City Council - Regular Meeting

Thanks, Sarah. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

all right the time is 7 p.m i call this meeting to the battleground city council foot order uh and i want to announce uh good evening everyone for resolution 26-04 we welcome bass second segment of the satanic temple to present an invocation this evening members of the public who wish to offer an invocation brief statement or moment of silence at the beginning of a civic council meeting may submit a request through the city's website at cityofbg.org or by contacting the city manager's office. To help maintain an orderly and efficient meeting, please avoid conduct that disrupts these proceedings. This includes speaking out of turn, exceeding the time limit of three minutes, creating loud or coordinated demonstrations, um such as applause sharing jazz hands or other visible or audible interruptions calling out from the audience or otherwise preventing our invo key from being heard and uh i will now ask bass segment please step up to the podium and present your evoke

Good evening, and on behalf of the Satanic Temple, we thank you for this opportunity and look forward to doing this again next year. This invocation today was inspired by the seven tenets or ethical principles of the Satanic Temple. Thank you. A non-theistic organization that believes in compassion, empathy, justice, autonomy, freedom of speech, scientifically based beliefs, accountability, and wisdom. Let us begin. Let us never bow our heads or bend the knee in obeisance to anything from the past that is based on ignorant, bigoted savagery. Let us not look back with reverence to dark times of fearful minds, unenlightened by modern scientific knowledge, but move forward with critical thinking, the only way to determine actual, factual truth. Let us not fear the tree of knowledge, but extend our grasp and devour its fruit. Let us make rational decisions rather than imposing outdated authoritarian religious doctrine with varied interpretations, some more vile than others. Let us cast out harmful ideas that threaten individual autonomy and our collective rights to liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness which must necessarily include free thought and freedom of expression, especially of our very identity. Let us bravely face the truth rather than hide behind comforting delusion, because regardless whether a supreme being really exists, history will be our judge. So let us embrace those among us who understand that morality, compassion, and service to others do not require devotion to any faith of ancient doctrine. Let us recognize that humans are capable of choosing kindness, empathy, and helping those in need, regardless of any religious faith. Finally, let us trust in ourselves and others working with us to know what is best for us and our families, and not force conformity to mistaken beliefs of the past. Hail Satan, the archetype or symbol of the bringer of knowledge, and hail thyself. Thank you.

All right, clerk, if you could please call.

Mayor Oberholzer.

Present. Deputy Mayor Bale. Present. Council Member McCoy. Here. Council Member Ferrer. Present. Council Member Munson. Present. As a member of the government here and that is present back with the role.

And move on to the summary of reports and presentations. Are there any other words this evening.

I have reports from the governor's annual review committee and you're going to be looking for some. input and direction from the Council on some topics that were brought up in the biweekly that didn't get final direction and consensus. So there are actually four topics. Hopefully this will go pretty quickly. The first one has three options. And so we'd like to give direction from Council on each of these individually. And then the results we will incorporate into our revisions, which we will ultimately be bringing back by chapter. When the chapter is completed, we'll bring those revisions back for Council review and final decisions at the end. So we're getting there. All right. The first one is study session and regular meeting scheduling options. The first option is to integrate the same section sessions directly into the regular meeting agenda with the meeting starting at 6pm and or hold a separate study session like we do now from 530 to 630 with the regular meeting beginning at 6. Or hold study sessions on separate Mondays from the regular meetings, council meetings and all the meetings start at 6pm. Can I get some thumbs up or thumbs down, direction from council, which of those three options they prefer?

Well, I didn't hear the option for leave it at this.

Oh, okay. Number four, leave it at this.

Okay. I just want to make sure we're clear. Okay. Go ahead and chime in on your facts if you have anything you want to discuss on this. Give me a minute.

Thank you. I'm supportive of the first option. I think that if staff has to remain here after for a meeting that doesn't start until 7 o'clock, that's tough for a lot of our staff. So I am supportive of rolling in the study session to our regular meetings and starting all at 6 p.m. Council Member Bowman?

Thank you. I know the city council years ago, you might have been a part of this, when they used to do study sessions every other Monday and they used to do castle meetings on the 1st and 3rd. So they had every Monday they were doing something.

The city was quite a bit smaller then. I think that We need more touches.

I mean, that's evident when we sit here through these meetings, and we want to discuss this stuff from the diets that we should have already been discussing. So I think that we should be looking forward to every Monday and have study sessions on the second, the fourth, and meetings on the first and third. Okay. Any other input? I had a good amount of time to actually think about this. I don't disagree with the idea of having our study session at 6 o'clock as it is now. I mean, if we don't have a study session, we could go ahead and start meeting at 6. I'm more in favor of that than I am of uh every monday and the only other thing i i was curious about with that is um as far as attendance attendance will be uh in our governance manual attendance only really lists the regular city council league so um i would be a little nervous that we might not get great attendance on the second and fourth monday of our city

well if with that particular option number one is we're incorporating the study session into the agenda so the meeting will just start it says if there's a study session we hold it if not move into the rest of the session Well, I'm hearing more interest in the study session being part of the regular agenda starting at 6 o'clock. Is everyone OK by holding that? OK. Thank you. Public comment, period, shall the adjustment of total time for public comments and individual speaker time be set by the mayor with confirmation by the council? Currently, it is only to be set by the mayor. I'm seeing thumbs up to make the change with confirmation by a man or by council, sir. I don't have a problem.

I just want to say I find a different meaning out of this currently. That would be my vote.

Wait.

like we need your input i mean me brian and uh hyper sorry council member munson and council member hypers and myself we all sit on this governance manual so we're looking to you or other members to to ask us i mean we need more than i mean i'm hearing one one two two but

Are you getting a clear direction on which way we should be pulling all this? Or do we want to take this, go back to our governor's venue, and then we say, hey, which one do we prefer? Put it in there because it's tied vote up here. I mean, I don't know.

Well, so far, I think the first thing discussed being So number one, the mayor and our former government has the power of the agenda and the power of proclamation does not have the power of

setting speech limits that was put in. I don't know why that got put in or how that got put in. It should have never been in there. This is the council's meeting, not the mayor's meeting.

The mayor just conducted it on behalf of the council, so I think it's important that the council has say in what that looks like.

There may be times when we want to hear more comment, and we should be able to get in touch with them to decide if we want to hear more comment, or we may have a room full of people, and it's the same comment that we got at the last meeting.

Why not? want to get out of the business and so i think it's important council has to say and that's not just okay the next two items um the next two items actually i'm going to not speak to tonight on the video i had again take it back to

uh committee and to uh the bi-weekly and i'm just gonna um ask that we get that more thorough direction at the bi-weekly meeting because i feel like somebody said bring this here you should be able to get that set and again you're giving them the opportunity to review and disagree if you don't like what we've done so i think we'll get that done all consecutive five weeks so um that's it for that one i I have another ask after everyone else has returned.

Councilmember McCoy.

Yeah, I attended CREC Columbia River Economic Development Council as Councilmember Kuypers wasn't able to. It was a very interesting meeting. I learned something. There's a manufacturer down in Vancouver that's making, sounds silly, but basically floating hamster balls in the ocean for AI and they're a hundred meters across. So they cool. And so if you ever see, you know, if you're out on a cruise and you see a big float, don't pull it, it's not a crab trap. But it was kind of, I mean, there's a lot of economic development out there, a lot of things going on. AI has one of the biggest infrastructure GDP impacts of this country seen as far as percentage of GDP. uh but they also talked about land inventory and with the recent news that our gma expansion got approved i was hopeful council would be agree or give direction to have staff with that new land uh get a list of economically viable parcels to get to crdc what could possibly fit there and give any direction from CRDC on how we should sell that or how that should look. They're looking, for those that don't know, they recruit businesses or host businesses. So I think that is a tool that we could really use now that we have a lamp. I know before when we asked for inventory, it was like, we got like two and a half acres, that was it. So I think that would be, Council agrees. And then whatever you want to do with that. Then the other one, we have an RTC meeting, which is the Regional Transportation Council. Mostly that was just centered around a couple of projects that West Schuylkill is doing. They have a couple of projects that are going over the railroad. They're going to have some issues with permitting the beds. So there may be some monies opening back up. if they're not able to get those done in time. So they essentially get a pot of money from the vets. You have to spend a certain amount of time. If you don't, that money can go back in for new projects. So I don't wish them ill, but hopefully we're ready to have a project or two if that does happen.

That's it. Thank you. Does anyone have any feedback on that CRA vacancy? Yeah, so we got it all the way to dollars corner. So as I've expressed before, I'm interested in seeing Westside employment campus commercial options opened up over there. That's a lot of land ready dirt right there, both north and south. just even right off of the two there. You don't have to turn. Thanks. That's memorable. Go ahead. Christian, do we know, on the south side of the freeway, how, I mean, on the south side of the highway, what is the exact amount of, how far back are we going?

Because I know a lot of that's at Lance to the south. And so we just took right down 502. It might be nice to know what is actually available, what is actually there, what actually is going to fit into that, or what would cost, you know, there are some lots along there.

I know the state owns a few of them. What the cost would be to develop, you know, a house.

This lot has one house on it, or it has, you know, a building on it, but it could be combined with a neighboring lot, that kind of stuff, because it's not just vacant land. There's a lot of that that is built out or being built out.

And what does that look like? But if we can literally just grab stuff that we're just gonna can't expand it and keep it the way it is. So that would be your simplicity. What that matrix looks like in the economy in acres isn't actually there. It could be developed, and I know there is some on the south side, where the old race track used to be, is a big lot there. But it would be interesting to see what that looks like. Sorry, Kristen. Just for clarification, you're asking about the south then, but... Well, I mean, the north side's got a part of it built on it. The south doesn't have it as much, but the south was in an ag lands too. And so what does that look like? we're still going to have fights over that in order to grow. What does that rezone look like? Can we get a rezone before people come in and want to do something different?

And if I may just add a comment. So I believe we do have the peak health analysis, and I'm happy to get that for you. I don't have it available at this moment. Battlegrounds specifically avoided any plans that were zoned agriculture. So that is probably why the ask It didn't look quite as expansive as we would have liked, but we purposely avoided that. But we can absolutely pull the data and provide that.

So it's a narrow strip. It's not super wide. It's 502. But I mean, no, it doesn't go all the way to 239.

So we went more north and south of 502, the footprint. And again, the current zoning designations of those properties are... low-density residential and commercial. And again, this is our UGA expansion, which was approved by County Council last Friday, does not immediately bring it into city limits. That would be a separate spending. Absolutely, we can prepare a more detailed analysis for you of those properties.

So Council Member Bowman brought up some good points on that south side.

There is a parcel, though, that's right off the road. It's around 78. That's a historic barn. It's very historic for our community. It's where they used to have dance hall. Quite a few things have it in their back in the early days. So if we start looking at that, maybe on the back burner, just consider that a historic reserve site. I think preservation will go a long ways with that barn. Okay. Any additional council member reports this evening?

No.

Okay. We will move on to the agenda approval. Does any council member wish to amend the agenda this evening? Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. And we will move on to citizen communications. I will now open a meeting for citizen communications. As authorized under the Council's adoption rules, the manner may adjust both the individual's speaking time and overall length of the constituent's solemn experience to ensure the orderly and efficient conduct of it. Due to the number of individuals wishing to speak this evening, each speaker will have three minutes, and the total public comment time will last 30 minutes, not to exceed. This portion of the meeting is a limited public forum for receiving input from the public. It is not intended for dialogue with the Council. Health maintain an overly inefficient meeting. Please avoid conduct that disrupts the proceedings. This includes speaking out of turn, exceeding the time limit, creating loud or coordinated demonstrations, such as applause, hearing, jazz hands, or other audible interruption, calling out from the audience, preventing others from being heard. While all viewpoints are protected under the First Amendment, obscene language, derogatory remarks, Personal attacks or campaign speeches can create disturbances that interfere with the orderly conduct of the meeting. Speakers are therefore asked to present their comments in a manner that allows the meeting to proceed efficiently and respectfully. Directing behavior, intimidation, or any conduct that substantially interrupts, delays, or interferes with the meeting may result in removal from the chambers to protect the safety and order of the proceedings. If your remarks relate to an item scheduled for a public hearing, please wait to provide your comments during that designated hearing. All comments should be directed to the Mayor. Council may not be able to respond to individual comments and may refer citizens to a staff member for assistance. If due to time constraints you are unable to provide verbal comment this evening, please submit with comments to the City Clerk's Office with the title of a public comment for disbursement to Council. The deputy city manager has placed his cards at the podium. Please feel free to take one if you'd like to contact him with any questions. If you have printed materials to submit for the record, please hand them to the city clerk seated directly to the right of the podium. Thank you for your cooperation and participation in the council meeting this evening. And clerk, are there any members of the public on Zoom that wish to provide further comment?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Liz.

And we will get started. First up, Judy Blevins.

Good evening, Mayor and the rest of the people here. This is about protecting our planet from Christian nationalism. When my husband took the civil service exam in 1987, two years before we got married, they asked if he was interested in being an investigator for the East Core movement. He'd be looking for ways people get blackmailed, and it included the five-year updates people with special clearance need to undergo. So during these years that he worked, with the government. We lived in Santa Barbara, Knoxville, Tennessee, Prince George's County, Maryland, the National Weapons Center in China Lake, Ridgecrest, California, six years in Las Vegas, California, and we finally arrived here in 1993. Therefore, I like living in the beauty our country provides in abundance. And I try to care for the people who are struggling to survive. Because instead of caring for people, war costs predominate. War costs destroys what this land has still to offer. And it continues to pollute everything on which we can depend. In 2026, our police force show us the ways they are making it safer to travel. They also, people have been here that have told me I'm out of date. So, These people that took over the parking lot of Safeway with their trucks sporting two flags and their weapons defying anyone to stop them, that's what Battleground was or is. So we gather here in protest without guns. We don't use our vehicles to smoke everyone out to be noticed. We're the nonprofits caring for the people needing help just to survive. Our turn to show care for the needy is happening already. Open your Bibles and follow the Beatitudes that are in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Thank you.

Thank you, Judy. Next up, we have Shirley Waltz.

Hi, my name is Shirley Welts, and I live in Battleground. And my concern is I live not very far from Daybreak Primary and Intermediate School, where my grandchildren go to school. And they recently started to redo 20th, and that was cool. I was glad to see it. I was thankful we got information about why the streets sort of looked like they were being more torn up when we thought they wouldn't be, but it was due to a culvert that had gotten damaged, so they fixed it, and that was cool. But once they did the paving and they stopped just before they got to Ansdorff, Once they got the paving and striping done, all appearances of construction stopped. we were originally told that 20th was going to be fixed all the way down, down the hill and up, and it was going to be several, a couple miles worth of streets. We live on 17th Street, and so when they had Onsdorf totally blocked off at 17th Street, I was like, okay, this is going to be going to go on. But now I'm clueless of what's going on, and it would just be nice to know, is it going to be next spring? I think, I know I'm not the only person, I didn't mind when cars were having to come down 17th and it is a residential area and we just kept the kids away from the streets and made them be really picky about being on the sidewalks and being real careful on their bikes because some of the cars went a little faster than 25. But I would just appreciate if we knew what was going on without having to make a lot of phone calls. And I know I'm not the only person in that neighborhood. Communication is so important and it keeps people happy. People don't mind what's going on if they understand the process. So that's my comment. I think you would find citizens being happier with better communication.

Thank you, Shirley. Next up, Colleen Eubanks. Come on up, Colleen.

Good evening, dear honorable mayor and council members. My name is Colleen, and I live in the Battleground Mobile Home community on 7th Avenue. I'd like to thank you and the city staff for the work that you guys have done on the moratorium and doing it so quickly. Our residents include seniors, veterans, many of which are disabled and on fixed incomes. So this is really encouraging for all of us. As many of us age in place, the work that has been done by this council, by the city, is just really encouraging. We ask, or I ask, because I'm not speaking for anybody, but we ask that you approve the moratorium tonight. I think the city did a great job on it. And... that you guys would keep up the good work and fighting the good fight. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Colleen. David Terry.

Evening, Council. David Terry here. I am another resident of Battleground, shockingly. I'm here to ask you tonight to adopt a formal resolution for the support of the Battleground Public School Levy on the upcoming November ballot. Each of you have been mailed a copy. And in case there's any concerns voting for this, ballot measure can be legally done. Under RCW 4217A555, local legislative bodies are explicitly permitted to adopt resolutions supporting or opposing ballot propositions, provided the public is given equal opportunity to speak. We could add this to the agenda of our next meeting and meet all those criteria and allow us to actually support our own school levy. I think supporting 13,000 plus local students, which should be a major goal for this council anyway, it should be worth doing that. Why do we connect schools and city government? with the school district is a separate body governing schools. The reality is that the health of our schools and the health of our cities are closely intertwined. When our schools face steep short budget shortfalls, We see larger class sizes, we see reductions in campus security, we see poor after school programs, behavioral counseling and career training disappear. When structured opportunities disappear for younger people, the burden shifts onto our community streets, our local parks and our local police department, which obviously increases our city budget. What's the economic and neighborhood ties? Strong schools are also one of the greatest economic drivers Battleground has. Families decide rather to buy homes in our town based a lot on school quality. Businesses large and small choose to invest here in Battleground when they know that our local graduates possess really good skills and vocational training that will help them grow and prosper. Supporting this measure is about supporting basic neighborhood infrastructure and protecting the long-term property values for current and future residents. So I'd like to actually ask this resolution to be supported by this council. It's not going to cost us anything. It would support 13,000 plus kids in our local school district. And I think since you guys were able to fire our city manager in 24 hours, that you can get this done by the next meeting. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, David. Jessica Cole, you are up.

Hello, Council. I'm Jessica Cole. I just want to say I agree on the study sessions starting on the 1st and 3rd. The 2nd and 4th Mondays are school board meetings. And I always tell them to not book the 1st and 3rd when they need something extra. So I ask the same of you to not infringe on their regular meetings. And I agree with the time and length of comments that you guys agreed on too. First, I want to thank the city staff for consistently being professional and helpful. I ask a lot of questions and I really appreciate how staff engage with me. On August 5th, the majority of the council voted to appoint Mr. Farrier interim city manager. Two months later, this contract still hasn't been approved and now doesn't even appear to be under discussion. So I have a question. Do we currently have an interim city manager? If Mr. Ferrier is still doing the job, will he be compensated? If he stopped after council refused to approve his contract, who has been fulfilling those responsibilities? And I'm sure it was, is the city staff because they are responsible. Although if he stopped doing it, I would totally support him. I have talked to many people in battleground with very different perspectives and people are tired of this. We all want stability. At the last meeting, Councilor Farrier said she wanted the interim position open so anyone could apply. But she had previously said she was concerned, her concern was understanding the contract. And Councilor Farrier herself, I'm sorry, Farrier, sorry, herself voted on August 5th to appoint Mr. Farrier as interim city manager. Whatever disagreements council has the city still needs to function. I'm also concerned about the mayor repeatedly abstaining, particularly on this issue. There are legitimate reasons to abstain, but it shouldn't become a substitute for making uncomfortable decisions. You were elected to make decisions, and even when I disagree with your vote, at least you made one and can be held accountable for it. Voting is part of the job. Battleground needs stability. Beginning the search for a permanent city manager is not the next step. When council still hasn't resolved who is serving as the interim city manager. I'm asking you that you please resolve this. Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica. Next up, Gwen Gersich.

Hi, my name is Wynn Gersuch. I live in Clark County, and my property taxes pay for your school board. So that's why I come here. And one of the things that I was very concerned with is this book here. It's called The Age of Autism, Mercury Medicine and a Man-Made Epidemic. And this is by Dan Almstead and Mark Blacksell. And their children have autism. autism and a lot of this has to do with the thimerosal and the vaccines which they have a huge high vaccination rate at these schools and from what i understand in the next few years they're going to raise this stuff to as many vaccines as they can give you and this is something that most people should read this book because if you read this book i think most people would not They wouldn't vaccinate. The Amish and the Christian science don't vaccinate their kids, and their kids don't have autism. They don't. And this one little girl that they took away from her family that was Amish, they took her and put her in some foster care, and they gave her a bunch of vaccines. That was the first Amish kid to have autism after they vaccinated her. And there's plenty of stuff in here And this is a book everybody should read. One of the things, too, is that the schools should have water filters on them, because I just gave you a paper that's on public record. About 90% of the US water is toxic, and it causes cancer. And this is something, too, that if we don't fix this or try to do something to save the next generation, which most people aren't concerned about because you want to get those shots, is Dean Burke, who was the co-founder of the U.S. National Cancer Institute. He's on YouTube. Dean Burke says, fluoride causes cancer. He's studied it for 30 years. There's another one that is on YouTube. It says, cancer deaths are to waste... Cancer deaths are linked to water fluoridation by Dean Burke. Look it up. And the other one on YouTube is Dr. Russell Blaylock, fluoride's deadly secrets. And this is something, too. I met Paul Conant from Fluoride Action Network in 2013, and we got fluoridation stopped in Sonoma County. And I was invited to go to the board of supervisors to talk about this. And this is where they got the Harvard brain studies, which I put on public record. So you know what you're doing to these kids, putting poison in the drinking water. And it's very important that people take care of this because there's so many things could stop. Right now, Trump canceled all federal funds for children's trans surgeries. So you don't need to talk about it in the schools anymore either. That could be something in the senior year at the last semester to tell them what their options could be. But from kindergarten up to now and there should be no discrimination against anybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, bear Dobson.

Hello, Mayor and City Council of Battleground. I'd like to thank you for your time this evening. I come tonight to speak to you about the moratorium for manufactured homes and their tenants. What is happening in our country is completely unfair and unjust to our senior citizens, our veterans, and people who essentially own their homes but do not own the soil underneath them. Right now, we are all prey to a predator company that is hunting every park in the state and many others. They are founded in the UK. They are worth $500 billion. They are going to purchase as many parks as they can in the United States. Excuse me. As I've learned from my own home selling, that we are essentially not economically viable. A moratorium is the only thing that protects our homes. Originally, when we moved into these parks, our homes were placed on land that held very low value. The rent was affordable for someone on Social Security. It is impossible to afford housing anymore. When it comes down to the amount of speed and aggression these realtors use against our senior citizens, it should be deemed illegal. I raised 13.6M dollars. They stopped the sale redefined it as an auction and made us the lowest bid. There are loopholes that make it so that even if you win, you lose. I've figured out ways to complicate the sales, but without city councils and mayors like yourself protecting the most vulnerable of your tenants who have been in your counties for the longest. These predatory companies will purchase these parks, raise the rents beyond the capability. It's called raking. You add the rent, you do junk fees, you do maintenance fees, and someone on Social Security can no longer afford their rent. Their home no longer has value. They go to sell it and they lose the rest of their savings. They are displaced and they can no longer afford a home that is economically viable. There is not enough section eight and low income housing anywhere in the state of Washington to replace or save even one full park that is displaced. I am not exaggerating those numbers. I've done the research. These are the most vulnerable citizens throughout the state. I need every city council and every council member, mayor, senator, everybody to pay attention to the most vulnerable tenants in the state of Washington. I appreciate Battleground's time. For working with the moratorium, I hope you understand that you hold the power to protect the most vulnerable tenants in your community. No matter what we do, they will raise the rents. They will push a lot of these people off of their properties. How will you prepare for this? I know I will lose my community in 56 months, no matter what, because a new rent in my park went from $715,000 to 1,400 for any new tenants. Luckily, the 5% moratorium is holding right now, but it is being challenged. Please pay attention to everything. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Bear.

Next up, Courtney Hendricks.

Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Courtney Hendricks. I grew up here in Battleground. I am Bayer's neighbor. And for the last year and much more, we have been working very hard to get moratoriums passed. And I ask that you approve your moratorium and save the most vulnerable in our community. Many times it does affect people who are elderly, but there are a number of communities that are all ages. And so it ultimately displaces young people and families as well. I have a family of five. I have two children with high medical needs. And our mobile home community is our safe haven. We would be completely priced out. There is a wonderful documentary on YouTube by a group called More Perfect Union. They have an amazing documentary about mobile home communities, and I encourage you all to look it up and to watch it. It's about an hour long. One of the most memorable things that I took away from that documentary was One of the CEOs of these massive corporations that invest in our communities and take advantage of us compared us to owning a Waffle House and your customers are chained to the booth. I, homeownership is supposed to be a sense of freedom, but to then to be compared and talked of as literally being chained to something is so belittling. I again ask that you approve the moratorium and protect the most vulnerable people in your community. Thank you.

Thank you, Courtney. We have no one else signed up to speak this evening. So that will conclude our public comment. We will move on to the consent agenda. Does any council member believe any items need to be withdrawn from the consent agenda this evening? Otherwise, I will call for a motion.

Move to approve.

Second.

We have a motion by Councilmember Bowman, second by Councilmember Ferrer. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. And we'll move on to public hearings. Clerk, are there any public testimony that was submitted for the public hearing that has not yet been provided to council?

Mr. Mayor, I believe first Director Lowry might have a presentation or a few words. Or actually, yes, Director Lowry.

Well, Megan, take it away.

Good evening, council. Before you have ordinance 2026-18, which is updating chapter 3.04 of our battleground municipal code, which would eliminate the economic stabilization and insurance reserve fund and move those funds to the general fund. This would streamline financial administration as well as reduce administrative processes. With that, staff recommends opening the public hearing to accept public comment on this revision.

All right, I will now open the public hearing at 7.48 p.m. for public testimony. Individuals are limited to three minutes to provide testimony on Ordinance 2026-18, amending Battleground Municipal Code Chapter 3.04 funds. All comments should be directed to the mayor. Are there any members of the public who wish to provide testimony? Come on up, Jessica.

Hello, Council. My name is Jessica Cole, and I approve this. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica. Liz, are there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to provide testimony?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Do we have one more? Sorry.

I didn't know what I should do. Hi, I'm Tracy Godfrey. So my question is, before the council eliminates the economic stabilization and insurance reserve funds, can staff tell the public the current dollar balance of each fund, where those dollars will be transferred, and whether those funds will remain formally designated for stabilization and insurance once they enter the general fund and under resolution 26-07, what will be the minimum required unrestricted general fund balance after this change?

This is the clerk. Ms. Guthrie, can you please state your city of residence? Oh, back down the street, Battleground. Okay.

All right, thank you very much. Tom Preston- Please do or megan do you want to.

Yes. The current balance of the economic stabilization fund is $420,250. And then the insurance reserve fund is $175,776. Both of those would go back into the general fund and they would help get us to the 120 day mark as the target, which the unreserved balance would go from 6.9 million to 9.2 million. So we're increasing not just by that amount, by even more amount, but this helps get us there.

Very good. All right. Seeing no others wishing to speak, I will now, uh, close the public hearing, um, at 7 51 PM. And I will ask the clerk to read the title of ordinance number 20 26 dash 18 for the second reading.

Ordinance number 2026-18, an ordinance of the City of Battleground, Washington, repealing Battleground Municipal Code 3.04.010, Insurance Reserve Fund, repealing Battleground Municipal Code 3.04.050, Economic Stabilization Fund, directing a fund balance transfer and providing for severability and an effective date.

Thank you, I will call for a motion to adopt.

Move to adopt ordinance 2026-18 amending the Battleground Municipal Code chapter 3.04 funds as presented.

Second. Motion by Council Member Munson, second by Deputy Mayor Vail. Any discussion? Hearing none, I would like to call for a motion Vote on the machine, if we could.

One moment, please.

The clerk will now identify. So it appears that this motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, clerk. We will move on to ordinance number 2026-19, Municipal Code Amendments Chapter 13.05.100, Adjustment of Utility Bills, Public Hearing and Motion. I'd like to now introduce Finance and Information Services Director, Megan Lowry. I got it right this time. Let me go.

Thank you. So what this does is it modifies chapter 13.05-100 adjustment of utility bills, which would clarify the procedures and authority over approving those utility billing adjustments. This just aligns our code with what current practice is and eliminates some of the ambiguity of what defines a broken pipe. And with that, we recommend opening a public hearing for public comment.

Good. I will now open the public hearing at 7.54 p.m. For public testimony, individuals are limited to three minutes to provide testimony on Ordinance 2026-19, amending Battleground Municipal Code Chapter 13.05.100, adjustment of utility bills. All comments should be directed to the mayor. Clerk, are there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to provide testimony?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to provide testimony on this ordinance? Hearing none, I will close the public hearing at 7.54 p.m. Oh, that didn't even take a minute.

Okay, let's go with it.

And I would ask the clerk to read the title of the ordinance, please.

Ordinance number 2026-19, an ordinance of the City of Battleground, Washington, amending Battleground Municipal Code Section 13.05.100, adjustment of utility bills and providing for a severability and an effective date.

Can we... Mayor or Clerk, can we get these panels, they're in disabled mode? Absolutely. Okay. I wanted to raise my hand just to add something before council, if anybody decides to make a motion, if that's okay, Mayor?

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. We have discussion after the motion as well.

Right, right. So I just wanted to do it before the motion though. Sorry, I would have done my hand, but it's up now.

I have you now.

I can still do it if you want me to.

No. Okay. Go ahead, council member.

First, I want to say thank you, Megan, Ms. Lowry, Mrs. Lowry, right? For adjusting the language from the broken water pipe to the word leak. I think it is very helpful clarification. However, after I read it, I did, while I... Okay, while preventing water waste is critical, this hardship, or I'm a little concerned with the new language that maybe there, it's kind of left me a little concerned about some unforeseen hardships for our residents. As we all know, a major, Leak can easily cost thousands of dollars to fix. And I'm a little, I'm concerned with the language, how it could affect our low income households and our fixed income households. And I'm just, an immediate water shut off isn't just an enforcement tool, which, you know, that's great, but it can also create an unlivable situation. And so to protect our residents, our residents, while still addressing the water conservation, I would like to propose maybe an amendment or adding a subsection or maybe financial hardship and leak repair. I'm sorry. Assistance. Yeah.

Are you referring to the black language where it says the city may discontinue service to any premise? That's existing language.

I didn't modify that. Just to clarify. So would we have, oh, this is really echoey. Is that right?

Yes, this is the clerk. We are struggling over here to figure out why there's this feedback. It just suddenly appeared. And so we've been adjusting the sound, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

Okay.

I can say that this city has not exercised this. This is a case like if somebody has a blowout in their driveway to where it's just crazy, right? Then we have the right to go in and shut it off. It's not necessarily just because the leak's not being fixed. It gives us the authority to do that because it's on the customer side of the meter. That's why this exists. We don't exercise this of you can't fix it. So we're going to come turn your water off.

Thank you for clarifying that.

You're welcome.

Council Member Bowman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Sorry. That kind of answers my question, too, because I did see that, and I said, I was thinking to myself, like, okay, so you can shut my water off because I have a leak, but I can run my sprinkler 24 hours a day, and it doesn't make sense to me. But I do see, if you're saying that, but how, like, And I do agree the cost of some of these things can be quite expensive. And I know we still have the insurance that you can buy or the company that we promoted from the meter through your house type stuff and pipes. But I know my neighbor had some issues with this and Her water bill was triple what my water bill is for a single widow that's 85 years old. And You know, the city couldn't find anything. We couldn't find anything. Plumbers couldn't find anything. So it does. It is a little concerning for those type of people that are on fixed incomes because these leaks can happen anywhere. And how do we, you know, how do we help out? I do think that it might be good for us to repost. that insurance that was out there because I know there's quite a few homes in our city now that are getting to that age where some of this stuff could happen and it may be something that can help when it comes to pipes and those type of things that we can't physically go look at and dig up as a city, but an insurance company could help them.

Deputy Mayor Beall.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to share just briefly something that happened to my family is we had had a water main on our side of the water meter actually break. And we had had our water bill, I don't know if it was double or triple amount, but it was fairly shocking. And then it came. Um, to just trying to discover where in the world this leak was coming from. So thankfully after tearing up part of our driveway, you're able to locate it. However, the city, and this is before I was on council, um, the city has a program and I believe it's still standing and, um, and it's discussed here in this, uh, And in this visual aid that we have as well, where we actually came to the city and we showed the city that, hey, we had a water leak happen. We had, you know, our pipe broke and we were able to have that reduced. I believe that that, to my knowledge, was one time reduced. that you can have that happen. And so, and we did, we were able to utilize that service that the city did provide. So just to help ease some discomfort that I hear on the council, that was something that I, that my family was able to use as well. And it was very helpful to us.

It is also an option of council right now. It's one half of the difference between the monthly average for a similar time period and the leak bill. It says disputable, but essentially when the leak occurred, other agencies, it depends on where you're at. Some do 100%, some do 75%. So if council would like to change that from one half to a differing amount, we could do that. Okay. The purpose of these changes were just to clarify leak versus broken pipe because broken pipe is very, that can be taken differently depending on who you are. And so that as long as you have double the usage of your normal average, we verify a leak is present. Essentially a leak has occurred. You fix the leak. We verify the leak. We then do the one half of the difference. That's the existing program.

Councilmember Freire.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I don't know if we're ready to make a thumbs up on that one or anything. That just leaves me with more questions on how many do we see of these, how often. You know, I'd want to look at that data before I make a decision to change that right now.

All right. Well, I will entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move to adopt ordinance 2026-19 amending Battleground Municipal Code Chapter 13.05.100 adjustment of utility bills as presented. Second.

All right, we have a motion by Deputy Mayor Bales, second by Council Member Kuypers. And for this, I would also like to use our voting pads, please.

Do we need to do it again?

You were absent.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I actually locked in my vote as well, and then my panel kind of flashed.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- And that's a disabled itself came back up and let us vote again. HAB-Masyn Moyer- You. HAB-Masyn Moyer- didn't want to speak for Brian.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- A little.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Can you just put that a thumbs up right there.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Let's try this again Council. HAB-Masyn Moyer- One all right. HAB-Masyn Moyer- One. And success. There we go.

Okay, according to the results on the screen here, I don't need to identify each of you. The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, clerk. And thank you, Kelly. Um, next up we will, uh, pursuant to RCW 42.30.1101 I city council enter an executive session to discuss with legal counsel representing the agency litigation or potential litigation. to which the agency, the governing body, or a member acting in an official capacity or is likely to become a party when public knowledge regarding the discussion is likely to result in an adverse legal or financial consequence to the agency. This session will last 10 minutes, will commence at 8.07. Give everyone a little, you got two minutes if everyone needs to use the restroom. And ending at 8.17 with no action to follow.

Mike's are hot and video is live.

All right, I will now call. The meeting of the battleground City Council to order at 817 PM. Were there any communication submitted regarding business items that have not yet been provided to Council.

No, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Liz. And we will move on to ordinance number 2026-21. I would like to introduce Community Development Director, Kristen Leto.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council. This evening we're presenting Ordinance 2026-21, which is an ordinance imposing an immediate six-month citywide moratorium on development applications and permits relating to the redevelopment of existing mobile home and manufactured home parks. At the last council meeting on September 21st, council was given information related to our three existing mobile and manufactured home parks located within city limits and directed staff to draft an emergency moratorium. Happy to take any questions you might have on this item. And if none, would be looking for a motion to adopt if the council wishes to proceed.

The clerk recommends a reading of the ordinance.

I agree. Go ahead.

Ordinance 2026-21, an ordinance of the City of Battleground, Washington, imposing an immediate six-month citywide moratorium on development applications and permits relating to the redevelopment of existing mobile home or manufactured home parks to allow the city to review options, policies, and draft regulations for the preservation of existing mobile home and manufacturing home parks setting a public hearing, declaring an emergency, providing for severability, and establishing an effective date.

Thank you, Liz. And I will make a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-21, imposing an immediate six-month citywide moratorium on development applications and permits relating to the redevelopment of existing mobile home or manufactured home parks and to set a public hearing to hear public testimony on the ordinance for November 16th, 2026 to comply with the requirements of RCW 36.760A.390. Second. You guys want to Rochambeau for that?

You can have it.

All right. So we have a motion. We have a second by council member Munson. Call for discussion. Hearing none, I'd like to go to the voting pads on this one as well, please.

The clerk calls the vote as unanimous motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, Liz.

All right.

Hold your applause. No, I'm kidding. I just want to just, just a joke. I'll move on to city manager executive search presentation. I'd like to introduce Deputy City Manager Robert Ferrier.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. At the September 8th meeting, council was provided with proposals from executive search firms for the city manager recruitment. At that time, council didn't take any action. It asked for the item to be placed on a future agenda for discussion. A second presentation occurred at the meeting thereafter on the 21st. and that discussion was pushed off, was delayed until a later meeting. October 5th, here we are today. Staff is seeking direction from the city council on how you would like to proceed.

Thank you, Rob. No reason to be quiet now. Council Member Kuypers.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Members, this afternoon I sent Elizabeth sent an email to you on behalf of a recommendation that I wanted to make for your consideration. In reviewing the consultant qualifications and the RFPs that they presented, I'd like to make my own personal recommendation about this and then talk a little bit about a recommended approach for moving forward. So for the consultant selection, I believe that GMP consultants offer several advantages, one being the extensive experience conducting municipal executive recruitment in Washington and Oregon, their current experience working with neighboring municipalities, including Ridgefield and Washougal, which provides relevant regional knowledge and an understanding of the leadership environment in our in Clark County. A competitive proposal related to other firms was received and additional services were included that could provide value beyond recruitment, particularly in establishing a foundation for successful leadership transition and first year performance expectations. I do recognize that their work with the neighboring cities could be considered from a conflict or should be considered from a conflict of interest and confidentiality standpoint. But at the same time, I think their regional municipal experience may provide valuable perspective as we consider the leadership needs of our own city. With that, my recommended approach would be that we know that we have at least one internal candidate candidate who may be interested in the city manner position. I believe there's value in allowing the council to evaluate qualified internal candidates before immediately initiating a full external recruitment process. At the time, I believe there's value in having an independent consultant assist the council in establishing a consistent objective and professional process. Of course, the objective is to establish fair, objective, and transparent hiring process that gives the internal candidate an appropriate opportunity while ensuring that the council has the information and professional assistance necessary to determine whether an external search is ultimately warranted. So therefore I recommend that we ask GMP to provide a revised scope of work and fee proposal focused initially on the following. One would be a leadership needs assessment and they would facilitate discussions with the council, appropriate staff and other key stakeholders to identify the city's leadership needs. priorities, challenges, opportunities, and expectations for the next city manager. Position qualifications and expectations be reviewed, if appropriate, that they would assist by recommending updates to the job description, the qualifications, the leadership competencies, and performance expectations. They would assist the council in developing an objective process for evaluating qualified internal candidates against the established qualifications and the leadership expectations. They would bring proposed leadership priorities, qualifications, evaluation process, and performance expectations back to the council for review and approval before they were used in a selection process. And then they would assist the council and select the city manager in establishing measurable six and 12 month goals and a performance review process to suggest a successful transition into the position. This approach would not presume that an internal candidate would be selected, nor would it eliminate the possibility of an external search. the following internal candidate evaluation, following an internal candidate evaluation, the council would determine whether an internal candidate meets the council's established qualifications and leadership expectations and should move forward in the selection process, or the city would benefit from conducting an external recruitment process. So we would still have... the opportunity to move forward with that if we so desired. So if the council determines that an external search is appropriate, then I would recommend that we would go back to GMP to negotiate a separate scope of work and fee for the external recruitment process. This approach would allow the council to evaluate our internal talent first while retaining the option of conducting a broader search if necessary. If the council is supportive of this approach, I recommend that we direct staff to obtain a revised scope of work and fee proposal from GMP consultants, reflecting the phased approach described above and bring that proposal back to the council for approval. And I would be willing to assist in coordination as directed by the council while maintaining appropriate separation between council policy selection role and the administrative role of the interim city manager and city staff. That is my recommendation for consideration.

Off mic, thank you, Council Member Kuypers. Council Member Bowman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Kuypers, I appreciate your thorough thoroughness of going through this and and coming up with that um i've sat through a couple of these and um one of the things that i think is important um is when you bring someone in from the outside you take away any um biases we may have or or um or directions that, that, uh, maybe we're intending to go, but don't want to, uh, put it out there. Um, and so my thought process, uh, I, I, I do agree with GMP. Um, I've, I've been through their process a couple of times. Um, they're, uh, great firm. Uh, they have a good reach. Um, I think any internal candidate that would be interviewing, uh, if they're worth interviewing, they should be able to go through the process and stand up against anybody that would come in. And we made this decision to go a different direction. And I think it's... beneficial for us to hire a firm let them do the process um and let them let them do what they do best and that is make sure that we have the best candidates sitting before us And not ones that we want, not ones that we might have biases towards, but the best candidates that they can put before us. And they're going to have the biggest reach. I've been through this where we did our own search. And it took a lot of staff time to do that. It saved us $10,000 at the time. And it didn't include... as I would say maybe as good a candidates as we had the second time when we use them. And so I think we use GMP, if I'm not mistaken, for the police chief. Did we use GMP for that? I'm pretty sure we did. And so you get a broader search when we use them, and we need their expertise to go through this, to vet the candidates, to make sure that the candidates are going to fit. We come up with what we're looking for, and then they come up with the candidates they're going to put before us. And so while I don't disagree with... Using GMP, I do think that we should just pull the band-aid, get the search going. If we have internal candidates, they can apply and go through the process just like anybody else would and let GMP handle this. Otherwise, we're going to kick this can down the road a ways. And I don't know that that's a good thing. I think we need stability. I think we need to make sure that we're moving in the right direction. We have not up to this point. We don't have an interim city manager. And so that tells me that we probably need someone else to come in and deal with this and not us being involved. Let them do what they do best. Thank you.

Council Member McCoy.

I would agree with having an outside firm. I think one thing Council needs to keep in mind is, as Council Member Bowen said, the staff time that would be required to do this in-house. But secondly, having that outside firm allows public participation. Meet and greets that are done. It provides a level of transparency. I think that's really important for this city right now. So although I don't have a preference on which firm, I would support any motion that went along towards selecting a firm.

Mr. Mayor, just to answer the question that Council Member Bowman raised, we just checked the press release and it was a GMP.

GMP and Prothman used to be related. So they're there.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's both both of those have done very extensive work in the Northwest.

Any other comments or discussion points? What I will say is I don't disagree with Councilmember Kuyper's take on things of changing the scope slightly to introduce the opportunity for an internal candidate. I also, you know, I'm a bit, again, I haven't been on council for, you know, three terms, but, I did a little bit of, uh, investigative work. It didn't take very long, but the last three city council or city managers that we hired, um, weren't necessarily all internal candidates to my recollection, but they might've been, um, in the, I guess the only issue I have is if we have a good internal person that already knows staff, there's a good relationship there. Um, I would be inclined, just like any other company, to probably hire internal before I went external on the search. And so I like that approach of looking at internal candidate, changing the scope, still utilizing maybe a firm to help us go through that and to still go through the process, but start small and work our way out. just to kind of, I guess, see who we have internally that could potentially be a candidate for that role. And so I see value in that before we invest too much money into the nationwide search. But I also understand there is some benefits that come with a larger swath of a search. But records kind of tell me over the last three city managers we hired them, IT WAS A CANDIDATE THAT PEOPLE HAD ALREADY KIND OF BEEN LEANING TOWARDS AND FROM MY KNOWLEDGE THERE WASN'T ANYBODY ELSE THAT THESE FIRMS BROUGHT FORWARD THAT WERE MORE QUALIFIED THAN THE CANDIDATE THAT THEY ENDED UP CHOOSING ANYWAYS, PREVIOUS COUNCILS AND IN MY CASE THE COUNCIL THAT HIRED OUR PREVIOUS CITY MANAGER. I appreciate the work and the thoroughness of going into that thought pattern and why it would be important to maybe do that. So that's all I have, my two cents on that. Any other council members wish to speak before we go to round two? Hearing none, Council Member Bowman.

Thank you. Did we use GMP on the last? So, Mr. Mayor, the only one that we did not, that we did an internal candidate on was Ms. Erdman. So the other ones we went through a process. The one with, with Mr. Swanson, uh, we did that as an internal process, but we brought in, we took applications for that had, I think it was well over 20 applications. We narrowed that down. Uh, we brought in, um, like four, I think, uh, to, to go through the final process. So we went through a process on all of them except for Mrs. Erdman. Um, and, uh, It's, you know, we can say what we want, whether it was good or bad, we made the choice. So it had nothing to do with Prothman. It had nothing to do with GMP. We were the ones that made that choice. And so at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if we hire a firm. If we made a bad choice in what we think is a bad choice in hindsight, then that's on us. It's not on the firm. What the firm does is just give us a broader reach and give us – give us expertise in doing this and give us other people that can vet that don't put that on us because, um, That's not what we do for a living. And there may be questions. There are questions that they can ask and that they can dive into that would be completely different. There's people that probably won't get through a process because they're going to apply and don't have the knowledge or expertise to even get through the process. And they're going to weed those out before they ever get to us. So we're going to get the candidates that we should be getting and not be dealing with the ones that we shouldn't. And so that's the beauty of hiring someone to do it. Like I said, we did it on our own once and it was a lot of work, but we were in a completely different financial situation then too. And so we had to do what we could at that time. Thank you.

Council Member Ferrer.

Thank you, Mayor. I just have a question because I wasn't here. at that time on council, what did that process look like for city manager Erdmann? Just curious how that looked.

So you want, Kimmy?

No, go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say, I know you direct your questions and comments to the mayor, but for this one, I'm going to throw it to our senior sitting council member.

So- There's a couple of things that happen when you have a city manager leave. Usually when you have a city manager leave, you have some type of a dollar figure that you end up paying out. That can either be in, you know, compensation for, you know, let them go early. It can be in funds that they are owed for vacation, those type of things. So with Ms. Erdmann, we had lost a city manager and we had a certain amount of money that we had to pay. And so what we were trying to do is postpone what that was going to look like because we needed to recover that money. We did not have the money to write that check. And so we didn't have the money to write the check or to go out and pay the $30,000 to go through the, the, the search. So, um, she had stepped up and said that she would do the interim. We put her into that spot as an interim. And, um, we were waiting to see what that was going to look like and, and go out and potentially, um, do a search had it not worked out. She was just in there as an interim role to begin with. And then we just removed that and moved her up because she did a pretty good job. The challenge, you know, it's just economics. You know, we had a buyout of, you know, a six-figure buyout that we knew we had to wait so long to get to that point. This one's a little bit different. We don't have a year to recoup that money. Well, we could. I mean, we can take as long as we want. So that's why we did what we did with Ms. Erdman is because of the finances of it. We had a pretty good chunk of money we had to pay, and we needed someone that could step in at that time to keep us going. We didn't have a deputy city manager at the time. So that's kind of where we ended up in that process.

Thank you.

All right.

Councilmember Kuypers, go ahead.

Are we ready to, can I make a motion?

or give direction or whatever.

Oh, okay. I'd like to make a motion that we give direction. Am I making a motion to give direction? So I'm giving direction. Just give direction.

So you'd like to make a motion to direct staff?

Thank you. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to direct staff to go back to GMP and obtain a revised scope of work that the council can look at. based on the recommendations that I provided. And when we get that, then we basically would have the revised scope and this current scope and dollar amount. And the council can then determine if they're wanting to jump in with a full-fledged external and internal, or if they want to go with the internal only. Does that make sense?

All right, we have a motion on the floor. Second. And we have a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. And you post a name. Looks like the motion passes 5 to 2. But Liz's little hands are just going to town over there in a second. And now we will move on to ordinance number 2026-20, Municipal Code Amendments, Chapter 3.32, Utility Tax. And I would like to again introduce Megan Lowry.

Good evening, Council. Before you, you have a recommendation to modify our existing code to, one, change the chapter name to be correct. It is for water, sewer, and drainage utility tax. Currently, it just says water utility tax, which makes it difficult for folks to find the correct section of code. The second piece of it actually came about because of our partners over at Discovery Clean Water Alliance, Clark Regional Wastewater District, and looking at how the three different jurisdictions, Ridgefield, Battleground, as well as City of Vancouver handle utility tax and what is defined as gross revenue. The state law does not define what gross revenue is in the existing Title 35. It does in Title 50, but we do not adhere to Title 50. We adhere to Title 35. So gross revenue, if you talk to an accountant, is a different thing than if you talk to an attorney. And so the way it's currently written is open to interpretation, and we would like to solidify that to be what we're currently doing, because if we leave it as is, technically we should be charging utility tax on the utility tax as well, which is called embedding the rate, which is what the city of Vancouver does. And so we do not want that. So what this does is it gives a definition in our code to be just against what the existing, what it costs to operate the utility, not inclusive of the utility tax. In addition, we don't want to charge utility tax on connection charges, nor do we want to charge it on wholesale services, which that would include our regional service charges that we pay at 4.4 million. We don't want to charge ourselves utility tax for that. as well as a small portion that Clark Regional pays us for operating or having a piece of their medical aid infrastructure or their sewer Discharge. We'll say discharge. Go through our equalization basin at our ops center. So it would remove that as well. And it would provide clarity for what we're actually considering gross revenues. There'd be no impact to our customers. Things would stay the same, but it gives clarification. So we have code backing us with it. Whereas right now we do not. And with that, I'll open it up for discussion. And we're asking for a hearing to be scheduled for the November 2nd meeting.

Okay, I would like the clerk to read the title of the ordinance, please.

Ordinance number 2026 dash 20 an ordinance of the city of battleground Washington amending battleground municipal code chapter 3.3 to rename the chapter adopting a new section 3.3 2.0 50 definitions and providing for several ability and an effective date.

Councilmember mccoy and I can move to set a public hearing for the November 2nd 2026 regular City Council meeting to hear testimony regarding ordinance number 2026 dash 20.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on the floor any discussion. Hearing none will. Go to the voting pads again. Oh, no, we can do voice on this. Sorry. This is just the public hearing. I'm just trying to make sure I keep Liz happy. We'll make it. Call for the vote. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimous. And we will move on to resolution number 26-07. Megan, you're up again.

Thank you. This is the companion to the earlier code update of eliminating economic stabilization reserve fund as well as insurance reserve fund. So this would put a target of 120 days into our existing policy and then keep the minimum fund balance of 90 days. I will say best practice industry wide and what jurisdictions can typically afford is 60 days. So us having the ability to have a larger reserve is fantastic so i will say that so i will open it up for any questions to counsel move to approve resolution 26-07 general fund unrestricted fund balance as presented second all right we have a motion and a second any discussion on this topic

Hearing none. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. They're home run unanimous. All right. Community Development Block Grant or CDBG project protocols. Mark Herseg, you're up, sir.

Good evening, council. Give me one minute. I'll get the presentation up.

While you're doing that, let me properly announce Public Works Director Mark Herseg.

Thank you, Council. Tonight we'll talk about our CDBG project proposals. I'll give you some quick facts, talk about a couple possible projects, talk about a timeline, and then give time for questions and comments. So very similar to previous years, CDBG funds can be used for acquisition of real property, parks and recreational facilities, street and sidewalk improvements, water and sewer improvements, and cleanup of contaminated sites. For this coming year, they'll have approximately 526,000 available for infrastructure grants. Our max grant request can be 400,000. Minimum request is 50,000. If your request is over 200,000, there's some additional requirements that may apply from a federal perspective. And then BABA, which is Buy America, Build America, may be required for projects over 250,000. The way the grant is scored, it's out of 100 points. 10 of those points will be match. So you essentially get one point for every 5% of match. So to get the full 10 points, you have to provide a 50% match. Pre-applications are due on November 2nd, and then the final applications are due on December 4th. In previous year scoring, 20 points was need, so why is your project needed? 20 points for your solution, 10 points for outcome, 10 for your agency capacity, so your staff's experience with federal projects. Outreach is 10 points. So having public meetings, as I mentioned, the 10 for the match, 10 for equity, and then 10 for your timeline. So essentially how quick you can get the project done. There are ways to get negative points if your project requires right away acquisition or with displacement, you would lose points there. Environmental impact can lose you points. And then having delayed projects can also lose you points. So when we look at these projects, they must be in a low income neighborhood, which is anything green or red on the map. I've used the two colors. Green is to indicate a higher percentage of low to moderate income. Those are ones that are not likely to change anytime soon. So it would be safely a project we could apply for. the red areas are closer to the threshold. So you have a few higher income people come in and those areas would fall out of being eligible. If you haven't gotten under contract with the county, when that happens, you actually lose your funds. So that's why I just like to point out those two areas. As I talk about projects, I'll talk about a few things. As I mentioned, the red area is just more risky because it can come out of that quicker. Um, NEPA rules for CDBG have become more stringent. So I'll talk about that risk and then the right away need the counties putting a big emphasis on that. So a few projects we've talked about in previous years, one being Mack McConnell Park. The park definitely has some underutilized areas. From a low moderate income risk, it's in the green area. So that would not be an issue. Environmental, again, is low. There are no wetlands on the site, anything like that. And there's no right away risk as we own the property free and clear. Other one we've talked about previously is the Grace Pathway. Similar to the Parkway project that we have funding for, this would fill in the gaps of the sidewalk on Northeast Grace Avenue heading from Main to 10th Street. Low moderate income risk is low to medium. It's in the green area, but a little bit lower than where Mack McConnell is. The environmental risk can vary. On the south side, we don't have any critical areas. As you get farther north, you hit the creek, and so that would be a high environmental challenge. And then the right-of-way is high as well. Even though the path will be in city-owned right-of-way, I will need temporary construction easements to construct the project, and that will essentially lower our score. So this is the initial presentation. My plan is, depending on if you want to look further at these projects, add any more that I can look up. I'm hoping to bring some more information back to our next meeting, and then we'll have a public hearing at the November 2nd meeting. Unfortunately, but the timing the way CDBG works, I'll have to put in pre apps for projects prior to making our final decision. But that's okay, because they'll go through a screening process with the county. And then depending on which project we ultimately pick, we'll move forward with that project. And then just to get our second touch in terms of public hearing, I'm also working with planning commission, we'll be presenting the comp plan to them in October. So I plan on adding this presentation for their two meetings. So my questions for you are, do we want to look at any other projects? Do you have any thoughts on the suggested projects? And then if you could, when we're all done, make a motion to set the public hearing for November 2nd, it would be appreciated.

Thank you, Mark. All right, I have Councilmember Munson. You're queued up.

Thank you, Mayor. Mark, thank you for the presentation. I have not a personal interest in McConnell, but I have a story to share with it. That open green space and the ponds that come in in the wintertime are a big hit. I raised four kids over there, I know. It was their waterway. I like that it's got a lot of open space, so I would not like to see that. necessarily be modified. I mean, if you've got an idea, I'm open to seeing what it is. But the more green space we can give for little ones to enjoy the better. I'm not such a big fan of the grace project just because of what you presented with the right away risk and lowering our score. I would like to see if you guys can come up with some more options. Thank you.

Council Member McCoy, you're up. I agree with what Council Member Munson said. But I would like to, maybe there's anything we can do with Remy as that's coming on board. But my other thought that came to me as we're looking at this, I know the right-of-way and the water and everything over there has been a problem. if this council was amenable to going forward with the grace project, regardless of CDB's decision, and we start the process to connect that sidewalk. And so therefore the right-of-way maybe is concurrent. And then if we get the CDBG money, great, we save a little money, but if not, we still build the sidewalk. so i think it takes away some of the risk maybe of the right-of-way delay i don't you know so essentially we green light a project to do this and then the cdbg grant runs concurrently i don't know if that's legal or possible if that's something council wants to do but i know connecting getting sidewalks and pathways on the major arterials we've done a really good job the last couple years of doing it i'd love to see us continue that path no time no pun intended

Yeah. So what I would suggest in that case is the county is very much looking for some of that early work to be done prior to asking for it. So you could target a, so not this year, but next year construction request, but approve in this year's budget, the design portion of it so that we can get that started and work out some of those details. Megan's looking at me because I'm approving budget.

For clarification, what you're saying is a motion for design or you would come back with potential maybe at the next meeting wide ranges on what that might look like as far as costs?

Yeah, so I can bring back proposed design and right-of-way costs that you could look at for budgeting purposes, and then just kind of I'll give some construction feedback. It wouldn't be for this year's, but for future years that you would be anticipating.

Very good. Council Member Bowman?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mark? was the north parkway trail cdbg correct and where are we at with that

Um, design is being, it's about, I think about 60% done. Uh, we just kicked off the right away phase. So very similar to grace. We don't need any actual right. I think there's one little corner where we need, but generally speaking, it's temporary construction easements. We, the path will be in the right of way, but to be able to do all the grading and everything, we'll need that. So that's anticipated to be done sometime this year or early first quarter. So that can go out to construction early next year. Thank you.

Council Member Ferrer.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I would agree with Council Member Munson about the McConnell. I know that I've went out there and visited, excuse me, walked that neighborhood and talked.

Really? Me? Okay.

Oh, okay. Sorry. Um, So I've walked that neighborhood. I've talked to the neighbors when this came out and the survey was put onto the website. And to me, it didn't have a... the window was pretty small. So I ended up going out there myself to just see what the citizens had to say. And a lot of them, you know, I said what you had said council member Munson that, you know, the open space, I'm big on open space. I think it's great for our mental health. So I'm not in favor of moving forward with the McConnell, but thank you for bringing that to your ideas. I'm kind of wondering, where does CDBG, because I'm going back to the whole leak issue, and this is my window, so I'm going to ask about where do you think that CDBG, or this may be nothing, but where would CDBG, how would they look at it if we were to ask for like a minor emergency plumbing assistant service? fund for these sudden high-cost leaps. Is that anything that you've seen or you think that would be popular with the CDBG since it's supposed to be going for the low-income neighborhoods? No?

At least for us, we're in the infrastructure category, so it wouldn't fund those sorts of things for that category. I don't know if

you don't have any other categories. The county actually operates through CDBG, a program for home assistance for anybody who has any sort of home issue, as long as you qualify. However, they run out of funds fairly quickly. So they have an application list that's pretty long, but they don't pass that portion down to cities, but they do operate that within the county and anybody's welcome to apply through that. All right. Thank you.

Okay, Horse Thief Park. Come on, Mark, work with me on it. Troy knows what I'm talking about. It's his old neighborhood. And I think it's in the green, but I could be wrong. That's a very small map.

Unfortunately, it's just west of the green area, so it's not an ineligible area. Remy falls within the green, but Horse Thief does not.

Break them apart. That park needs some serious help. I'm not opposed to Council Member McCoy's proposal of kind of starting the beginning design phases on the Grace. Is it a pathway or is it a sidewalk?

So we did Parkway as a pathway. Essentially, it's semi-permanent, semi-temporary, whatever word you want to use. But rather, when you do the concrete, do the sidewalk, you have to add the curb and gutter. And it makes it just a much bigger project. the intent of the asphalt pathway is to provide the connection as that develops out, they'll replace it with concrete sidewalk, curb and gutter. So again, just cost efficiency, asphalt pathway to get people moving back and forth. And then as things, either the city does a big capital project or, you know, somebody develops, they would put the concrete sidewalk and curb in.

Okay. But yeah, I'm not opposed to the idea of looking at that from a design phase. And maybe even if we, I know it went from low to high because of proximity to the creek. What if we were to build the pathway in the high proximity area to the creek? And then you just like, Hey, all we have to do is now connect this pathway to the sidewalk.

Yeah, I think there's a couple options. One, we talked about phasing it in previous years and just avoiding the creek area. And then, like you said, we could do it on our own. Two, we could look at just getting the environmental work done prior to actually making the request. And so there would be less of an issue because that work had been done previously. So I think we have a couple options.

Well, I'd also be interested in seeing what that would look like from a design and cost standpoint, budgetarily. All right, let's see who we have. Council Member Kuipers, you are up.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say that I think that I agree with moving forward in the areas where we can do some preliminary drawings and get that moving. In general, I like the idea of let's move forward with trying to complete uh bring to full completion projects um like um the sidewalk on Parkway sidewalk on Grace um let's move forward with Remy rather than starting other new smaller projects I just kind of would like to go all in get it done right get it done well get it done thanks council member Bowman thank you does the east end of Onsdorf qualify

Where we got a half street when we really only needed like 200 feet to make that a full street. Yes.

That would qualify.

Why don't we do something like that? Good. Because that's a major thoroughfare that we've got a half street. It's literally what, how far is that? A hundred yards, maybe 300 feet. Yes. It's pretty short. Yeah. And, and finish that sidewalk and, and, widen it there, and then all we have to do, because, and this doesn't have anything to do with CDBG, but I think we as a council need to look at finishing out the east side of Onsdorf, because it's not going to get finished out, because the Catholic Church owns the property. They're not selling the property, and so if we want that to be a Connector there. What do we call that neighborhood connector? Yeah. It's a neighborhood collector. Okay. Collector. That's the only way it's ever going to get done and, you know, make it so people have other options besides main street, but it, I'd like to see what that would cost and if it would fit.

Yeah. I'll bring that one back. I will talk to the County too, about that one. What I've seen before is the, Everyone served by it needs to be from the low to moderate income neighborhood. And something like Onsdorf may draw from other parts that aren't considered. And so I've seen the county consider those projects ineligible. So I'll check with them to see what they think about that project. But I'll still bring you the cost. And we can look at that as well, even if it's not eligible. Thank you.

Council Member Munson.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to agree with Council Member Bowman. As before he was speaking, I was looking at Sacred Heart Church, and not only do I think the east end, running east-west on Onsdorf, but I'm also looking at the north-south component on Parkway that connects that. We are seeing quite a bit of development on the north end, but there's a good two and a half blocks running north and south where there's no sidewalks on Onsdorf. north parkway so in essence i would just like to add to council member member bowman's estimation but i'd like to wrap the church around it so our kids have a safe place to walk because there's nothing on parkway for that short stretch the parkway project we've talked about does cover that piece of it yeah i would support uh where council member bowman's going with this cotton store expansion

The on-surf whitening?

Yeah.

For that 100 yards? I only have one more question. First, thank you, Mark. You're always rock solid with all of this, and this is how we get things done, is our amazing staff. Not too long ago, we identified some parcels for potential parks, but I don't remember a lot of them being within any of these boundaries. But have we exhausted any efforts to look for any remaining available parcels in some of these expansion areas? Again, we are... We're adding a lot of homes in some of these areas and I know they're not necessarily in the low moderate income area, but proximity to that would help serve the lower income neighborhoods for a park.

I don't want to steal Megan's thunder, but in the proposed budget for next year, there is a couple placeholders to try to purchase property for a couple of these parks. So when she presents that, you'll see those in there. Could those potentially also be good candidates for the CDBG? I think... The neighborhoods where we have the largest need are outside of the boundaries. I'll double check that just to make sure, but most of what I have in the top of my head are outside. Possibly the one on the northeast may be a spot where we need parkland, but I'll double check for you. That'd be great.

Thank you, Mark. All right. Any other discussion, comments? Anyone else want to weigh in? That was a good, robust conversation. I like it. okay hearing that we do need to set a public hearing you're correct so move to set the public hearing for november 2nd 2026 second all right we have a motion we have a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye any opposed passes unanimously. We'll move on to administrative reports. Are there any administrative reports from staff this evening Rob?

Just one Mr. Mayor, very quickly. Last Tuesday, we had our third session of BGU. We are now in the back half of the set of classes. Third session was all about public works. And so Mark was there and he led a informative and engaged discussion on what we build and how we maintain it. And our next session will occur next Tuesday, again, here in City Hall. And it'll be all things community development. And Professor Lato will be there. And she will lead a class on walking things through the community development process, how projects are processed here in the city, building, all kinds of fun stuff we'll be talking about then. And that's all I have to report. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. And thank you, Professor Lato. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Ms. Halili will give a brief presentation on the jail arc. I'm sorry. Sorry, Liz. You're forgiven. Okay.

Okay, so tonight I'd like to provide a brief comparison of the city's 2024 and 2025 public records reporting submitted to the Washington State Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, the JLR Committee. This is on public records requests. So as you may recall, I provided you guys with a... a report and a presentation on the JLARC that was submitted in 25 for 2024. So here we are in 26 reporting on 25. So this report today does not include anything on 2026. Okay, looking at the city's 2024 and 2025 JLARC public records data, the overall number of requests decreased, but the time and resources required to process those requests increased. We saw fewer requests closed within five days and more requests requiring extended response times and increase in average processing time and significant increases in staff time and overall cost. The following, okay, so I'm going to give you guys some key findings from these two reporting years. In 2025, public records requests received, the number of them decreased by 7.1%. The city received 968 requests in 2024 and 899 in 25, which, yes, so we got less. The requests closed within five days decreased by 16.1%. So, Requests requiring an estimated response time beyond five days increased by 35.9% in 2025. The average processing time for requests increased by 66.1% in 2025. Sorry, I have all these little tiny notes all over my paper. It's not helpful. So yes, so both, okay. So both of the reports in 2024 and 25 note that a few unusually large requests significantly affected the average processing time. We're finding that to be the case across the board now. The estimated staff time to work these requests in 2025 increased by 54.2%. So the estimated time spent fulfilling requests rose By an increase of 577 hours, both reports, 2024 and 25, note that the majority of requests generally required 30 minutes or less, the majority of them which were police records requests, while several unusually large requests required substantially more time. Some, in fact, were opened and stayed open the entire year into the fall, you know, into 2026. The estimated cost of fulfilling public records requests increased by 50.8%. The total estimated cost rose from $70,524 in 2024 to $106,000 an increase of $35,814. The average estimated cost per request also increased by 62.9% from 71, about $72 to about $117. So that is because more time is being spent on some extremely large requests. In summary, Although the city received fewer public records requests in 2025, the data show that fulfilling those requests required considerably more staff time and expense. The reports also indicate that a small number of unusually large and complex requests affected processing times. So we're going to continue to monitor these trends as we manage the city's public records responsibilities and work to provide timely, accurate, and legally compliant responses. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Councilmember Bowman.

Thank you. Liz, how many of these requests are for the body camera footage?

So I don't have those numbers with me, but I will be happy to provide that answer to you. So in 2025, I can get that.

Because 2024, we did not have them, correct? In 2024, they weren't implemented.

That is correct.

So it'd be interesting to see how many of these now are for body camera footage and what the amount of time is that that's taking place. And not that you can project that, but are we seeing that trend the same this year in 2026? I'd like to see if that is getting better, worse, or that just becomes the norm now that we have body cameras that everyone wants the footage.

Certainly.

Any other questions? I have Deputy Mayor Brown.

Liz, I didn't have a question. I just wanted to say thank you. That work that you do and that Kelly do, I mean, it's something that goes unnoticed by, I think, a huge portion of the community that doesn't realize. I walked into your office, I mean, multiple weeks ago, but you had boxes stacked. I felt like it was like chest high in there because... you had to process all of these records. So people just don't understand the type of time and dedication and commitment that you guys make to these records. And I just wanted to tell you how much we appreciate both of you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I want to ditto that as well. And I have one question, and I don't necessarily know if you'll be able to answer this one right off the bat, but do you know where we're at year to date roughly for 2026. I know it's only the beginning of October, but just in total requests this year or what numbers you might have for this year compared to last year.

So I figured you were going to ask that question.

I figured you would pick it.

However, I don't have that number with me. So I will provide you with that answer. I do expect that we are higher than we were in 25, probably higher than we were in 24. But I, and I know that we have been working some very complex requests this year. It's been quite a year, but the goal is to be transparent. You know, we, yeah, we work for the people. So I will provide you with those numbers, sir.

Thank you.

Liz, what's the, what's the, you say five days. What is the amount of time before we start getting sued? So when we're asked to provide public records, we're asked to provide that in a timely manner. And this is what happens throughout this state is people file these so they can sue. So what timeframe does that look like for us? When do we have to give them to them by?

Okay, that is a really interesting and great question. So... Most of the time, litigation occurs when the requester believes that they have not received all of the records, or the requester believes that the interpretation of the request is incorrect, or the requester believes that records were withheld or redacted improperly. Those are the major reasons why you see litigation. You usually only see litigation about timely manner when a request has been open for years and years. And they have not received any communication or records in a year. It really is, courts really look at the size of municipalities and how many public records officers a city can actually afford to even have. Our city, we work very, very, very hard to produce records in a timely fashion and also taking into account the workload, the other duties staff have. And so at this point, I think there's no danger to this city as far as not producing records in a timely fashion. Yeah.

Because the only reason I bring that up is I know and I'm not 100% positive if Cle Elum's one of the cases of this, that they are declaring bankruptcy, the city of Cle Elum, because of, and I think it was public records and it had to do with land use. If I remember right, I could be wrong on that one, but I know Gold Bar was the example of this a few years ago, that they were getting just inundated with public records from people that know what they're doing, and they were doing this to purposely overwhelm the system and then get paid for doing so and so that that's my concern too is that that we're producing these in a timely manner um and for council i know that we've had a lot of affidavits that we've had to sign and um i had a few that i had to to get caught up on from being gone but i know that we uh have some work to do as council members to make sure that we're getting those signed and making your life easier um as we go through this so I just I know what's happened in the past I don't know what that number is but I know that was a big issue with um the at least at least gold bar for sure and I think Cleland may be the other case that's going through that they're going to declare bankruptcy as a city

Yeah, there have been some situations, some instances where staff, for example, have maybe they've left their municipality or agency that they were working for and follow up didn't occur in a timely fashion. There have been those situations. Fortunately, though, our city, we're very diligent in, well, I will definitely say that your city clerk is extremely diligent in paying attention to all of the records requests that are open, including police. And just making sure that we are following through and providing records in that timely fashion. If we have to extend a date, which does occur because of staff time, we always send a message to that requester informing them that we need to set that date out farther and why. And then we work very hard to continue to produce records. Yeah.

Council Member Ferrer.

Again, thank you. I echo what Deputy Mayor Vail said. My question is, because you said that, you know, you keep giving them, providing them. Is there ever like a final letter that goes out to let that, to ensure that person who just made the request that, you know, we've fulfilled it? This is the last one I heard. Because I know sometimes you can use pieces, right? Okay.

Absolutely. That is actually required. We send out actually, I think, two emails notifying the requester that all records have been provided. Oftentimes, we will actually list out the records types of records that were provided, how many records were provided. We also are required to inform the requester that the clock stops starts now for litigation. If they have any issue, you know, they can, they've got two years to take us to court. But our goal always, always is to be fully transparent. We also inform the requester, hey, please reach out to us if you feel something is missing, if you think your request was misinterpreted. And yeah, we're on the spot responding. Our preference, of course, is to provide records to the public as required by law and ensuring compliance with the Public Records Act and democracy. And we certainly do not want any requester to feel compelled to take us to court. So knock on wood. Yeah, we are here to serve and we make that very clear to the requester.

Thank you again, this we appreciate you. All right includes it that concludes our presentation and administrative reports right Rob that was that was it.

That is correct.

We will move on to council communications are there any councilmember communications this evening, I've got councilmember McCoy.

Yeah, I just wanted to recognize the community development staff, Ms. Leto and Sam, Mr. Crummings, for getting the GMA past the finish line, pending lawsuits, but hopefully we'll be outside of those. It's a very long process, very complex process, and any discussion I had Everybody was super impressed with Battleground, how they presented it, their thought process, and the intent behind it. So I think on behalf of the entire city and the future of this city, what this set this city up for is quite amazing. And job well done. Thank you.

Council Member Bowman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. But you guys wish I was on vacation still. You didn't have to listen to me. So this question is for you, Megan, and not to spring it on you. If you don't know it right now, you can bring it back to us. But I know the assessed values came out. What percentage did we drop in assessed value? And what dollar figure was that for us in the city of Battleground?

we did not drop an assessed value it was a lower increase give me one second i'll pull it up i guess i should rephrase that what percentage did we budget and what did it come in at for assessed value yeah um we estimated it we typically estimate eight percent and they came in at four point four percent increase and what did that what did that cost us in our budget it did the assessed value did not cost us anything um because the assessed value is just a piece of but if we budgeted at eight percent what's that difference between eight and four four point five Right. But it's, that's just the millage rate though. That's the assessed value doesn't mitigate the, or not mitigate, excuse me, doesn't drive the amount we would increase. If you're asking what the increase of property tax would be for the 1%, it's 45,000. Okay. For the 1%, we had new construction that came in at 181,000, which increases the levy base by 172,000. And what is our millage rate this year? Our millage rate this year is 95 cents. And because it's, if we take the 1% with where AV at, it'll be 95 cents again this year. I mean, there's additional thousands, millions of, you know, dollars, but.

So we're talking 46,000 for the 1%. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

All right, I'm not seeing anybody else chime in. I will second the effort for community development to get that thing across the finish line, what seemed like a never-ending race for the comp plan and the GMA. Really relieved. I thought, again, we put forward a great offer and ask, and it was relative to what we needed for growth, and it just made sense, so I think it was hard to argue with. And I think we were trying to be as responsible as possible with agricultural lands and waterways and all those kinds of things that we need to keep into account when we're making those asks. So kudos to staff for that. And again, tonight, I think highlights the importance of our staff and the work that they do from everybody in this room and people that are not in this room, the amazing work that our staff does to keep the city running and run it well. The seven of us really don't deserve much credit. It's really to the staff of this city that does everything. So appreciate you guys. Next, we will move into executive session. I'd like to announce pursuant to RCW 42.30.1101F. The City Council will enter an executive session to receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against the public officer or employee. However, upon the request of such officer, a public hearing or a meeting open to the public shall be conducted upon such complaint or charge. This session is slated to last five minutes. Commencing at, anybody need to use the restroom? Commencing at 9.31. to end at 936 with possible action to follow. And then we will return.

Video is live.

We would like to extend the executive session an additional 10 minutes to 947 p.m., please. Thank you.

Mics are hot videos live.

Okay. Clerk, we would like to extend an additional 10 minutes. You know what? Let's go 13 minutes to 10 o'clock even, just so I have a round number to look at my watch would be great. And we will reconvene after that.

Thank you.

mics are hot.

I will now call this meeting of the Battleground City Council back to order. It is 10 p.m. And we will adjourn. And I will announce that the next regular city council meeting will be held on Monday, October 9th, 2026, 7 p.m. with a study session scheduled