City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening everyone. Welcome. Love this full house. Thank you all so much for being here and joining us. It is 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7th, 2026. And I now call to order the City of College Play City Council workshop. Madame Clerk, will you please take roll call? Yes. Council member Cleveland present. Council member Stline here. Council member Sherman present. And Council Member Williams present. Just keeping my germs to myself.

Thank you. Um and we have uh two excused commissioners or council members. Uh Council Member Bole and Council Member Green. Great. Great. Thank you so much. Will you all please join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right.

Before we get to the the the fun stuff, it's now time for public comment. Madame Clerk, did anyone submit a written comment in advance or wish to speak via telephone or virtually? I received no comments. All right. Thank you. So, if there's anyone in council chambers in person who would like to speak during the public comment period, please raise your hand. All right, seeing none, everybody's here really just to have some fun. Let's move on then to workshop topics. There's three topics on the agenda for tonight. Um, however, first, police chief Troy Tamarz will perform the new K9 commissioning ceremony.

Mayor, thank you very much, council members. Thank you very much. This is a historic moment for the city of College Place and the College Place Police Department. Uh tonight we're going to commission our very first police K9, which is a very exciting thing to say. So, uh I have some thank yous. Um well, first off, I want to recognize some people in the room. We've got uh we we got so much support here. Obviously, this is a big deal. I've got Chief Chris Beutus from the Wall Police Department and Deputy Chief Gudson from the Wall Police Department. Very grateful for them to be here. and Captain Nick. They're fresh captain barge and everything looking sharp there. We also have uh chief criminal deputy Richard ShraMM and the under sheriff Joe Plunt. He's over here. Chief Winter, thank you for being here. Uh we've got Darren Wilkins from Wall University here. Glad to have him here and have his support. And also Commissioner Palmer is here. So, uh and obviously my right-hand man, Captain Chris Schwigger, and uh and all of my officers. I'm so grateful that you're here to support uh our historic moment. So, thank you all for being here. Um, special thanks to Deputy Chief Kudson with Wall Police Department because he is the one that helped me administratively put this together. Uh, so thank you for that, sir. Uh, and also County Commissioner uh Gunner Fulmer. I could not have done this and made this possible without his help. Uh, and we also want to specifically thank Waw Wala police officer and K9 hander Nick Clicker for the work he did to help work with um with Kyle. Um, so, uh, and Chief Beis grateful for allowing his team to get us started. We could not have done that without the partnership of Waw Wall Police Department. So, thank you very much for that. I want to thank our council and our mayor for making this possible. Uh, this is going to be a great tool for our community. And in fact, uh, Lety had her first drug fine today. So, um, uh, this morning. So, she is going to be a very active, great tool to help us with the war on drugs. A little background, how did we get here?

Uh, as a department, we've been collaborating with regional partners, uh, to get a drug detection K9. I've been trying actually for the nine years that I've been here to get this done. So, I'm very excited about this. Uh, we started budgeting, lean heavily on WW PD for that. We bargained the position. We interviewed and officer Kyle Barker was selected for the position. Uh Kyle also helped me select the best canine for college place. We were able to review videos and photos and charts on different dogs. And with Kyle's help, we chose Letty. And um a little bit about the training and background. K9 Letty began her training nine months ago prior to officer Barker joining her in North Carolina. Kyle and Lady completed three weeks of training consisting of 120 hours during the K9 basic course in North Carolina. Kyle and Lady then returned home to complete another 80 hours of training with the help of local handlers and master instructor Gunner Fulmer. Kyle and Lady then completed another 40 hours of training at the PNW K9 conference where they completed the state's training requirements and passed two certification courses. One certification uh was for the state of Washington and another even more stringent certification through PNW. I am proud to report that K9 Lady and Officer Barker have met the requirements of WAC1 13905915 by completing the required training and certifications to be commissioned as a K-9 team to serve our community. Officer Barker is a four-year officer with the College Place Police Department and he is the perfect officer to take on this assignment. From day one, Kyle has natural skills and attributes to conduct drug interdiction. Kyle leads the department with drug arrest and seizures, and that is without Lety K9. Lety is a one and a halfyear-old female golden lab. Lety and Kyle have amazing chemistry. You can even say they are both barkers.

Thank you very much. Letty is highly motivated to work and all she asked for in return is to play with her toy. Only if we get all of our employees to to work that hard for to I just want to thank everyone who contributed towards their success. So we are ready. If Ky and Lady would take uh their place here, we will get them sworn in. All right. Raise your right hand. I state your name. Kyle Barber. Do you solemnly swear solemnly swear or affirm or affirm that I will faithfully and impartially

I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of my office discharge the duties of my office as prescribed by law prescribed by law and to the best of my ability. and to the best of my ability. And I will support the Constitution of the United States. I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution of Laws of the State of Washington. State of Washington. And ordinances and ordinances of the city of college players city of college as a K9 team as a K9 team. To which position which position I have been appointed? I have been appointed.

Congratulations. Here is a lady's commission card

and uh with your help we are prepared to uh point of miss. Yeah.

And then Kyle, you sign. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioning papers being notorized here by Caroline. Sweet. Thank you so much. We have one more thing before we let Kyle go. He doesn't know about this. I'm going to read this real quick. This is from Kyle's sergeant. Sergeant Sal Diaz. On March 25th, 2026, Officer Kyle Barker was dispatched to a missing person incident at Waw Wall University. A male student was reported missing, and there was concern among peers and staff that he may be suicidal. Kyle diligently followed every lead, interviewing family, friends, and staff. When the investigation indicated that the young man may have hiked into the mountains of Oregon, Kyle went above and beyond by contacting other agencies and volunteered himself to go in and assist with the search and rescue effort. The following day, upon learning that the male student was still missing, Kyle drove to Oregon and hiked up the mountain trail. His search of the area, assisted by others, led to the discovery of the deceased student in rough terrain. Kyle assisted rescue personnel in the extremely difficult recovery and then personally helped transport the remains off the mountain. Upon returning in though physically exhausted, Kyle insisted on personally performing the next of kin notification to the family. Kyle's compassion towards

the young man's family during the meeting truly showed how much he cares for everyone involved. Kyle's actions during this incident are a true testament to his character and values. He was the driving force behind locating the student and returning him to the Greenman family. Kyle's efforts and selfless dedication serve to display his commitment to our community. Officer Barker's contributions, actions, and service went far above and beyond the call of duty. Based on these facts, he was nominated in receiving the meritorious conduct award. Nice job. Well done. And uh truth be known, we did have a nice plaque for to present him tonight, but it was stolen off the FedEx truck. So, we were notified today that uh it won't be here until Friday. So,

and before we let officer Barker go and Lety, do any council members want to have anything they wanted to say? Council member Cleveland, just thank you for your service. uh and the rest of everyone here as well. Thank you, Council Member Stline. I echo that. Thank you so much for being part of our community and doing what you did. Council member Peterson,

you know, it's interesting. I watch on um YouTube um the addition of a K9 unit to a police force and how advantageous that is, how it protects not only the lives of the officers but also of the suspects and it's it's that that that additional layer of um of defense, you know, that it is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much, Council Member Williams. Thank you for your support of our student and their family. Council member Sherman.

Um yeah, big topics. Thank you, Troy, for pushing this through for it only took nine years. Um but thank you Kyle for being here and for taking this on and and for your work um the last couple weeks. Um and Officer Barker, thank you. We are so excited to see what work you all two will do together. Um, we welcome Letty to the family and I'm sure you're w Thank you for welcoming her into your family because I'm pretty sure she stays with you 247. Is that correct? All right. Well, thank you so much for caring for her and ensuring that she's ready and, you know, smart enough to, you know, protect and care for the people of the Walawala, not just College Place, but of the entire valley, the Wala Valley. And again, thank you so much for your commitment to everyone, to the people, to your career, to your fellow officers, and to this community. We are truly fortunate to have officers like you and the rest of our force um as part of our team and part of our family. So, thank you and we're looking forward to seeing what we hear in the news about her. You know, who's a good girl? Mary, can we take a 50-minute intermission so we can cut some cake and uh give the media an opportunity to interview the dog and then I can do my presentation?

Yeah. Well, there's always time for cake. Okay. All right. We're going to take a 15minute break. Um and we will be back at about 6 o'clock p.m. Everybody please join and have some cake with us. All right, welcome back everyone. That was fun. I hope you all enjoyed the cake as as well as the reason to celebrate with the cake. It was just too cute.

Even the cake was too cute. All right. So, next on our agenda is um Chief Tamaris is going to present the College Place Police Department annual department update, which I do want to say, I know he works hard on putting it together. So, thank you so much for that time and collecting the data and putting it into um a report that's so important for us to to be aware of. So, take it away. Thank you, Mayor.

Can I just point at you when I'm ready for the next slide? Okay. So, I think I'm Isn't this a great picture? I got that one morning coming to work and um it looks better on my desktop, but uh the sun uh rise in the morning. Just beautiful photo. So, I'm glad I made the report. So, uh we'll get right into it. Our mission, vision, values, and goals. Uh that is too small for me to read from here. Um but I guess I could I guess I can read it here. They do a live thing with the

I can really hear too. We're almost there. Okay. So, I just flip it. Uh, no, that doesn't work. I have to still Okay.

Yeah, it's up. It just needs to go to the next page. I just Yes, you have to to move it there on your side. Perfect. Perfect. You can do that. Yeah. To

I can read a little smaller with my glasses on. So, can uh so I'm going to I'm not going to hit every little thing here, but because I want to move through this. Um, but our mission of the College Place Police Department is to embraces the philosophy of community oriented policing uh and strives to enhance the quality of life and safety of our citizens with the highest degree of ethical behavior, fairness, and professional conduct. I do want to hit our four goals. Reduce crime and improve traffic safety within our community. Provide quality services and innovative policing strategies delivered through excellent customer service. provide leadership and resources to attract, retain, and foster a safe, ethical, innovative, knowledgeable, and diverse workforce. And we have that and work collaboratively with our stakeholders to improve the quality of life within the city. Next page, this is our org chart. This is cheating a little bit because I do have uh officer in training, Daniel Fagard, uh on this org chart as well, and he is about a month into the basic law enforcement academy in Pasco right now. So, we're really excited to get Daniel out this summer. Next uh slide. Our new hire for the year is Captain Chris Schwiger. He's been here for over a year now. And Captain is uh just been a humongous humongous uh help help to me. Um Chris has 34 years of law enforcement experience. He came from the state patrol and um he did spend a little bit of time working municipal law enforcement for um Montana State University and he's been able to take some of that municipal experience grant here and he has just done a tremendous job and we're so grateful for Chris. Glad you're part of this team. Next slide. Okay, these are our support services uh Andrea, Maryanne, and Jamie. Uh if you look at the data here that we have uh I did a comparison from last year to this year. Kind of gives you a little idea uh idea of what we're um facing in the office uh they continue to be very busy with public disclosure requests.

Ironically um ironically the uh body camera disclosure uh process uh were a lot less this year. So that was uh that was a good thing. Um, but uh, nonetheless, uh, the girls are very, very busy doing what they do up there and they do such an amazing job greeting the community and answering questions and they there's story after story after story where they go out of their way to help people that walk into their office. They have nothing to do with the police department, but they help them get the information. They go back to their office, they do the research, they write it down for them, they give it to people all the time. I see them do that time and time again. It's really, really impressive. Okay, next slide is uh our patrol slide. We have Sergeant Dylan Schmick and Sergeant Salvador Diaz. Um, and if you're looking at our patrol statistics, uh, year-to- date from 24 to 25, we had a little bit of decrease in activity and even calls for service. Uh, we did lose one FTE last year, uh, to another department. And, uh, it took us a while um to get that person hired because public safety testing changed their testing process and we really had to delay our testing until that time frame was up. So, um, luckily we have Daniel now. in the academy, but it did take a little bit of hit in some of our activity. And at any time if I as I'm going through this or if you see something, you guys know the routine, just stop me, ask me a question. Um, that would be great. Okay, next slide. Uh, investigations. We have two detectives. Detective Brandon Rhodess is our criminal detective. Uh, he does, uh, mostly felony cases or cases that are, uh, too, uh, take too much time for an officer to handle. He takes those cases on. He also takes on a lot of the uh the sexual assault cases and the child crime cases which are very difficult cases to investigate. So he has specialized training and skills to do that. Uh and he's been very very very busy. You can see by the activity that he has. Uh 2025 was has been a very very busy year. In 2026 is continuing to be very busy for

Detective Rose and he is doing a fantastic job in that position. Uh Detective Joy Langlo is our task force detective. Um, and the task force is very busy. You can see down there that uh he has the cases that he's involved in. I also have him put down the cases that are uh specifically college place cases. So, um I think it's really important to know that uh these task force members from other agencies are coming into our city. In fact, the task force hit a house this morning on B Street in our city and recovered some drugs and that's where Ken and Ley went in and helped uh find the hidden drugs. So, um, doing an amazing job. And Captain, what was the fine this morning?

Uh, 15 12 grams of And it's enough to kill how many people? About 160.

160 people. So, um, the task force and lady, they're making a difference in our community. So, um, supporting the task force is really, really important. And Detective Lane, uh, is doing a fantastic job. Okay, next slide. Um the next slide will be our school resource officer and uh Andrew has been extremely busy in this position. He's done a fantastic job. This is his third year there. Um and uh he's just he just enjoys it and he's just does a tremendous job with our kids. Uh the his office is located at the middle school. He probably spends the majority of his time uh between the middle school and the high school and then he tries to get over to the elementary school a couple times a week. So, um, doing a fantastic job. It's a great partnership we have. The school district, uh, and, uh, the superintendent, Jim, is just great to work with and he's very supportive of what we do there. So, it's a great partnership. Really tremendous for our community. Okay, next slide. that is you're looking at the original animal control authority

and uh it's a 66 panel van and um Jeff I asked I sent it to Jeff and I said hey did you ever work on this? He goes as a matter of fact I did. They they used to use it as a transport vehicle for arresties and then it became the animal control authority vehicle. So, uh, I I did tell Ron that we might take away um if the budget gets tight, we'll take away his nice new truck and see if we can relocate that van for him. But, uh, you remember you remember that vehicle?

Oh, yeah. Just Sergeant Schmick found the photo and I was like, "Oh, I got to include this in the presentation." Anyways, uh uh Ron is very busy with his code enforcement amp calls and um and also parking violations. Um and uh what we want to see is some of that especially code enforcement to go down because the thought is when you approach people and you work with them to get things turned around, hopefully it doesn't become a nuisance and a problem. And he's been doing a good job with that. So, we really appreciate the work he's doing with uh with that type of stuff. So, okay, next slide. Uh just a reminder to the council that we still continue to remain one of 80 fully accredited police agencies in the state of Washington and only out of 267 police departments in our state, we're we're one of 80. So we're really proud of that. Um it does take a lot of work and uh it's a commitment but not not just me and the captain, but the entire agency. The sergeants play a big role in that and uh we're just really proud of the men and women in the department that uphold that. So okay, next slide. Uh this is a slide of our drone program which is really taken off. Um yeah, no pun intended. And uh actually didn't do that on purpose either, Heather. Um but uh it's it's such a huge uh uh uh advancement for us. And you know, if we if we come across a house with an open door, we can fly a drone in there instead of an officer walking in there right away. Um we're utilized often for the with the SWAT team. We've done search and rescue. You can see the uh the photo down below. That was a gentleman that ran from a pursuit. Not actually in 2025. That was actually a 2024 photo, but it's such a great shot of an individual hiding in a field pitch dark and the drone just picks him out just like that uh with the thermal imaging. So, um so we have two types of drones. One is the Scio X10 and uh that

has the thermal imaging ability and then the smaller one is a DJI AATA 2. Um uh and that flies indoors and we are hoping to SkyO now makes an indoor model of the DJI now that you can no longer buy DJI. Uh so we're we're going to have to look at what that looks like uh in the near future. But uh it's really increased the safety of our officers using these uh the technical enhancements um in our investigations is just amazing. There's a lot of agencies across the state and across the country that are doing DFR, drone first responder programs. And what that in includes is say you have a drone station on top of your police building or city hall and a call comes out, the drone's automatically launched, goes overhead of where that call comes from before the officer gets there and is already recording and collecting evidence and the officers will have updates on what there's what the drone's seeing. So, it's a it's an expensive program, but when you compare it to like an aviation program, it's really cheap. So, that's the way I like to look at it, mayor. But, uh

always watching that bottom line for us, right? That's where we'd like to see in the next in maybe the next 5 to 10 years is uh implementing a DFR program. I know that Pasco and Kenowick um are playing with them. Pasco did it over the summer and had tremendous results with it. So, uh anyways, more to that, but we are trying to build a robust program. We've increased the number of officers who have part 107 licenses which is a very difficult test. Um I became an uh a license early on so I know I wanted to have a lot of oversight of the program and understand it and I'm kind of a drone nerd myself. So um I've just been really impressed with what the drones can do and the capabilities they have. So it's really enhanced our investigations. Chief, tomorrow's council member Peterson has a question.

Chief, um, just recently in the news there was the up Mil Creek there was the ramming of a gate from what I could understand and college place was called in to that and could you could you talk a little bit about why we were called in? And then I guess the other thing it was the the search for possibly um bodies that could have been in the water that the drone ruled out the thermal image of individuals and and it you know kind of miraculous in a way but it was also um it was nice to see that our police department had been called in on that.

Yeah. Uh we do a lot of inter agency assists. Um and what we're trying to do is the department and uh that has an officer working that has a drone capability, have the drone license can assist wherever they're at. And like for instance, when we were searching for a wall student, uh Wawwa PD had their operator working and they came down and helped us. So it's been we've really been working together and trying to minimize calling people out, you know, overtime and letting people have days off and things like that. So, it's a uh a regional um uh uh product that we can go anywhere in the county and and assist. Um and we've even gone down to Milton Freewater and helped Milton Freewater Police Department, Newella County Sheriff's Office. Um we are developing a reputation of uh drone drone skills and the capabilities and people are calling us because of that. So, um and it's amazing. The only time we have difficulty with a thermal is if it's a super super super hot day in the middle of the day. But at night, um, boy, he can pick stuff out like that. It's crazy.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Um, okay, let's go to the next slide.

Uh, this is our professional standards uh slide like uh anytime we get complaints or doing internal investigations. We did have one complaint in 2025 and it was for vehicle operation. Um, and it was a non-sustained complaint. The person was upset about uh the speed and late travel of an officer. Uh, the officer uh was going after a violator. Um, so it's kind of one of those things where it just didn't go anywhere. So, uh, but we take these investigations very serious. You can see I have the investigations all the way back to 2016 before I got here. And, uh, the good news is it has dropped off rapidly. So, we're really happy to see the professionalism of our team that it shows uh with this. So, really happy with that. So, any questions? Uh, okay. Uh, the next slide goes over the traffic and crime stats. This is the one everybody likes to look at. Um, and if you look at the 2025 screen, that's the blue one there. It's kind of blocked a little bit on on the big screen, but um, we're seeing a lot of good stuff. So, we'll start at the top. Burglaries uh down 57% which we're really happy to see. Um thefts uh are are also down. They're 20% down which is great. Uh I really think that uh the partnerships we've had with Walmart and some of their receipt checking that they're doing at the door like Costco has made a big difference with some of that. So we really appreciate their added uh deterrence. Um collisions are down a little bit slightly which we're happy to see that as well. As our traffic enforcement increases so does the collision reduction. Um, our DUI apprehension is going up. We've been sending officers to advanced roadside imper driving training and I think that's making a big difference. Um, our narcotics arrests are up. Uh, and I know that those are going to continue to climb this year with K9. Um, or rather our narcotics arrests are

down slightly, forgive me. Um, but um, last year was a really high year for whatever reason. and it was kind of an outlier, but uh we're really happy with those numbers. Um our traffic stops are down slightly and you know with the reduction of an officer and people being on baby leave has made a big impact to some of that. Um but we're already uh hard at it this year and we expect those numbers to rise a little bit. Uh warrant apprehension is down and I think a lot of that has to do with our new prosecutor that we've been partnering with. He has done an amazing job of holding people accountable and uh that has helped us reduce some of the warrants. And if you didn't know, a few years ago we did a study where the average person got a warrant issued to them four times. That was the average. They'd get a warrant, we'd arrest them, we'd take them to jail, they uh they'd go to court uh or they give them a court date rather at the jail, they get released, and then they wouldn't show up for the next court date, we'd arrest them again. yada yada yada. It's a big cycle. And uh so we're trying to nip that a little bit. Um, and because it's very expensive for the city because every time they go to jail, we pay big money for that. Uh, motor vehicle thefts are way down and I have to say a big reason for that is the flock cameras. Even though they've been shut off the last couple months, they had a huge impact on the reduction of autotheft in our community. Uh, a yes, we did get a couple stolen cars, but also the deterrence of having the flock cameras in our community has helped reduce the autotheft. um the organized retail crime theft that officer uh Watkins uh was involved in and made the big arrest on, he took the plates off his truck cuz he knew we use flock cameras. So, um pretty impressive. They're a huge deterrent. Um vehicle prowels um are up slightly. Uh we'll continue to work with the most of them are university students. Um we'll continue to work with them um to take things out of the car. So, out of sight, out of mind. Um

and uh the shoplifting there again broken down from the thefts. And then um uh domestic violence is down or I guess it's up uh they say 10%. It's up one from last year, but our our domestic violence numbers are really low compared to the county and the city of Wall. So really we're really happy to hear that. So um that's a great thing for our community. That says a lot about our community. And then other assault other assaults uh is down just slightly. So, pretty happy with that. If you go to the next slide I wanted to show you. I went a little extra on this one. This is um these are charts starting I started collecting data when I first got here in 2017. So, these are charts starting in 2017 to through 2025. And everything that you would want to see trending down is a good thing. So, burglaries trending down. I mean, you're going to have some outlier years, but motor vehicle thefts trending down. Uh DUI apprehensions trending up because we want that. We want to have officers out there apprehension uh to make our street safer. Thefts are uh somewhat steady but trending down for 2025. Uh narcotics arrests obviously they made it we couldn't do narcotics arrests in 2023 uh 2022. So those are way down almost nothing and um they went up last year uh super high and then this year uh they're still high but trending down a little bit. Collisions trending down, vehicle prows trending down, shoplifting trending down. So, all in all, really good information for our community. So, I'm happy to see that.

Any questions on any of that? Council member Stline. Um, you just said that in 2023 you couldn't make narcotics arrests. Could you give a little bit of background on that?

Yeah, so um legislatively we were not able to prosecute and make arrests uh for simple possession after the Blake decision out of Spokane. And um then the outcry from the communities and um the crimes that were increasing as a result of not be able to take enforcement on narcotics arrest. The they reversed that decision and then we were once again able to uh arrest people for control substance violations which is a great thing because that's usually uh the start to recovery for a lot of people. you need that leverage and if the if the council doesn't know I serve as a committee manager on the adult recovery court so along with Chief but we sit with Judge Johnson and uh defense attorneys and um drug experts in our community to help people who uh elect to go into these programs. So I've been really happy to be part of that program. Um, honestly, when I got into it, I was a little bit apprehensive, but I've seen some uh amazing recoveries that people want to change their lives and it's been kind of fun and rewarding. I've been able to go to, I think, four graduations now, so it's pretty neat to see that. It's not an easy thing. It's not an easy program. A lot of people don't make it through it. So, but it's neat to see the graduation. But, uh, it all starts with an arrest and they will not get help for themselves unless you have a little leverage. So, and that's a fact. Uh, next slide. Okay, so these are just a few photos from some of our significant accomplishments. That's our chief for a day there um from last year. And then there's an officer of a photo of officer Langlo there with u shop with the cop. And uh there's an off a photo of officer Stella Walling as she was the quarterly employee uh for the city. Uh and then the other one across the top is a bike rodeo we did here in College Place. Those are the volunteers. Um down below is cop on top. We raised

money for Special Olympics. That was uh that photo is Andrea Sinclair, our clerk, myself and Sergeant Schmick. Uh and the year before Sergeant Diaz did it. Um so that was a lot of fun where the people for money actually the mayor sprayed me. She was she was at that event. Um they uh they pay money and they get to hose you down. So worth every cent. She did. I think she sprayed more than she was supposed to. All right.

Um, and then the next photo is National Night Out, but it could well as be the block party. Um, I think that is a block party actually. And then uh and then there's the uh photo at the awards ceremony with officer uh Daniel Watkins was uh nominated for the Walwala Valley Chambers Award. And uh and then of course the uh the the last photo there is our fall festival right before right before the chaos began. So, uh, just a fun some fun memories to look back on. I have more details in the actual, uh, annual report that's posted online. It's on our front page of our website. And if you want to look at that, you can. Um, and then, uh, we'll get into the next slide. And this will be the bias report. Okay. Go ahead into the next uh, picture there. I better uh, oh boy, I better look at this. Okay. So, by RCW and um there's a more detailed report online as well that you can download and take a look at. Uh but the bias report, we're required to analyze and look at our data compared to our demographics to see if there's any uh concerns or any outliers. And um I'm since I've been here, we have seen none. it everything matches exactly what we want to do, what we want to see with our demographics, which is great. Uh, I do go a step further and I post this, I publish this report. I want our I want to be very transparent with our community. I want our community to be able to see this and take a look at it themselves. And I've always had the opportunity to present this to council because I think it's important. It's an important part of our conversation uh today and it's it's nice to see that we're doing a good job. So, these are the infractions issued. So total infractions for the year 20 25 was 382 and it is broken down if you look at the yellow by the uh count um by uh race and

then we also include ethnicity ethnicity for white Hispanic Latino and um at the end I'll show you the census bureau but it matches up perfectly with our demographics. If you don't have any questions I'll move to the next slide. These are traffic citations. So, titations are criminal traffic. Those are misdemeanors such as uh suspended drivers, reckless driving, uh impaired driving. Uh those are those types of violations. Um 129 violations in 2025. And again, you can look at the numbers uh by demographics and it's exactly where we would expect it to be for our community. And then if you get into the non-track citations, this I'm this is not required by law to post this, but I I like data, so why not include it and be as transparent as possible. Let you guys take a look at it. Um these are things like um DV, um uh theft, um anything that's a citation, which would be a gross misdemeanor or a misdemeanor. Um again, we had 182 criminal violations in 2025. is you can see the breakdown. Um obviously the majority of our community is um white non-Hispanic and the majority of our arrests and traffic infractions uh reflect that just what you would expect to see. The one thing I would say too, there were two things I would say as a reminder and I've mentioned this before, but the numbers on here could be I mean any everybody comes to College Place, so it's not just College Place community members. It's anybody that comes in through our city, goes to Walmart to shop, gets traffic, stopped, those types of things. And arrest could include the same person four times. I mean, it's it doesn't break it down um by individual arrests. So, it could be multiple people being arrested multiple times. And then lastly, the next slide is the

2024 uh Census Bureau stats. And uh if you take a look at the top section, that's College Place. The middle section is the county of Walaw Wala, entire county of Walaw Wala. And then the bottom is the state of Washington. So um right there where we expect to be right there to uh to to right is what we'd expect with her uh population. And the last slide, questions or comments? Look at that picture. Ain't that great? That is great. That was law enforcement night at the uh the rodeo and uh public works director Robert McCandrew sent me that photo. That's awesome. Cool photo.

It's a great picture. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Questions or comments? Council member Cleveland? Uh no questions. Uh, thanks for your hard work and uh, great presentation. Great. Thank you, Council Member Stline. No questions. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Peterson. No questions. Thank you. Council member Williams, questions. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sherman. No questions for me either. Thanks for

Yeah. Um, thank you so very much for these. I love the pictures and I'm a data nerd as well. So, thank you so much for including them in the graphs and all of that. So, um I think this is so helpful for us to be able to see these every year. I do. And like I said, thank you so much for taking the time to put them together. I was just going to ask if uh Mr. Raburn, you have any questions or comments?

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council members. Thank you, Chief Tomarus, for a great evening. What a wonderful work session. And I credit you for pulling it off very well. I'd also like to say um most of you folks know this, but the chief and I meet weekly. In addition to meeting weekly, we interact numerous times over the course of the week and sometimes for random circumstances over the weekends or late at night or whatever the case may be. Um but what a pleasure to work with all these good people. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Yes. And I do I do get a lot of community questions regarding certain events sometimes even with um occurrences incidents that people are complaining about unfair treatment and and I do got to say every time I go to Chief Tomarez and I say tell me about this situation right what happened here what what's this um it always comes back very clear that the initial view of the person coming to me was not quite what really happened. And so when I send back um my findings or my report and I always say if you want to continue this conversation, let's meet meet with Chief Tomorrow, meet with Captain Schwagert. It always crickets after that point, right? I don't think we've ever gotten anybody say, "Yeah, let's take that next step." because um when we follow up with that report and we give the facts um that's just that and it's it's always a pleasure to be able to say this is what I discovered. I don't see any unfounded treatment, any abuse, any dishonesty as you were publicly saying on social media about our police officers. Um, and um, I do my best not to embarrass them and put priv personal business on there, but um, it is important for me to be able to say, well, it's not quite what you said. So, I thank you for always taking that time to respond back to me and letting me poke and prod and push for a little bit more answers from you. So, thank you.

Absolutely. And it's one of the reasons is uh, I got great sergeants. Uh, Dylan and Sal do a fantastic job. Captain does a fantastic job. So, uh, we have strong accountability and we have good people. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate you being here and giving us your evening. Have a good night, Debbie. Thank you so much for giving us your evening. Always a pleasure to have you have you sit here with us. All right. Thank you. All right. Our last item, Mr. um I want to make sure I say your last name right. beard ample. Wow. Very impressive. Yes, you nailed it. Oh, that is pretty impressive. That's really good.

So, good. You are going to give us an update on our 2026 city events. Yes, I am. All right. Okay. I'm typically pretty scared to talk in front of people, but I'm really actually happy to be here and and do this presentation. I think City College Place has really cool events. Uh last year was my first year doing all the events and uh the community really really shows up and and really enjoys them. So it was a it was a pleasure um being a part of them. Um Oh, nice. Does this go with me? No, it doesn't. Okay. Sorry. Good job. Thank you.

Um okay, so these these are the events we're going to go through. Um you'll remember a lot of them from last year. Uh the there's one added event, the College Place car show, which we'll get to. And um yeah, we'll go to the next one. Okay. So, uh block party is going to be on May 17th from 1 to 6:00 p.m. Same place. Uh we have like 58 vendors signed up already. So that is enough for the event to be successful as is. Um we tonight maybe now or in like an hour we have another vendor call post going out on social media. Um you know we we can I was 10 more if we get them but um

college avenue is a long street.

Yes. Yes. Um so um vendor diversity is the next point uh spearheaded by the wizard herself and uh it's basically the the point of that is we don't want seven coffee vendors and uh seven taco trucks which are the the two main culprits of of uh excess. And so uh we've been limiting uh vendors who are selling the same things. So, so that'll be be nice for for the vendors especially and also uh everyone coming uh as they stroll through they'll get to see, you know, not the same booth over and over again. Base painting, we got that contract squared away. Uh the obstacle course squared away as well. Uh so those will both be here uh for the kiddos. And then spring jam is going to be our entertainment this year uh before we've brought in um you know musicians that we've paid for. So Walaw Wala U does a spring jam every year and they're going to be doing it. Um so that will save our budget and then also um I expect will bring a larger crowd as well. Not that the event necessarily needs one, but cool cool to have it, you know. Um, cool. Next, uh, slide. Market in the park. So, Market in the Park, we got we got things going on. It's going to be uh starting May 28th, uh, Thursdays 4 to 7 as usual. Um, we're going to be taking off the 10th of September because that will be the spring fair, I think, is what it is, and spring fling maybe. Yeah. Um, but last year for

No, in September it's the fair. The fair. Okay. It's the fair. County Fair. County Fair. There we go. Um, so that will be last year it was the the market was just kind of uh chill. Yeah. And uh and a number of the vendors go participate in it anyway. So we we figured just best to do it this way.

Um vendor apps just went live. Um, so we have vendors signing up, but another post is going out uh on Friday. I figured to wait till Friday night, so that way they'll see it on the weekend and they'll uh have more availability to to sign up. Um, we're bringing back live music, so uh you know, two years ago we had we had people playing and we did not do that last year and so that'll be coming back this year. Um, a number of people responded already saying that they're happy to come back and start playing. So that's exciting. Um, one thing we're adding is vendor liability insurance, which is definitely a good thing and is the standard across markets. Um, it protects us. Uh the the only hit that we'll see is there's probably going to be a couple people who are like uh we don't want to pay uh to have that insurance. So we uh you know a couple people might not uh come back if it's if it's a big deal to them. Um

is that something that we we get as part of our packet? You know that we have find their own. Yeah, we have our own. They they are supposed to get their own. I see. Okay.

Um and so it does come to a cost to them. So um a couple people uh it might bug them. So um we are doing the Lions the Lions Club annual fishing derby at the same as usual on um on opening day. So I got a post going out for that to notify everyone I think in like uh a month or so. Um, new uh this year on June 4th, we're going to be having a a car show. This is going to be a mini car show and it's going to be kind of where the food trucks normally are uh on the south side of 8th Street and then we're going to move the food trucks to the far side of the street and just a little something extra for everyone to enjoy. It's not going to be be a huge a huge lineup like the next event. Did you have something you want to say about that?

Okay. Okay, cool. Um, so yeah, that'll that'll be like a fun little add-on to the market. Um, and then later during the market, Thursday, August 20th, we're going to have the College Place car show, which is our new event. It's going to go in tandem with the market, and it's going to be uh a large display. Um, and I have another slide for it later. Um, out on the lawn of the farmers market so people can have like a an evening with with a lot going on and a lot of entertainment at the park. So,

thank you, Rhett. Um, council members, mayor, if I could ask a favor of you is please mark your calendars for the June 4th um um farmers market with a mini car show. The reason being is um I think it's pronounced um Walaw Wala Valley Tourism. They are going to be bringing a group of people who specialize in tourism from around the region to visit that particular farmers market. And so um that's the reason for kind of the add-on of the the mini car show and kind of enhancing that particular um farmers market. But um that might be a great way for you guys to come and um help host if you'd like. All right, next up we have Freedom Festival. Freedom Festival, we uh reserved the space at uh College Place High School uh 6 to 10 on June 28th, which is the Saturday, Sunday. Thank you. Before Fourth of July. Um, and then I didn't receive the the contract back, but they asked me uh for it. The the cheer team, they they do the kids zone over there, and that's pretty uh pretty interactive for the kiddos. And uh so that that's extremely likely coming back. Um and then Columbia Rea as well. I got a verbal that they will be uh giving us the same funding as last year for the fireworks. Uh, it's not for sure, but it's extremely likely at this point. So, um, next slide. Movies at the park. I love movies at the park. I loved it. It was so fun. It's so relaxed and easy and just uh the community comes out and just

hangs out. Um, we condensed it this year. Last year it was every third weekend and it just it the when it started it was way too late because sundown was at like 9:15 and so we condensed it so hopefully when it starts up it won't be so late that the movies are are starting um and then you know by the end uh in September when it ends you know the movies are starting at a very uh desirable time so um so yeah excited for that the the movies are are listed on the slide there. Um, I didn't realize how '9s kid I was being with some of my decisions. De Sheree pointed it out to me. She was like, "Wow, tell me you're a '90s kid." I was like, "Okay, dang it." That was I I could have done better with my uh my choices, I guess. But I'm really excited. They I think they they look really cool. Um, so um and then we did the we did popcorn that we purchased and handed out last year, which uh I know everyone liked. Um if if we have the funding, uh that'd be a cool thing that hopefully we can do again. So yeah. All right, the new one, the College Place car show. Um so this is uh heavy push by uh by Chris the police captain. He's he's all over this. I personally am I'm not just a big I'm just not a big car person. I so I'm glad that he's so gung-ho about this and is like he know he he's really spearheading it. I'm I'm doing some of the administrative work in the background to you know gather make forms and gather information but he's uh he's really pushing this thing forward and and his enthusiasm I think will without a doubt show in in turnout and presentation of the event.

He's got sponsors. Yeah. I'm impressed. Yeah. He's walking into what seems like every building in in the county. So, note something. Yeah. He came into my office yesterday with a $500 um coupon from Honda dealership for um when they take the cars and they clean them and polish them and everything detailed. And it was like a gift certificate for $500 that he was awarded to contribute to this from our local Honda dealership. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I got a a couple other little uh like goodie goodie bags to hand out to I think like prize winners and stuff like that from uh some of the other people you see on the on the flyer there. Um so this is this is live right now. Um it's already up and going cuz it's been a hot a hot topic of of the last month. So vendors can sign up. If you got a hot rod and you want to sign up, sign up. And u it um you know, earlier we get the information, the more prepared we can be for for event day. Um it's got a card, but not a hot rod. Yeah,

just buff it up. It's get get that rust off of it. We're we're we're hoping that that it's going to be self-unded because this just came up and um it wasn't budgeted for, you know, when when budgets were done last year. It's looking like like it it very well could be. Um and so yeah, things things seem to be on on track with this event so far. So, uh pretty exciting. Yeah.

Uh trunk or treat. Wow. Who was there last year? I like I was kind of I didn't know what you know a lot of the all the events last year I didn't I really didn't know what to expect and this one I was like oh my gosh I did not market enough for this like I did not push enough to our community for this I holy crap

that was a that was a mass of people that was pretty that was pretty exciting um to see um definitely if there was something to think of going forward. I'm not sure it's possible uh to think of like some sort of system to channel the people efficiently. Um a a line makes sense. What we did last year kind of makes sense and and I don't know what else we could do, but just just food for thought. It's uh that was a lot of people. That was really cool. I loved it. I I really liked it. Um and then I have the the list that we had is kind of small up there. the trunk or treat from from last year, all the activities that we had up there. Um I think piggybacking off of that for next year is a a good idea. Um and yeah, so not a lot. It's, you know, it's a it's a ways out, end of October, but um it's it's coming.

I'm already thinking of my my decor.

Oh, the city shows up for all the events, but oh my gosh, the the what is it? our administration. The how they showed up with the the the grew and the minions outfit was so cool. I loved it. Everyone's dressed up so well. So, it was cool. Very, very fun. Um, Winterfest and Lighted Parade is going to be December 3rd, uh, 3 to 7:00 p.m. Same place, City Hall, up and down College Avenue for for the parade. Um, as we discussed, I think recently after last year's event was was keeping the the holiday market open an extra hour. Um, a lot of people show up. I feel like at that time for um to come to the the parade and whatnot, there was just a number of little kids showing up a little after 6 who I felt like really wanted Santa to still be there. I guess Santa has to go on the the bus anyways, but um but just maybe keeping keeping people in there and keeping that atmosphere fun um would be cool. So um light to parade starts at 6 and the the funding this is this is another one for for uh us to decide is we did the kid zone instead of the fireworks last year. That was kind of a last minute decision. Um, if we we can go either way, no problem. Again, Columbia Rea gave us the the verbal like it's, you know, it's very likely we're going to give you that same donation as last year to to put on whatever you decide to do. Um, just need to to get it in writing now from them. Um but uh yeah, whichever way we want to do the the you know, again, kids activities are cool, but I know the the fireworks are kind of like something that we've traditionally done. So whatever we want to do going forward is an option for us.

Um advertisement. So we got Elac funds to do uh to hire someone to to do a lot of our marketing for us. Um, Jenna Wala Marketing Solutions. Uh, Jenna is is the the main point of contact there, the one who runs it. And she is um she made really good reels for the market. If you were to go back and and look, she does a great job um mashing all of her footage up together. And then also she'll go she goes into all of our events and she'll be taking photos. So, we have all that covered. Uh she she gets great quality, you know, uh images and whatnot and video. So to not have to worry about that is great. She's also um pre-planning and sending uh content for us to post so we don't have to spend as much time worrying about what content we're going to post. And she's um going to be giving us like um a calendar for like the next month of everything we're going to be posting. So it's going to be really helpful and she's going to get a afterevent like recap post for us to share with everyone. So that's um this is a a very good investment especially because it's coming from Eltech. So it's exciting. Um questions.

Thank you, Council Member Cleveland. No questions, but I'm just so thankful for um these kind of events. They just bring so much soul into our city.

Council member Stline. Um I wanted to say that I first wanted to thank for the um attention to diversity for the different events. I had gotten some verbal comments at the events you know when there was like three or five people with coffee and not you know one of them not making enough money as the others and so I'm really happy that that's the direction that we're moving in. Um and then I was going to ask you about movies at the park. Um, do you for the snacks like the popcorn and things like that, do you ask for sponsors or do you try to get folks to contribute so that you can buy kiddos things or how does that work?

Um, last year we we used the the popcorn vendor from our farmers market and we just contracted with them to to make it and bring it out. um if I sent um emails out to some companies to see if they wanted not specifically for that event. I know a few years back um there was an effort to reach out to sponsor individual movies. It's not it's not something that we couldn't do, but um yeah, we didn't do it last year and I haven't done that yet this year. Yeah. But if somebody were interested, I could have have them contact you. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.

And then um the last thing is I'm really excited about the car show cuz I love cars and my birthday is August 20th. So that's going to be my birthday uh thing. It's your birthday. Oh, it is. Oh yeah. Council member Peterson.

Um insurance got me thinking u each one of these individually. Um the insurance it's the city that's covering like a general liability. We we have one uh for us and for like I think maybe like the general event. Maybe you might know that better than me, but

we do have it for the events, but the liability insurance in particular is for the farmers market. it's recommended um we're part of the Washington State Farmers Market Association and so it is something that um we should always require or enforce. So the city has it for fireworks, cars. Yeah. And for the property cris Christmas things running over people and whatnot. Yeah. Okay. Um so it it would be the each particular vendor would have the insurance.

So from my knowledge in my experience in the past I can't I can't remember all the details right now but for small vendors there was a process that was extremely simple for them to purchase insurance. In other words, you know, they could, it was incredible. They could get $100,000 of general liability or something and it cost them almost nothing. And then I I can't remember now if that was through the city or through the organization or whether there was a

when when do you recall that occurring? Well, this is like um thinking back to Walwala General Hospital when they would have people come in uh other other businesses where they had to have insurance, but it wasn't something where they had to be out on the street trying to find insurance. uh that there was there was either you know that there was some sort of a farmers market fund or whatever that you could they could do this or

I really like that idea. It's definitely something that I can look into and uh reach out to the farmers market association. So if you had 54 people here, all 54 would have to be beat beating the street looking for a policy then, in other words, and each each one would would be unique.

Correct. So the farmers market in downtown Walaw Wala, they require it. You cannot vend unless you have it. And so, you know, any of the vendors that would be coming from other markets, it's already required. So, it's something that they would just get a hold of their carrier and and list College Place uh farmers market as additional insure. So, it would just be they call it a deck page, certificate of liability insurance, declaration page. Um, but it is difficult for some vendors. Um, so I definitely understand what you're saying

and I and I totally support it. I you got to do it. But, uh, I'm just thinking if it was just me and I was just doing this thing, what do I do? Go start looking through the yellow pages, you know, or or I like where you're where you're going with this. And I think it would be something good to maybe through the city of Waw Wala, they've got some consortium or some or they have some I don't know that we could latch into. Anyway,

thank you for that. Did you have something ever? Yes. Hi, council. Amber Brooker, HR manager. Um, with my previous experience with the county and especially in risk management and with events at being at the fairgrounds. So, um, the personal liability insurance for each vendor is going to protect the city from getting sued for somebody selling a bad product at our event. it goes back on the liability for that vendor. Um the county used to offer um we worked with a third party called Hub Insurance and were able to provide vendor vendor events for the um for the vendors. They also can go through uh Lloyd's Insurance. They can simply call any of their local insurance companies and get liability insurance for that event at a reasonable price. And it usually covers them for a year. The certificate covers them for a year. We just need to make sure that they're matching what the minimum requirements are for the farmers market.

That's Yeah, okay. I was wondering if um kind of putting that all together if that could be something included in the vendor packets and or on our website so that it's easy easy to navigate just like a information sheet on how they would be able to do that. I love that idea. I can work on that. Yeah, that'd be that'd be easy to put a link on the event on the market event page or anything like that. Yeah, thank you for that information. You're welcome, folks. We have a local Lloyd, so that will make it very easy. Yeah, Council Member Williams, thank you. No questions. Thank you. I'm excited to see all these events.

Council member Sherman. Yeah, no questions for me either. Looks like another fun year in College Place. All right. Um, a few questions. Do we contact um for Market in the Park or Yeah, Market in the Park I think is do we contact former vendors to let them know that it's up or do they just know to check on their own? Yeah. when we we'll reach I I go to last year's um vendors and I cuz I I already have a big Excel spreadsheet that I was using from last year and you just send it to all of them. So, yeah.

Okay, that makes sense. Um and then um I know council member Williams, oh I think it was council member Williams. I said I know but now I'm saying I think. Um had mentioned about council or elected officials being at events with tables um where can interact more with the public or even Q&A. Um obviously we don't want to have a quorum but something that's something for council to think about. Um so my husband and I do um a trunk every year for trunk or treat. Um, council might want to do that as a group, do something together or or well as nonquorum group. Three three of you, three of you at a time. Um, or if you want to talk about putting a table out, two of you council members, or again, no more than three at Market in the Park, make sure to contact um, When is your last day?

Beard Temple. No, when's your last day? Not your last name. 17th. The 17th. The 17th. Yeah.

Okay. So, okay. So, um I'm not sure we'll see you here in council chambers, but either way, up to the 17th, Mr. Beard. um you can contact him or um Carolyn to let her know if you're going to want to put a table out for a booth. So for Q&As's or participate in any of the events um make sure to get that on there and then you guys can talk amongst yourselves and arrange how you're going to schedule yourselves to be there um in the public. But I know Council Member Stline often has she's often a vendor, a free vendor, I'm not sure, but at at some events. But think about it. It's really fun to do the trunk or treat. Um it's a pretty amazing way to interact with um people. And when else do you get to put some makeup on and have that much fun?

I I have a question about the three council member rule. So well at at this I mean you could set up a table selling something and five council members could show up and want to buy it. Well, I would assume it's as long as you don't congregate together. the

um you can actually be in the same location but you cannot be discussing any city business or um obviously taking any action. They do recommend you don't want to constitute a quorum. So if it does happen where you're at the same place as long as you're not um talking city business that's the guidance I've been given from MRSC appearance. Yeah. It goes without saying that you wouldn't Yeah. Right. Yeah. that you wouldn't do that. But the it's

the fact that there's something really neat and five or six people show up and want to buy it at the same time. You would then I mean that gets that gets really awkward. Tell people to leave. Yeah. Yeah. Just just don't talk to each other. But but Right. Um Troy, what do you think?

I agree with the um city clerk. She's the person who tracks these issues, um goes to the conferences, um sits in briefings. I can only speak to my background based on what I've experienced elsewhere, whether that be at a county commission level or a city council level. Um the seven member city council can show up at a farmers market, you're all there in attendance, but you're not, it wasn't a planned event. you're not coordinating your attendance to be there all at the same time and together. Um, and then you can go and do different things. Yes. Not together is the uh

Oh, okay. I see you up there, Council Member Williams. One moment. Okay. But I will call go to you. Thank you, council members. Um just from my past practice of my previous employer, usually if you uh any um if there is a concern of a quorum or if all of you do want to attend the same event, you just have to make an announcement. So, it would have to be put out like in the UB or wherever we do our announcements that this is an event where all of our council members may be in attendance and you just as long as you're advertising it and you don't speak of any county or city business, then you're good.

So, by default, we should blanket that with every time except the people. No, no, we should blanket it every time because I may there may be three people and two or three may decide at the last moment, right, to get in the car and show up.

Well, and it's usually like out in public on a weekend event or evening event where, you know, an idea of like a farmers market where people are going to it's just like what if all seven and you are in Walmart together? Not together, but you're all there and you run into each other. That's normal circumstance, but it's more so like the mayor was suggesting doing having everybody do the trunk or treat. You could totally advertise that all the city council members are going to be partaking in that. Um, so there may be considered a quorum, but it's all for the event and no city business will be taking place. So, it's an easy it's an easy ask when we have these things where we think there's the potential is just to blanket it even if we think that only one is going to show up.

Yes. because we don't know how many are going to show up, right? Yeah. Okay. Council Member Williams. That's all I was going to say was that it seems like if we're going to do things like put out a booth uh for people to come and talk to us or something, we'd be better off just uh publishing a notice of potential quorum.

If we all happen to be at the market separately, I don't think that's as much of an issue. But if we are doing something like having a trunk or having a table, then I think it makes sense to just go ahead and do the pot notice of potential quorum. Sure. Yep. Easy easy solution. Can I say one last thing on that? Yeah. The last thing just if you don't know already on our events pages, um there's always going to be a sign up. So, if you do want to do that and have a booth, someone just goes onto that event's web page and you can just create your booth right there just by signing a form. So

I and I don't want to, you know, go too far with this, but there there could be nothing that is of common interest to anybody except you have seven people that show up and something either the color of it or the size of it or whatever. Seven council members show up and are standing there. Um, and it's not because they signed up to be there or it was somebody's booth that was sponsoring something. I I just think there's the always the possibility that you're going to have

Yeah. But then that's up to us to be able to recognize each other and say we don't want to like create this appearance. So, we just have to step back. I mean, I I don't think that's unreasonable. You see the port commissioners do it all the time. County commissioners have to do it because there's only three of them. So, that's just how you do it. I mean, we've been very aware. We had we did a public notice for Larry Dickerson's funeral. We've done that for the farmers market when we've done the ribbon cutting, but I mean, we can do it for every farmers market, but in the past, council members haven't It's not cheap,

right? The UB the UB charges quite a bit, right? It's It's not free notices. Yeah. It's it's they they know they're the only game in town, so they charge the rate that they can get. I do try to make sure that's kind of why I send the emails out to communicate with all the council members to communicate back to me so that I can do that. Um, and we have done notice of potential quorums historically in the past several times. So, that's part of my duties as the clerk to track, but there's still opportunities for us to have fun together and interact with the community. So, just something to think about. Um, and in case we don't get together and opportunity, thank you for your service that you did the city. We really appreciated it. Um, sorry to see you leave, but we truly um, I think on behalf of the council, I can speak and say that we wish you nothing but great happiness and success in your future. Um, don't be a stranger. We hope to see you at some of these fun events that you can see that your work started started then. Um, but truly thank you and we really wish you the best of luck.

Thank you very much. Yeah, I might come back to Greece to watch Greece. That movie's great. And we have half a cake for you. Sweet. Thanks. And some dog bones and some dog bones. Yeah, everyone everyone's been so been so uh awesome since since I uh put in my my notice. So, I appreciate everyone and and my time here's been great. So, yeah. Thank you.

I just want to say I've only had the pleasure of working with Rhett for like oh three weeks now um since I've started and um he's phenomenal. So I will really miss him and I just really appreciate um everything that you've done. So the city has been very lucky to have you and wish you well in your new adventures. All right. Any other questions or comments regarding 2026 city events? Council member Williams. Sorry, I jumped the gun. I have something for good of the order, but I actually

All right. All right. Is there anything for good of the order?

Same Williams. Um, I know that a number of us have talked at various times about our concerns about the uh lack of medical infrastructure in the valley. And I was very happy to hear today that uh Walaw Wala University's nursing program is expanding. So that right now uh to get a bachelor's in nursing, you have to go to our Portland campus. Uh we're now going to be offering the bachelor's of nursing here in College Place as well. um not instead of in addition to and so that will mean a supply of student nurses here in the valley and from what I understand it's going to be focusing on uh community smaller community nursing um while still having the opportunity to do like the catheter lab and stuff in Portland. So, uh, as students work their way through the program, it should also increase the pool of nurses for Eastern Washington and presumably the world, I guess. But, um, I think it's going to be a really great opportunity both for people who want to get nursing training without leaving the valley and because we will have more, uh, student nurses here. So, I was very excited to hear that. That is fantastic news, especially since I know our local clinics and hospitals um contract with traveling nurses quite often because we just don't have the capacity here in the valley for that. So, that's excellent news. All right. Any other business will go to the order? All right. Hearing none, I will now conclude the workshop at 7:06 p.m. Thank you everybody. Appreciate you spending this wonderful evening with us.

No, it's a it's a workshop, so we don't need a motion. Yep. Have a good have a good evening. All right.