else. Okay. Okay. like to make a motion to uh adopt ordinance or I would move to adopt ordinance 2026-12 amending better municipal code title 18 environmental protection as presented. Second. Second.

We have a motion and a second on the floor. Motion by council McCoy, second by council member Kypers. Sorry, Mayor Overholzer, she did beat you. Do we have any discussion? Yeah. Council member Ferrer. So to piggyback on that one, since they're the same thing, I guess why was it never in there before and it's being placed in there now as an alternative if they're the same thing? like what what is the advantage to a developer to do to choose a plat over a CCNR?

Um, so a plat is simpler than a a covenant covenant is several pages and a plat sentences. So just from a pure, you know, efficiency standpoint, the plat's far simpler. However, the only issue is you only have plats if you have plat. So in a site plan or other projects, you're not recording a plat. So you don't have that option. So that's why the conservation covenant remains and they are just as binding as legally binding in the recorded document

because I always hear of like CCNRs, right? your your people are going developers come in and they're trying to fight all the time in legal battles with homeowners with CCNRs, but I've never heard them say, "Well, they're after our plat notes." So, well, they probably aren't a plat. So, I think there's a distinction between when you can have the plat kind of sp like Rasmus and commercial, right? It's a it's one of our commercial plats and there are shows you know the parcels lists them all and has notes and those are just as binding as CCNRs that are recorded with an auditor. Okay. Any further discussion?

Seeing none, we will go to a roll call vote when you are ready. Clerky. Now voting on ordinance 2026-12. Council member McCoy, how do you vote? Council member Ferrer, how do you vote? I. Council member Mson, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Kypers, how do you vote? Yes. Council member Bowman, how do you vote? Yes. Deputy Mayor Vale, how do you vote? Yes. Mayor Overholdzer, how do you vote? Yes.

Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Now we will move on to business at 9:39 p.m. Uh, clerk Khalili, have we received any communication submitted regarding business items that have not yet been provided to the council? No, Madame Chairwoman.

Thank you. Well, now we have the pleasure of introducing our wonderful chief of police, Dennis Flynn, to present the Battleground Police Department's annual report. Okay. Uh, I've got 10 minutes to do this. So, before I start, I wanted to share something with you that you probably before my 10 minutes starts, uh, I wanted you to see this. Uh, how are we going? Cuz I was going to rock through this thing really quickly. Nothing. Uh, no click there. U Rob, nada. Technical difficulties. Please stand by.

I think even the technology is tired at 9:40 p.m. I agree. Now, if it's not working, we can just hand go through it so we're not tying up everybody. But if you remember over the last uh three weeks, there was a lot of headlines that talked about uh the audits that were done from the CJTC about mandatory training that police were required to complete. It was in all the newspapers uh was everywhere. Um the media reports uh hopefully it's coming up here.

and welcome back. No, there we go. Okay, 16% um 16% is what was reported. You might have saw the Columbia and the reflector. Everybody across the state has said the police departments are horribly failing at this mandate that is absolutely required. Uh there is almost 40 hours of training. So you can imagine trying to get everybody through that. There's the confirmation from CJTC. Your police department is 100% in compliance. Uh very very proud of that. It's a lot of shift moving around to bring people in, stagger shifts to get them uh on the coverage, but there's the proof email from CJTC that we are covered. So, uh we'll now start our clock. I'm going to go through this. Please, if you have any questions, please uh just slow me down. As you remember, in 2024, uh we went to the uh agency and said, "If you're going to design a new design, now's your time." They came up with car outstanding. We did the same thing with the badge. Uh I am proud to tell you and my peer here can tell you as well uh the morale increase that we have had with just them designing this badge has been absolutely wonderful. Uh it's really uh increased the uh a spree of core. We've had some just wonderful uh uh luck with our badge. Next please. Not me. So, I'm not wasting anybody's time. Would you want me to just give this all

to you verbally? Uh, I can do that. It's dealers's choice what you'd like. I would say it's completely up to you, chief.

Yeah, there's lots of pretty graphs of of what we've trying to bring up. Uh you can put it anywhere you want. I'll Yeah, right on the badge and I'll go from there. Okay. Uh here we go. Start again. Uh our overall stats uh what what you're seeing there is uh everything is down. Our person crimes for 20 this is 2025. So this is a look about 6 months ago. Person's crimes were down 8%. Property crimes were down 15%, productivity is up. Uh that just shows you on this slide here uh that um everything uh as I just said is down uh but our DUI enforcement uh numbers are up. Property crimes are down uh as far as uh total theft, as you can see I've highlighted there, is down 26%. Auto theft is down 67% for a total of almost 15% reduction in property crimes. I put this on there. This was thanks to uh both Megan and to the city manager uh for helping us in the bottom right. I believe Megan, correct me if I'm wrong, that we were able to use some uh drug funding to be able to buy that very expensive uh Trunark analyzer. What that device does is it prevents the officers from have to touch anything. they uh they're able to use a laser that zaps it that gives us a field testing. But I also put this in there uh because we've

had two unannounced inspections. Uh there's two areas of the police department that typically chiefs can get fired over and that's uh records and evidence. And so uh unannounced audits uh they've had uh 100% compliance, no errors. And last year they uh they went through about 16,000 bodywn camera videos. um as much issues as we had rolling out the videos, I asked the person that was the um president of the or I'm sorry, vice president of the union said, "Would you go out now without a body camera?" And he said, "Absolutely not." Couple of cases uh that you've already seen uh our fatal hit and run uh from the start of the year, our double homicide and operation battleground. Uh as you know, our fatal hit and run that's set to go to trial this year. Uh this occurred on West Main Street. They started uh with a comb of going through there and found just a piece of a mirror. From just the piece of the mirror, they're able to identify the type of vehicle. We put that out to the media and uh we're able to make an arrest. The double homicide, that's also slated to go to trial hopefully this year. Uh that we hadn't had a homicide in uh uh over 10 years. This was familial and uh it is the first case that the Battleground Police Department took the lead on and prosecuted all the way through. The child exploit exploitation uh crime was in August. Uh if you remember, we had 70 different police agencies come through here for 4 days. Uh we had contact with over 100 uh potential suspects, 30 direct contacts with undercovers, uh made 12 arrests, and the nice part about this one is uh the shared hope international submitted to the police department for an award for the work that they did. So very very proud of all of our officers for this traffic engagement. That has been uh our

drive of what we've been doing. Uh what you'll see and we don't have time to go through this. This guy was doing 115 miles an hour uh down uh one of the side streets. Uh our radar by the time the honestly the officer thought the radar was broken. It was pitching so high. By the time you realized it wasn't broken, he locked it on uh he locked it on at 98 miles an hour. And um that video that I would typically show you just shows us coming up and we're making an arrest. If you're driving 115 miles an hour, you can uh guarantee that you're going to jail for that. Uh no, ma'am, it was on uh Eaton right off 503. What we started using uh is more data uh to uh to do our events. Um what you see there is a cluster of the uh all the traffic actions that we had for the year. Then you outline you uh I'm I'm sorry I I was going too fast for my own good. What you see there is the traffic accidents that occurred for between March uh of 24 and March of 25. Take that and gave that to the officers and said that's what we want to see for enforcement. That's what we started getting in just an 8day time frame. So when you lay the two over, you see that we're getting cops on dots. They're out there making the car stops in the areas that we're having our traffic accidents. Uh, everybody's familiar with our beloved Manny. Uh, Manny got an upgrade thanks to public works. That's what the guts look like inside of Manny. Um, that's him on his routine patrol. And I won't bore you with this only because of timing, but uh, now it's so outfitted that public works that we set a speed on it. If you exceed that speed limit, the overhead lights come on and he has been wellreceived throughout the community. Uh you're also familiar with

the crosswalk safety that we've done. Uh as just an example, you can see as I'm talking through the next slide, uh we put one of our plane closed pre people walking through there and you can see them step out and the cars just act like they're not even there. So we have the drone that goes up and goes after them. And there's just several examples of these uh as we continue to do different crosswalk enforcements, but that has been again very very well received by the uh by the public. Next slide that you're looking at now uh shows our overall traffic stops. Last in 2025, we made uh just about 7,000 car stops. That's a 6% increase from the year before. It's a 228 increase from four years ago. So, they're certainly on the right trajectory. Uh our traffic tickets, although there was only a 3% increase from uh from 24 to 2024 to 2025, you see a 96% increase over four years. So, the cops are out there writing tickets. Uh that has a absolute correlation to what we're seeing with our traffic collisions. uh what you're seeing is a 11% reduction from 24 to 25 and an 18% reduction from 22 to 25 uh measuring traffic tickets. So it's our belief that uh those traffic infractions and the car stops they're making is having an impact on the reported traffic accidents that you're seeing. Community events as you know that remains very very big. Uh this is uh our food pantry. Uh we did the cram the cruiser uh in this year Battleground Education Foundation has jumped on board. They've been a tremendous sponsor of this. It has gone over so well that Prairie High School has now adopted it. And it's not just about giving the kids food. That is a byproduct for us. It is

about building the relationships with the SRO's. We have kids that are coming in and sharing things to the SRO, reporting crimes, sharing information. Uh it is an absolute wonderful program that the uh all of the credit goes to that officer Phil Anderson right there. Um former chair uh former uh council member chair St. Roger uh her partnership with Bombas. She was able to get us a whole bunch of socks. We looked at all these socks and what are we going to do? Created a program uh through the schools and uh Phil's been giving those socks out to the kids. These are kids that are typically too embarrassed to say anything. Uh they either didn't have socks or had holes in their socks. So just the mere fact of him being able to quietly give them a package that has five new brand new pairs of socks has uh helped those kids out. He said that their self-esteem has increased. He's just seen an overall uh uptick in the kids. And we're able to also uh share those with community court. Carol's been uh very gracious about having those and being able to provide it to some of their kids kids. So, that's worked out incredibly well. Uh in addition, last year we also did uh serving beyond the badge. Uh we did over 70 pre-made meals. Several people in here from staff and elected officials all helped with that. Uh there was two different families that I witnessed uh as we pulled up bald when they saw the officer show up. Um, this is again engaging the cops. Uh, although our professional staff helps, it's mandated that a uniform officer has to go. I want them to see the cops, the badge, the car showing up with the meals. Like I said, two different mothers baldled because they said they wouldn't have otherwise received Thanksgiving. Uh, many of you showed up for our shop with a cop this year. Uh, Jim Keller's uh, with us. uh the donations that he

was able to get. Uh additionally, uh I don't have time to go into everything, but in addition to the uh shopping that they had a chance to do, again, building relationships with these kids in our community, these are kids that went in there and picked items that we take for granted. They got socks, they got underwear, they bought food. Um it's almost heartbreaking to see these kids go through there and are getting just bare necessities. Uh, I watched not one, not two, but several of our cops reach into their pockets because they're given a a threshold. And when they went over that amount, cops reached in and they paid the overages. Uh, you've got incredible guardians that, uh, that are working for you in the city. Um, our csos cases, uh, as you're, uh, familiar with one on North 9th and Parkway, that's what it looked like, uh, before we started the cleanup. CSOS went out there. The house is now for sale. That one you already know about. Uh Remy Park, uh Mark's people did an absolute amazing job. That's what it looked like pre and that was his notice uh that he took and threw in the fire and burned it. Mark's people came in uh and we provided security for them. It's all cleaned out. Uh it's going to require maintenance because they do come back and uh we just got a complaint uh night before last. So, our officer is going to be going back out there and addressing that because the young lady uh was swinging around a machete. So, we're going to make sure she understands that that is not acceptable behavior. Uh you had also uh several of you had mentioned about out of state plates. Uh so far, they've uh when I wrote this uh they've given more than 300 notices. They've already been out writing citations for people that are um out of compliance. I can uh offline explain to you the mechanisms that we put into place to make sure it was fair. But one

thing that you might not that you might be noticing now is quite a few of the uh uh reciprocal I think is the is the right bit. So they can they have a tag that says uh I live in Oregon but or I live in Washington but I plate in Oregon. In other words, we're getting our money. Uh investing in our officers. Uh I would like to take since I'm moved so fast um one of the videos that we produce. It's only one minute. Uh if the audio plays if it doesn't play. There you go. As this is rolling, the words are up on the screen, but basically want to make sure that our officers are prepared any kind of major emergency that we have. They hadn't had a a full training exercise in a very, very long time. We used the kids from Cascadia. They came out there. We made this real. Um, we forced the officers to go through seven different scenarios when the school was closed. Uh, the officers appreciated the realism. The kids appreciated the chance of getting in there and playing. Um, it's just another opportunity for us to continue to go out there to continue to engage. We have the alarms going off. We try to make it as real as possible. Uh, if the next time that we have one that we're going to, uh, do another live event, uh, I'll share it with the city leadership so they can they can get it out because it is really neat to watch uh, what it is that they do. Officer Wellness, uh, this has been obviously a big push that we continue to do. Everybody's been familiar with Rafferty. He's steals the show like he did again today. Uh it was his one-year anniversary. Uh several of you had the opportunity to uh uh grade uh and award some of the kids that uh did coloring contests. Tenner Keller was able to

secure some bicycles. So the kids all got bicycles. Got to meet the the dog. This has just been an incredibly wonderful program. um they have taken that dog on the holidays without even people knowing to some of the assisted living and the u management has said patients that don't even get out of bed have gotten out of bed so they could see the dog. So the dog has not only been a benefit to the police department but the entire community. Uh our peer support continues to grow. Bottom left is our clinician uh Justin that he comes out and does ride alongs uh with the officers. To date, we've had uh just this year, we've had eight uh that based off the real ride alongs have met with him privately. Have no idea what they talk about, but that's the whole idea of of our wellness program.

Well, I'm sorry, we're at 12 now. Um another thing that we did, as you can see on the uh slide that's there, uh heart disease is something that is huge. Police officers are 25 times more time more likely to die of a heart attack than be killed by violent action. Um most of those that uh have a heart attack are 46 years old. Uh the data that we have is the chance of the average citizen dying of a heart attack is 1.6%. If you look at your screen that goes up to officers by 56%. That's a big deal. U Lieutenant Keller was able to secure some funding. uh we did uh these corotic scans and they did some other stuff on there. Uh all but four or five employees took advantage of this. So this is what we continue to do to keep making sure that we're having long-term health healthy, happy employees with the police department. Uh I got through all of that. Uh and so I'll take just two minutes and show you where we're at right now. So for our first quarter, our stats have looked really, really sharp. Uh our total person's crimes, every category is down except DUIs is up 44% of how much they've increased their DUI enforcement. So we're down uh almost 7 and a half% in person crimes. We are down uh 7.7% in total theft. We are up 42% in the number of traffic stops just from Q1. That's 777 more car stops that we did in one quarter than we did last year. Traffic tickets are up 12%. We're we're hoping to see that correlation with uh traffic accidents. Um our uh support specialists have already put through almost 5,000 body

cameras in just the first quarter. our overtime uh our prediction was when we changed the schedules in January we did staggered shifts that we were going to see some reductions so far we have maintained an 82% reduction in overtime uh that our officers now when I say overtime that is shift overtime that does not count if they volunteer to go work target zero uh or those types because I I can't control that so this is shift type overtime Um and then lastly is what we're using now. This is unbelievably exciting of the uh using the data to drive our enforcement. Uh what we're getting right now is you can pick uh from these those drop- down lists. Right now we're just primarily concentrated on speed. So we ask it uh all right uh and you can zoom in to east, west, north, south, whatever. Um, this shows you where the clusters are for our speeding. Obviously, it's no big secret that it's on Main Street. We take that data. We give that to the cops and say, "Go out and do your enforcement." This shows in 7 hours they made 110 car stops in that area. So, we take that, we transpose it to where uh our known problems were, and it shows that once again, our cops are out where they're supposed to be. The nice part about this is uh it shows us in the blue the days before and it shows us in the green 4 days after off of that one uh infor that emphasis that we did that shows a 23% reduction that held in place for 4 days afterwards. That's not our data. That's the state's data uh that we're pulling that from. So I did all that. I uh went over I think five extra minutes. Uh, but just wanted

to tell you thank you so very much for having given us the opportunity, putting those cops out there. We'll keep pushing it and uh if you have any areas that you want to see, have any questions, please let me know. And Lieutenant Keller's here as well if I can't answer those questions. Thank you so much, Chief. That was incredible. Uh, we do have Council Member Mson.

Thank you. uh see the tools capture I've seen have was disposal that for the sake of time um because I didn't realize we were going to be this late tonight. I did I did have a lot of questions but I'm going to try to try to deal down through this real quick. Uh when was the last the council priorities given for your department as far as enforcement is concerned like what areas of enforcement? Um, I don't know if I understand the the question. I know that traffic has been a u traffic has been a major issue that has been driven us and that has been the standard message. Am I misunderstanding the question?

No, no, you're you're getting there. I just was going to see if any council member can recall last time you guys made a ordinance or or just a consensus on the direction you were wanting to see the police department. I know we've done those in the past. I was just wanting to see if you I don't I don't think there's anything formal. Although I know after the uh traffic fatalities that that's when council started looking at speed limits and and we talked to chief about the best way to enforce that or not enforce that emphasize and make it safer.

So have you just real quick so have you seen not just off of this data but have you seen the improvement? Okay, good. So, it sounds like your council listens to you. You listen to your council. That's good. Um, something else that's changed since I've been gone is code enforcement. Um, I had a lot of heartburn back in the day about that. I understand Lieutenant Keller, you're Is that under your purview now? Can you just talk to me real quick about code enforcement and and again, I don't want to drag this out. Um, but it's my understanding that code is rolled up to you for how long now? Um, I've been in supervising the combined code enforcement since September 1st.

Since when? September 1st, September. Uh, how's that transition happened? Uh, how how smooth has that transition been? There's been some growing pains trying to get everybody um up to speed together. I know there were some contract issues with combining the jobs into their new cso positions. Okay. Um, but the transition's been very smooth. Okay. And they're being very effective right now. So, again, going back in time, uh I remember when we had one code enforcement officer and at one point we would have 400 complaints on the books um not being dealt with. Where where where are we at with that now? Just rough guess.

I believe the last email I received is we have 130 open cases. Yeah. 130. So, huge difference in four or five years. Okay. Um well so I do a lot of uh leadership training in our organization and I don't think you know and I travel a lot to do this and as much impact as we make we don't hold a candle to you guys to see the cultural change that you have made in in the time that you you've been here two years now. Yes sir.

Okay. Um to see the cultural change that not only in house but in the public eye that you've made is huge. Um was kind of hoping Sally would be here because I'd like to, you know, her and Brent tell them thank you for what they've been doing. It's it's a big deal. It really is. And and not trying to tenure anybody, but having lived in this area for such a long time, it's I've never seen it like this. So good for you guys. Sally Sally is watching this, so

Okay, great. So thank you, Sally. I appreciate you. Um Chris, I guess for you at this point, you're doing your annual reviews with all your directors. Um and I don't want to know the details, but I hope um that Well, how often I mean what when are you normally doing them? Spring, summer, or fall. Okay. So, Chief's had one within the last within the last 12 months or so, I imagine. Yes.

Okay. Um, again, for the sake of time, I I wish I would have had a little more, but I'm trying to avoid making a motion to suspend the rules tonight. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for giving me some clarity where you're at. Again, I've been here a long time, and I've never seen it even close to as good as it is right now. So, I appreciate you all.

Council member, thank you. And, uh, what you' said though, it's a team effort. Uh, Kristen started this. she started this whole process and we were just able to take it and just kind of blend it into it. But it is a team effort not just for the police department but the entire city. So th those successes that we've had, it's everybody that's sitting at this table that deserves those credits as well. We wouldn't have been able to achieve some of this. Public works has had a a big part in all this. Megan's made sure that we're properly funded. uh the the uh deputy city manager and city manager have listened to what it is that we're doing and supporting it. So, we are very very grateful to have a good team.

I guess one last quick question if you don't mind, may uh deputy mayor is uh I imagine you audit your own department. Um I mean your data shows that you're doing something. Um is there any checks and balances? So Chris, do you do any kind of audits uh independent of the chief's audit? Well, the state auditor will come in and audit their evidence and storage, which they're going to do sometime this week, but I'm not sure I'm clear on your question. Well, exactly.

Just just so that you know, when when we see this kind of data that gets presented to us, I mean, how do how do you look at that data? Do you just he brings it to you and says, "Hey, this is where we're at. This is where our numbers at." and we just go from that early. Let me just Okay, for now. Thank you, Council Member Bowman.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um, so the only thing that really there's a lot of stuff that jumped out to me that's that's going in the right direction. Um, the one thing that that I have always harped on and I've never said that I have never had a ticket. I've had a lot of tickets in my life. Um, I don't have any now for the last 10 years. Um, but when I see statistics that show that we're up 228% on uh traffic stops, but we're only up 96% on penalizing those people. Um,

here comes Phil.

It It's concerning to me that that I I think behavior changes, very few people will change their behavior because they got pulled over. People will change their behavior because they got pulled over, they paid a fine, their insurance went up, their wife got mad at them. That's what changes their behavior. Um and and I see like the data that we're we're seeing is is good. I think that um uh Reggie brought it up six months ago. Um, I purposely will drive in the left lane going out Main Street just to see how many people get mad and want to run you over. Um, and you're doing you can be doing 5 m an hour over and you're just getting your doors blown off every morning, every night. Um, there's a lot of work that I think we still have to do in that area of town. And and um, when I see that we had, you know, what was it? 100

110

110 you know I'd love to see how many of those received a ticket and and this goes back to and and I've said this before when I went on ride alongs with Target zero and we were doing DUI emphasis never once Well, that's one way to cut Bowman short. Mayor Overholdzer, can you hear me? This is the clerk.

Uh, yes, Miss Hilly. I've got you loud and clear. Can you see the council chambers yet? Yes, ma'am. We are back. Okay. Thank you.

Anyways, what I was saying is I I've never been on a DUI emphasis where we said, "Oh, this is your first DUI. go ahead and go home. And so when we do emphasis, it should be an emphasis. It should be like we're going out there, we're going to do this, we're going to write tickets and people are going to know. And um you know, I hope we're doing the same on on sidewalk enforcement or I mean crosswalk enforcement when we're crossing across the street that it's not, well, you're close. We'll we'll let you go. Usually it's it's you're going to get a ticket today. Go explain it to the judge. He'll you know, let you go or whatever. But, um, I hope we're we're a little bit more, um, willing to give the fine if you do the crime.

It's a leadership issue. Your point is, uh, spoton and, uh, you're preaching to the choir with me. Uh, there's two different thoughts. Jim's a old motor cop, so if it's good enough to stop, it's good enough to write. Uh, so you have you have those people who don't give breaks and I think he issued his mother a citation once on Christmas. Um, so you have that and then you have the ones that uh give all kinds of leeway. Uh, eight you're 8 miles an hour over uh eight you're great, nine you're mine. Uh, so there there's so many different schools of thought. Uh, I can tell you that our statistics thankfully have shot up drastically. Um, one of the challenges that we have is our bodywn camera policy about being able to review it. Uh, because it would be nice to be able to look at some of these and say, I'm just curious about your discretion on these type of stops. Uh, it's a leadership issue. We continue to work on it. It's almost a it's a weekly topic for certain. Um, and certainly on emphasis, that's what you're getting paid to get your butts out there and do. So, we are continue to preach it. Uh thankfully we're seeing that count go up and we're also seeing the wrecks coming down. But yes, still lots of work to do.

To council member Bowman's point, I would just like to say that I also do not have any current tickets on my record. Um and I have not for quite some time, but I really do appreciate the discretion that's given to our officers that uh we have had recent speed changes which has been pretty dynamic. And I think that though people can read speed signs and they understand they should slow down, I also think that there are certain cases in which discretion can be given and very appropriately so and warnings can be given to help continue to build that community um rapport that we want and ticketing to be given at an officer's discretion. So I will not I will defer to your judgment, chief, above all um but just to say that I do appreciate discretion that's given to the officers.

Thank you. And I'll also just say uh last Wednesday or Thursday morning, I stood with the sergeant at 7:50 in the morning on foot using LAR and he was just calling out those that were 20 m an hour over the speed limit. 20. And they were hitting them so fast that we didn't have enough chase cars to stop them all. So your points about the speeds are well heard and we will continue but we're also witnessing uh at least using these uh the data we're seeing those speed numbers uh as you saw that the discolorations are dropping down drastically. So it we do know that it is making a difference.

Excellent job. We really appreciate you. Okay. So, if we don't have any other questions for Chief, uh, next up we have our public works director, Mark Hersik.

Could I make a suggestion that we go ahead and make the motion to set this public hearing and that anybody that has questions on the tip, maybe they could do it in bi-weekly zero work session because I really want to get to the actual street preservation program. Um, I would like to comment on that. I agree with you. Um, there's a conversation that Mark, I don't know if you remember, six years ago, I had heartburn with 9inth Street and 20th Avenue in the crossing section there. I didn't see that on the list. So, Chris, when we do a bi-weekly, can we have Mark come in so that I can recapture that? Council member Bowman, you remember we talked about the gray kid that got hit by the on South 20th,

Northwest 20th. Um, and we talked about the street lights are offset. So, Mark, um, and Chris, if we can in a bi-weekly, I'd like to bring that that situation back up. You're you're not aware of it because you weren't here when I brought it up, but I would like to have that conversation for a potential add to the tip or see where we're at with it. So, it's Northwest 9th Street and 20th Avenue, the crossings there. I can quickly say that we have a project on there and the only reason it's not on the tip is it's expected to go out to bid and be constructed this year. Is that for 17th or is that for 9th? That's for 9th at 20th Avenue. Okay. I'd like to have more discussion with you about that.

Yeah, it's the compact roundabout with that. I You good? Yeah. I move to set a public hearing for the June 15, 2026 city council hearing to hear public testimony regarding 2027 through 2032 six-year transportation improvement program. We have a motion and second on the floor. Uh we will open the floor up for discussion. Seeing no discussion, we'll go to a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. I. I.

All opposed. Motion carries unanimously. And just so I understand council's position, we will now be going now to the presentation for the six-year transportation improvement program. Or is council wishing to set that presentation aside? Yeah, we're that Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Street preservation program is what we're on now. Yeah. So, we will be moving on. still introducing our wonderful public works director Mark Hersik for the 2000 the 2026 street preservation program bid award presentation

right so we're going to talk about the street preservation bid award u I'll talk about quickly the projects the funding a recommendation um answer any questions and then I have the motions on the screen I'll have the motions on the screen for you uh so we broke this into four projects the first was project A which includes Northwest 20th Avenue and First Way. Uh 20th Avenue gets a reconstruction and then First Way gets a Milanfill. Uh we did not have any alternates on this project. The low bid was Western United Civil Group and they came in at about 2.5 million. Uh for project B uh it was southwest 20th Avenue uh from Maine to Eaton and it's a mix of reconstruction and Milanville and then 199th from West City limits to 20th Avenue and that was a Millenfill. Uh there is one alternate. So you can see down at the bottom of the map there's an area that's actually in the county's jurisdiction. Uh so we bid a chunk for them that they'll pay for um and they would like to move forward with that that um bid. Uh low bid on this one was also Western United and uh cost was about just a little under 1.5 million. Uh project C was Northeast Grace Avenue and Salmon Creek Bridge. Uh Northeast Grace Avenue again a mix of reconstruction in Milanville and then the Salmon Creek Bridge on Grace Avenue is a Milanville. This one also had an alternate. Uh it's to replace 306 ft of sewer line in Grace Avenue. So we had a small section that is in bad shape. It's old concrete line. You can kind of see where I have the double line there. That would be the area that get replaced. Um the low uh bid contractor on this one is Clark and Suns and they were about 1.75 million. Uh last project was project D which was southwest Scott and Way uh via Milan

fill on the section between 503 and 9inth a reconstruction on the rest of it. There were no alternates on this one. Low contractor was Western United and about 1.4 million. So in terms of funding you add all those together against the street fund uh it's about six a little under 6.7 million. Uh we had budgeted 8.8 8. So that was the 8 million for the reconstruction and then the 800,000 for our annual preservation. Uh the counties got 63,000 for their stretch of Eaton. Um in the water fund um essentially we do 250,000 of water line replacement every year. Um we have been working on Northeast Grace. So we essentially bid this year's work and essentially next year's work. um because obviously we don't want to tear up the street next year. Um so that will put us over the 250 we have budgeted. So there'll be a a future budget amendment to cover that portion. I'm assuming you approve it. And then the sewer work I mentioned was about 98,000 and we budget uh 250 in sewer ini repairs and I propose just covering it out of that. Um so altogether again good pricing and and well within budget. Um so our recommendation is to award all projects including the alternates. Um obviously the bid prices were excellent. So questions uh before we move on to questions mayor deputy mayor I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules. Uh seeing that we're queued up I think we're going to move on past our 10:30 mark.

Motion on the floor to suspend the rules. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? We'll move to a vote. All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Rules of the meeting have been set aside.

Council member Bowman. Thank you, Mark. um can we get it done this summer or this year?

So, we are meeting with um Western United since they've got three of the four projects to talk about their schedule. That is the intent, but um there's a few sewer items we're looking at. So, on Scott and Way, we've had some issues with the gardener force man that we might want to look at. um that will also play into the the future um parallel force main. So we might add some additional look at adding some additional sewer work there. And then on the uh uh southwest 20th we also have a similar situation where we want to look at a little additional um force main work. So, um, all that to say is that's our goal, but I'll know more after I talk to the contractor, and I believe that's happening in the next couple days.

And then I've seen, um, I've seen Clark and Suns. I I've never seen Western United Civil Group. Uh, most recently, they did the new bathrooms at Kuanas, but they've done quite a bit of work for us. So, we we believe they can handle a project this big. Correct. Okay. Thank you, Council Member McCoy.

Thank you. Um, first of all, I just want to congratulate you and your staff and uh, whoever else was involved. It's a novel way to bid this. I know when we approved this last year in the budget, I think council was had a little sticker shock uh, but it was a huge commitment from this council to put into the major arterials uh, so that the people could see their money working for them. And so the way you bid this and the way it came in is just a great testament to uh the staff. So congratulations on that. Uh to Council Member Bowman's point, are there any contractors on this list that have had projects go past their due date? Western United. No. Um, Clark and Suns obviously is working on 20th, but that was a issue with the ecology permit. Um, and I don't think so on their other projects, but I'm not 100% sure.

Okay. Um, and you know, I know that I share the concern of getting it all done, but it also concerned me when you said you were going to get it all done at the same time. I didn't know how what road we would use. Um, but I I trust you guys and uh the way that you brought in the sewer component with it and using those funds and doing one project and doing it correctly. Huge fan of this. Again, um, major props to you. Um, one thing uh, to Council Member Mson's point earlier about sidewalks. I think one thing this council might consider is with some of the savings is maybe setting aside some monies where we do a one-time we're going to go shave sidewalks and get us, you know, whatever that looks like. Maybe we take a pot of money and low income first served and fix the sidewalks. Um maybe there's some potential for that because this came in with some money to spare less than we budgeted. So maybe just something to consider for council to think on. I haven't thought that through all the way, but um because I I share your concern on sidewalks, but I do not want the city to be liable for them because they will come after the deep pockets and that's us. But if we can do a called a good Samaritan sidewalk repair um come up with some good acronym. The feds are good at that. Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out. But again, I'm I can't wait to see this in action and I'm sure you're happy to have one more project off your list.

So, I'll be happy when it's complete. Yeah, with that I'll make a motion. Um well, do you need separate motions for each one? We actually are not done with discussion yet. We have another council member. Uh Brian Mson who had a question. Uh I got three things real quick. Um what did when you answer Council Member Bow Council Member Bowman's question, did you say you will you think you'll get traction on that this year in terms of getting it all done? Yeah,

that again is the goal. There's I'll know more after we meet with the contractor in the next few days. So the where I'm going with this is if the projects are delayed and we see a drastic drop in oil prices that's going to affect the cost of asphalt. Are we going to be going to are we going to readjust? Are we going to go back out for the rebid or are we just going to eat the cost? So in all of our bids there's an asphalt cost adjustment bid item. So if the price goes up we have to pay more. If the price goes down we save. So it it can benefit us, it can hurt us, but you actually get better bid prices that way because the contractor doesn't have to assume the worst. They can do it at the current price and then based on where they're at when they actually pour it, it will adjust.

So I don't want to see the projects delayed, but if something happens and they are delayed, that goes to what council member McCoy said. If we see a drop in oil prices, which I would hope we'll see soon, then his idea, his concept could actually come to fruition a lot quicker because there would be a cost savings on your overall project.

Yeah. And I think the point u Council Member McCoy is making is we had budget at 8.8, we're at 6.6. So there's already savings and then yes, if you had lower oil, you would get some additional on top of that. And obviously there's going to be change orders throughout the project. Once you start digging up the ground, you know, even though we did the geotech, we have a general idea of what's down there. It always comes up. So, you know, that's going to flex somewhere around that 6.6 number. But, um, yeah, they'll they'll be left over at the end for sure.

Well, I guess you just gave Council Member McCoy some homework because he's going to have to get on this. Now, uh, last thing I have is there was a question about contractors. Wasn't Clark and Suns the ones that did uh Great uh South Parkway? No, I believe Tapping did South Parkway. Oh, that was Tapp. Okay. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. Move to award the bid for the 2026 street preservation program reconstruction project A to Western United Civil Group in the amount of 2,561,512.95 and authorize the city manager to sign the contract.

Second. Second to Brian Mson. I believe he was first. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Mayor Overholeser, I believe you were just delayed. Was I correct in hearing that you are an I? Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Motion carries unanimously. Mayor, I move to award the bid and alternate B1 for the 2026 street preservation program reconstruction project B to Western United Civil Group in the amount of $1,477,540.50 and authorize the city manager to sign the contract. Second to Council Member Bowman. We now have a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will move to a vote. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Your enrollment.

Move to award the bid and alternate C1 for the 2026 Street preservation program reconstruction project C to Clarkson's excavating in the amount of $1,746,668.70 and authorize the city manager to sign the contract. Second. A second to council member Ferrer. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will move to a vote. All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move to award the bid for the 2026 street preservation program reconstruction project D to Western United Civil Group in the amount of $1,452,27410 and authorize the city manager to sign the contract.

Second. Second to Council Member Bowman. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will move to a vote. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We now move to administrative reports. Before we move on, um Alicia just wanted me to plug the open house for this project. Uh it'll be on May 27th from 5 to 6:30 on the second floor of city hall, so I assume in here. Um but the contractor and city staff will be available. um to answer questions about all of these. Thank you, Mark. Set a quorum for that. Yeah.

And just to restate that was May 27th from 5 to 6:30 p.m. likely will be in this room here. Correct. Perfect. Thank you, Alicia. Okay, now we move to administrative reports. Are there any administrative reports from staff this evening? No, there are none. Thank you. We will move directly to council communication. Are there any council member communications this evening?

Yes. I'd like to see if um based on our study session tonight, I'd like to ask the council if they're interested in bringing back the RV um code revisions that we were we implemented. Um bring back that for further consideration. Sorry, I don't have the number in front of me. Uh, may I just add something to that? If we're going to bring this back, let's get all of our homework done.

So, I don't want to waste the public's time with long drawn out meetings of things that we can resolve in bi-weeklys. Hearing no comments, I'd like to make a motion that we bring it back for reconsideration. Second. There is a motion and second on the floor to bring the RV municipal code uh ordinance up for reconsideration. And there is a second. We'll now go to discussion. Any discussion?

Hearing none, we will move to a vote. All those in favor? I I Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Any further council communications this evening? Yeah. Council member Mson.

Uh so I'm going to address Prairie softball. I know that's outside of the city limits, but as we know that there's a lot of kids here that live in Battleground. I had two of my four that went to Prairie. Um, I'd like to recognize their achievement. Uh, they made it to state this year. Unfortunately, they didn't get past. Um, they had two seniors that played varsity their entire four years. We'll just call them out for who they are. Mack and Miller, congratulations on your four years. Miller really stepped up and hit a bunch of dingers towards the end that were impactful. So, uh, the kids that are in Battleground, the kids that go to Prairie, I'd just like to recognize their achievement going to state again.

Any further council communication this evening? Seeing none, our next regular uh city meeting will occur on Monday, June 1st at 7 p.m. with a study session scheduled at 6 PM on public works priorities. This meeting is adjourned at 10:36