City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah.

Gonna steal it forever.

I'll be like,

notes. Check.

Well, I won't. I can just get later. Okay. It's about five to now.

I can

do this. You know, this I need to keep this.

It's now 06:00, and I will call the meeting to order. Clerk, please take the roll call.

Mayor Frederick? Here. Deputy mayor Winkler?

Here.

Council member Elliott?

Here.

Council member Walton? Council member Gasick?

Here.

Council member Wargo? Council member Barrow?

Here.

And council member Thakor?

Here.

We have

a quorum.

Thank you. Please stand for the pleasure 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.

Now is the time for public comments excluding new business and public hearings with the three minute time limit. Is there anyone in the audience who desires to make comments? Any calls or emails?

No.

Okay. Thank you. We'll move on to the approval of the agenda. I'll accept a motion to do that. Deputy Mayor Winkler.

Mister Mayor, I move we approve the agenda.

Council member Wargo? I second the motion. Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Oppose? The agenda is approved. Now tonight, Gus is going to introduce our guests. We're gonna have them on first here so they don't have to stay for our whole meeting. And, Gus, go ahead and do that.

Good evening, mister mayor.

Thank you. With us today is Casey Fraser from Washington DOT. Also with us today is Manny Barnes from Atkinson Construction. We do have a presentation that we'll show on the screen. It's 12 slides, but there are several embedded photos that show time lapse as well as some video that show occurrences over time. They'll also provide essentially major milestone updates in the completion of the Exit 119 work at this point. So, mister May, I'll I'll turn it over to the team for the presentation.

Thanks, Gus. Appreciate it, Mara. We'll kick go through the presentation. I'm Manny Barnes with Aggies and Construction. Casey Fraser with Washed Up project manager. I'll go through the slides at the end. If you guys have any questions, feel free. Shoot us a question, and we'll try to happily answer that for you. So with that, we'll kick into things. Couple of items that we're gonna go through. Next slide, please. Just introductions. You know us now. Kind of project overview, some phasing and schedule of the job, kinda give you a job status update where we're at to date and kinda where we're going. And then from there, any questions towards the end.

Next slide. So project overview, if you guys I don't know who who was here a year and a half ago, two years ago. Job this job that we're working on, we're currently working outside of this building. It goes all the way from kinda 41st Street down to Mounds Road. It's kind of our project limits. This is the third project kinda in that phase with a fourth project, the Pedpath, going on right now between Gravelly and Thorn.

Manny? Can I can I just stop you for

a minute?

It's not screen sharing to YouTube.

Can you just hold on one second?

Thank you. Absolutely. People are a YouTuber. What what is he talking about?

We're gonna go see ops.

I like We'll see. We'll see. That's kinda kinda get their get back. We'll see.

While we're working on

that Absolutely. Robin.

Yeah. Robin's trying to talk with

you. Oh.

Absolutely. The project opened up on this last weekend.

Yes.

What kind of traffic issues have you seen since Saturday?

On the positive side, we haven't seen a lot. We have seen a little bit. We meet regularly with JBLM, the base. We did see is a little confusion coming out of the gate. People who have been coming out of that gate for the last year and a half have kinda have a free rein to come out of that gate. Now you come out of that gate and take a right hand turn. There's a car coming at you, so they might have been not paying a pinch of attention, kinda woke them up a little bit come Saturday morning. So we added just some additional signage both on the ramp and also back inside those limits and then try and just get that message out there, you know, traffic revision ahead, follow your traffic laws, that type of thing. Don't drive over a double

yellow. And And I know with the DDI, it's a fairly unknown thing in our state, so there's a lot of trepidation opening those up. But the way they're developed, there's really barriers that channel you where you have to go. And so it it seems like it's been operating very smoothly.

Very minor minor, some adjustments there early on Monday morning.

Okay. I'm just making sure you

Oh, no worries. No worries.

Alright. We'll we'll get into it then. So next slide, if you would. So job overview, kinda where we're at to date. Again, basis for the job is between 41st Street and Mounds Road, and that's currently where we're operating. The central point of kinda where we're at today, we've done some road work kinda outside those limits, ITS, electrical work, and stuff like that. But the majority of the work that you're seeing is happening right around that Barksdale kinda DuPont intersection here for the next eight to ten months. So that's what you'll see. Next slide, if you would. Little fast.

So we'll start here. This I know it's very, very small and difficult to see here, but this is what we call MOT stage four. And I won't belabor this. Photos do a lot better job than PDFs and text and stuff like that. But this is what we opened up on Saturday morning. And what that did for us, the southbound exit ramp to DuPont now got moved back north of Pendleton. And now all three bridges we built on the job. We built one at Pendleton. We built one over I 5, then we built one across the Sound Transit Railroad there. All three of those opened up on Saturday.

So that's kinda where we're at in stage four. You can go to the next slide. We do have a weekend closure coming up. This is our four b. We have a little bit of tie in work to do. Again, majority of our work is done now. Now we're just kinda connecting the dots, getting to the point where we can demo the existing Barstow Bridge. So that one's coming up. Again, kinda weather dependent, and we'll target that one coming up here this spring. Next slide. This is stage five. So this is, again, this spring. Stage five, what does that mean to you guys? Nothing. What it means to me and for you guys is we'll be opening up the new southbound on ramp off of that bridge.

So, currently, right now, everybody is still using the old southbound on ramp. Over here, the next two months, we'll continue our walls, build that on ramp, and then we will then close off Barksdale, which will allow us to take that on grade, railroad crossing out and will allow us then to demo the existing DuPont Bridge. So that ramp will go live here, in that April time frame right now. So that's where we're headed with stage five. Then lastly, another weekend closure.

This one's at just the JBLM gate that we're coordinating with those guys to do some intersection work, pretty minor there. And then next slide. Stage six. And this really gets the job to its final kinda configuration, if you will. It puts all the lanes where they go at the end of the day and allows us to complete our median work and then shift to to our final kind of alignment configuration. Next slide, if you will. Some large milestones that we've had. So the ones that are not underlined are milestones that we've hit to date. Again, large one here in January was stage four opening the bridge itself. The ones coming up, have in April, again, is opening that new southbound I 5 on ramp, which we're still targeting, looking good for.

Once that on ramp opens up, we'll have a little bit of prep work, a week or two, and we go right into demoing the existing DuPont Bridge there, which will allow for northbound to get widened out. Northbound then shifts to the west and allows us to complete all the median work, kinda kinda connect the dots there. We have some extended gate closures that we've mentioned. Just closing down, working with JBLM over there to kind of tie in the intersection there at their DuPont gate. And then August 2 this year is when we're looking at having the job more or less in its final configuration, getting additional lanes on I 5.

In that August time frame, we'll shift to that final alignment, and then we would do all our final overlays and striping and kinda beautifying everything at the end of the day is kinda what we're targeting with our substantial completion for the project being done in September in September. So next slide. We mentioned this was just a slide just kinda showing the detour. So when we go to do that demo of the existing bridge, we kinda do an up and over deal, if you will. So pretty large closure of I 5, but but maintaining that by using the you get northbound, you'll get off at the ramp and then come back on.

Similar southbound, you'll come up to the top of the ramp and come back on as well, so as we demo that out in the night. So go to the next slide, please. One more click. So this is a rendering of what the job, was supposed to look like. So daily, I'm trying just to hold this photo up and make sure that that looks very similar to that. We're we're getting close, so we can kinda click through this. So that was our concept. That was the design for the next slide. This was early on. Can't see my note.

This is early on in 2023 working that kinda east side, if you will, widening towards the JVM side. That's how we're getting all the space for this job as on the JVM side. Southbound really stayed in the same spot. We're really just realigning the median barrier. So next slide. This is later in 2004. We're starting to work the fill of the wall, the cast in place wall there, JBLM.

Next

slide. Here is in July '24. Large fill there. It's about 40 feet of fill to get that height up over I 5. So, building some walls there. Traffic has been shifted on the on ramp. Also, in the foreground, you can see, kinda working the new roundabout area behind the hotel, getting that abutment ready. So what that looks like for you guys is we had an abutment on I 5, and it spans all the way across and then another on grade fill there and then another span that would go over the railroad. So that's kinda what we had there for girders, if you will. Next slide.

This is in August 2024. We had opened the northbound on ramp, which allowed us to get into that I 5 Bridge. Thank you for that. And then, again, you can see in the foreground working the roundabout. We had a large fill, some walls in there to get that going as well. You can kinda see the abutment there where the curves will sit in the future. Next slide.

Next slide.

She's trying. She's trying. She's trying. Getting cleaned up, getting some paving in. We're starting to get up. So that bucket support, you can see the fill over on the on the roundabout side. So that's ready for girders, getting some base paving in there. And, again, a lot of that was built offline. We got a large part of our roundabout done. We worked with you guys and Gus to get a weekend closure over there to get that roundabout fully kinda complete and tied in at that time. Go to the next slide. Getting closer here. This, southbound traffic has been shifted over to get to our last kinda area to build our abutment to tie an I 5 and also the railroad bridge. This is in January 2025. Next slide.

Girders have been set here in this photo. You can see the green rebar. It's epoxy coated rebar going on. So girders over I 5 have been set. Lot of fill going up on that old southbound area where the old ramp used to be, getting up to the elevations that we could set those railroad girders. So next photo. Here, this is in November, just here last year. This is a large deck where we have, so that's pouring the bridge deck over the railroad. Girders have been set, and then go to the next photo. This is what it looks like. This was yesterday. This photo was taken yesterday. So this is everything. Both bridges complete. As you can see, the southbound on ramp's still closed.

Reason being that wall continues down probably another couple 100 feet to where we'll tie back into that Barksdale Intersection, kind of that grade area coming down that. So with that old southbound off ramp closed, we'll tear that out. Ramp has been shifted all the way back here North of Pendleton and kinda working in a in a half configuration, if you will, is where we're headed. That's that's SD Bridge. Next slide, please. This is Pendleton Bridge. Just give you some background. This is how fast I think Washoe thinks we work or at least my boss thinks we work. So you can play this. This is us working down here at Pendleton widening.

This is how we're getting the width for the job is widening towards the east there over at JBLM. And through that, moving traffic around all times, keeping three lanes going on I 5. So this takes us all the way to it's fully built and complete all of Pendleton. There's the new off ramp.

Next slide.

You're good. You can go to the next one. There it is. That one. That that one. This would be a a time lapse. This is of the railroad bridge. So you can see in the foreground, we're building the west abut or or east abutment there coming up. You'll start to see Phil going up. We set the girders over I five, then we'll set the girders over the railroad and then get the bridge deck, cast. And this was a photo from here this this Saturday. Next slide. This is the roundabout. This is back in July '23, so just a lot of trees and grass. You click through these kinda kinda fast.

I won't belabor it, but November started clearing things out, getting that area ready to be filled. Next slide. December, working through the wet weather, kinda getting again clean up in there, getting things ready. Had a lot of utility relocates overhead power to get them up above where the new elevations would be. Next slide. We filled in there. We've built the wall through that area, gotten ready for the roundabout. Next slide. And March 24, utility relocations all completed at this point in time and then really started to level out the area, also dig our permanent ponds in this area. Next slide.

You're starting to see our abutment coming up for the railroad bridge. We're also filling for walls, getting up to that elevation about 30 feet up in the air to get that height above the railroad. Next slide. JR 25. Bridge above is complete. Walls are complete. Some base paving in there. Next slide. Not much work till June. Working on mainline. Next slide. There's our deck pour, a large deck pour for us, finishing up the last one on the project. And then last slide, this is a photo here from Monday of the complete bridges across I 5 and also Clayton.

Go to the next slide.

For you guys, I've been throwing a lot of information at you, but I wanted to have one slide that I can at least give you guys an idea that might wanna pertain to you. So in this photo, this is a photo from Monday, kinda milestones that we're looking at, kinda where we're headed. Again, April. Right now, we're currently working that new southbound on ramp. Plan to open that in here in April, this spring.

Get that open. When that orange in that photo opens up, that'll allow us to go right into that red, which is take away the on grade crossing at the railroad. It'll also allow us to demo out the existing northbound bridge. That's in that April time frame. And then finally, in June, we will do our final grind and pave and top lift overlays and final striping through the roundabout and then all the way back up to that railroad bridge to kinda cap off the project here on on the DuPont side, if you will. So next slide. That's kinda it. So this, there's a QR code. A lot of information we have. It's online on the ProSoft project website.

Again, if there's any questions you guys might have, feel free to throw them at me, or Gus has got all my contact info, my cell number, my home number, everything. So

Yeah. No. I've I've got one question for you. Let's start with the look, have a couple others. But when you take down that old bridge, does that what allows you to improve the one eighteen northbound on ramp?

That one eighteen on ramp, good northbound on I 5 is is not a good thing. Yeah. Because the people going to Fort Lewis or JBLM, they won't need to

take that anymore.

You go back to that slide? Sorry. Yeah. No. Great great question. So right now, as the traffic sits today, one thing we did on the project early was North Of Pendleton, we were able to open up an HOV lane early. We're able to get the final lift in there, able to get the final traffic in there. So what will happen with that, and you'll see it here in the photo, is that bridge demo's out, we have paving done north and south of that. We'll allow that paving to get widened over. Northbound traffic will still stay where it's at.

That merge will stay the same as it is today. They'll move over. We'll connect the medium barrier together, then we'll finally shift that over. That's probably be in August time frame when you'll see that where that ramp will change up a little bit. You'll have the HOV lane, and that on ramp table will change up a little bit. Mhmm.

That'll allow more room there. Right? A little bit more room there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Very good. Council member of the core?

Yeah. So I'm new here. And Oh, you're good. I've been going through all the slides.

Yeah.

So can we go to the last slide before question?

Yes.

Or we I can just ask you. So when you demo the road and the bridge

Yes,

sir. What happens to that area, especially for On the Barstale side. Railroad crossing. Right?

So the Barstale Side, what what'll happen there is they'll come in sound transit. The railroad traffic guys will come in. They'll take the on grade. They'll salvage that material that's there, the yellow stuff that you see. And then everything from the railroad tracks to down to the intersection goes to gravel, and there's some additional fencing and stuff like that put in place there. So all that payment will come out. Curb and gutter. So it's tough for me to point. I'm not super tall in case you can't jump on my shoulders. But where that red and blue line meet at, curb and gutter will connect through there, and so that'll be paved.

And then everything you see from that red will be a rock, and then there'll also be some right away fencing, if you will, with some gates so that Sound Transit could still access the tracks. And then on the on the mainline side, what you'll see is just normal landscaping. So the slope will look the same. The abutments will come out, and you'll just see a similar contour that you see on north and south of the bridge.

Yeah. Yeah. You bet.

Council member Walton?

Yeah. I'm back to our mayor's question. I'm still confused. So when you're getting on northbound from 118, right, and we're getting on heading that way Yes. That lane is a direct exit only to JBLM. At the same time, people coming up southbound join that lane. So we have to get over fast, number one. And number two, quickly to kind of maneuver to get on there. I I've had several times. I've had citizens comment as well.

It it's semi dangerous there. So what are you saying will be rectified or will it be rectified? Because I heard something about the HOV lanes, but those are on the far left. I'm talking about that road that comes in, I Five's coming up here, and you're, like, trying no one wants to

I make sure I'm at the right it's it's not Center Drive, but actually northbound at the at the gate here in the like, if you were to come out of the gate and go northbound on that on ramp there

No. It's not the gate. It's it's our exit right here. If we go out

So so so

Center Drive. Yeah. Center Drive. Yeah. Drive. Yeah. If I left today right from here, I take Center Drive. I get onto I 5 North. That street that road, that strip of of that I enter is an exit only right now to JBLM. It's also where the road coming up from southbound is the an existing road. So people are trying to get over No. Out of that.

I I know I know exactly.

Yeah. It's really dicey sometimes.

Yeah. I know where you're at. So we are in a temporary condition there. It

is temporary.

Okay. Right now, it's in a temporary condition. Eventually, again, I'll go back to and I mentioned the HOV just right now, you're at a very reduced sight distance or reduced shoulder. It will get better in the final configuration, but the issue being is there's no way we don't widen that bridge there to create that additional space. That merge is always gonna be a tight merge there merging onto that, but it will get better with the site distance and getting some more shoulder space. It's in a reduced capacity.

Will stay in an exit only lane like it is now, where there's not an additional there to give more space for safety or anything. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Any other questions for our guests? Well, seeing none, I wanna thank you for the presentation. We appreciate the time.

You come back and show us Casey just you know, he's just office is just just down the street. So Yeah. Right down the road. Yeah. Yeah.

QR code, you can get my information. I guess, yeah, to sum it up, your backyard causing a lot of noise for about two and a half years. The end is near the key dates are April and June for when we really get out of your guys' hair, and then, you know, we'll focus our efforts on finishing it by.

But, again, I'll just reiterate. I know you guys, been great to deal with as a city, as an organization. We deal with a lot of times, different cities, different, people that we have to work with shareholders and stuff like that. You guys have been great. Gus, props to you. I know you're getting inducted in tonight, but Gus has been great, to work with. And and it is it works well for us is as long as we can present ourselves on, hey. We want this rather than having two weeks of a flagging closure out there. We have a longer night closure, something like that. You guys have been really great to deal with, and we appreciate that. Keeps the crew safe, and we really enjoy working with you guys as a municipality. So thank you.

Been an excellent contracting partner. Yeah. Big hats off to Gus for his help.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Okay. Let's take a couple minutes and relocate down to our study session table.

Are we staying down there if we

come Oh, we'll come back because we have other things. Yeah. We'll find out.

Did this where's the voice?

Sit down. You're just a. Okay.

Thank you

for that, miss.

Everybody, love me. 56. Oh, she's there. Okay. Okay.

Well, we'll go ahead and get started with our study session. This is about things like soil contamination, the heirloom orchard, the Tacoma smelter plume, and other such things. I sent you all an email a while back about some of that. I'm going to rehash some of that stuff for the public so they have the the information. I've been working on this mainly other than the staff, so I'm gonna be talking a lot.

Sorry. First off, what is what is the is the heirloom orchard? Does everyone understand where the heirloom orchard is? We had an original historic orchard at Fort Nisqually, and those trees are still there. And they were from the Fort Nisqually area.

But about fifteen years ago or so, the heirloom orchard is cuttings from that original orchard. Now what brought about the soil contamination? Well, a few months ago when I was thinking about Old Fort Lake and knowing that we were asking the developers to clean up that. They they have to clean up that before they can build houses. But then my I knew that everything wasn't cleaned up in the city of DuPont.

So my thinking was we're making the developers clean up that, but we're letting people going out into similar contaminated areas and and dig in the dirt. So I wanted to be sure whether or it was contaminated. So we did a we did a study. I sent you all a copy of that so you know what it is. Now we're not contaminated to the extent of Point Ruston.

That was one of the biggest contaminated sites in the entire country. It was a super fun site with the EPA. And they've cleaned that up down there at Point Ruston, that's the area we're talking about down there. You might've seen that park if you've been down there walking. Underneath that park is all kinds of contaminated stuff.

It was about 500 times worse than anything we have here in DuPont and they were able to clean that up. Also a lot of yards were contaminated in the city of Ruston and the Department of Ecology went in there and scraped off the soil, brought in new soil and all this sort of thing. So they did a lot of work down there and I have talked with them quite a bit about what we have here. When I talked to the Department of Ecology, I found that in order to be considered clean for humans to be out working in the soil, it needs to be less than 20 parts per million of arsenic and I think it's a lot higher for lead and lead isn't the problem, arsenic is the main problem and a lot of our areas are like 400 to 100 parts per million, which isn't terrible. It's fairly easily cleaned up.

There's different methods to clean it up. The lead is not really high enough to be an issue. People can still work in the orchard right now using the appropriate precautions like PPE and masks in the summer. The reason you would use masks in the summer is because of the dust and things like that. And the winter is not really a big deal, but you should wear gloves and be cognizant of the fact that your feeder are gonna track stuff into your house, so you gotta be careful about that.

I wanted to make sure everyone understands that walking on trails is not an issue. It's a transitory type of of thing that you're just passing through and through the open areas that have asphalt trails, there's no danger there at all. So the Department of Ecology does recommend also signs in certain areas. I didn't know that they were looking at stuff the same time I was looking at stuff. They were overlooking at Powder Works Park because there's some open areas over there and they recommended we put one of those signs in Powder Works Park in addition to the Orchard area and anywhere that people might be working.

What people don't know that haven't been here very long is that Weyerhaeuser only cleaned up the areas in DuPont where they were building houses and parks. Now we have lots of other open areas, they didn't clean those areas up. And that's why they have a warehouse or had a consent decree on the Old Fort Lake that had to be cleaned up before it was developed. And you've heard about all that from the planning commission and what were the things we're doing at Old Fort Lake. Discussions I've had with various organizations, Department of Ecology and also they mentioned to me that the situation was exacerbated because we also have the dynamite factory here and they also polluted areas in DuPont.

So we have the Tacoma smelter, and we have the Powder Works plant. Talked to current current orchard people in the University Place. I talked to WSU agricultural extension people because they have some orchard work they do. Staff members, talk to Kathy Trotter. She was one of the founders of the orchard. And so I've got lots of information. There's various types of cleanup procedures. Weyerhaeuser used the scraping method. The contamination usually doesn't go down more than six inches. So what Weyerhaeuser did was they scraped off all that stuff and they dumped it out where the golf course is.

And then that was all remediated by covering it over and capping it and putting the golf course over it. So underneath that golf course, there's a bunch of nasty stuff. Right? But it's all safe to be play on the golf course now because, that's all capped and cleaned up. Now, like I mentioned, our soil is not as bad as point rusted.

So one of the methods that we could use, we probably wouldn't use scraping and all that kind of stuff. That would be a big big deal to do all that. One of the things you can do is when your contamination isn't that bad, is to bring in a bunch of top soil and row to till it in. And Department of Ecology was telling me by doing this, you reduce the overall contamination below that 20 points per million. And then if we tested it again and it's appropriately under 20 per million, then they would give us a letter saying that's perfectly clean, you don't use need to use PPE anymore or that sort of thing.

And that would be basically a of a labor intensive project, especially for the orchard because you can't bring in a tractor there and do it, you'd have to use a hand rototiller and bring in piles of dirt and all that sort of thing. But once completed, it could be it could be cleaned up. There are some legal issues involved. And in the interim, if we have people working out there before there's any cleanups, Gordon would have to draft a new agreement. Right?

A new volunteer agreement that covers all these things and holds the city harmless and and such things. Do you wanna say anything about that, Gordon?

You mean in terms of having volunteers work

If there are any volunteers working out in a contaminated area.

Yeah. There would have to be a separate waiver making them understand the risk they were taking and also that they would agree to engage in whatever PPE or procedures we demanded of them. And then I'd also have to check with the Department of College to make sure we were on all fours with their their regulations were. But primarily, yeah, it'd be it'd be a pretty substantial waiver saying, look, you understand the situation. These are the risks. This what you're gonna have to do if you wanna work here.

Yeah. Yeah. So we would have a new volunteer agreement to cover that issue, and we would also have maybe a sign out there like the one I think I sent you in the email. Right? Dirt alert.

And so what what do we need from the council? We're not gonna make any decisions real soon here I think because we have some other considerations to look at. But basically, while you're thinking about this and we bring it up later in the spring, basically, we need to get guidance concerning whether or not you want the city to be in the orchard business at all with city personnel and resources committed to such a project. In the last few years, there haven't been very many volunteers. There's been a few, but we need to know what the council intends for that.

We would need to recruit more volunteers and it would also be good to have a vision and mission statement that reflects what we want to do if in fact that's what we wanna do. Other options, my view is that the city doesn't really need to be in the orchard business and it is more appropriately the domain of a five zero one c three organization much like the community garden. They have full control of what happens at the garden and the city has an agreement with that organization. Of course, the garden doesn't want to deal with the orchard, and I don't believe the DuPont Historical Society does either. But I do have some potential good news to share.

We have a new five zero one c three coming to DuPont with around 40 members and growing. It's the Chloe Clark chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They're incorporating DuPont March 1. I've had some initial discussions, but the group is interested in history and needs a community project. They do have as one of their members, they have a master gardener and some other members that are interested in horticulture and such things.

In addition to their own members, they would welcome any DuPont residents to participate who are interested. I will have more on this in the spring as I continue some discussions with them and when they have initial meetings here in March and April. So if it turns out that we have one final thing, if it turns out that we have no interest in the orchard and no volunteers, I've talked to the current orchard in University Place, They may be interested in our trees. They're small trees. They could be moved.

They have a currently have 200 trees over there, but they have seven and a half acres. So they do have room for Dupont Historical Orchard there too. At this point, that's the information I had to share with you know as much as I know now. So if you have any questions, me or Gordon or someone else can answer here.

I I would just like to say that I think moving forward towards the spring that we look at drafting up that volunteer waiver that because that way when if if and when so that they can volunteer. Yeah. I would recommend

We can do we can do that pretty quick.

Yeah. So I would recommend that. No matter what happens, at least we have that prepared and ready to roll when the time comes.

Okay. Any other comments or questions about it?

Well, this is just right off the top of my head, but I would hate to see us give away more of our history to another city. I mean, these are these are trees that began here in DuPont with the Nisqually's, with the Nisqually Port.

Sure.

And so anyway, I think if we could look at different ways to keep the orchard and get volunteers engaged then then we should.

Yeah. Yeah. That was the bottom of my list as a last option but we have other

Yeah.

Oh, I'm

other things. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Did I hear you correctly? You were saying that Powder Works Park also has similar issues to the orchard?

Yeah. There's a not not the playground or any of those type of things

Okay.

There, that's all covered over actually. Dog park, yeah, there is the data the Department of Ecology tested that. I didn't even know they did, but they have some issues in there. It's not real bad. And then besides that, there was a bunch of open areas. Yeah. Some sometimes people go running around out there and all different things. So there's open areas and there's besides the playground and besides the softball area. May Are

there sorry. Are any

say, could I could I maybe clarify the different open space parks for the council held legally? That'd be helpful.

Yeah.

Okay. So so it yeah. I know it can be con I don't know if that's me. Is that me? Nope. No. I I know it can be confusing, but so so our parks code as a regulatory tool of how we regulate what you can and cannot do in our parks broadly defines parks, and it includes all of our trails and open space. Right? So there it's all considered parks for that regulatory piece. But in terms of land use and land use planning, there's a difference between a park and an open space.

I mean, Ptolemy Park, where the orchard is is located, is is a is a classic example. It's actually not a park. It's an open space. And so so when this whole area was developed, everything that was designated as a park in the land use plan into the zoning map, that has, by and large, been remediated of this stuff. That's why it was unusual where we found some parts of open Powderworks Park that what we think happened was there's parts of Powderworks Park that are really open space. Now anyone walking to the park, you can't tell the difference. Right? Just as someone going through told me it looks like a park. Right? I mean, I used to walk through it all the time.

I still walk through it all the time. But so that's the distinction more saying, this is a park, and this is an open space. It's a it's a land use designation. And the and for the purposes of this contamination, for the most part, the parks were designated as parks and were ameliorated that that issue isn't there. It's our open spaces that we call parks, and they were treated as parks for regular purposes, but many of them have not had any sort of amelioration done. So that's that's where just I'm just setting up for you the framework of why it this happening Yeah.

And the and the dog park was added later, you know, it was an open space. Right.

So Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So can I I might thank you for that, Gordon? Is there a plan to take care of anything in Powder Works Park similar to the Orchard then?

If the council wants to do that, yeah, sure we can make a plan but the open space we don't need to do anything with there. Okay. But everything else has been other than open spaces that people aren't supposed to walk in anyway. Well, I think if we wanted to, you know, we call Tollmey Park a park, like we said, it's really open space. I mean, if we decide in the future to make Tollmey a park, that could be done.

We could remediate it if it's not the The Orchard as a fenced off area. You know where that is. Right? But I had all of Tolmey Park tested, not just the Orchard area. And it would be easier to remediate the the Tolmey Park area other than the orchard because you could use a tractor because it's so open, you know. You can use a tractor with bringing in topsoil and stuff and plant grass and make a nice park. And maybe in the future, that's something we'd like to do if you're gonna have the orchard there, those trees are gonna get bigger and you could make a nice park there and have a view of Mount Rainier. It's right there. So it could be it could be very nice, but that's I think that's down the road in the future.

Just had a follow-up as well. You said you were kinda surprised that they're they were even testing at Powder Works Park. They're testing are there any other areas that we're aware of that are being

Well, they're all they're all the same. I mean, but the all of our testing and their testing proved that there that there's a dirt alert map on Department of Ecology website if you ever, you know, wanna take a look at it. But the smelter, it was the biggest, tallest smelter in the world at the time. Was there for about a hundred years. But all of the South Sound area was contaminated, and their their model showed that the DuPont area was anywhere between 40 to a 100 parts per million. The testing shows that that's pretty correct. It varies from area to area.

Yeah. But

I was just saying within DuPont, are there any specific areas? Like, we were aware of the Orchard and then Department of Ecology was testing Powder Works. We're like, oh, it's kinda switching our focus there. Anything else than our community

Department of Ecology went to Power Works because there's a park area and a of people go out there.

Okay. Okay.

So they

were they were looking at that, and so they think we should put a sign out there.

Okay. But you're unaware of any other areas, park or otherwise, that people are or the No.

No. It's fine. Other than open areas. Now we got, you know

Right. Right.

Right. Yeah. And you know

sporty defined park

Yeah.

In terms of the the legal reason. We're not okay.

Yeah. And, of course, Old Fort Lake, you know, that's Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's on the developer to

Got it.

To fix that.

Alright. Well, first, thanks for all the information. I appreciate it. I concur with the comments about the orchard. Reference the dog park, that's currently a very actively used park. I think we need to bump that up and get some current estimates really, really fast on that. There it's it's used every day by a lot of people.

Yeah.

And so I I thank you for bringing it up, and I I'm going to ask that we definitely talk about that soon. Okay. And try to figure out the cost on that.

Yeah. And it's not as it's not as contaminated even as the orchard. It's less. So I think it would be too hard to, you know, bring fresh dirt in there and rototill it or something.

Okay. Thank you.

I and one more question to start. Gordon, if if you have to do a volunteer agreement, is that for reasons around liability? Is that correct?

Well, yeah. Well, for a couple of reasons, really. The first is there's just the general liability of whenever you have someone who's not an employee working in city property, then, yeah, all the normal things apply. But also because, you know, we also have rules around volunteers that are I mean, they're sort of like like, for example, we have to report them to l and I. Right?

We have put their hours to l and I. And then there's just the issue of just control. Right? I mean, ultimately, responsibility for management falls to the staff and the executive branch, and they need to know, you know, who's out there and make sure they have direction over them and so that they don't do something that's mistaken just because they don't know. So, yeah, there's several ways for control is to ensure who we're doing, just to make sure they have liability waivers, and make sure we're compliance with state law.

So on this, if we had people, like, groups doing volunteer work, they would be using PPE material, masks, things like

that.

So if people have done volunteer work prior to us being aware of the contamination, are we liable for any of that? Could someone I'm just always thinking Oh,

well, again, and I and I obviously don't wanna give real directive legal advice in public. But as a general as a general proposition. Right? Yeah. No. A property owner, any property owner, if you invite someone onto your property, if you're unaware of a of any kind of injury causing hardship or harm inducing condition of the property, if you're unaware of that, you're not liable for that unless you knew or should have known. Now though we do know, and, of course, we we wanna start

Yeah. You know,

make sure we're out of people out there. But as the as the mayor said, we've already been told from a college that walking around on trails, that's really not the issue. The issue is, you know, digging, you know, contact, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Thank you.

So one of the things I heard was it's six inches on the top layer. We have most contamination.

Right. And how we

to solve that is possibly just go layer on the top, I believe. That's what I understood.

Well, a couple different several different methods, really.

Yeah. But one

of those One of them is scraping it off, right, and taking it somewhere. And the other one that I think we could use here is you bring in topsoil, clean topsoil from outside somewhere and you rototill that in so that the overall contamination letter level gets below the level of 20 points per million.

So what is that level they have to meet? Do we know?

20 parts per million. Yeah. You you definitely No.

That is a contamination level, but how much topsoil they they have to put it in to make sure that we reach at that point?

Well, you just I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not feed to

I'm not I'm not technical to know

that.

Yeah. I know.

But I think what I think the idea is if you bring in enough so that you rototill it in, you test it. If it's if it's not good yet, you bring in some oil top soil. But if you're bringing a pretty good amount and rototill it in, we should be able to get it reasonably clean.

I just wanted to make sure I don't dig in more than a feet in my backyard.

Yeah.

I know when

If it was reef, it was done that way.

I I was there when he built my house, and I I I brought in about six inches of topsoil even though I think they scraped it off, but I brought in about six inches of topsoil anyway.

But I think it will be nice to know. Yeah. If that's the approach they take, we should know how much topsoil they put it in.

Yeah. Councilmember, we we would hire an environmental firm that would follow DOE regulations. And and, essentially, we'd hire a consulting firm. They'd come in. They do an assessment and say, alright. In order to get to DOE, PPE this, you'd have to, you know, dig this much. So we we had to get a technical expert, but we could get that answer for you. It'd just be a matter of getting someone to do that. Yeah.

And if, again, if we had a five zero one c, that would

be up to them to do those type of things.

Anything else? Enough about soil?

K. To say I've lived in this area since I was little, and and I literally have been digging in the dirt. I used to feed my little sister mud pies, and she'd eat them. So I can just say that I'm still here, and I'm pretty healthy. I can in the in fact, the smelter was still around and still meltering

Yeah.

While I lived, near the coast of Puget Sound.

I know. I grew up in Celica when I breathe that stuff.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, let's take a couple minutes. We'll get back up to the dais.

He never meant to admit she ate the pie. I'm gonna check on her. It's you.

Okay. I think we got everybody back. Deputy mayor, you have a

No. Mister mayor, if you're ready for eight point one, I'm ready to make a motion.

Ah, okay. Well, eight eight point one is appointment of Gus Lim as a DuPont City engineer. We interviewed a bunch of people and Gus still came out on top. So I would so deputy mayor, go ahead. Mister mayor, I moved your thing again there.

Go ahead. Mister mayor, I move we approve the appointment of Gus Lim as the DuPont's city engineer, and I welcome him home. Councilmember Barrow?

I second that motion.

Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, Gus. You're back on the team. Item 8.2, appointment of a member of the DuPont Planning Commission. This is Greg Butler who also applied for the council a while back, and I recommended to him that, hey. He can't get on the council to start with the planning commission. So he he applied for that. Council member at the court?

Do we need to make a motion?

Yeah. Yeah. I make

a motion to appoint a new DuPont Planning Commission Okay.

Member. Council member Walton?

I second that.

K. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for that vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. We'll we'll get that information, clerk, to mister Butler. The next item is approval of the consent agenda. We also need a motion. Okay. Council member Elliott.

I make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Councilmember Gassig? I second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, say aye. Oppose? Very good. Consent agenda is approved. And we'll move on to new business, and we'll have available public comments for each item as we go through them. There are several items here. So the first item is 10.1 resolution number 26Dash001 approval of the 2026 lodging tax grants. These are the ones that we covered during the the last meeting. Director Oak Smith, you wanna cover information on that?

Sure. This is for the 2026 part a lodging tax grants. The lodging tax committee met on December 29 where they reviewed 39 grants and approved 36 and, had some deductions in some of the grant requests, financially, but you can see, as you move through the packet, what those dollar amounts were. We gave them a budget of $450,000. That was some of that was from their carryover, so your ending fund balance, and some of it is projected revenue based on the tax, the two different types of tax we will receive for lodging tax, the city.

We use those, projections and we're pretty conservative with them. We we work together with the with the committee. So the committee had approved 36 grants totaling 449 doll thousand $954.30. The council may accept or reject projects recommended by the lodging tax committee in their entirety, however, may not add projects or adjust the funding levels. My recommendation is that the council approve the adopting distribution of the twenty twenty six grants for lodging tax part a from fund one zero three.

Clerk, do we have any emails or public comment there? Anyone in the audience want to testify on that? Okay. I'll entertain a a motion then at this time. Council member Gassick?

I move that we approve the 2026 lodging tax grants as submitted.

Council member Thakore?

I just wanted to have a quick discussion on it, if that is okay.

Yeah. Well, are you gonna second it or not?

Do you want a second?

Oh, okay. Sorry.

Okay.

And do we have discussion? Councilmember Elliott?

Yes. So I do have some concerns about the proposed funding and how the funding was allocated. But since there is a short timeline, I will be supporting the funding recommendations this evening. However, before we allocate more funding or open up part b, I firmly believe we need to develop stronger funding guidelines and develop better criteria for allocating the funding and encourage more participation from our hotels to become members of the LTAC committee. Some cities keep a certain percentage of LTAC funds for noncapital expenditures and a certain percentage for capital expenditures.

Is this something we should consider? Should we retain funding for larger events that will take longer to plan but will attract many more visitors to DuPont? Some cities require applicants to provide a 25% match. Is this something we should consider? And should we and should we allocate all of the funding or retain a certain percentage?

I have been researching guidelines that other cities use for applicants and the criteria they used for the committee to help them decide how best to distribute the funding. There is a lot of good, thoughtful information out there, and I'd like us to take the time to develop the guidelines that will assist the applicant and to develop criteria to help the committee select who gets the funding and I would be glad to help in this endeavor. Thank you.

Any other

comments? Yeah. So I love all the ideas you just suggested. And only one thing I would like to say. Last time I was talking about the long term and short term, so I always look at everything same way.

So I think what we have right now, what we do is just spend all 100%. So instead of that, if we can make some kind of an adjustment to it so say, for an example, we spend 80% in the same year and save 20% for the long term savings. What happens is, suppose for an example, we have $700,000 right now, and if we put 20% for the long term projects, that will put us to a $140,000 per year. And within five years, we're gonna have a $700,000 pot. And in the future, if we if the DuPont needs some kind of a bigger pot money to develop some kind of a tourism, then we have that big pot.

For an example, even museum needs, to move or expand or make, some kind of a place at the Old Fort Lake site or like I was talking last time during study session. So I think, that is what I would like to suggest that we look at how we spend and, what percentage. So $80.20 will be the best suggestion from me. And it's going forward. I don't think we are touching the $20.26, but we can come up with the guideline for the next

year onwards. Thank you. Any other comments?

Mayor, if I may? Yes. I have a comment. Karma.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Just just to, let you know, if you look at the very last page of the packet, you'll see the actuals that we, the beginning fund balance for the fund, which is fund one zero three. And just so you know, there's always been a balance. We've never used all of the money. What we've done is presented to the committee. Here's what we have based on ending fund balance and what we think will we will be getting the next year. So there is some projections, of course, but we always do have an ending fund balance. 2023, we had a 132,000. 2024, 205,000. So we've never used all of it, just so you know. But also there is a reserve in that fund that the committee has chosen.

It used to be $50,000 at this right now, it's 38788¢ because they wanted to use a little of that money, but there is a a reserve in there. So that could be added based on what the committee decides. So I just wanted to let you know of that as well. Thank you. Additional

comments? K. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Very good. We'll move on to the resolution number 26Dash002, awarding the design for Center Drive Phase 4 B. And, Gus, go ahead.

You've got this one.

Alright. Thank you, mister Mayer. Let's see. For this topic, I'm I'm gonna do a a little bit of a TIV grant recap just real quickly. I'll also redescribe what is four a versus four b, and then I'll talk about the this design contract as well as, you know, essentially what what we're doing to double time it so we can meet, milestones, which translates into construction execution for 2026.

So whenever you're ready, you can show the graphic in there. So so just as a recap, the November 2025 Transportation Improvement Board awarded the city essentially two phases, four a and four b. For four a, we received essentially the construction phase funds for four a. And then for four b, we received the design funds and construction funds. And the reason for that is we had received design funds through Puget Sound Regional Council federal aid funds for essentially four a at that aspect.

Looking at this graphic is also inside your council packet, but sharing it with others as well. Four a is essentially starting off from Powerline Road. This is the location where you would go as if you're gonna go to the community garden. From there, you would travel along Center Drive, go past Creekside Apartments, go past Sikwaltu Drive, pass City Hall onto Civic Drive, and then on to Palisade Boulevard, which is that is the the essentially, book end of four a. Four b is essentially the sister project.

You'll essentially carry over from where Palisade Boulevard is, go past Pioneer Middle School, go through Bob's Hollow Lane, and then and it's not really an intersection. It's just a gap, I I would say, is at Kincade Street, and that would be the terminus at the at that location. So I wanna share that because, you know, sometimes saying 4 A 4 b, it's okay. That's two letters or one number and two letters, comes down. So I I just wanna say that from that perspective.

So design phase. So what do we have going on? The design phase, as as as you remember from the last time we met, it was, mid December. We accepted the transportation improvement, board grant, mid December. So I knew I would not get in front of this this council again until January 27 for design.

So what we did at that point is we created what's what I called an early start package under the mayor's authority of less than $30,000. We essentially awarded a a less than $30,000 design portion, with David Evans and associate. David Evans and associate is important because they did the design for four a, and we wanna take advantage of leveraging their previous work to go into four b. So I didn't wanna waste time and lose the month of January, so they've actually been actually doing site measurements essentially between Palisade, Bob's Hollow, and Kincade at this site, looking at the design in four a on which which elements we can carry over into four b. Because the ultimate goal the ultimate goal is is so that we can actually award both four a and four b together in a construction phase and then execute it this summer.

That would be the ultimate goal. The general idea is we gain economies of scale, and, also, we get the roadwork done all at once as opposed to one phase then another phase, from that perspective then. The the the earlier portion of the, contract with David Evans and Associates, when you look at the contract details, we started off at about $96,000 with four eight. And then what you'll see now in this packet is essentially the addition of the $30,000 plus the the essentially, the $53,000, that's going in today. What you have in front of you today is is that tail end at this phase.

What we're trying to do is by by March 3, have design complete of four b. And then by March 6, put it out for bid. And then three weeks later, March 27, we have a bid opening. And as long as I don't have any bidding irregularities or anything like that, I'm gonna come back to you April 14 to award, essentially, Center Drive 4 A And 4 B. I put down there in the council packet, you know, spring, summer construction, but my ultimate goal, because we have a congestion area there by Pioneer Middle School, is essentially trying to get this done by the last day of the academic year in 2026 and before the first day of the academic year going to the next okay.

That's '20 so '26, '27, academic year. Trying to fit it within that window. So this this portion is the the remainder of the design phase, for Center Drive 4 B, specifically for 4 B. And the reason for that is 4 A is already complete, but we're moving forward with this one. At this point, if if you have any questions, I can answer.

Okay. First, we'll call for the public there. Any emails or anything, clerk? No?

No. There's not.

Okay. Anyone from the pub from the audience wanna comment? Okay. We'll entertain a motion then. Council member Wargo?

Can we do a a question real quick, or do we

the Oh,

go ahead.

You got the question. Hey. Just to clarify, you said that the the the bid opening would be March 27 is what is the opening for that? Yes. Okay. And when would that when that'd be be complete, you think, on the on the bid itself? So, like, when it's awarded.

Oh, so after after March 27 Mhmm. Me and the the design team and me will do bid tabulation, and I will get it in front of you all April 14 to award. Is Okay. Is okay.

Okay. I think I got it. So so, basically, you you're you're thinking maybe we'll they can do this in a couple months so we we would have it done before, like, August when school starts, basically, is what you were saying.

Yeah. That would that would be my ideal goal. Otherwise, I'm gonna get a bunch of earful from everyone Yeah. Right. From there.

Gotcha. Thank you.

Council member Walton?

In Gus, hopefully, he can get it done before the school year. But would you be able to, I'm assuming, yes, notify the school district in earlier than later so that if they need any safety, security, crosswalking, those are hard to get. Sometimes we'll post for, like, a temporary position even for a six week or a two week kinda job. So the earlier you can get that to them, if it's going to carry into the school year, the better. Does that make sense?

I I I'm sorry. Council member Walton, I I I don't understand.

Were you were saying most of this, you would be done before the school year?

That that would be my goal. Yes, ma'am.

If not, you would inform, I'm sure, the the school district that this was gonna continue in a little bit into the school year.

Yes.

And I'm just saying sometimes if there were some safety concerns on the school's end, earlier the better for them. Sometimes we can hire a safety patrol person, crossing guard, whatever it might be for just like a two week, three week extent of time, but sometimes doing that after the school year starts is hard.

I see. Does that make I I see what you're getting at.

Yes. Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wargo? Yes, mister mayor. I move

to approve resolution twenty six zero zero two, awarding the design for Center Drive Phase 4 Bravo.

Deputy mayor Winkler? I second that motion. Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? That has been approved. Next is resolution number twenty six dash zero zero three, approving the purchase of three public works trucks. Gus, you've got this one too, so go ahead.

Yep. Thank you, mister mayor. If you if you allow me, I'll I'll explain this in almost, like, three different components. One, I wanna explain the timing of this. Then two, I'll explain the funding associated with it.

And then three, you have graphics in your packet, but we'll show them on the screen as the the equipment themselves. So starting off with the timing piece, I'm I'm not sure if ever everyone knows this, but when we buy through Department of Enterprise Services for, vehicles, we actually are buying through the manufacturer. We just happen to go through a a whoever was the awarded dealership to process government sales. And in that process, the delivery of the vehicle is it shows up, you know, as much as six months or more, after after the manufacture because it's coming it's literally coming off of the manufacturing plant, when it comes into there. The the the aspect, associated with this is we will we will not expense this until, if I if this is approved and and we're able to, order this in February, these vehicles will show up in September.

And then roughly a month later is when we'll get the bill, then we'll expense it at that point in time. So there's a there's a sequencing associated with this. This is this will require a budget an adjustment or a budget amendment. I forgot what the term we use. It's either budget budget amendment or budget adjustment for this. But it's a little bit of, like, chicken and egg scenario. Right? I mean, do you do you do this first or you do this later? I I also knew from a timing perspective, when we do the budget amendments, I'm not sure if we do it every two months or every three months. So then it becomes like, hey.

Do I continue to wait for this? But but I wanted to put this in front of you all because of the timing of delivery and manufacturing of the equipment. The next item is associated with funding. Our e r and r program has a total of $1,700,000. That's within there.

Within there, the two service vehicles that I'm I'm I'm looking to replace as well as the third, but only the two, has a $100,000 total dedicated for that. So I'm not necessarily robbing, from another, vehicle within the ER and r. It's it's a $100,000 for essentially two service vehicles, within there. But what's happened through COVID is prices have just gone outrageous. You know, what what we used to be able to afford to buy is is no longer, viable and and what have you.

So, literally, the the what we're trying to replace is the Ford f three fifties. And and inside your in your packet is I do have a table. And just just for the vehicles themselves, it's it's over $50,000. You add in the service body bed, it's almost $20,000. One of those, we do have a crane on it, so that's almost $25,000.

And then one thing we're looking to do slightly different. One of the vehicles is add this this lift, and I can explain it from there. So so what we can do is we can use the existing funds that are allocated within the e r and r funds. And then what I also wanna do is essentially use a $170,000 out of the water fund to support this because two of those vehicles, which has the crane and the other one with another service body truck, those are the vehicles that we use for offloading things like fire hydrants or heavy brass from there. It's just it's just heavy heavy materials when it comes down to it.

I know we just did and spent a lot of time together going over the utility rate adjustment, and and we did that at the 2025. There will be no impact to that utility rate adjustment that we just passed with with essentially using, the additional $170,000 in funds in here. The amount of funds that we cover, as you can picture it, there's typically about $33,000,000 every year that we execute in the operational fund. Now granted half of that is is labor and the and the support for labor, and then the other half is all the other supplies and and and what have you. So I I can tell you we're we're not gonna make any future adjustments to the utility fund that we just recently passed if if we essentially have to be able to use this additional funds as part of this one.

The equipment that you see here in your packet, there are pictures of them kinda front and back for each of the three vehicles. One of them does have a crane. That's that thing on the side. It's electric. It is roughly about 3,000 pounds for lifting things, typically, like a fire hydrant to put on the back of the vehicle.

The nice thing with electric is it also has an inverter. So anytime staff needs to use, electrical tools out in the field, or at least charge up batteries out in the field, be able to use that inverter, within the vehicle, from there. The other other vehicles, what you see there is a service body beds. And the nice thing with Department of Enterprise Services now now that they didn't used to have this before is we can actually order the the Ford vehicle with the service body beds and the crane and any other attachments as part of the manufacturing. Before, we essentially did that separately because it wasn't available.

So now we can actually order that all at once from there. In one oh, the last, yeah, the last graphic that you see there is what a brand new truck with a service body bed. As you can see there, there's nothing magical about it. I mean, it does have steel rim tires, and it has the tool beds and other things there from that piece. I'd in in a inside a earlier graphic, there is what we're looking to do is add a Tommy gate into one of those.

Tommy gate is a brand, but essentially, it's an electric elevator lift on the back of of the truck. And what that does is that will help, not necessarily intending for the, like, the heavier things like a fire hydrants, but sometimes when when two people need to lift a piece of equipment on the back of the truck, now it should and now it can just be just one person, that goes into there. So that that is the equipment that that I'm looking to, propose to purchase, in this process. The the I think the last thing I I I just wanna reiterate is we we went through a process, for the utility rate study. We we ended on the blue scenario.

And on that blue scenario, after we exhaust the operational funds and any capital projects, we come up with an end fund balance. That end fund balance, for 2026 is almost $2,000,000. That is that column where we had the discussion where I was looking at, you know, keeping above a million dollars in case there is a a an extreme emergency or unscheduled failure in one of our equipment. So we'll continue to be able to preserve that in this process as well. So that's that's what I have in this in this council packet presentation.

It seems it may seem odd that I'm presenting it now, but it really came back to a sequence of events of, you know, how soon does one get delivered at that point. The oldest vehicle is 18 years old, and the the other two are essentially 16 years old. Unfortunately, the oldest vehicle, we're now having a oil pump problem. And because of its use and its condition, we've already been told by Lakewood Ford that we're better off just replacing the engine, and that process was anywhere from 10 to $15,000. But if we're gonna do that, you know, the the rest the the rest of the truck is is age and needs replacement as well.

So that's all I have. I'm I'm happy to answer any further questions on this topic.

Mhmm. Councilmember Barrow?

Hi, Gus. Thanks for the presentation. One of my questions was how would this affect the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven water utility balance? And you answered that. My next statement would be, is there a reason we should maybe change or improve the ER and R fund to more current rates for that fund?

Yeah. Yes. The answer to that question is yes. It's been a known issue. I mean, Gus has highlighted here. Our ER and R funds need to be completely redone and overhaul. We have begun the work on that even prior to Gus arriving, and we need to make sure that as we come into our next budget cycle that we have complete and accurate and up to date information and then also that we have accurate costs. So that is something we're working on as we speak.

David, may

I Since we're doing a little bit of discussion before the motion, I was just gonna add, first, thanks for answering the the questions I sent and and getting the feedback, and thanks for the assurance that it won't impact the fees. And I realize you weren't here when we created the last budget, but realizing these vehicles were not on the IRR rate, we're about to go into the new budget process, a good opportunity to look back and look forward in saying, let's make sure we identify and with your expertise what vehicles on our budget we're about to start working on, make sure we have them all listed. But, I realize you were not here at that time. So but I think we need, as we start this next budget process, to make sure we have all those items identified. But, again, thanks for your answers to the questions.

I I greatly appreciate it.

Councilmember Elliott?

That was pretty much the same question I was gonna ask too is is these vehicles weren't on our ENRR for this for this current budget. And so I do hope that going forward, we do a better job of and not only in in the water department, but for all of our departments to make sure that the equipment that we need to get replaced gets in in those budgets because it makes a big difference. And I thank you for answering questions too. You've been great to work with, and you've responded so quickly. So thank you.

Deputy mayor?

Mister mayor, if there's no other questions, for Gus, I'd like to make a motion that we approve resolution number 26Dash003, proving the purchase of three public works trucks.

Councilmember Wargo? Second the motion.

Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Oppose? Thank you, Gus. We appreciate it. Next is item 10.4, approval of the mayor and city council liaison positions, and I'll defer to deputy mayor Winkler for that.

Thank you, mister mayor.

Let me get you on there.

Okay. Thank you, mister mayor. I'll make a motion to approve. And if there's a second, then I'll just lay out the format I used and answer any questions there might be. So with that, sharer, I make a motion to approve the mayor and city council liaison positions.

Councilmember Wargle? I second the motion.

Any further discussion on this one? Deputy mayor? First, I'd like

to thank all the council members for responding to my phone calls so quickly. I I greatly appreciate it. Quick scenario as you looked at the format laid out here. Again, it recognizes seniority for your first assignments, but it also makes sure that every council member, no matter how long they serve, has an opportunity to be in a primary liaison. We have all volunteered to serve and we want to have that opportunity to be in a primary liaison position.

It does allow council members to maintain their current primary assignments. Thank you for all your hard works in your current primary assignments. It does align liaison positions to other like positions. I'm gonna use LTAC, for example. You know, you're you're into LTAC related deals, and you you have that knowledge.

And also with housing, if this is approved, council member Thacker will be working two assignments that are housing related, economic development, you know, our chamber of commerce and the economic develop development board. So we have people being able to focus in specific areas instead of bouncing all over the place. Just remember, you're encouraged to get monthly, quarterly, or semiannual reports depending upon the positions. Some of them only meet twice a year. We understand that.

And to ensure continuous operations, please keep your alternates informed of what's going on. Those who are stuck with me as your alternate, you know I attend all those meetings anyways. Just I like to be informed. So and the flip side, if you're in alternate, if your schedule allows, I want to encourage you to stay informed for those assignments too. So everyone has some primary spots or or and alternate spots. Are there any questions for me?

Okay. Councilmember Elliot.

Yeah. I just have a comment. So I wanna thank, Mike for including for alternate. Sometimes on these committees, we've just been able to sit there and you didn't have a voice. But I think now with with the alternate positions, you can you can participate in the conversation, which which I really like. So thank you.

Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for that vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Oppose?

Very good and everyone's got their work cut out. Okay, next is the mayor's report or comments. I do have a few comments tonight. I know many people in our city were upset with the horrible vision and the different videos and things in Minneapolis and the different events that are going on there And we made a Facebook statement from the city yesterday. I just wanted to reinforce that and let everybody know that our police department follows the law and that's what they will always do.

And the law in Washington State says that our police do not assist immigration officers or coordinate or any of those type of things, they stay out of that. But keep in mind that on the flip side of that coin, they also don't interfere and we've been having a lot of discussions about this and there's gonna be more to come, maybe study sessions, things like that. So we'll be talking about this some more and that's all I have to say about that tonight. I just wanted to reinforce that point. Our police department is doing a great job. So thank you, chief. He's sitting back there. Are there any council comments?

Deputy mayor Winkler? Yes. I just wanna share that the mayor, council members, Barrow, and council member Thacker and I attended the Association of Washington City city action days last Wednesday and Thursday. I think it was very productive. I wanna thank all three of you for going and attending that. We did meet with our legislative representatives. A big part of that discussion was our legislative ask. Okay? And we won't know until the end when the budget's approved, but I feel it was received very favorable. The, you know, money's tight, but they they were really interested in hearing about it.

They asked great questions, and they seemed very supportive. So I think the the whole time down there was well spent. There's a lot of bills that we've been tracking closely, including housing bills and and other bills of concerns. Some are good and some may create problems for DuPont. But I'll save that for another evening.

Councilmember Walton?

I just want to thank everyone for having more study sessions on our agendas. I think they're really valuable. Mister mayor, I look forward to one about the topic we were discussing around our community law enforcement. I think that's gonna be really valuable for our citizens to come in. I appreciate the chief and others meeting with me and a few other council members about that. I love your transparency and your willingness to just be accessible. It's really, really valuable. Speaks highly of you and and of our our law enforcement here in DuPont. So thank you. Look forward to study session there. And then do not forget that next month is Black History Month. And, as part of what we say in DuPont, we are an inclusive environment. So, happy Black History Month coming up in February.

Council member Elliott.

Yep. Just a quick announcement that I'll be in working in Olympia on Friday with the climate commitment act with the committee that I serve on to see that those dollars are flowing more freely to our cities to to help combat climate change and to lower our carbon footprint. And then I also wanna give out a shout out to Chris Fletcher who is leading these walks on Monday morning where and some people are sitting in the audience tonight who go around and they pick up trash in our community, and it makes a huge difference. So thanks to Chris.

Anyone else on the council? Okay. It's time for the city administrative reporter comments. Keith, go ahead.

Thank you, mister Murray. I have nothing this evening, but I'll be happy to answer any

questions. Any

questions for Keith? Seeing none. It's now 07:29.