City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Good evening and welcome to the Federal Way City Council meeting for Tuesday, July 7th. Would you all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Council President Honda, do you have a motion?

Yes, I do. I move to add a new item to be considered immediately titled Ordinance Data Center Moratorium. Second.

It's been a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on that item? We'll add the item and then we'll have the presentation. So do you want to speak to that?

No, we can take a vote.

Okay. So there's been a motion and a second to add that named item to the agenda. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. The item's been added, and we'll take care of that now. Kent? Kent Van Alstyne will present this item.

Good evening, Mayor, Council President, and Council members. Before each night, we have an ordinance regarding a moratorium on siting, creation, or expansion of data centers in the City of Federal White House. So what are data centers? Data centers are facilities that are used primarily for the housing of computer and networking equipment. The equipment handles, stores, processes, manages, and backs up digital data, and it's critical to AI. So there's been quite a bit of recent proliferation of data centers in the United States generally, not just Washington, but across the United States. As people have become increasingly dependent on digital computing and storage capacity, as people query AI on a daily basis, the economic interest in developing data centers has also sharply increased. And as of March this year, there were over 3,000 data centers estimated to be currently operating in the U.S. with an estimated 1,500 either planned or under construction. And by estimates, by the year 2030, the number of data centers in the U.S. will have doubled over the current number. So there are many potential negative impacts of data centers. They can have severe, potentially deleterious effects on both public health as well as the environment. There's several specific things that data centers are known for. The first one is they require extreme amounts of power and or water. And as it pertains to data centers, usually the more power a data center uses, the less water it uses, and the more water it uses, the less power it uses. And that's because of different mechanisms that data centers use to cool the servers that are located inside them. Cooling servers, which put off a lot of heat as they're computing and doing their tasks, is quite an operation for a data center. And you need either a lot of water to cool or you often need a lot of power. And the reason for that is there are different types of cooling mechanisms for data centers. Some of them are open evaporative cooling methods where the water actually evaporates as part of the cooling process. But others, particularly more modern data centers, have essentially self-contained cooling mechanisms where the water internally circulates and doesn't evaporate out into the air. That's definitely much more efficient from a water consumption perspective, but it takes quite a bit of power. They also may create significant emissions due to their size and due to the energy and the operation inside, especially if they're using fossil fuels to generate power for the facilities. They're noisy, or often noisy, and they often produce quite a bit of heat. A recent study from down in Arizona in the Phoenix metro area concluded that a data center created a 1.3 to 4 degree increase in temperature in a residential neighborhood that was a third of a mile away. So there are definitely significant potential impacts to numerous aspects of the environment and also to public health as well. And that's not even mentioning the visual and other aesthetic impacts that come with the size and the extent of the data centers that you can see here. And as is stated in the recitals of the proposed ordinance and as the suggested finding for council, the combined and cumulative impacts of large electrical loads, emissions, and water use associated with newer expanded data centers may exceed available infrastructure capacity and resource supply, require substantial unplanned capital investments, affect environmental quality, impair the city's ability to meet climate and resource management goals, and affect the health and well-being of residents from air pollution, noise, and heat emissions. So let's talk about data centers in the city of Federal Way. So this city's municipal code, the Federal Way revised code, does not contain an explicit definition for data centers. As you're all relatively well aware of at this point, it's a relatively new use. And so when the code was originally put into effect back in the early 90s, data centers were the thing. Federal Way is not unique in this aspect. There are a lot of jurisdictions that do not have a specific definition for data centers. But that creates a bit of a problem for the city. Because, as an initial matter, because they're not a listed permitted use in any zone in the city, the city's position is that they're not permitted anywhere in the city currently, because they're not listed as a permitted use explicitly. However, if someone were to come in with an application to locate a data center, they could argue that the data center is permitted under a more generic category, such as a generic office, commercial, or warehouse type use. And while the city does not believe that data centers fit in any of those more generic definitions in our municipal code, if a hearing examiner or a court disagreed with us on an appeal of such a decision and determined that we had to allow a data center under one of those more generic uses, we'd have almost no code-based ability to regulate the data center because we don't have have a data center with associated regulations that apply to it, such as screening and setbacks and other mitigation for nuisance-type impacts. So let's talk about development moratoria generally. So the proposed moratorium here is on the siting, creation, and expansion of certain land uses. And moratoria like this one are specifically authorized under state law under both the Growth Management Act, which is RCW 3678, as well as provisions that govern code cities in Title 35A RCW. The general purpose of a moratoria is to preserve the status quo, in other words, to keep things the way they are, until city staff and the city generally has completed further and more extensive review of the use and developed regulations to fully account for the use. Moratoria have been recognized by the United States Supreme Court as essential tools for successful development regulation. That's the Tahoe Sierra case from 2002, quite a while ago now. I used to say recent when I talked about that case. So specifically, the proposed moratorium in front of council would, one, declare an emergency. What that enables is it enables for the moratorium to become effective immediately upon passage. Normally, an ordinance passed by city council is effective either five or 30 days after it's been passed by city council and published in the newspaper. With an emergency declaration relative to the data centers in the city, this ordinance would go into effect tonight as soon as you passed it. um as drafted it would apply to data centers with a planned capacity to excess of one megawatt or a data center that exceeds 4 000 square feet of gross floor area the reason for those specific thresholds are that there are some things in the city that would count as data centers such as for instance i.t servers at city hall that we think are appropriate portions of other uses or that already exist in portions of the city it's the large actually the medium to large data centers that this moratorium is focused on. So it would only be something in excess of one megawatt or in excess of 4,000 square feet of gross floor area. The duration of the moratorium would be 12 months, and it would prevent acceptance, processing, and approval of all applications related to data centers by the city, and it would also prevent siting, expansion, or creation of data centers anywhere in the city. In other words, it would apply to every property in the city. The ordinance also directs establishment and performance of a staff work plan for study of the data center use and consideration of potential amendments to code after that study has been performed. And then finally, the proposed moratorium sets a public hearing as required by law within 60 days of this action here tonight. And that public hearing would be scheduled for September 1st of 2026. That's the time for the public to come and comment on the moratorium specifically. And I note that this proposed moratorium is similar to moratoriums that have been recently adopted by both the City of Seattle and Skagit County. The City of Seattle's moratorium exempted much larger facilities than we proposed to exempt. They exempt anything below 20 megawatts. Our thresholds are similar to what Skagit County adopted. They adopted 2 megawatts or more than 2,000 square feet of gross flow area. So I believe I've said most of this, but the timeline here, it starts with tonight when if the ordinance is passed by council. And I should have noted earlier that for the moratorium to be immediately effective, it needs to be passed by council with at least five votes. So it's not a simple majority. It must have five votes in order to be immediately effective. So assuming that is if council decides to adopt the moratorium by that at least five vote threshold tonight, it would be adopted and effective immediately. Um, the next step is that public hearing that we discussed in September, uh, on September 1st at the regular city council meeting. And then essentially over the course of the next 12 months, while the moratorium is in effect, city staff and the, um, few development department, he's, he's department would conduct a work. They would, um, promulgate and then conduct a work plan. They'd study the use and they develop recommendations for data center regulation in the city. And those recommendations could be anything. They could be, let's not permit data centers at all in the city. Or they could be, let's permit certain sizes of data centers. Or it might be that only certain data centers that have more modern cooling systems that are less strenuous on water and or power resources are adopted. There's many possibilities for what staff might recommend to council coming out of that work, but that work will be done over the next 12 months. And then in June and July next year, Council would consider potential long-term actions, i.e. post-moratoria moving on into the future regarding data centers, which might be amending the code, the development code regarding the use. And then after those long-term actions were taken, the moratorium would end on July 6th, I believe, technically, of 2027. The Mayor's recommendation is to adopt the ordinance as presented, and I'm available for any questions. Council President Hynden.

Thank you. By adopting this moratorium tonight and having at least five votes from the council members, it will allow staff to have the time that is needed to complete the work that they've already started on studying data centers it would also discourage anyone from wanting to build a data center in our city and i want to be really clear we have not had any interest or any applications at this point to build a data center here uh three of us spoke with jeff stock the other day and he we asked him if he was interested in building a data center on the wild waste property he said absolutely not However, there's another large piece of property in this city that is Will have three new potentially three new warehouses on it the IRG old warehouser property so we just want to make sure that We're protecting the city and we're doing this the right way by giving staff 12 months and the City Council 12 months to do the study this and I come up with the right answer for the city. Thank you Yes. I move to suspend council rules to allow immediate passage of the proposed ordinance without a second reading. Second.

Second. Second. That's been a motion and a second. Is there anybody that would want to comment on that or any discussion on this? Council Member Moore?

Oh, no. I want to talk to... Oh, very good.

All right. Go ahead.

Oh, Dr. Moore. Yeah. Yeah. So I... I'm pleased to see this moratorium take place. And I think it's incredibly important. I think there's a lot of discussions that have been taking place online within our community. And I know and I've read a lot of concerns about the possibility, could there be data centers? So I think this is a really good move for the city to take place to study this. and to come up with a plan and to place a moratorium on this. So I'm really, really supportive of this. I think it's really, really important as there's a lot of questionable aspects relating to data centers that I'm personally not comfortable with. So I'm glad to see this measure take place here at the Council Dias. Thank you.

A quick point of order. Ryan, do we need to have a motion to suspend the rules separately? Yes. Okay. Actually, there was a motion by the council president on the sole issue of moving to suspend the council rules to allow immediate passage of the proposed ordinance. That received a second, and we were in discussion on that. Is there anybody? I can't see here. Okay. All those in favor of suspending the rules to allow this action to take place? Aye. Opposed? Matter passed unanimously. Now we are on to Council President Honda. Do you have a motion on the main motion?

Yes. I move approval of the proposed ordinance. Second.

It's been a motion and a second to move forward with the 12-month moratorium. Is there any further discussion on this? All right. All those in favor? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Council Member Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank our Council President for bringing this motion and for having the foresight to make this happen. And I strongly encourage my colleagues to go ahead and pass this. This is a timing issue. We need to pass this today and to have it effective immediately today to make sure that we can preserve our ability to make a thoughtful policy decision on data centers. And we've gotten hundreds of emails concerning data centers. And we've read every single one of those emails. I want our community to know that. And there's been concerns shared. about what the impacts are going to be on infrastructure, community character, fiscal impacts, the environmental impacts, the impact to taxpayers. And I share all of those concerns. And I believe that a lot of us do share the same exact concerns as the community. And so that's why we're doing this. And I strongly urge support to go ahead and pass this. And a big thanks to Council President Honda for her foresight in this. Thank you, Mayor.

OK.

There's been a motion, a second, a discussion. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The matter passed unanimously. Thank you. And therefore, with immediate effect. Okay. Now, we're on to proclamations presentations. We've got Disability Pride Month Proclamation for July 2026. Council President Honda and Council Member Sefa Dawson.

Yes, you want to start? Yeah, I just wanted to invite two people as we read the proclamation. One would be Stacia Irons from the Arc of King County, and she's the board president. And then also would like to give this proclamation to our Parks and Recreation Department for the Disability Inclusion Program at the Community Center, the Action Club. So with that, we'll start reading. And then when it's time, you can go up to receive it and say a few words. So thank you so much. Well, I get to start. Whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, was passed by the United States Congress on July 26, 1990 to ensure the civic rights of citizens with disabilities, and...

Whereas the ADA prevents discrimination based on disability, requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations, ensures that public accommodations meet accessibility requirements, and is recognized as one of the most important civil rights laws in history, and...

Whereas disability pride serves as a tool to tackle ableism, bias, and discrimination and reshapes false negative perceptions of individuals with disabilities as people with value, talents, and significance, and Whereas disability

Pride Month acknowledges a range of disabilities including physical disabilities, cognitive and intellectual disabilities, non-visible and undiagnosed disabilities, psychiatric disabilities and sensory disabilities as well as honor those who have died due to negligence, suicide, rebellion, illness and

Whereas the 2026 theme is the world works better with us. Drawing a clear line about inclusion, declaring that people with disabilities are included, respected, and supported in all communities.

Now, therefore, we've undersigned mayor and city council members of the city of Federal Way to hereby proclaim July 2026 is Disability Pride Month. And we encourage all residents to share in the responsibility of creating a community of inclusivity for all people, regardless of their ability level. Sign this seventh day of July 2026. And I would just like to add a little bit. I was injured in May of 1990. walking became extremely difficult in fact I used to crawl in my house to vacuum because it just hurt too much to walk and sometimes I we all see people parking with a disability placard and they get out and they walk just fine we never know what their Reason for having that is and I can tell you I didn't get a disability placard for probably four or five years until my husband finally said to the doctor one day she won't ask she just needs it and For the first four years I renewed it every six months until the people down it the licensing said are you permanently disabled? And I'm like, I think so. And they said, well, you just get a permit for five years so we don't have to keep doing this every six months. And that was really hard for me. So when you see someone who is using a disability parking pass and they don't look disabled, you don't know what their issue is. But just know that if their physician signed for them to have that, they need it. I just felt that I needed to say that. Thank you.

So, Mayor, I'd also like to say that our former municipal court judge, Judge Larson, is the one who started the Action Club at the community center. That's been very, very important for people with disabilities in our community.

And station. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Well, hi, everyone. I wanted to say thank you very much for the proclamation for the Arc of King County. It's very much appreciated. As Lydia mentioned, I'm the board president, and I'm also a past resident of this beautiful city. So I'm very familiar with Federal Way. The Arc of King County is proud to be celebrating our 90th anniversary this year, promoting and protecting the rights of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live lives of their choice in this community. We are one of the few organizations that provide services from prenatal through the end of life care, centering people with disabilities in our work and serve as a touch point for individuals and families throughout King County as they navigate their journey. The arc of King County has been our lifetime line in the community as the beacon of hope and experience for our family. As we navigate this journey with our 28 year old daughter, our supported living program provides individualized needs and supports and residential support for program participants to live self directed lives in the community of their choice. One of our participants, in fact, lives in Federal Way. We provide information and referral services as people navigate educational and medical systems transition and beyond through individual meetings, workshops, and trainings. Our advocacy team works to make sure that programs and policies work for people with IDD, educating and advocating at local, state, and federal levels. The Arc has been working very hard these past 10 years to begin to address the crisis of our time, which is housing for people with disabilities. We partnered with Mercy Housing Northwest and took the first step to provide affordable housing for people with IDD in the community at Connection Angle Lake at the Angle Lake Transit Station in SeaTac. With our office on the ground floor, we finally have a permanent home and are able to serve the South King County a lot better. This project is the first of its kind to merge housing and support care needs of the IDD community in an inclusive transit oriented Location in King County, and it's not only the first of its kind in in the state, but it's pretty much nationwide Which enhances access to other services schools and jobs and provides space for our community to gather and? As part of this, there are 26 units. 26 of the 130 units are set aside for perpetuity for people with disabilities, for families, and for individuals. These units are accessible and affordable to our stakeholders in a safe, welcoming environment. So thank you very much for this proclamation.

Just on behalf of the city's Parks and Recreation Inclusion Program, I am biased, but we have had numerous members of the community and other communities come to this board and recognize how wonderful our inclusion program is. And actually at this weekend's Red, White, and Blues program, I had an opportunity to talk to a fine resident who did nothing but brag about our inclusion program. And so we're grateful for this proclamation.

All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for the work you do. Okay, as our council members make their way over here, we're pleased to have our Deputy Chief Kyle Sumter provide a report in regard to Fourth of July fireworks enforcement. Chief?

Good evening, Council, people of Federal Way. It's my pleasure to represent the Police Department tonight as we talk about this. First of all, good, it's working. Just a quick reminder, soapbox whenever we can, I suppose. Never hurts to keep educating. All fireworks, all personally used fireworks are illegal all the time in Federal Way. It's a very bright line rule, okay? I received about 10 visit requests from neighbors saying, would you please go visit the chronic violating neighbors? We did those visits on July 1st and 2nd. And that number is remaining small. Last year we had about a dozen. That number is remaining small enough that I plan to continue it again next year. And of those contacts that our officers made, the people who answered the door, who had the conversation, they said, yeah, we do, and we'll go lighter this year. So hopefully it's working to some degree. We'll do it again next year. Now, if that number gets unmanageable, we'll have to try something else. There it is again. For anybody who's watching this later, I like to get those email requests the last half of June. I don't want them now, please, because that neighbor could change in the next 11 months or the kid who sets off the fireworks could go somewhere in the next 11 months. We don't know. So next June, I'll entertain those type of requests again and we'll get out there and visit those good people and ask for their compliance. Now for some numbers. This is very early in the numbering season for us. Fourth of July was just a couple of days ago. And so these are preliminary and subject to change. But for now, we had 129 fireworks complaints called into the dispatch center. And that number is from our dispatch center, Valleycom. We counted the numbers this morning, and it looks like it could be 133. But anyway, it's in that ballpark. And I'll just show you by comparison. The peak of that was during the COVID years, and you can see up to 270 on the main summer of COVID. People needed to get out and blow off some steam there, and you can see we're half of that now. Of the week there, we did 12 enforcements. That includes seizure of fireworks and that sort of thing, citations, referrals to juvenile, and so forth. Total calls that day to the police department, total calls for service were 225. That's obviously more than average. Not much more than average, though. Our average calls for service during the month of June was 208. So it's not much more than average. And 201 through the month of May. And then to the fire department. South King Fire reported that they had 50 calls for service in the city limits of Federal Way. That's out of 82 in their entire service area. In the city of Federal Way, of those 50 calls for service, there were no injuries and no fires attributed to fireworks this year. That is surprising. In fact, according to South King Fire, of their 82 calls for service in their entire service area, they had no injuries reported to them from fireworks, and they had two fires attributable to fireworks, one in Des Moines, one in Algona. There is a summary of public safety. Now, that doesn't mean that there were no injuries because this is public safety. I didn't contact the urgent care, the hospital, and so forth and ask what their numbers were because certainly when a child steps on a sparkler, if the burn is bad enough, somebody's going to just load the child up and take them generally on their own. So there are injuries that occur without involving the fire department. There's our presentation.

All right. Council, any questions? Okay.

Council President?

Thank you. Thank you for the report.

Certainly.

Did you give any citations out?

Yes, we did. It was on those 12 enforcements there.

The 12?

Okay. Thank you. Those are $615 each, plus the fireworks that we seize.

All right.

Mayor, I have a question.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, actually. Council Member Sevedason?

Yeah. Do you know how many people showed up for the fireworks or estimate?

How many people showed up at the celebration for our fireworks show?

Any estimate on that from the Parks Department? I don't have good numbers on that. Now, it did appear that it was larger than I had seen in previous years. And it's usually 8 to 10, 12,000?

Yeah. In the 10,000 range is our norm.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Chief. My pleasure. All right. Okay, now we are on to the mayor's emerging issues and report. So we start off that is that was taken the picture of the council members and some of the artists. We had a great kick in at Federal Way World Cup events. You could see there the USA was playing and that's that's a picture. The lower picture is a picture of the crowd watching the USA team play on that Friday. It was absolutely fantastic. Great job to our parks people and the Performing Arts and Events Center and every All the folks that made Kicking It Federal Way a tremendous success. We also have the council there, and that was taken Friday night as well. It was actually just a great event all year round, I mean, all the way around, and I appreciate all the effort that went into that.

Okay, next.

Okay, then we had on June 17th, our King County Councilman, Pete Von Reichbauer, had his annual, or not annual, monthly Good Eggs Breakfast at Emerald Downs. We had the Insurance Commissioner for the state of Washington, Patty Kruderer, give a great presentation about things that are going on. at the state with regard to insurance coverage and different issues. And those folks in the crowd represent the elected officials from South King County that our good council member invites for these meetings. Also, below that, we had on June 18th, the very next day, we had the Juneteenth celebration at City Hall. Council Member Les Sessoms was giving the keynote. He did a great job, council member. Thank you very much for your insightful and inspiring words. And we had a good turnout for that. And it was just a beautiful day and just a great celebration honoring Juneteenth.

Next.

Okay, and then we had on June 23rd to 26th, I believe six members of the city council and myself attended the Association of Washington City's annual conference in Spokane, Washington. It was actually, I did, I was actually one of the presenters at one of the breakout sessions and it was just a really great conference to learn from our fellow cities and their folks. We also were recognizing one of our youth commission chair, Claire Kim, who received an AWC scholarship award. And both myself and Council President Honda introduced her to the luncheon along with two other deserving scholarship recipients that just tremendous accomplishments. And we're so fortunate to have Claire Kim who served our and now is off to Stanford this coming school year, and she's going to do great things. Also, on June 27th, we had the Repair Cafe at South King Tool Library. That's Amanda Miller and myself. And that's one of the really great things that we have in our community. And I always like to go back there, and they've got a couple of really cool people that are helping sort of either stitch things back together or sew things back together or whatever it is. It was really a great event. And Amanda Miller at the Tool Library does a lot in this community.

Next.

On June 27th as well, we had the Federal Amateur Radio Club Field Day. Now, you hear about a radio club and you wouldn't think much of it. Everybody's familiar with Lakota Field. where they have the, you know, right there where they have the track and the baseball fields and the football fields. But the amateur radio club field day is literally part of our emergency network. If the systems went down in this region or in the country You know, it's the individuals on that radio that would be communicating with nearby cities, cities across the country, cities maybe around the world. It's actually, they set up their antennas, and it really is a form of redundancy in case there's a national emergency in which the grid goes down. And we owe them a great deal of thanks for the work that they do. I'd say when Bill and I were there, what do you think, about 25, 30 people? They had Starlink set up. They had a number of other systems. And he was showing me, the individual there was showing me, they were in communication with a location in Utah. And they were talking about how it kind of bounces off our environment. And we're able to talk to people on the other side of the country and sometimes on the other side of the world. And it is very, very helpful to know that we've got that connectivity. And they could set up anywhere. They set up at that location because it's convenient. The school district allowed them to do so. But in the case of something like that, if we set up the emergency operations center, they could do that right here at Federal Way. So there's a lot of things that happen in this community that's sort of behind the curtain. But that is certainly something that's very important for this community. On July 1st, we had the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, and in our stage, I hear from another statewide official. We heard from our former state representative for the 30th District and now state treasurer, Mike Policiotti, at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. And we were joined by Representative Christine Reeves and really got a great briefing for what's happening at the treasurer's office and different things that are happening with bonds and with the budget and the responsibilities of the State Treasurer. It was great to hear from, I was going to say Mike, but our State Treasurer and he gave a great presentation. Also, on the night of June 27th, in Town Square Park, we actually had Zootopia. Actually, I sat right next to Council Member Moore and his kids, and I was able to convince my son to show up. And Zootopia 2 was a great movie, great thanks to the Parks Department, provided free popcorn. And you really do forget, the screen is massive, and... And sometimes you can kind of lose yourself and forget you're in a park. And how many people do you think were there? Actually, what kind of report did you get?

I heard it was in the range of about 250 to 300. Yeah.

A lot of them kids. It was really great. It was really, really just a really nice event. Thank you very much. Please pass on the thanks. Okay, next. Then July 4th. July 4th was a busy day for this community, for the council. We started off at the community center for the 16th annual running of Miles for Mesothelioma. You see our council president, council member Hamilton, council member Kochmar. And just actually, I thought the attendance for this was really high. Diane, the woman who started this, there were three four individuals, was it four originally or three? There are three widows in Federal Way that lost their husbands to mesothelioma. They started this and this annual run and they have raised over a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in our community and there were a lot of people there that were raised, a lot of kids, a lot of family members and And I promised him next year I'm bringing my shoes and I'm getting in. I mean, there's a walking section, right? But anyway, I'm doing it. Hold me to it, you guys. All right, then we had the Northlake Improvement Club Parade. That's over there by Northlake, obviously. This was, I think, the 70th plus. They've been doing this since the 1950s, right off of that main drag in Northlake. special thanks to collision one who allowed me the use of their Corvette it was very cool councilmember Hamilton rode with me and council president Honda was there and and it was just a very great event really one of the one of the great community events that we have in our city and it's always great to see our friends there every fourth of July then We had the big event, the red, white, and blues, the biggest event we do every year. John Hutton, our former parks director, used to ballpark it at about 20,000 people. I can tell you that we ballparked. The event started about 4. Of course, I set up my chairs to look at the fireworks by about 1230. But everybody got all set up. The corn dog people were there, thank God. And it was a long day. And so anyway, I could tell you that it was absolutely fantastic. And by 4.30, the parking lot was filled. And so we, I think we're pretty close. I don't want to, you know, we don't really have any sort of any way to estimate it. But we had quite a lot of people there. And in fact, actually, once it got toward that time, and the temperature dropped like 25 degrees, like pretty quickly. And so tremendous fireworks. And it was just really a lot of fun. You could see the council members join me on stage. And we introduced them. And we also had our Lake Haven commissioner, Juan Juarez Ramos, join us on stage. He just happened to be with, I think he was walking up with you, I think. And he jumped on the stage, and we introduced him as well. And by this time, where the music was going, it was just a great event. OK, next. OK, upcoming community events. We've got the Summer Chalk Art Festival at the Performing Arts and Events Center. That's this coming up July. And do we have a time for that?

I believe it's 10 o'clock.

Okay, time to put my glasses on. 10 a.m., that's always a great event, and come on out. Then, something I'm interested in, pressure washing workshop at South King Tool Library. Again, that's July 11th, and that's from essentially 1 to 2.30, and the focus on that isn't just telling people how to do your pressure washing. It's about If you're going to use chemicals, what to do, how to do it, there are certain real dos and don'ts. But there's got to be an easier way than doing it than the way I normally do it, which is kind of an all-day affair. But if you're into pressure washing, which is a lot of fun, come on down, figure out the right way to do it if you're going to use any chemicals at all. Then we've got the Mending Fair at the Federal Way Library on July 19th, so that's good, and that's from 1 to 5. That's Sunday, July 19th, 1 to 5 for the Mending Fair. Then, more upcoming events. We've got a really special event. I don't know if you guys have ever been to the annual Kiwanis Salmon Bake, but I don't know what John Butcher does to the salmon, but it is absolutely the best salmon you've ever had in your life, and it's nestled right up there along the lake. There's entertainment. Like I said, several of us will be serving. Longstanding Kiwanians are going to be serving as well. And that's actually Councilmember Coachmore and I, several years back, taking a break. And it's really one of the great events in our community, and I encourage you to come on out and enjoy the salmon. Council President, did you have something about that?

It's our 70th anniversary.

Wow.

along with Disneyland.

Exactly.

And Federal Way Jewelers.

That's right.

Anyway, tickets on sale now. $30 before the event. At the event, they're more.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun, you guys. Okay, then we've got a real special group in our community, the Rotary and some people associated with the Rotary. that are doing some very special events. For Memorial Day, they had a very special event right there at 320th. This July 25th, that's a Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Federal Way Rotary will be presenting and honoring our first responders, with our police and firefighters, and that's a great event. I believe there's going to be a meal and a program honoring the folks that show up when we call them in emergency. All right, next. Okay, now we've got the next movie in the park. It's the DC Studios Superman. Very good. July 25th. Now, the time on this. So... It's not going to start any sooner than 9, but right around when it gets dark. I'd say if you want to make sure you're there, first, you've got to get a good seat. Second of all, I'd say you don't want to get there any later than 9, but I'd say it's going to start about 9.15, if I were guessing, and you want to get your popcorn, too. And it's totally free. It's really, at Town Square Park, a lot of fun. Okay, we've got the Federal Way of Pride, 2026 Town Square Park, August 1st. And that starts at 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. And so save the date on that. Then we've got National Night Out. National Night Out, as you know, is one of those great events in our community in which streets, cul-de-sacs, neighbors gather together with each other, police, firefighters, elected officials go and It's a great opportunity for us to get to know our neighbors. In this busy life, as you know, it's really hard sometimes to initiate relationships with your neighbors. We see them. We wave. know just in regard to having a barbecue and sitting down having a good conversation this is a great time it is so important to this council that we literally change the rules at the city council because it's the oh that is always the first Tuesday of of August we moved the we have one meeting in August and we moved our one meeting to the second Tuesday in August uh to facilitate us being able to do that so It's really great. If your neighborhood doesn't have it, shoot us an email. We could help facilitate it. But it's a really fun way to get to see your neighbors. And, of course, I time the locations. We get to about six or seven locations, Bill or Chief. The Chief usually goes with me. It's usually about you've got to make sure some places do really good chicken, other places do really good pretzels. We kind of timed it just right. So anyway, National Night Out. Okay, almost done, you guys. Kids Day at Steel Lake on August 5th. That's at Steel Lake, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. They do little skits, and it's really fun. Then we've got the Community Festival at Town Square Park on August 8th. And then we've got Back to School Haircuts, Town Square Park, August 25th. And I've got to tell you, Kristen at Bella Red and her team and all the neighbors, They give free haircuts to anybody, any kids that will come. And so they line up, and boy, they look so happy and proud when they're all done. So I believe that starts, what is that again? Yeah, usually noon. Yeah, it'll start at Town Square Park about noon on August 25th. All right, and it's ages 5 to 18. So if you're in your 50s, maybe it's not... I'm not sure it's cool. Exactly, I'm not sure it's cool. Exactly. All right, that's my report. A lot going on. Let's see here. All right, now it is time... Oh, now it's time for the Wild Waves Concomitant Agreement Summary by Brian Davis, the city administrator. As we have discussed, we have received... hundreds of comments about what is going on at Wild Waves, what the agreement is, what the status of it is, what can we do. I thought it was really important that Brian Davis, our city administrator, outline what are the parameters here that we're talking about. What is the deal? And what's the current status? And you saw obviously what we did today, which was do a moratorium on data centers. But Brian's here for the rest.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor, Council. Good to see you tonight. Concomitant is a fancy word, and there's various concomitant agreements with specific properties throughout the city, and that is basically a way for the city to zone a specific property that is unique to the rest of the city. When we talk about general zoning, We say, well, this property is residential or this property is commercial. Well, doing a specific zoning agreement, concomitant zoning agreement, is a way to look at a specific piece of property and get a little more detail in as far as what the zoning allows and the provisions that the city can either provide or restrict, depending on what the city wants to do. This map obviously is not intended to be legible, but it's intended to give you a big picture look at the zoning of the city. These small little black dots that you see, all of those are specific zoning agreements or special conditions on the property that relate to the zoning. The one that we're talking about is the Wild Waves one, which is down here. But probably the biggest one that we all know is the former Weyerhaeuser property has a concomitant zoning agreement on it. There's one that we – a specific development agreement that we did for the TC3 property that talks about development phases and things that we agreed to and the things that the developer agreed to. There's also one for the Winco property and also for the Twin Lakes shopping area. There are various ones at least. So the – and a lot of these were written – The history behind them, at least, a lot of them were written at the time that they were incorporated into the city, whether it was the original incorporation of the city or whether when they were subsequently annexed. Again, the former Weyerhaeuser property is one that we're familiar with. The city incorporated in 1990. This property was annexed in 94, and at the time, The city said, we'd like to annex you, and Weyerhaeuser said, that's fine. Here are some things that we would like to see as part of being brought into your zoning overlays that you have in the city that are a little different than what you have written. And so the city worked with Weyerhaeuser on some specific agreements or conditions for that zoning. Same thing with the Wildways property. Oops, wrong one. So originally, the agreement that we have in place was written in 1998. It's had several revisions to it, most recently three years ago, when we added hotel and warehousing and distributing to the allowed uses within that zoning. The existing permitted uses at the time also included regional recreation center, which is obvious to the property, but also restaurants, retail establishments, and a caretaker residence. What you notice that is absent from this list is data center. And we've had a lot of concerns about if the property could be turned into a data center. This, either what we had existing prior to 2023 or the subsequent amendment, neither of those account for allowing data centers. So it would not be allowed on the property. That aside, the action that you just took on the moratorium would not allow an application to come in and say otherwise. So they wouldn't even be able to entertain an application for this property or any other property throughout the city that would relate to a data center application. Also part of the 2023 amendment, the agreement was extended 30 years to 2053 because it was about to expire. customer have to mention that we and and their mention that we had received a lot of emails and if i could don't want to generalize too much but the central theme around the the emails are we don't want wild waves to go away which I think we would all love wild waves to stay it is private property however and that's not our decision and so they said if there is some other use other than wild waves we're concerned about how it's going to affect the surrounding area roads noise facilities costs to the city, the impacts to neighbors and the region as a result of what gets developed there. Specific to the agreement, and this is also incorporated in the Growth Management Act and in the SEPA process that we have in the city, and any city in the state for that matter, is there is a specific review for the impacts of a development and what it may result in related to those things that I mentioned, and many others. So traffic... Facilities impacts, there's even historical, cultural impact considerations that are considered as part of SEPA. So there's a number of things that we look into. And all of that is designed to make sure, to the point of the emails that we received, is to ensure that the impacts that happen from this development are either negligent, or if they are significant, that there is some mitigation involved. so that the net effect is effectively accounted for. And that's about it for the specific problem.

I take it you meant negligible.

What did I say? Negligent? Yeah.

Negligible.

Yes.

Okay.

We are not negligent.

Exactly. What you said. Okay. All right. Councilperson Honda?

Thank you. So the agreement that we have is a legal agreement with Mr. Stock. And can you explain what happened in the city of Cle Elum when their new council decided not to follow the concomitant agreement they had with the developer there?

So generally speaking, what I'm familiar with is that there was a development proposal that they received. They took a very, very long time to process the application. and again without getting into too much details they dragged it on so long that the The financial impacts to the developer were so obvious to a court that the court ruled against the city for I Don't remember the amount but it's tens of millions of dollars and it bankrupted the city And so I think to your question should we violate the concomitant agreement? No, because we would be bankrupt if we did That was where I was going thank you

All right. Council, any other questions for Brian?

Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Okay. Now we are on to Council Committee and Regional Committee reports. Council Member Walsh for Land Use and Transportation.

Hello. Last evening, the Land Use and Transportation Committee met. We had a number of items. Four items will go on to the consent agenda for our meeting in two weeks, and two other ordinances will go on to first reading in two weeks. And our next Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting will be held August 3rd, right here.

Great. That is my report. All right, thank you. Council Member Sessoms for Parks, Recreation, Human Services, and Public Safety Committee.

Thank you, Mayor. The committee last met on Tuesday, June 9th, with all members in attendance, and we will reconvene next Tuesday, July 14th, 5 p.m. All are welcome. Tonight we'll be addressing the following items, items A and also item A on both the public hearing agenda and the council business agenda agenda. We'll also have our second reading and an enactment of the Massage Business Ordinance. Next meeting will be next week, like I said, July 12th. I'm sorry, July 12th, 5 p.m. here in the Council. That concludes my report.

All right. Thank you very much. Council Member Kochmaren, Finance, Economic Development, and Regional Affairs Committee.

Thank you, Mayor. Most of the items on our consent agenda have already been through our Finance, Economic Development, and Regional Affairs Committee. Our next meeting will be July 28th at 5 p.m. in City Hall.

All right. Thank you very much. Council Member Suffer-Dawson for the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee and the Public Issues Committee with the Sound Cities Association.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. LTAC meeting for the 14th of July has been canceled, and our next meeting is August the 14th. I'm sorry, August the 11th at 2 o'clock. And with Sound Cities, we have a meeting tomorrow night in Kirkland in person. Yeah, so there isn't much to report on. Okay, great.

Thank you very much. Okay, now with Council President Report. Council President Hynden.

Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about the Association of Washington City's conference that most of us attended last week or the week before. There were several sessions. We're all going to have the ability at our next council meeting to talk about whatever you'd like to talk about at the conference. But I just want to highlight that we had the amazing opportunity to honor Claire Kim. this was the first year that as a city we participated in the scholarship contest and we had a number of very very amazing student supply and claire was chosen to represent the city and she was one of four students throughout the state that was chosen to get a scholarship from association of washington cities Her whole family came to Spokane. It was awesome. She got up on stage and talked. She was an amazing speaker. She did just a wonderful job. She's a graduate of Decatur, and she's going to Stanford. So we're very proud of her. And if you're a senior and you're on our youth commission, we will be doing this scholarship next year, too. July 2nd, which I believe was Thursday, I attended an event sponsored by Comcast. really fun evening they had families from El Centro del Raza come and we started out at the Xfinity retail store and they had games they had pizza the kids all got goodie bags from Comcast and then we went to the movie theater to watch the movie minions and monsters and I don't generally watch movies but I It was fun. I'm glad we went. This was one of a handful of Xfinity retail stores nationwide that got to hold this event. And Comcast has done really amazing things for our youth, not just in the federal way, but in our region. Recently, they invested $350,000 to establish a new lift zone computer lab at El Centro del Raza in the Federal Way location. And it provides free high-speed Wi-Fi, digital skills training, and technology resources for the family. So I just want to thank Comcast for hosting. It was a bus full of family members because they came on a bus and then They they were taken to the theater. We had the whole theater to ourselves It wasn't it what it was a really cute movie if you Mayor you should go see it. You would like it All right, if I liked it and I don't really watch movies you would love it. It was very very cute and This is very exciting. The farmers market is open from 9 to 2 now not 9 to 1 30 and We have had senior vouchers so that if you're 65 and older, you can get a $10 voucher, and it can be spent that day on vegetables and fruit. And we had 56 vouchers, and I'm there handing them out, volunteering to hand them out, and we were going through those 56 vouchers in 10, 15 minutes. which was very sad to turn away seniors who are there. They're lining up at 8.30 in the morning. So I spoke with the mayor. I kind of said, we got it. Could I have 20 more? And instead of 20, he gave 100. Well, we have a total of 100 now. So thank you very much. And the first Saturday that we had 100, they were gone about, it was about an hour. You know, we thought that they might last most of the day for those seniors coming in the afternoon, but no, they were gone. So the seniors are very excited. And thank you very much. We also have a $5 voucher for children, and they can get an apple or fruit or vegetable also. They just have to sign their name. We don't ask for any ID. All we ask is that you sign your name and that you indicate you're 65 or older. And we don't share your age with anybody. But anyway, that's at the farmer's market, and we hope to see you all there Saturday. Thank you.

Very good. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, now the most important part of the meeting to hear from the folks that we work for, you, and also the folks that will be testifying via Zoom or providing public comment. I'll name off a few items and a few individuals, and if you could queue toward the back there, and then we can proceed efficiently. We've got Tom Bristol. Brian Dixon, Ania Rocco, Gerald Verbitsky, Allison Fine, Jeffrey Tancredi, Jen Chan, Robin Blake, Trevon Parrish. Then why don't we stop there, and then when we get after Mr. Parrish, then we'll go from there. All right. And, Tom, I understand that you're speaking here on behalf of the Arts Commission?

That's correct.

Okay. So we should give him a full five minutes, please.

Tom, the floor is yours. Great. Thank you, Mayor Farrell, Council President Honda, members of city council and city staff. I'm here tonight to submit comments on behalf of the Federal Way Arts Commission regarding item 8A in tonight's agenda for amendments to Ordinance 26-1047, the Art in Public Places Program. Thank you to the members of city staff at the Parks and Recreation Department and the clerk's office. They fielded a number of emails and questions to assist with a special meeting this afternoon, despite an incredibly full holiday weekend. Because of this, the Arts Commission was able to have an open discussion and debate this afternoon on the current amendments to this ordinance. It's been the topic of several past meetings since I began on the commission last year. Currently, there is mixed approval and disapproval from the Arts Commission for the amendments. While many of us attended the Fed RAC committee meetings and provided public comment, there's since been additional input, questions, and feedback for your consideration. These considerations have been emailed to the council, so they're on the record for you to review. Here's the six items we'd like to share. Number one, the commission fully supports the $350,000 threshold for qualifying projects. We feel this is a good faith gesture from city council. It seems clear it will save a great deal of administrative and staff time to filter out projects below that threshold. Number two, we'd like to request consistency in the language, no less than 2% for the arts fund in each instance of the ordinance. Number three, we completely understand that maintenance and repair projects are not included. However, we would like to request that qualifying renovation or remodeling projects that are over $350,000 be included along with net new capital improvement projects. Number four, the commission is currently split on terms of the project art selection teams. All commissioners agree with there being at least two of us as part of a project selection team or defaulting to the commission if no selection team is established. However, some questions still remain. Should the selection teams be limited to Federal Way residents or taxpayers only? Should city maintenance employees be included or not? Should city staff be included as technical advisors or not? Number five, will there be a specific arts and public places fund or accounting category that the commission can follow in the city's budget? This is already written into the current ordinance 94217. There seems to be unclear or mixed opinions on this from commissioners and city staff, and so we just would like to clear that up. And finally, number six, the commission would like to be better informed by city staff of any forecasted or intended improvement projects, opportunities in the future in order to better anticipate commission involvement. Based on today's conversations, commitments have been made to this effect. We intend to have two annual check-ins on this forecast and add to our work plan for 2027. All that aside, we really appreciate each of you hearing these recommendations. Thank you again to Jason Gerwin and Ryan Call for the time and effort here to make things easier for everyone involved. I'm happy to answer any questions, thank you.

All right, thank you very much. Okay, Brian Dixon.

How y'all doing? Brian Dixon, that's my name. With all due respect, as an American taxpayer, it seems like I try to reach out for assistance as far as myself, and they give me information as far as 211, United Way. And another, St. Vincent of Paula, it seems like a lot of those diversions, and I've been to a few of the meetings here, And it seems like all y'all talk about is budgeting for the roads and the housing. Y'all just happen to pull out budgets for everything else but for helping the people, and we pay taxes. You got the governor. He can do anything he wants with taxpayers' money. You got the police. Sometimes we're not here to be protected by the police. They can do anything they want. that goes and that's for like some police they sit in front of walmart in different places and burn gas which gas prices is expensive it's like it's like the whole system is not made for human made for human society you know what i'm saying like i just wish y'all like do better for the people by the people. Y'all say something about the American flag. All of us should be treated equally. Like it shouldn't matter how nobody credit is or nothing. Y'all say we are the people. I wonder where y'all get that from because y'all don't care nothing about the people. As long as y'all get y'all budgets and y'all can ride around in y'all government cars They can burn the... Because they got the cat cards where the police can fill up their gas and everything. You know what I'm saying? It's like... Y'all get all kind of security, the highway patrol. It's like, and then the kids, and you got the elderly people. I've been raised down south by my grandparents. And it's like, nothing has changed. First of all, I don't stand for nothing what the government do at all. Like, it's ridiculous. It's like a big hamster wheel. Y'all just want us to pay taxes, work, pay taxes and work. As far as the kids... The whole system is designed for us to be in the system and work. And that's ridiculous. And y'all, everybody that sit up on all the city councils that I've been to, y'all just do nothing for the people. And I would appreciate if y'all had the dignity, the courage, the integrity to just stand up and help the people. I don't know what it is that y'all doing behind the scenes. Secretary don't want to help nobody. Nobody don't want to help. I just appreciate if y'all just help the American people. That's it. And give people more than three minutes to talk, to speak, unlike y'all let people talk about budgets and doing this and doing that. It's like y'all have no respect for the people. I know places like Black Rock, Vanguard, State Street, and stuff like that is running it, but Just have a little more respect and dignity, and don't teach our kids to do the same thing, go through the system like that, because the system is broken. Brian, Brian, we have three minutes. Thank you very much. It's fine. I know, Brian, and that's it. I appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. Just do better by the people, that's it. Yes, sir. Erunia Rocco.

Mayor Farrell, thank you, and to all the council members, thank you. I actually had two things, I'll try to make it really quick. The first one, Mr. Davis and the gentleman before you so articulately made my point for one of the discussions that I had regarding the AI and wild waves. And so I sat here thinking, oh, I've got to shift my presentation. I want to thank you all, first of all, for reading all that's been posted on Facebook. I am so grateful for that. So real quick, I came up with an idea. I don't know if it might work, but you present so well at the PAC. And I was wondering, have Federal Way community be a part of maybe kind of ideas of what we could do with wild waves, maybe like a contest or something? That way you embrace the community to be a part of this decision. I was thinking something like that maybe. I know the community. I read the Facebook. They really want to be a part of this decision of what's going to go there. So that was one of my ideas. And the second one, real quick, I live right off of 320th. And I walk my dog every day, my two dogs every day. There's a shelter, a bus shelter. And there are multiple homeless people that are using that shelter now for literally shelter. They're doing cooking. They are doing drugs right out in the open. I contacted King County Metro today. They navigated me to how to address that. But I asked them about the shelter, if there's a way that maybe the shelters can either be removed and just have a stop sign. And they suggested that I speak with you. is unsafe there's there's been time where they've been cooking they have their mattresses there they are loitering it's open drug use pretty serious drug use and I do not a lot of us I don't see any more people wanting to use the bus so if there's maybe something that And I want to thank the Federal Way Police Department. I did call one time, and they responded immediately. So I want to thank wherever the gentleman was for coming right away. So it is unsafe, and it's getting worse, actually. So anyway, that's it for me.

Thank you. The police commander in the back of the room will get your – we want to find out what the cross street is on that bus shelter. All right, very good. Thank you very much. Okay, Gerald Verbitsky.

Mayor, President, City Council, I just want to say I'm proud of Federal Way, the way you brought the community together for the Kick It event and especially the Celebration Park Red White Blues Festival. That was excellent. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Gerald. Allison Fine.

Hey, friends. Lots of things to talk about. I was going to make sure that you were all invited to Federal Way Pride. Thank you for including that in the upcoming events. I expect to see you all there. I do want to say two weeks ago, the flag policy, you know, I don't think it came in here perfectly from the Parks and Rec Commission at all. I don't think that just including two flags is appropriate. I think there's a long discussion and amendments made to sort of be as inclusive as possible. And it is incredibly disappointing how exclusive some of the council members continue to be from this dais. I'm also concerned that there's a economic development director that is set to be appointed that has been problematic both in this city and in other cities recently. And I would urge you to hesitate before you make this appointment tonight and potentially look at other options and maybe widen the scope of people to potentially interview. But the flip side of that is I will say I anticipate that we have a new parks director, and I'm very excited about that. because the inclusion program is the best program that this study offers. I will also say I do think that 4th of July is the best of Federal Way. I think that coming together and the level of diversity and the fun And the excitement of that day is amazing, and it's one of the things that makes me very proud about being part of the city. However, there was a situation. I was there, I was representing a booth, a political party booth, and I went to go take a picture of the back of our booth, and there was taped to it a sign that said, Irish need not apply to fly a flag in federal way. And the last time we saw that sign was when someone here, a citizen here, from this particular podium held that up at the end of their council comments, or their citizen comments, two weeks ago. And that person was also on a city commission. That person also has bullied people at the meeting last week. Two weeks ago, they bullied someone who was self-selecting to leave in a very condescending way that you can hear on tape. And I just think that we need to investigate what happened and why that sign was put onto a political booth that had nothing to do with that person, how that ended up there. Do we think that that person is representative of our community anymore and whether they deserve to be on a commission? I hope you have a good night.

All right. Thanks, Allison. Jeffrey Tancredi.

Good evening, Mayor, Council President, and Council, Jeff Chancretti, Federal Way resident. About three years ago, a man came in to this chamber and he spoke at public comment. I was standing in the back there, against that wall, that window. And he came up here and he said, I'm trying to help young kids find their father. That man was Evan Cook. I don't know his politics. I don't care. It's not important. What's important is that he came in here and he said, I'm trying to help young kids find their father. So we had some folks on the council respectfully, respectfully been so focused on some flags. We got three flags. I don't want to make a point about that. We have three flags flying. Could I ask you to change your focus a little bit? Some of you were demonizing federal law enforcement. Some of you were obsessed with additional flags. I recommend you contact Evan Cook. Again, I don't know his politics, but he's a good man. He's a mentor. He's a coach. He's a father. And if you read his LinkedIn page, he's completely immersed in the community for the youth. How many kids in Federal Way don't have a relationship with their father? I wonder, I don't know. I can tell you my father, without my father in my life, I don't know where the hell I would be. That was a powerful statement. I stood back there, that was about three years ago. Now I met Evan Cook about four years ago because when Erica Norton got elected to the city council, And I'm proud that I doorbelled for her. She arranged a meeting at the community center and at the, there was another location where she had meetings. And she's trying to bring groups together. Stand Up Federal Way, the Black Collective. She's trying to bridge the gap. That's how I met Evan Cook. But that was very powerful. It spoke to me, and I told him months later at the Performing Arts and Events Center, I said that was a powerful thing. So Evan Cook is a good man because he was trying to help young kids find their father. So maybe a couple of you on the council that have been so focused on other things, why don't you reach out to Evan Cook and ask him, hey, how can I help you with these young kids to link up so they can meet their father? Tonight, I salute Evan Cook. God bless America.

Thank you, Jeffrey. Evan Cook is now the head football coach at Decatur High School, so doing great things in this community. All right, Jen Chan.

Good evening, Mayor, Council President, Council Members. Thank you again for adding Section 12.65120, Limited Exemption for Massage Businesses, and for making related changes to Section 12.65070, Internal Warning Systems, 12.65100 in regards to cash transactions, and 12.65110 in regards to locked doors. I respectfully request that the exemption process be available before the ordinance's effective date. This includes educating the massage community about the process and making the application available in advance, rather than waiting for one to two months after the ordinance takes effect for the process to be finalized. Businesses deserve a fair chance to understand the rules and comply from the beginning. As you may know, I've been a massage therapist for almost 19 years. During that time, I've repeatedly received inappropriate requests from individuals I would describe as hobbyists, trolls, or johns, asking for more than professional massage. I consider those requests sexual solicitations directed at me. After so many years of this, I can often tell whether someone is legitimate simply by the way they first contact me and the words they choose. That is a burden no therapist should have to carry just to feel safe doing their job. When I joined a Federal Way referral business group, my marketing team added a website feature that allowed people to text me questions directly. Instead of generating requests, I would often receive daily messages from strangers asking for more than a massage, sometimes as many as five in a single day. It was exhausting, violating, and deeply discouraging. Because of that experience, I developed a careful screening process to protect myself and to vet potential clients before agreeing to see them. It is not perfect. My last John was six years ago when I went into his house. I take my profession seriously. I care about client safety, my own safety, and the integrity of licensed massage therapy. I also understand that asking for more than a massage may raise legal concerns. From my perspective of many in the massage community, however, enforcement has been inconsistent and too often invisible. If the city wants to address illegal massage businesses, it must also address the people who seek out illicit services. One cannot exist without the other. I am also asking for clear education on how to respond to different situations, both for safety and for potential future prosecution when appropriate. For years, many of us raised these concerns and felt ignored. That silence has real consequences. It leaves legitimate professionals isolated, vulnerable, and forced to handle situations that should not be ours to carry alone. A side note, recently the CDC tracked suicide rates for 492 occupations. Among women, licensed massage therapists are one of the top five groups for suicide. The suicide rate for female licensed massage therapists in the US is three times the national average suicide rate for females. Again, I'm asking for clear education on how to respond to different situations, both for the safety of the future and for a potential future prosecution when appropriate. Thank you for your consideration and for taking the concerns of massage professionals seriously.

Thank you. Robin Blake.

Good evening, council members and mayor. My name is Robin Blake and I serve as the government relations director for the Washington State Massage Therapy Association. To begin, I would like to express WSMTA's appreciation for the council's decision to include a limited exemption process in the massage business ordinance. We recognize the time and effort that has gone into this process and appreciate your willingness to consider the concerns raised by the massage therapy profession. WSMTA supports the city's commitment to eliminating illicit businesses that falsely present themselves as massage therapy businesses. These illegal operations contribute to serious criminal activity within the community. As the ordinance is implemented, we encourage the city to place a strong emphasis on educating licensed massage therapists and business owners about the new requirements and the exemption process. Many licensed massage therapists may be unfamiliar with the ordinance or how to begin the exemption process. WSMTA would be pleased to assist the City by sharing official information materials or directing licensed massage therapists to City resources that explain the ordinance and exemption application process. We also respectfully ask that enforcement not begin until the exemption application process has been fully established and is available to massage businesses. We'd also like to bring attention to an issue that many licensed massage therapists in Federal Way are already encountering, as Jen just described. Many licensed massage therapists who work in your community experience what we refer to as trolling. Individuals contacting licensed massage therapists seeking sexual services. To be frank, this happens all the time everywhere, not just here in Federal Way. These encounters are upsetting, disruptive, sometimes dangerous, and can leave therapists feeling vulnerable while simply trying to operate their healthcare practice. Based on what has occurred in other communities following enforcement actions, WSMTA expects these incidents will become more frequent as illicit businesses close and those looking or seeking sexual services begin contacting licensed massage therapists looking for a new outlet for their sex need. Because of this, we encourage the city and the Federal Way Police Department to establish a clear reporting and assistance process for licensed massage therapists. Having a designated point of contact guidance on when incidents should be reported and resources to help therapists respond to harassment or safety concerns would provide valuable support. Thank you for your time, for listening to the concerns in the massage therapy profession throughout the process, and for your continued commitment to addressing illicit massage business in a federal way. We sincerely wish everyone involved in these enforcement activities success and above all safety. Thank you. Thank you.

Trevon Parrish. It's Trevion, sorry, Trevion Parish.

Yeah, you could just call me Trey. Hello, my name is Trevion Parish, or just Trey for short. I live right on the boundary between Tacoma and Federal Way, and I was just wondering if whether or not, like, the City of Federal Way, in order to learn more about the processes, the departments, and just what the City of Federal Way does, if it could... potentially people in this room or maybe council can point me towards resources about the different departments and just generally how more youth can get involved in the politics of the city of Federal Way. I don't mean to be that one person in the room or anything like that, but I feel like politics is very hard to just have general access to, to learn more about what cities do, what counties do and what the city can do, especially for young people and the people just trying to just make it. Now, I don't have enough money for college to go to the fancy public Evans School of Public Policy, and so this is my next best thing I've testified. in Olympia, in Tacoma, Seattle, and like just major cities across the Puget Sound. And I'm a field organizer. I've worked in government and I was a political consultant. And, you know, I'm just trying to bring my scope down more to like, you know, just municipalities and just seeing what council members do, like say in the city of Federal Way, what departments do. and stuff like that. Because again, the accessibility and the pathways to just learning more about the City of Federal Way is very, very tough. And one of the other things that I wanted to just say is that it would be amazing to see more collaboration between the City of Federal Way and Tacoma, as there's a big population of people that live in Tacoma that go into the City of Federal Way, whether that's for work, family, and or education, and or just general hanging out in Federal Way since they have really cool parks and stuff like that and better transportation. But yeah, that's really it for my public comment. It's just wanting to have more avenues for you to be involved in the city of Federal Way. and to spark more conversations among youth, especially surrounding like affordability. I feel like I'm the only person in this room that doesn't have a mortgage and I'm not really close to ever getting a mortgage, you know, with how the economy is, with how affordability is, with the rent prices and stuff like that. And so just wanting to see federal way, like start like more robust conversations surrounding like the future of the people who will be taking your seats, who will be working in these departments, and who will be, you know, the future residents of the city of Federal Way. And so, yeah, just thank you guys so much for your time. And I'll be here, like, probably until, like, everyone leaves.

And so thank you guys so much. Trev, thank you very much for being here. In fact, actually, the person right behind you there, Bill Vadino, he helps us out with public outreach and public issues. And so I'm going to ask him to talk with you and different ways to plug in and get involved.

Thank you so much.

Right. Thank you very much. Okay. Now we've got the next group. Is it Shamort or Shamart? What's that? Okay, Shamant. We've got Samart Andrews, then Sarah Lee on Zoom, Mary Beth Burney on Zoom, Warren Jameson, who's present, Lana Bostic, Paul McDaniel, Dr. Janice Clark, Nathan Orth, and to conclude this, we've got Harold Booker. With that, Shamant.

Yes. Hello, Mayor, Council President, Council Members. My name is Shamont Andrews, and I've been a crisis responder for 10 years. I've been aware of some challenges within the city in regards to policing within Federal Way ever since I heard about the Malik Williams killing in 2020. Malik Williams was paraplegic. And he actually died outside of my uncle's apartment complex. Now, I recently was door knocking. I'm not a resident of Federal Way. I'm a resident of Kent. But I was door knocking in the area where my uncle lives, asking community members if they knew how to contact 988, which is the mental health crisis line. And they didn't know anything about how to utilize 988. They didn't even have a definition of how to define what mental health crisis looked like. A couple weeks ago, as the public knows, Curtis Mann was shot after calling 911 stating that he was experiencing a severe mental health issue. He noted that he was present with a firearm. Based on the response of FPD, they've removed the grandmother, although the grandmother advocated stating that my grandson is ill right now. I don't know the facts behind the incident. I don't know the facts in regards to what the less lethal force or the intervention that was provided besides shooting this young man. But they're... tends to be a lack of trauma informed approach along with the lack of skills and motivational interviewing because suicide by cop is real. Within this area, sound mental health outreaches when there is a mental health crisis, but they also have the discretion to request police assistance when they know that there is potential violence that they can be exposed by community members. My main concern is that this incident is going to be swept under the rug. Now when I drive within the community, I don't see any advertisement around how to utilize 988. I don't see that there's any billboards. I don't see any form of marketing towards the public of how to utilize 988. And so there's a concern that mental health is not taken into factor for black men in this community. There seems to be a further issue with the current chief of police under his leadership because there seems to be a yearly publication that hits national news where where members of the community are used with lethal force. So my time is up, but I would like to be involved with the community in regards to helping further educate the public how to utilize 988. I would also like to do a patrol with a police officer and ask questions with the chief of police to know what kind of training is being provided in these incidents. Thank you, sir.

Okay, thank you. We'll address all the comments after. Okay, Sarah Lee on Zoom. Sarah, can you hear us?

Yes, can you hear me?

We can. You've got three minutes.

All right. So I'm Sarah. I'm a homeowner in Federal Way. First, I love the number of farmers market vouchers being increased. Well done. I also support the moratorium on data centers in Federal Way. Thank you for bringing up this important topic. I hope you'll eventually make it permanent. And while Wild Waves currently has no intention to become a data center, I still don't think it becoming a warehouse is good for the community at all. I also hope you will consider a moratorium on allowing ICE to stage operations on or lease property from the city. They're still ramping up their activities in South King County, and we need to make sure that we're not giving them free reign to terrorize the Federal Way community. People of color all over the city are anxious and afraid because they never know if they'll be profiled. Please do all you can to make sure that their concerns and needs are met. Moving on, I'd like to know the future use plans for any leftover KIKINET infrastructure, like the field platform, and also the profit made from KIKINET versus the investment in the event. I'd also like to know what happened with the Ukrainian flag appearing in an image posted to the official mayoral Facebook page during an official meeting in the office. The image was removed when it was pointed out that it was in violation of the city's flag policy. To be clear, I'm fine with that flag being there, and I wish that the city had much more leeway to make exceptions like that to the current policy. But that isn't what the council decided to do. This is another example of why the policy is lacking. But also, I expect the city to abide by the ordinance, even when it makes it look foolish in front of our visiting friends and allies. If that bothers you, you can still fix that policy. Finally, I've heard some very disturbing accounts about our new potential economic development director's tenure as the economic strategist for CTAC, Federal Way, and most recently Tacoma. I'd like to know what due diligence was done to find out why she was dismissed from her previous positions and what return her previous programs and funding allocations received in each city. And most importantly to me, her approach to immigrant businesses and their value to our community. The February 12th, 2019 Seattle Weekly Report entitled Somali Community Faces Sea-Tac Displacement would be a good place to start if you haven't read it. One of our city's strongest draws is our Korean food and our diverse food and shopping experiences. Those need to be developed, not squashed, so I'm not convinced she is the right person for the job in a federal way. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Mary Beth Burney. Oh, by the way, the Ukrainian flag, we were in a conference call with our sister city on the other side of the world. We hadn't contemplated that the flags in the sister city conference room ran afoul of the policy. We were in the middle of the Zoom hearing with the mayor of Rivney on the other side of the world, and we brought that flag over. It was pointed out on Facebook, and we immediately took down all other sister city flags in the mayor's conference room. So that's what happened. It was an oversight, but thanks for pointing it out. It won't happen again. Mary Beth Burney, Zoom.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mary Beth Burney with the Washington State Massage Therapy Association. While WSMTA appreciates the exemption to certain sections of the proposed massage ordinance, that exemption is meaningless unless an LMT can get the exemption prior to the effective date of the ordinance. WSMTA respectfully requests that the ordinance's effective date not incur until the exemption application and approval process is established and operational. Businesses should have a meaningful opportunity to understand the ordinance, determine whether they qualify for an exemption, submit applications, receive an inspection, and receive their exemption before enforcement begins. Implementing the ordinance before the exemption process is available and operational could create unnecessary confusion and place lawful businesses in an uncertain position. As I mentioned in my June council meeting comments and as WSMTA reiterated in a memo to the council yesterday, Most legitimate massage therapists are members of a professional association. These associations have codes of conduct that members agree to uphold. Those codes require us to follow all laws and regulations that we are subject to where we practice. Putting this ordinance into effect without meaningful opportunities for massage therapists to receive an exemption could result in those LMTs finding themselves in a difficult situation. Do I follow the regulations or do I keep myself, my clients, and my business safe? Knowingly not following the regulations without an exemption in place could mean losing association membership, losing professional liability insurance, or possibly losing our license to practice. I know that you keep repeating that you are not going to target LMTs, but we still have a professional and legal responsibility to follow all laws and ordinances, so repeatedly saying we are not targeting you is nonsensical and demeaning. WSMTA would also like to raise an issue that is already affecting licensed massage therapists in a federal way, as Jennifer Chan just spoke to, an issue that is likely to get worse as you close sexually-oriented businesses posing as massage businesses. Currently, many lawful LMTs are already experiencing substantial levels of trolling. Individuals seeking sexual services are contacting or approaching legitimate massage therapists to solicit prostitution-related services. This behavior is disruptive, distressing, and at times threatening to health care providers who are simply attempting to lawfully operate their business. In talking recently with another city's assistant city attorney, she had many ideas about how to go after these Johns hobbyists, these men who are trolling LMTs. Perhaps the city of Federal Way could consider creating a way for massage therapists to receive education and support on what to do and how to report trolling activities. A CLEAR PROCESS FOR REPORTING THESE TROLLING ACTIVITIES MIGHT ALSO HAVE THE HAPPY SIDE EFFECT OF DRIVING SOME OF THESE SEXUALLY ORIENTED BUSINESSES CUSTOMERS OUT OF FEDERAL WAY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND EFFORT IN THIS SITUATION.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT.

Good evening. I'm here tonight to ask this council for oversight and the council's help. Recently I attempted to report a clear-cut theft to the Federal Way Police Department only to find a culture of prejudice in the Cultural Way Police. I have a diagnosis of PTSD. Because of that diagnosis, my credibility was dismissed out of hand by the Federal Police on multiple occasions. This was not the first time. Under Washington state law, I have the presumption of competence. And for the police to presume I'm incompetent and unable to be a witness is demeaning and degrading. Using mental health diagnosis as an automatic excuse to throw out a valid complaint to the federal aid police is violating the spirit of the state's mandate, requiring that we be presumed competent. This denies citizenship equal protection under the law. Seeking accountability, I called the mayor's office to request oversight. I was told there was a conflict of interest. I was put on hold when I asked for an explanation of this conflict of interest. I've been waiting for six days now for a response. I've called multiple times. I don't see a conflict of interest in this case. I don't see how there could be one. This is a national bank. The city does not do business with national banks, only with state banks. More importantly, I would ask that you address there is a systemic issue with the Federal Way of Police and prejudice against people with mental illness. We are not a monolith. Some people have emotional issues. Some people have physical issues. Some people have cognitive issues. We can't all be treated the same. As an individual, I would like to invite any individual council member who wishes to hear more about my case, I'd be happy to set up a meeting and explain the details of my case. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Lana Bostic.

Hello, Mayor and City Council. My name is Lana Bostic and I've been in Federal Way for a long time. I had a lot of things to say, so I made a list. First of all, I want to thank you for passing the moratorium on the data center. I think that's very important. I'm glad it was brought up so quickly. and passed so easily. My feelings about wild waves is that I'm sad that it's going away, and I hope that it will not turn into something besides a big warehouse. But as my granddaughter said to me over the weekend, she was very upset about wild waves because people will want to go to wild waves, and who wants to go to a warehouse? So, you know... 11-year-olds sometimes have a lot of wisdom. The next thing is I'm curious about what's going on at the Red Lion. I know that last, I think it was last month when they gave an update that was thought that it would open October of 2026. And I think Susan did a good job of saying you were going to try to hold their feet to the fire about this. I haven't heard anything more about it. I just wondered if we could get an update maybe every month or so about what is going on with that, because we really need that to open. I mean, the woman who spoke about the people living in the bus shelter, I know that's right by where I live, too. And it's like, where else are they going to live? We don't provide any buildings, any emergency housing for people to live in. So they kind of live in wherever they can. So hopefully that's going well. Fireworks, I think the call rate might be lower because a lot of people won't call because they know this is just what happens in Federal Way and nobody's going to do anything. So why call? That's how I felt. It was terrible. Then the last thing is I found a document called the Federal Way Violence Prevention Coalition Steering Committee that was started in 2016. And it has some, do you guys remember this? So you all weren't, all of you weren't on the council then. But anyway, they, the Violence Prevention Coalition Committee did several recommendations to bring down violence for violence prevention. They were to have bystander awareness training, restorative justice, safe gun storage, mentoring, one stop resource center, after school programs, social emotional learning, substance use and youth employment. The only one that I can really know for sure that has happened is, oops, is the safe gun storage. So I wondered if we could get some report on this. Can I leave this with the clerk and have him make a copy of it for each of you?

I would note that that happened after I think we had three or four homicides within 96 hours. And so that committee was put together 10 years ago for that purpose.

But have any of these recommendations besides gun?

We'll take a look at it. I don't know if we'll take a look at it. We'll get back to you.

Okay.

Thank you. Okay, Paul McDaniel for five minutes.

Good evening. Paul McDaniel, resident since 1990s. I'm going to start off today. I've got three topics, actually four. I'll start off the first one, red, white, and blue. I'd like to thank the parks and the city. I agree with you, Mayor, and the other people today. I thought it was a great event. At most of the red, white, and blue, I do surveys with the kids and the adults. So I'll give you guys some info on that one. Favorite color for the kids is purple. Favorite number was seven. Favorite school subject was math slash recess. There was a little bit of a fight over the recess. And then the favorite holiday this year was Halloween. For the adults, top concern was cost of living, taxes. Second one was public safety, homeless, drug addicts is how they phrased it. And the third one was housing, the cost of rent and unattainable housing for those who are new and coming up. So those are that piece of information. The next item is actually an agenda item. It's item seven, council business subject E, city council confirmation of economic director Tonya Carter. At this moment, I'd like to remind the council that your loyalty is not to each other, a political party, a union, or anything else. It is to the residents which you guys represent. And it is for that reason that I'm here to talk about this. I will start with my request. I request that the council allows the motion to die tonight and not second it. It is my understanding that the mayor is still able to, if he believes Ms. Carter is qualified for the position, to appoint her to the position and to allow that position to be there for six months. I recommend a national search if it has not already been done. I believe that is a better route to go. If Mrs. Carter demonstrates that she has the qualifications and merits required for the position during that time, then the council can consider confirming her then as an option you guys have in front of you tonight. I'm now going to explain why I feel that way. Point number one, Ms. Carter has shown a lack of loyalty to the city. Ms. Carter served as a city economic director while I was a member of the city council. During that time, she left the city to pursue her career opportunities with the city of Tacoma. I do not begrudge her for that option, but it leaves me with a couple questions. First one, question one, why is she returning to the city of Federal Way? What was her employment status to the city of Tacoma when she did an interview for the city of Federal Way? If she is no longer employed there, why not? Did anybody get those questions asked or answered? The next question I have is actually more designed for the four council members who were on when I was on. My first question, please identify all projects that Ms. Carter completed and describe the measurable results they produced. I can only think of one project, and like several of the projects initiated during Ms. Carter's tenure as director, it was completed without meaningful follow-up or long-term implementation. My next question identifies as why was one of, excuse me, why was one of Director Neal's first actions for replacement to counsel majority of the projects that were previously initiated under the previous director? My question on that one is, at the time, it was publicly discussed that certain vendors also had selected not to do business with the city anymore due to a lack of communication and guidance in the projects they were working on. My next one and fourth question is, please identify all businesses that Director Carter actively recruited to Fedge Away and successfully persuaded to locate here. I am not looking for businesses that already contacted the city or I had plans to move here. I'm looking for businesses that are actually personally reached out to and was able to negotiate them into coming to the city. My final concern considers financial oversight. Over the past several years, the city has gradually transferred funds from other revenue sources, including ARPA and LTAC, into the Economic Development Department. As a result, the department now oversees a substantial amount of public funding. I do not feel comfortable returning a prior leadership without career evidence of measurable results and strong accountability for those funds will be used and how they will be managed. It is for this reason I respectfully ask you not to vote to confirm Ms. Carter tonight. If you choose to support her, I hope you can confidently answer the questions I have listed above to all the residents you do support. And I will note that my first question to whoever the new economic developer will be is, where is the tent I was looking to see at the kickoff event? I know there was one time in the city where we mentioned the $800,000 for that purpose. I'd like to know what happened to it. The last item is the limited exemptions for massage businesses. I appreciate the council members who actually made that motion. I support that one. But I have questions on what does that do for the johns, the pimps, the madams, and the people of human trafficking. Nothing in that ordinance that you guys will pass tonight is going to do anything for human trafficking or any of that. I'd like to actually see some body counts for that. I'd like to see people actually arrested, people thrown in jail, and people taken care of. I don't think it should be acceptable in our society, and if people do it, they're not part of a society. They need to be removed. I'd like stronger evidence. My last comment is actually to Council Member Moore. I want to publicly thank you for one of your questions you had in FedRAC. You asked about some money regarding grants for a replacement of the deck. and you made it apparent that $200,000 is not enough for design. I thank you for the question, and good luck tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Janice Clark.

If you don't mind, Mr. Mayor.

Oh, we can give that to, you can give that to the clerk. Okay.

That was my only job today. All right.

And following public comment, I'll follow up on a couple of items to make sure that we address the public comments. Dr. Clark.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Council Members, President. I am Janice Clark. On personal note, Friday, February 13th, I was rear-ended by an alleged drunk driver that totaled my car. And needless to say, it's probably why you haven't seen me around. been traumatic and I do turn 69 on Friday July 17th I celebrate the whole month and I want to brag on my granddaughter who graduated from Decatur High School with honors and Pierce College in the Running Start program and that she is set to university bound to a black Ivy League, historically black college university in Dillard University in Louisiana. She's majoring in psychology. Now I rise, so yay, Imani. To the honorable mayor. Honorable Jim Farrell, the mayor of Federal Way, the subject is partnership invitation. Honor her service game day campaign supporting women veterans. Dear Mayor Farrell, we hope this message finds you well. I'm writing on behalf of Safe Homes, Safe Homes International, and our Women Veterans Division to invite the city of Federal Way to partner with us in supporting Honor Her Service Game Day campaign. On August 15, 2026, Safe Homes will host women veterans and key partners in an 18-seat suite at the Seattle Seahawks versus the Dallas Cowboy Games. This outreach activation is part of our Honor Her Service Black and Native Women Veterans Community Heritage Day, which the programming has started taking place from June through October of this year and will culminate in Federal Way, King County. It aligns with our America 250 partnership. which Safe Homes did receive a grant from the Washington State Historical Society to ensure that women veterans are being recognized and honored for the service they deserve. With the limit of time, and certainly I agree that it will be getting in your hands, we're asking for your support as a partner and support at a legacy partnership to ensure that women veterans certainly in federal way, but certainly throughout the counties. It's 60,000 women veterans, so we're only just really making a dent in what we're trying to do. So we appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Nathan Orth.

Good evening, everyone. Mayor Farrell, Council President Honda, and Council, my name is Nathan Orth. I live in Federal Way near 288th and Military where a beautiful new traffic graphic just showed up. It was inspiring to see that bright new piece of art. I'm happy to see the city invest in improving the community up there where we often feel overlooked. So thank you for that. I would love to see more direct investment in the arts so that we all can stumble upon more happy surprises that also happen to increase the value of nearby homes. I also wanted to thank you all for passing the previously mentioned data center moratorium. The resources that these AI data processing centers consume are taken directly from the power and water utility networks built with money taken from our utility bills and our tax dollars. We paid to build that system. That is our shared system. But it is a public system and there are no protections in place to ensure that our own continued access to these utilities continues at a reasonable rates if a better paying customer shows up. So when that better paying customer does show up, they get the same rates as everyone who paid to build out those utility systems. The excessive usage of these utilities by AI data processing centers drives up costs for those who paid to build out the system that they are just walking in and plugging into. They don't care if this prevents anyone on a fixed income from having access to power and water. They don't care if they destroy someone's career and send them on a months or years long search for a new job that pays well enough to keep up with today's expenses. So here's the really fun part. This speculative building of AI data processing centers is financed on the back of your 401k and other retirement accounts. They are gambling your retirement fund that they can train a machine to do your job. This is, in essence, a nationwide leveraged buyout of the utilities that we all need to survive. And they aim to complete it before enough people realize what is happening. rating your retirement fund to drive up your utility bills and take your job. You have to give credit where credit is due. These billionaires have gotten so creative that they have found three ways to screw us at the same time, and they didn't even offer to buy us dinner. Thank you again, Council and Mayor Farrell, for buying us a little bit more time.

Thanks, Nathan. Harold Booker. For five minutes.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council President, members of the City Council. My name's Harold Booker and I've been a resident of Federal Way since 63. I rise this evening to address the topic of the Booker House. I'm making an exception to my self-imposed rule on avoiding public comment on this topic. While I have no official role, either with Health Through Housing or the Urban League, and I am not an official spokesperson for the Booker House project, it does appear that I have a unique place as a family spokesperson and decider if the project would carry my father's name. I have access to information and stories that it appears the government doesn't seem to have. Listening to the public comments since the ribbon cutting and Keith's report to the council last council meeting and the ensuing questions of the council members felt like I have that unique perspective and viewpoint that I needed to share that might be useful for the public discourse. So some of the names I've changed. in this story to protect the privacy of those involved. Many of you may have met my brother at the ribbon cutting, Brad. He grew up here in Federal Way, spent 30 years as a photojournalist for King 5, and has been an active member of Grace Methodist Church in Seattle. A portion of their congregation is unhoused. And Grace welcomes them and attempts to support them as they request and desire. Some of the most consistent folks live in their cars. Sally, not a real name, is one of those folks who's been coming to Grace for four years. She is in her mid to late 20s. has lived in her cars for the last six years. And over the years, Brad has gotten to know her. I'm told she's got a beautiful singing voice. And he watches and has watched her strive and grow through her challenges. And even my sister-in-law, Lisa, comments about how she sees progress. Well, Brad has gotten to know this loose configuration of young women who live in the Seattle area and live in their cars. And they travel from place to place. They like to stay near the water. They never stay in any place for more than a week. And then they move on. And many of them have come to Grace, because Sally encourages them to come. visited and they've got to know each other. Well, Brad has also gotten to know Alan and Alan is a veteran with a few issues as he describes it. The core group got to know Alan about three years ago and they liked and wanted Alan to hang around. So Alan hangs around and even on his bad days, Alan was kind and loyal and protective from trouble, which sometimes comes their way. So late April or early May, Sunday afternoon, I get a 911 call from my brother. Oh my god, I got to talk to you. It's an emergency. So I connect with Brad, and he tells me the following story. Sally came to church today. Sally's at church three out of four times a month. Came in, directly went over to huddle with the minister. Service started, and partway through the service, they have, the minister pauses and encourages congregation to share what they were thankful for this week. Sally rockets out of her chair to share that she has a video that she received the previous evening that she wanted to share. And so she shares that video. Did I have five minutes?

Have I been talking that long?

Okay. I will try and get there. So she wants to share this video, and she starts the video, and Alan's voice comes booming out. Alan quickly apologizes, thinking he's apologizing to the ladies.

Harold, can you do it in one minute? Can you wrap up in one minute? Because it's already been five.

I'll try.

Okay. One more minute.

Quick part of the story. Alan has been missing for the last couple weeks. He's making changes in his life. He signed a lease 24 hours before. to move into the Booker House. Alan shares with the young ladies that he is making changes. He won't be around. But in that 24 hours, he has met his counselor. He is working and loves the staff, and they encourages them that when they are ready, because it is a commitment to make this change, when they are ready, there are people who are out there who will reach out if you follow the right steps to help. I just wanted to bring a little humanity to the conversations which you folks have. Metrics and numbers, that's not what this is about. It's helping people. Thank you. Thank you, Harold.

Okay, that concludes public comment. Thank you very much. Oh, now we need to follow up. Okay, Mr. Andrews, with regard to 988, I think maybe the way to go is I didn't see contact information. I'm going to have Bill Vadino over here get your contact information, your phone number, e-mail, et cetera. And then we're going to talk about ways we can get the word out more about 988. And I'll talk to the chief about that. Thank you for being here, sir. Okay. With regard to Ms. Bostick's question about Red Lion, so we've got – this is the second meeting of the – So we should look at perhaps maybe by August to see if there's an update. If there's no update, we'll let that know. But let's ballpark the second week in August for an update and kind of see where we're at, and we'll be in touch with them. Okay, and then so that's what I would miss Bostick go There you go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. That's someone we bird dog all where we're watching that like a hawk We have got to get that done before the weather gets cold. We've been waiting on this, but I think your point is well taken and Lana, we have got to get this open. And so we're going to keep working on that. Thank you very much. So let's talk about the meeting in August. If we have a report. If we don't have a report, we'll let everybody know here if we don't have anything new. But we'll nudge them along as well. Okay, then we've got, oh, the tent. There was a question about the tent. Who asked the question about the tent? That's right, Mr. McDaniel. Okay, Jason, so thank you. Point well taken, sir. Jason, can you explain? I know that you have talked to, I think you sent an email at my request to council about the tent. Can you explain to the public now what's being referred to as the tent and why it did not materialize in its current form or what's going on?

Yeah, and so part of the Civic Plaza, Civic Lawn project, what we had proposed and showed city council was a kind of a hard-sided proposal see-through tent as that was our intent to bring that forward as we got into it and working with building officials it was going to have all the requirements of a standard building that's foundations fire life safety sprinkler I'm missing one but it was another piece of fire safety ingress egress yeah there's a I got a lot of people saying stuff.

Heat, air conditioning.

Oh, yeah, HVAC, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. And that pretty much made it unachievable with the active budget. And so we withheld that amount. We still have the amount available in the budget. Staff has been busy with several weeks of festivals, but we've got a couple of meetings on the calendar for next week. to start looking at other alternatives for that. I have had a couple of members of the community reach out to me, and they liked the entertainment stage intent was there, and have had some encouragement that way. But staff is working on alternative proposals to bring for council authorization or consideration on how to move forward.

Very good. Okay, so with regard to the money that was used for kicking it and the plaza, we, at my direction, you provided a response, a detailed response to the entire council. Heather, let's make sure that we, at the beginning of the next meeting, that we have... Hopefully our newly minted parks director, he's the designee now, but hopefully the newly confirmed parks director will give that recommendation at the next city council meeting about the monies, what we've received, what's been allocated, what's left, etc. You got that?

Understood.

Very good. OK. And we'll make sure we get that out there. We're going to be very transparent about what we're doing. Kicking it was a great event. We utilized a lot of things. We learned a lot. But we want to make sure that we're incredibly transparent about, as is our duty with your money, about where that's at, what we used, what's left, and what are the plans. And then, obviously, we're going to be here getting some feedback with regard to the public and council about steps forward. Okay. And with regard to the comments about our economic development designee, Council has received on two occasions at least one or two pages of all the accomplishments that she's achieved. She is a leader in the nation and in the region on economic development. I'm proud to endorse her and to nominate her for this position. And Brian Davis will have a complete presentation regarding her qualifications and accomplishments. Okay. Anything else, council, that we forgot? All right, now moving on to consent agenda. These items have been approved at the committee level, could be passed all at once, and then after I read them and identify them, if a council member wants an item pulled for separate consideration, we will do that. Okay, item five, the consent agenda. Item A, approve the minutes for the June 16th, 2026 City Council special and regular meetings. Item B, approve the resolution, South King Housing and Homelessness Partnership, the SCIP 2027 work plan and budget. Item C, AP vouchers, May 1st through the 31st of this year. Payroll vouchers, May 1st through the 31st. Item D, approve the monthly financial report, May 2026. Item E, authorized acceptance of Department of Public Defense, what they call a SPAR, S-P-A-R grant. Item F, approved acceptance of Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission grant. Item G, adopt resolution, amended cafeteria plan. Item H, authorization. We don't have a cafeteria here. I think that's what they call the health plan. But just in case anybody's curious what the cafeteria is. Sorry. Okay, Authorization to Apply for Grant, Recreation and Conservation Office, RCO, Planning for Recreation Access for Steel Lake Dock. Item I, Accept the King County Parks Grant, Aquatic Facilities. Item J, Accept the King County Parks Grant, Sacajawea Turf. And Item K, Approve the Washington Office of Public Defense One-Time Innovation Grant. Council, are there any items you would want pulled for separate consideration? Council President? Oh, you're just getting ready to make a motion? Mm-hmm. All right. All right. Council President, do you have a motion?

I move approval of the consent agenda items A through K. Second. Second.

All right. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. Managers pass unanimously. All right. Item six. We've got item A, the public hearing for program year 2026, community development Development Block Grant, CDBG, Annual Action Plan. I will now open the hearing at 8.40 p.m. and our Community Services Manager, Angelina Allen, PC, will present. Angelina?

Thank you, Mayor Farrell. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Council President Honda. Good evening, Council Members. Angelina Allen, PC, Community Development Department. The policy question before you this evening is should City Council approve the 2026 Community Development Block Grant or CDBG Annual Action Plan? For those who are not familiar, what is the CDBG Annual Action Plan? Essentially, it's a federally required document that we submit to HUD and serves as the city's annual roadmap for using CDBG funds. It helps to identify the projects, programs, funding allocations, and expected outcomes for a program year and explains how those funds will help meet community needs, particularly in areas of affordable housing, economic development needs, and community development. So just as a quick reminder, HUD establishes funding limits for CDBG funds, including the maximum of 20% for planning and administration, 15% for public services, with the remaining funds of 65%. capital projects or community development projects through the Community Economic Revitalization Fund. So just to walk you through very quickly, we had the first public hearing that was held on June 16th. The public comment period ended yesterday, July 6th. We are going through the second public hearing currently for council decision tonight. On June 16th, we did have one public comment that was received And staff also have received an additional written public comment that I believe our city clerk has provided to you in your packet that's been provided to council. This is just a reminder in terms of the recommendations for program year funds. This also includes prior year funds from program year 24 and 25. So the recommendation, the options that are before you to consider, approve the proposed 2026 CDBG Block Grant Annual Action Plan, or option two, do not approve the proposed plan and provide staff direction. And the mayor recommendation is option one. And with that, I'll stop to see if you have questions. Thank you. Thanks, Angelina.

Council, any questions? Wow, you did such a great job. All right. Stay close. You never know. Thank you. And now it's time for public comment. I have a peek sheet for Melanie Fowler via Zoom. Is Ms. Fowler still online?

I do not see Melanie on Zoom at this time.

Do you want to see? You don't see her? Okay. Okay. Melanie, if you're listening, if you want to call back in, we'll interrupt whatever you've got. So reach back out to us if you're watching. We don't see you online. Okay.

Let's see here.

Council Member Sessoms, do you have a motion with regard to the public hearing?

I do. I move to close the public hearing.

Second.

It's been a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Now, the public hearing is closed. If we hear from Ms. Fowler, I'll ask for that to be reopened. Item 7, Council Business. 7A, approve. Now, this is the same item. This is the Approve the Program Year 2026 Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, Annual Action Plan. And we just heard that presentation. Council Member Sessoms, do you have a motion with regard to that main motion?

I move approval of the proposed CDBG 2026 annual action plan.

Second.

Motion to second. Is there any discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Matter passed unanimously. All right. Thank you. I thank you, Angelina, for all your work on this and your entire team. Item B, approve the grant acceptance for therapeutic courts. We're fortunate here to have Mariam Olson, our court administrator, and our, not so new anymore, our judge, Your Honor, Danielle Havens, municipal court judge.

Thank you. Thank you all so much for having us. And we're really excited about the grant that we've received for our community court program. and it is an exciting thing for our court. We've been looking forward to getting the program restarted. Judge Larson created this program, and we are happy to be able to continue it. We've received a grant in the total of $105,679.29, and we seek the council's approval. We're very much looking forward to hiring therapeutic court coordinator who will really help to process the people that we're bringing into the program and to help us prioritize which people are most appropriate for our program and how we can connect them with the sorts of services that will help them to bridge the gap between the challenges that they're facing and law-abiding behavior.

Yeah, and we're kind of relaunching this program. It's been a program, like you said, Judge Larson has developed, but we want to relaunch it and make it, develop it into a bigger program, have more participants using the program, getting more people the care that they need, whether it's connecting them with service providers, with housing, with treatment, substance use disorder treatment mental health disorders so coordinators really necessary in a community court program because that coordinator it's going to be a slash case manager will kind of do the hand-holding throughout the whole process with the participants also seek more providers, social service providers to come into our court so that we have access to them for our participants. So this is a big relaunch for us to kind of, it's the first time we're gonna have a coordinator on board to kind of develop this program with us.

One of the essential components of a community court is doing risk and needs assessments. And we haven't had an individual who's able to do that process, which helps us determine, um, who is best suited to our programs and how we will need to support them. So we're looking forward to, uh, hiring that person. We're also looking forward to working with Angelina and her team. And the opioid money that the city has, I think has a very appropriate use within the court system as well in helping to subsidize some of the treatment and support needs that people will have. We have a budget line item in our program for recovery supports. But we look forward to being able to partner with the city and work to bring more people in and support them in every way that we can so that our community remains as safe as possible and we can reduce recidivism. So we respectfully request that you allow us to accept the grant.

All right. Council President Hynden and Council Member Hamilton.

Thank you very much for being here. I appreciate you spending time with us this evening. Is this a one-time grant?

Yes, these are grants that renew every year. So all of the statewide community courts and therapeutic courts in general receive state funding every year. Grants are typically re-granted. And Miriam's done this process a lot more than I have in her former position. This is my first round of this.

Yeah, so these grants, the state grant is renewable. We just have to apply for it every year and it just depends on the legislative funding and the legislature has funded the therapeutic court program for many years and they continue to do so. So as long as they are funding that, this is a grant coming from the administrative office of the courts and it is renewed. We reapply every year.

And nationally, all of the research says that therapeutic courts reduce recidivism better than any other court sanction and response to low-level criminal behavior that is driven by mental illness, addiction, poverty. And when we help people get the resources that they need, we're able to lower their reliance and dependence on resources and help them become more independent.

I'm glad you're getting the grant. I did watch some of the court activities when Judge Larson had the program. So I'm glad that this is happening. I'm just concerned that there would be some staff members hired and I'm

concerned about funding those in the future yeah it would be a specifically a community court coordinator and so that funding would come directly and if we no longer had community court funding then we wouldn't be able to resource that individual all right

That's my concern.

Yeah. We do hire them as project positions. And I have done this in the past that we have always used these project funds for these project positions. So when we hire, that is on the application that this is a project funded for one year with the most probable renewal for the following year. So that's how we present it when we hire for this position.

Awesome. As long as there's a plan, that's great. Yes. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks.

Catherine Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Judge Havens, for being here, and Miriam. I think you know, Judge Havens, that public safety is near and dear to my heart, and we've talked about therapeutic courts in the past. I have a couple of questions. How would someone be connected to community courts? Walk me through how they get connected. I'm assuming let's start first with accountability.

Well, the first thing that happens is someone is arrested and they're charged with a crime. The crime is filed based upon their criminal history and based upon the nature of the crime. They'll be evaluated by our coordinator with a risk and needs assessment. And typically people come in at both high risk and high needs for high risk for reoffense and high need of services. And then our coordinator will recommend a certain group of people saying, you know, the ones that we've reigned today, these we think are good candidates for community court. No one is forced into community court. They have an opportunity to opt in. The city's prosecutor makes a decision about whether or not she agrees that someone is eligible to enter into community court, and the defense talks with their client and offers them the opportunities. There are some people who come into court and are not yet ready for that degree of accountability and the responsibility of community court. A lot of people come into court, they plead guilty, they do whatever their sentence is, and they move on, they're done. But a community court requires engagement. It's an investment that the community is making in an individual and requires the individual to invest in themselves, to invest in their future, their health, and their opportunities. And when we see people who are ready for that, the engagement and participation are really inspiring. And you see people make decisions about changing their lives. And it's very exciting. And there's definitely accountability. Typically people are not only being assessed and engaging in treatment, they're offering community service hours. And they're coming and checking in with us more regularly. And we have an opportunity to really build a relationship. And I think that those relationships are one of the things that really reduce recidivism when people know that we care about them. and that as a community we're investing in them and their good health, I think that they start caring more about themselves and they care more about how their behavior impacts community.

Thank you so much. And I fully agree. I think sometimes when accountability is present, it can give someone a moment of clarity. And therapeutic court, community court, offers that to the individual. I want to do everything I can to reduce recidivism for people who are ready to make life changes and so i really commend you for investing in this program and for asking us to support it and then i just have one more question real quick just for the public so they're aware what offenses would qualify an individual for community court

Typically, they are the misdemeanor theft and trespass charges. Non-domestic violence, assaults, or harassment may qualify. going to be malicious mischief or property damage, things that are obviously creating a very negative impact within the community, but they are significantly less public safety issues as far as people's physical safety. So no one who's charged with a DUI is going to end up in community court. And people who are charged with domestic violence assaults are not going to end up in community court. But with driving while licensed suspended charges, bringing those people in, helping them to get relicensed, and then sending them out law-abiding and in a much better position, those are the kinds of things that we really look forward to. And the criminal trespass and the theft and the public drug use, depending on the number of times someone's been into court on those charges, they qualify. And we're very happy to bring them in and try and get them the services they need. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Council Member Walsh, Council Member Sessoms, and then Council Member Moore.

Question, are many of the people in community court, are they unhoused individuals? Many, yes. I was impressed by the report that Harold Booker gave on the Booker House. And I'm thinking that perhaps some of these same people that are in community court could truly be blessed by the things of the Booker House. And if we can set up something, a relationship between the court and the Booker House,

We would love that. And that is something that we will be very eager to help build. I was thinking the exact same thing, Councilmember. I thought, wow, this is just a really good fit. Fusion is another place where the connections that we can build there are going to be very, very useful. And the community caregiving network and So many of our local nonprofits really care about the individuals that we're serving and are happy to be engaged.

All right. Thank you.

Yes.

Council Member Sessoms.

Thank you, Judge. Thank you, Miriam, for your report. And I had a question about this individual that you intend to hire with this grant funding. a what's your timeline look like are they going to start off with a zero caseload or do you have people already ready to be assigned to this person and how long or how large will this caseload eventually become great questions um yes so we do have a people in community court right now

And every single day there are people being arraigned that would be good candidates for community court. We've had a pin in it while we've waited for our grant funding to come through and our ability to retain someone who's going to be able to process the risk and needs assessments and really help us build our community resources. And the individual that we'll hire will likely be someone who has peer experience. At the municipal court, we've had some incredible peer support specialists, and I anticipate that a couple of those people will be applying for the position, and they'll be excellent at managing the situation.

And also in speaking with the prosecutor, it's estimated that the case amount will probably be anywhere between 25 to 35 people. Initially to and then of course if we do continue to grow and put more people in community court we could go back Yeah, so the state is always looking at how we're spending the funding what we're doing with the money and We have meetings with them and reporting with them.

So we're very close contact Yeah, Kent Municipal Courts Community Court has 119 current participants right now They're very, very well funded with the opioid money. That's what the city is focusing. The opioid resource money is going into community court. And then in Tacoma Muni, they have about 70 people in their community court right now. And I think that we're aiming to get into the 50s and we'll build as robust a program as we are capable of.

Thank you.

Council Member Moore. Thank you, Mayor. Judge, thank you for being here. It's always good to see you. And Miriam, welcome back. It's nice to see you again. You know, as I sit here and listen, of course I'll be supporting this grant, and I know it's for $105,000. Just curious, the travel is $9,120. Obviously that's sufficient, but does that really – From your personal perspective, does that meet that need? Or is that something you guys want to see a bigger funds in? in the travel and training.

No, and that funding is to support the whole team, and there's two main conferences that the state likes us to attend, and one of them is All Rise, and it's a national conference, actually international conference. International, yeah. That they hold every year, and the other one is the Washington State Drug Court Conference, not called that anymore, but it's Drug Court Conference, which is in Tukwila. So those are the two main ones, but it does support, the international one is often out of state so there's you know airfare but it supports the whole team which includes the prosecutor defense the judge the coordinator so it will include I think they supported four people to attend those conferences so it's sufficient in your minds we think so yeah we'll make it efficient we actually went through and did all the breakdowns exactly

That's what I figured, and you have to do that part of the application for the grants. The rest is just a comment, and that's, Judge, I'm really pleased that you're bringing this back. And I think for me, what comes to my mind is that you're really making it more than just a courtroom. You're building hope in people's lives once again. And I think that is so thoughtful, and You're leading this court with compassion and with heart. And I think that's really important that when people make a mistake that they ought to know that there's a way to fix it. And that we have a court that's willing to help. I think there's something to be said about that. And I'm looking forward to, obviously we've had this program before, but I'm looking forward to seeing this develop and become bigger.

taking it to the next level and I know that with your energy I'm looking forward to watching that happen so yeah you're welcome and I just want to thank Miriam the work that she's poured into our application process has been amazing and having a partner like her in this process has really been incredible and I'm so grateful that the city brought her to us.

And I should say that staff make it all possible. So, Miriam, thank you for that as well. So, Mayor, thank you.

All right. Thank you. All right. Council Member Kochemar, do you have a motion?

Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of the proposed grant acceptance and authorize Judge Bales to execute the associated agreement. Second.

It's been a motion and a second. And is there any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right, matter passed unanimously. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, Miriam.

Thank you all so much. Have a great evening.

Thank you. Okay, Item C, the Seattle Sustainable Airport Master Plan, or otherwise known as the SAMP, State Environmental Policy Act, otherwise known as SEPA, letter. proposed letter by the council for this process. Bill Vadino, our policy advisor, will walk us through the proposed letter to get this out. Bill?

Mayor, council president, council members, we talked about this at LUTC yesterday and last month. There's one significant change, which we've all received via email and at your desks. Basically, the policy question is, do you support sending this attached letter about the SEPA? And as we know, we are responding to the state portion of their master plan, which is projecting growth by another 1 million people by 2035, up to 66 million passengers by 2034. And that's 31 projects. That includes 19 additional grades, a passenger terminal, cargo facilities, and lots of traffic in a garage. And of course, looking at the map, this is basically where the terminal is going to be. They're in the bottom center. And the timeline where we're at is we have gone together since a year ago in November with the NEPA, the National Environmental Protection Act piece that you responded to. Now this is the State Environmental Protection Act. And then after they've analyzed this and answered our questions, which is the subject of our letter, there'll be commission action. And that will be another moment for us to weigh in on doing the right thing for our city and the other cities as well. So, and that's basically what I just said there. And after the NEPA, there was nothing there of significance environmentally, the national part of it. They did find 17 findings, but that had to do basically with traffic. what the port is put together for us to respond to is you look at the third row and basically there are limited impacts for air quality and noise. That's in the port's opinion. As far as particulate matter, they are saying the current state of the science does not support a causal effect on this affecting our residents. And then as far as noise, once again, noise has no... It's there, but there's no regulatory standard at this point, according to the port for the SEPA part of this. And then as far as environmental justice, which the state is very, very big on, once again, it would not significantly contribute to a lack of environmental justice. And that just doesn't sit well. Before we talk about the letter, we want to remind the public that there is one more public meeting Thursday. It's going to be online and in person, and there will be port commissioners there to listen, which is different from the other meetings. Online comments continue. Written comments continue. There's how you do it. And then our outreach, citywide news, social media, and tomorrow morning the video that Jack Dovey and Mike Bergato did going to the public meeting, which you folks will not be able to attend because of the conference, that will be live. That will be on YouTube as well so people can attend. So here's the letter. Now, what's happened with the letter is an important person who's a co-author of our Healthy and Safe Skies report, Dave Berger, came out of retirement last night. And for two hours, he suggested a little bit more clarity in our third paragraph. And so now he's retired. He's now retired again. But he has set forth. So he says, OK, that's it. That's it. But I think he will weigh in with questions later. So basically, of course, we're addressing the Ports Commission and the group about this situation. And, of course, we always show our appreciation because Federal Way wasn't really considered part of what the FAA considers. And, of course, they put public meetings here at your and the mayor's requests. They also expanded the public comment. from 30 to 60 days. Unfortunately, public comment ends in 13 days, meaning we don't have two weeks to deliberate on this letter, but we'll continue to look at things and bring them to your attention and their attention as well, too. The other piece that we're asking for is the runway over the landing over Steel Lake. the first runway ever built is going to be brought higher. And so we want to know how much higher and is that going to have an impact on sound. So that's two significant questions on that. And the heights not only on the north border, the south border of Federal Way, but also over Steel Lake. And then as far as if noise is going to be reduced, we want that to be quantified. And then here's the big part, and we're going to blow this up for you. The red is what Dave Berger brought out of the report that was done eight years ago about safe and quiet skies. First of all, he notes that the environmental impact statement says that the FAA regulates noise, but he says that it does not limit the state to doing that. So the FAA's authority does not preempt the mitigation required by the state SEPA of additional aircraft noise. And so their document inappropriately concludes that this... project would generate no significant additional noise impacts on Federal Way residents. And that's because it uses the flawed 65 DNL, 65 decibels over a whole day, day and night. And what Dave is contending, based on his evidence, is the fact that that is moot according to what's going on. And the state can use any standard that they want. And the court can use any standard that they want. And that means it would be occurrences. And so he also invokes the fact that the mayor, oops, how do I go back here? The mayor invoked back a couple years ago when we were doing the scoping for the last document is that a single event noise metric needs to be analyzed by them in this study of impacts So single noise in other words the planes that are coming over at 2 in the morning The ones that are waking us up the ones that are causing who is making us lose our quiet enjoyment. So Dave sees An area they need to analyze for that. I So we basically are asking for them to analyze based on single noise impacts and not the FAA federal situation on that. And that's what's been placed in the letter. And then, of course, at the end of the letter, we basically, yes, we want an airport. We need a great airport. We need to accommodate passengers. It also has to be safe. And so basically the options to consider, and you've got a copy of the letter. I'm glad Dave weighed in there. It's either approve sending the response letter, do not approve, and provide directions to staff. So questions on this new information?

Okay, and my recommendation is to approve the letter. Council Member Moore?

No.

Okay. Any questions? All right. Great job, Bill. Thank you very much. Customer Walsh, do you have a chair of the Land Use Transportation Committee? Do you have a motion?

Yes. I move to authorize staff to send a proposed response letter to the Port of Seattle as part of the SEPA process. Second.

It's been a motion. A second.

And I also want to thank Bill for his great presentation and all the work that he's put into it.

Hear, hear. Hear, hear. All right. Is there any discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Matter passed unanimously. Great job, Bill. Thank you very much. Okay, Item D, City Council Confirmation of Parks Director Jason Gerwin. Brian Davis, our City Administrator, will present this item.

Okay, thank you again, Mayor. I've got two appointments for your consideration. The first is Jason Gerwin as Parks Director. Jason, I'll read the script first, and then I'll add a little editorial comments afterwards, but just having known Jason for a while. But he holds a bachelor's in recreation, parks, and tourism administration from Western Illinois University, holds a playground safety inspector certification, pesticide license, and graduated from the NRPA Pacific Northwest Maintenance Management School and other certifications before coming to At Federal Way in 2006, he worked for Schaumburg Illinois Parks District, Washington State Parks, and Pierce County Parks. While at Federal Way, he started as a lead maintenance worker, then was promoted to parks and facilities supervisor, and promoted again to parks and facilities manager, and then a deputy parks director, and then finally, hopefully tonight, to parks director. Jason is well-regarded in the parks community. I recall very specifically after the mayor appointed me as city minister, this was over four years ago, and the parks department was going to be one of my new direct reports. And at that time, this was four years ago, one of Jason's, at that time, one of his coworkers said, When there's a succession in the department, we hope that Jason is the director. So this has been a long time coming that his department is behind him. They speak well of him. When John, our beloved former director, announced his retirement, there were many employees in the Parks Department who came to me and came to Mayor Farrell. said, we love Jason, please hire him. So that is the proposal for you tonight, the nomination for you tonight, to confirm Jason Gerwin as parks director. All right.

Any questions? All right. One second. Council Member Walsh?

I have no question, but only I am very excited about, enthusiastic about Jason becoming the parks director. I've had the opportunity of working closely with him for 20 years on things, and he is extremely well qualified and well respected, and he will do a fantastic job. Very good. Council President Honda, do you have a motion?

I do. I move to confirm the mayor's appointment of Jason Guerin as parks director.

Second. It's been a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. It's official. Jason, you're it. Congratulations.

I'll try to be brief. I know we've got a long meeting, but first and foremost, thank you. I'm deeply honored. by the confidence you guys placed in me and by entrusting me in the opportunity to serve as the next Parks Director for the City of Federal Way. It's a responsibility I take with great humility, gratitude, and a proud, profound sense of purpose. Before I say anything else, I gotta call out my family. My wife, Carolyn, Incredible wife, Carolyn, makes me a better person every day, has since the day I met her. My son, Jake, and my daughter, Piper. Their unwavering love, patience, and support through my career is to be commended. Public service is incredibly rewarding, but it also asks a great deal of the families that stand behind them. And so I thank them for their patience for all the interrupted dinners because of a work phone call, the evenings or weekends I spent responding to an emergency or the many moments when work demanded time that otherwise belong to them. Your encouragement and sacrifice have made this moment possible and I'm forever grateful. I also want to thank Mayor Farrell, City Administrator Davis, each and every one of you up on the council dais and all the directors that make up the management team. The trust you place in me, I don't take lightly. I promise to work every day to earn and maintain that trust, and not only your trust, but the trust of the residents of Federal Way. John Hutton, the previous director, left this department in fine shape, and if I do anything to wreck that legacy, not only he, but former admin Mary Janicki will make sure I get a tanning if I don't succeed. uh... as as director my commitment simple i will lead with integrity i'll pursue excellence in everything we do i'll be a faithful steward of the parts of federal way the facilities the natural spaces that are entrusted to my care now will never lose sight that the fact that our work is ultimately about serving this community before i close i have one thought uh... parts are much more than playgrounds trails athletic fields There were memories are made, long friendships begin, where families gather, and where community comes together. And nothing was more evident than the past couple weeks at Red, White, and Blues and at the Kickin' It Festival. I can remember maybe about ten years ago, AMC Theater site surrounded by cyclone fence, dilapidated, and there was a vision put out about that downtown core. And with the Kickin' It Festival, Town Square Park, the Grand Staircase, I mean, we are literally seeing that vision come alive. And although attendance maybe wasn't fully what we desired out of the Kickin' It event, it put that space on the map, and it shows that that downtown core has got a bright future, and that TC3 development and the future developments in that downtown core will make this a stronger community. And so thank you for your confidence. Thank you for this extraordinary opportunity. And thank you for allowing me the privilege to serve this community. And gratitude.

Congratulations. A new era begins. Thank you, Jason. All right, and now we are on to the item E, City Council Confirmation of Economic Development Director, Tonya Carter. Brian?

Okay, thank you again. So this is confirmation of the mayor's appointment of Economic Development Director for Tonya Carter. Tonya, she has an impressive resume when she first came to the city in 2023, and it's the same, or excuse me, 2022, and it's the same resume as we have now. She has a bachelor's in economics and international relations from the American University in Washington, D.C., holds a real estate investment banking certificate from the European Business School in Frankfurt, Germany. Her municipal experience started in 2018 at the city of Auburn where she was an economic development officer and went to SeaTac in 2020 as an economic development strategist and was, again, as I mentioned, she was hired here as the director in 2022. And in February of 2025, she went to Tacoma, and the mayor is recommending that we welcome her back as the director of economic development.

All right. All right. So any questions for Brian? All right. All right. Council President Honda, do you have a motion?

I move to confirm the mayor's appointment of Tanya Carter as economic development director.

There's been a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Council President?

Thank you. So tonight I won't be supporting the... the appointment and My reasons are pretty simple. First of all, our directors are highly compensated and have many responsibilities and Miss Carter has worked for us before and Has did perform those responsibilities, but I do believe that when we have a director position open I would like to Always have a national search so that we see a

what's available and I just believe that is something that I would like to see and that was not done that is my reason Thank You council president okay all right there's been a motion a second a brief discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed nay

Councilmember Moore.

Aye.

Councilmember Hamilton. Aye. Councilmember Walsh.

Aye.

Councilmember Sessoms.

Aye.

Councilmember Coachmark. Aye. And Council President Honda.

Nay.

The motion passes.

Five to two. All right. Great. Congratulations. Tanya, come on up. And you are our new economic development director. Congratulations. And the floor is yours.

I'll keep it very brief. It's quite late. Good evening, Mayor, Council, President Honda, and Council members. Thank you again for the opportunity to work again with most of you. During my previous tenure, I saw firsthand your foresight and commitment to Federal Way's long-term success, and I look forward to continuing to support your vision and help advance the community's priorities. My approach remains the same. So it's to be accountable, to establish clear deliverables, and measure our progress through quantifiable outcomes. I look forward to working with our new council members, with our community partners, with our businesses, and I hope that we can all move Federal Way forward together. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And congratulations.

Did you still need a recess?

Yes. Okay. I think we've – is a recess okay?

Recess is fine.

Okay. Council, just a little bit of executive privilege here. I think we're going to recess for, what do you think, five, seven minutes? Seven. Seven minutes. Brian, can you hit the timer? Five and seven at the same time. Exactly. Okay. Maybe six or seven. Never mind. Never mind. Could you hit the timer for seven minutes? Exactly. We are in recess for that period.

Six, seven, but what do the kids do? Yeah, I know. And with no...

something, we would set aside a small amount in the budget to fund art so that there would be art throughout the city. The proposed code amendment was brought to FEDRAC twice, once in April and then again in June. The current policy was implemented in 1994, so we've been operating on basically the same code since the beginning of the city. It's codified in Chapter 4.15 of the Federal Way Revised Code. As I said before, the policy is meant to fund art and to beautify and elevate public spaces. Many cities have a policy like this. We have repeatedly credited Kirkland, I believe, as our inspiration, although Federal Way is the only one I've found that uses the number 2%. Most of the cities are allocating 1%, but they all have widely varying policies. thresholds on when they start to count. So cities are definitely funding art at different levels throughout the state. What led us to this code amendment is that we have some ambiguities in the code that for a long time the general consensus and idea by staff and I think many of the elected officials as well was that it only applied to new construction, large buildings that are being built new. The language of the actual code talks about renovation and repair and remodels and has a very low threshold of $25,000. So the city, for as far as I can tell, has never followed its own code on this point. There are some ambiguities there. I think it was argued, we were basically arguing a way to interpret the code that was logical but to me it doesn't make a lot of sense and more importantly the state auditor doesn't think it makes sense either. So I think it's important that we write down something that's clear and that we follow whatever we write down. on to the actual proposed changes. So the first major change would be to up that threshold from $25,000 to define qualifying projects as, first off, only new publicly accessible facilities. and the threshold will be $350,000 instead of $25,000. The $350,000 number was picked because it corresponds to when the small works process is used for public works. Usually at that level we have an engineer or somebody that is a project manager on it uh... they get more attention than your standard like small maintenance project often our maintenance project especially ones that are like at the twenty five thousand dollar level are being uh... implemented by our lead uh... are one of our lead parks workers so they don't have the capacity necessarily to also be running an arts project on the side The definition explicitly excludes maintenance, refurbishment, or renovation of existing facilities from the arts requirements. It also makes it clear that we're going to calculate the amount of art contribution that's based on the amount of a building that's accessible to the public. We would do that at the time of contract award. So oftentimes what happens with a large public construction project is we will have a contingency or sometimes we just have cost overruns. The project fluctuates a little bit as you start to dial it in. There's unknown conditions in the ground that you don't know are even there until you start digging. And so often the amount that we end up paying might be more than we originally planned. And to reevaluate the value of the art midstream is problematic for staff. It also, at the suggestion of council, the new language would explicitly exclude the contingency amount from that calculation for the arts. The language also requires that art be used at the facility that's being built at the new building unless council explicitly says otherwise. So the default would be that it would be in a publicly accessible place in the new building or the new facility and if that's not possible either because it's just physically not possible or there's some legal or FUNDING MECHANISM CONSTRAINT, WE'LL COME BACK TO COUNCIL AND SAY WE NEED TO PUT THIS SOMEWHERE ELSE OR SOMETHING ELSE TO DO WITH THIS MONEY. ordinance also defines what of the project art selection team is going to be so some of the council has expressed confusion that we kind of have a different process every time on how we select the art this makes it very clear that council will appoint an art selection team at committee it was determined that we should add at least two arts commissioners to that committee at all times so THAT'S THE DEFAULT. THERE WILL BE TWO ARTS COMMISSIONERS, AND THEN COUNCIL IS FREE TO ADD WHOEVER THEY THINK IS APPROPRIATE, THEMSELVES, STAFF, COMMUNITY MEMBERS, WHOEVER YOU THINK IS APPROPRIATE TO THAT ART SELECTION COMMITTEE. IF COUNCIL DOES NOT ACT, THEN THE DEFAULT WOULD BE THE ART COMMISSION, WOULD BE THE ART SELECTION COMMITTEE. AND THEN WE HAVE JUST LENGER AND GRAMMAR CORRECTIONS THROUGHOUT IN AN ATTEMPT TO BE UNIFORM. HOPEFULLY WE ACHIEVE THAT. many policy considerations we've talked about this a committee the main one is uh... oftentimes when we're doing specifically maintenance projects they can be quite expensive for example we get multiple beds on the roof of this building and they're all in excess of a million dollars at least often coming at a time where we haven't budgeted and it's kind of an acute need and we're already kind of in distress and that's i think why historically the city has not applied this program to maintenance projects because it's already we're already kind of behind the eight ball and we are trying to scrounge up money to fix something that needs to be fixed and adding more money to that task um seems imprudent so um That said, we did go back historically and look. It's very hard to track this over time because it's not a category that we have tracked. We haven't ever categorized capital works projects over $25,000. We have to manually go back and search. Mr. Gerwin, on his own, went back and looked at all the capital works projects that his department has done in the last 10 years, and those that are over $25,000 would have amounted to about $159,000 contributed to arts over 10 years. So that's just a ballpark idea of what the impacts for the city. So it's not a significant financial impact to the city over 10 years. I would say the bigger burden has been logistics and just throwing it in the mix when we're already looking for money for something that we can't really fund has been difficult. So... The only other thing that I would add is we've talked about this a lot, and hopefully we've come to some sort of agreement on where we're at. But if not, if council wants to reevaluate these policies, I think it's important that you consider the impact to staff as far as managing these art projects. I don't think it's ever appropriate that managing the art part of of a project is more onerous than actually managing the project. It should be an add-on to the project. And that's just my opinion. So that is a brief overview, and I think we should have a discussion. The Mayor's recommendation is to approve the proposed ordinance.

Okay. Have we received any public comment sheets on this? Okay. Do we have any public comment on this? Okay. Would the city clerk please read the ordinance title?

Council Bill 940, Ordinance Relating to the Art in Public Places Program, an ordinance of the City of Federal Way, Washington, relating to the Art in Public Places Program, amending Federal Way revised code as detailed in the written title.

All right. Thank you. Council Member Sessoms, do you have a motion?

I do. I move to forward the proposed ordinance to the July 21st, 2026 council meeting for second reading and enactment.

Second.

Second.

It's been a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

I have some questions.

Absolutely.

Oh, but they can go first.

Okay. Let's just go right in order. Council Member Safa-Dawson? Council Member Moore?

they're just getting ready to vote council president honda um i'd like to a definition of uh what is a publicly accessible facility it's in the it's listed here and i have a reason for asking that question um i don't think we've defined that term i would use the webster's dictionary definition if the public is allowed to be there it's publicly accessible so when i think of um the public art we've done before on buildings that are sitting on buildings that we build instance the new maintenance yard the public art is the fence and what is going on the fence so the building may not be accessible to the public because it's where staff is doing things that we don't want the public exposed to but the public is exposed to the building and so I I would say that we should have if when we build a new building it's going to be seen by the public and that the art should be on the you know we should be doing public art on the on that building because the building is going to be seen by the public and the art can be on the outside of the building it could be a bench it could be a fence it could be a statue but if we should still do um the two percent for the public art in my opinion

And just that is not how it's written right now. So if that was the intent of council, we would need to make that clear. Public accessible would mean able to enter the building. So in that circumstance, I do not believe that this ordinance would cover. So for example, if we built a building that is never going to be accessible to the public, say a police substation that the public is just never going to go into, That is not a public accessible building, even if you can see it from the street. So if the majority of council wants a policy that contemplates art on the side of the building, we would need to redraft the ordinance.

All right. Council President, did you have another comment or question?

No, but I would like to see that change in the ordinance.

Okay. Council Member Sessoms?

yeah my question is similar but I'm gonna use a different word or describe a different scenario so let's say the pack we wanted to put a mural commissioning artists to paint the mural on the pack the packs already built so would this ordinance cover it retroactively or or no it would not it would we already have the we already have the art so you're oh that was just a hypothetical like i had not done that so i would say that's renovation that would be a renovation example

Okay, so had we not done it for some reason, okay, so we're not going, so the statute.

I understood the question to be if we decided to paint a mural and say it costs us $100,000, would there also be a 2% of the arts added to that because it's, well, I guess it would have to be over $350,000. So if we did an art project that's over $350,000 to an existing facility, would we also add art? Is that correct? Oh, okay. No, we would consider that a renovation.

An improvement?

Yeah. I'm trying to be very clear that this contemplates new construction.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Casper Hamilton?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ryan, for bringing this to us. We've talked about this a lot at length at this point. It's been a good discussion. I think we've worked through this and made some changes that were needed. I see this as more of a cleanup ordinance. I mentioned this when we talked about it in committee. It's a cleanup ordinance to reflect really current longstanding practice and interpretation of what we currently have. And I am very pleased that we are keeping 2% and not reducing it to 1%, which is what most cities have. And I think that keeping it at 2% is a reflection that our city and council that we do support the arts and I'm glad to see 2% kept in there and I look forward to all the wonderful art that will be in our city also I just want to explain that I have been asking in committee meetings you know does this will this capital project have art on it mostly just to better understand what type of projects this is going to apply so I've asked that question in regards to the Steel Lake dock and to the fencing that's been proposed on 320th, just to try to better understand what projects are going to have this applied to it. Thank you.

Yeah, actually, that's a really good question. Can I? Yeah, please. Let's assume that it's the Steel Lake dock, and we replace it, but we're not improving it. Like, the Steel Lake dock probably needs a complete replace. So, maybe.

If it was a complete demo and we're building a new thing, I would say that's new construction. But if we're just remodeling the existing dock, it would not cover it. Okay. Renovation versus new construction. For example, if we demo a building and build a new building, that's new construction. Right.

Does this anticipate that the council – I'm sorry, council. I'll hold my question.

No, no. Mayor, go ahead.

Does this anticipate that – okay, say we've got a – that the council can essentially make a determination like we we got a new building coming up let's say it's you know something downtown another other structure or let's say it's the dock and there's been a there's been a determination that that doesn't qualify could the council then basically weigh in and say excuse me we disagree and This does require 2%?

I don't think it would be disagree. Council can spend the money any way it wants. So if any project we ever bring to council, they wanted to add 2% for arts, that's within council's purview. This is just staff automatically starts doing this. Without further council direction, we follow this direction and we start planning a project with this in mind. But if any project that's brought to council, if you want to add art to it, that is absolutely within council's authority to do.

Let's go back a step. So we built the $50 million operations and maintenance facility. Had a majority of council said, excuse me, kind of agreed with the council president's rationale, it could have said, the majority of the council could have said, we're going to do 2% of the whole thing. They could have said that?

I guess I didn't understand that.

They could, on their own, the council on their own could say... we're going to do 2% of the yards on this, even though it's not...

Ultimately, each appropriation is an independent action taken by council. And this, as I said, I didn't really touch on this tonight, but this is a completely self-imposed rule that council has come up with. So, frankly, council can decide to follow it or not each time. The auditor will probably ding us on it for not following what we've written down. But if we go beyond what's written down, I don't think that that's a problem.

Okay.

It kind of sets a minimum, I guess.

Okay. Council Member Moore and then Council Member Walsh.

Yeah, I was just going to say, with what's just been said, I would suggest we, you know, Council President Honda suggested, didn't make an amendment, but suggested that we have one. I would recommend that we keep it the way it is now. And if there is another thing, such as the maintenance facility, which is not publicly accessible, if the council at that time decides, hey, we want 2% or whatever percent for the whole thing, that let the council at that time determine it rather than changing the ordinance from the way that you have it written right now would be my suggestion.

All right customer more why if I may why couldn't we just put in the ordinance? Just that and instead of just having each council decision just put that new ordinance Just say or perhaps a customer excuse me.

Yeah All right, Brian No, go ahead. Yeah thought go ahead

When we had the discussions about the operation and maintenance facility, we had several meetings about the budget and how much we were going to spend and how the costs were increasing and how we didn't want to spend that much, but ultimately realized that we had to. So I think what we're saying is that if you want to take that opportunity to look at an overall project budget and realize the limitations that we have with what we can take on on an annual basis, and you want to add uh art at that point great but i think what we're saying is don't lock yourselves in at this point for something where the public can't even enter into uh is what we're saying to answer your question because if if you if you lock yourselves into something that the public can't access that that's a different conversation than when you're talking about a new building that they can't access and we're we're struggling about every dollar and cent just to make the get the employees a new building

Council for Hamilton and then and then council president thank you mayor I think We need a very clear direction in the ordinance i i'm not in favor of the idea of debating you know whether or not to increase the budget every time there's a project i do think that publicly accessible could be legally defined in the ordinance i think that would be an easy thing to do hopefully like in the ordinance written down?

I think the words mean what they mean. I don't think that's a term that needs to be defined personally. If the public is allowed in, it's public accessible. So I would just also point out that having council have the authority to make a determination on each project is unavoidable. It's inherent in this body's authority. So if we write something down, we are required to follow it.

at any time council can add something to any project if they feel compelled to do so so nothing you could do tonight would constrain that okay all right thank you council president yes i'm going to read this sentence that is currently in debate art in public places means any expression of visual work of art available to the public in areas designated as public areas within Open city-owned facilities or publicly accessible areas on non-city-owned property if the incorporation of the art project is installed or financed either in whole or in part by the city. So what I'm saying is, if you look at the maintenance and operations yard, it is not accessible to the public, yet the public art money was spent on the fence and on the public art that's going to be on the fence. And if we build a building, a city-owned building, it's going to be visible unless it's hidden somewhere, which I can't imagine that that would ever happen. we want to make it attractive visually to the public and to the people who drive by it or might even live by it I mean look at the maintenance yard there's a lot of people that live by that I'm glad they'll have something nice to look at besides what could have been a very unattractive fence and a very you know a building that doesn't fit in to their community of homes so what I'm saying is I doesn't need to be public art can be a bench it could be a fence it could be a statue it could be useful public art but it also needs to be something that makes a space more livable more enjoyable to look at and I think any capital project that we build even if it's not the inside is not accessible to the public the outside still we should have the 2% for the public art

So, Council President Honda, are you wanting a modification in that paragraph of the ordinance?

Yes.

Is there a motion that you would?

So, can I, before you start talking about language, if we were to implement Council President Honda's plan, it would be to strike out that publicly any any any restriction on publicly accessible areas so that was always been part of this so it was meant to restrict to limit the amount of art in places that frankly we don't the public doesn't see but if we want to decorate the outside of buildings we would just strike the publicly accessible language entirely but then the two percent would be for the whole building like we should do a calculation on what

2% of $50 million is, and is that what the?

$1 million.

So is that, you guys want to spend $1 million on art for that? That's the question. EJ?

And just one point of clarification on the O&M facility that keeps coming up. I think the conversation in part that started this is whether or not just the portions of that facility that are publicly accessible, which does include a large area to your point, Council President, along the frontage behind the right-of-way to that fence, as well as the lobby, the conference room, public parking, like there are publicly accessible elements in that project and whether or not the 2% for arts should be funded based on that calculation or if it's the calculation of the entire project. So to your point of bringing up a bench or something on the fence, that would have been well within the scope of the funding associated with what is publicly accessible on the O&M facility that's being used as an example.

And there is some, the language actually says in areas designated as public areas. So part of this process is we tell you what has been designated as a publicly accessible area. And if council disagrees with staff's assessment of what is publicly accessible, you can point that out.

So then art can be, yeah.

Of course.

So then.

already says that we will put public art in the area that's designated as public areas yeah it would be that a building or outside the building to EJ's point though I think we're talking about it wouldn't be the entire value of the building it would be areas that we think are publicly accessible and frankly designated that we say here's we'll have a picture here are the areas that we're counting

And is that how we calculated the funding for the public art for the M&O facility?

No, it's based on the entire value of the contract, the $42 million contract.

This is an addition. This is a new thing.

Okay. Oh, yes. Council President, do you have a motion with regard to the time? yes I'd like to move that we extend the meeting past our 10 o'clock second been a motion a motion and a second to keep us in business here past our council polls rule at 10 p.m. is there a discussion all those in favor aye opposed all right so customer Walsh did you yeah I would just you know agree with this I mean at a 42

basically eight hundred and forty thousand dollars you know for that for the uh... is two percent of what the maintenance facility was you know, and I agree that there needs to be some art there. There needs to be some artistic things there. But we don't need $840,000 of it there when, you're right, I think that something smaller along the walls, some benches, things like that, which would be calculated off of maybe $5 million or something that would be the publicly accessible area of it. And if we are doing something that... that for some reason that we think that it deserves more than that, we can do it. But in the meantime, we're not being, you know, when the auditor comes along and says, hey, you didn't follow your own rules, we're not having to go, yeah, we didn't, did we? So.

Council President.

E.J., did not most of the public art money go to the fence at the M&O yard?

large portion of it did yeah i mean the the original fence was proposed as a stockade style flat concrete fence and i mean that was one of the things that was originally presented was changing it out to be an artistic with the grass on top of it um so i it is art i mean there was an artist retained as part of the architecture team to design that so it's but yes it did Part of the funding did go to that in accordance with the current ordinance, and I think that is one of the changes that Ryan's presented, or one of the changes that's being presented is changing kind of the way that it's done to make it more, in the future, a standalone project versus the same way the PAC was done, the same way Town Square Park was done, and all the other projects we've done where it is largely incorporated by the architecture team in something that's above and beyond the functionality of the facility. We certainly could have just done a plain 10-foot-tall concrete flat wall and painted it brown and met all of the code requirements.

So if you did not have the funding of the 2%, you would have just had a fence that was not as attractive?

I'm saying that would have been an option, yes.

OK. So the 2% was used for the fence in this position. And the art on top of the fence right Yeah and I mean there's a very sizable contract for the art that's being designed currently I think it was $179,000 Sounds about right correct So is there any need to change does this sentence say what I would what I'm trying to get across

for no not if it's we'd use the entire value of the building and then decorate the outside of an inaccessible building so it would be a portion of the property that's accessible to the public which I don't have a problem with that I just think that we need to do something yeah so how would I word that in a motion no that is that's how it's written right now well that's how okay so

If that's understood of what we are going to do with it, then I'm okay with it.

That is our intent. And once again, on a major project, we would select, we would designate what are public accessible areas as part of the plan, and we would show it to council and say, here's our calculation based on this map of what's accessible.

And two arts commissioners would be involved.

Right, at whatever, 25% completion or whatever. The selection team is an entirely different thing, too. This is just to determine how much money we're going to spend. And then the selection team, which council picks, actually picks the art.

And then it comes to council for final approval.

For appropriation, yeah. Okay. Council Member Hamilton?

Thank You mayor yeah I what I'm hearing from council president Honda is publicly accessible versus publicly visible and so in my mind because something's visible wouldn't necessarily mean that it's accessible so that was why I was kind of thinking about further defining publicly accessible but I would I would caution my worry you know if we you know we're putting 2% towards a whole lot of projects especially ones that aren't necessarily publicly accessible you know as I define it would be we're gonna dilute our ability to finance public art that is publicly accessible and so that's my concern and I'm happy with the ordinance the way it's written

Okay. All right. Let's see. One second. Okay. So there's been a motion. There's been a second. There's a discussion. All right. All those in favor of Council Bill 940? Aye. Opposed? Matter passed unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay. Now we're on item B, second reading and enactment, Council Bill 936, ordinance, approved massage business ordinance. While this is second reading, as you will recall, at first reading, there were some anticipated changes, minor changes, that were going to be added for second readings. To explain those, we've got Assistant City Attorney Adam Gadbury, who will present those changes or amendments between first and second reading. Adam?

Correct. Good evening, Mayor, Council President Honda, and council members. A unique treat for you all. You have all three civil attorneys present tonight, so this is fun. Tonight is the policy question, should council enact a new massage business ordinance? Yes. I will skip ahead to a submission of what the ordinance currently requires. It mirrors state law requiring massage therapists to be properly licensed by the Washington Department of Health. requires owners and managers to ensure their employees are properly licensed by the state, requires a valid license to be conspicuously displayed for easy verification, prohibits internal warning systems, regulates the hours of operation between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., prohibits locking the front door during business hours, prohibits cash transactions, and then also requires massage therapists to abide by the WAC provisions. So changes at first reading were to create a limited exemption for massage businesses that will exempt them from the troublesome provisions of the locked door prohibitions, provisions of locked doors, internal alarm systems, and cash transactions. All other sections of the ordinance will remain applicable to all businesses, massage businesses, even those who get the exemption. So to qualify for the exemption, a business must provide the following. So they need to provide evidence of a Federal Way business license endorsement. They need to provide a list of all employed or hired as independent contractor massage therapists, provide proof that all of those massage therapists are properly licensed, and provide a copy of a valid government-issued identification. Businesses applying for the exemption also have to consent to an inspection of the business by law enforcement or Seattle King County Health or South King County Fire. The exemption will be provided within seven days of the inspection and is valid for one year. So your options tonight are adopt the proposed ordinance or do not adopt the proposed ordinance and provide direction to staff. The mayor's recommendation is option one.

Council, any questions of Adam?

Basically, this may be more of a question for the police. I'm not sure. I know that the massage therapists here were concerned about how legitimate massage therapists would be notified and how that procedure would be for granting that exemption. Could we just hear a comment on how that would be done. It seems to me as though it could be pretty easily done without having to delay how long before the ordinance went into effect like they're concerned about. But could you kind of clarify that?

Sure, correct. The business would contact the police department. We would send them an application. They would complete the application, and then we would come out and do the inspection.

Okay. And so... This is second reading and enactment now. So it would take effect in, what, does it?

30 days.

30 days. So basically within that 30 days, they'd have time to be able to take care of all of that.

Absolutely. If I could just add, when Ms. Chen spoke, it highlighted – the magnitude of the problem that we're facing in our community. That she is being solicited for prostitution on an ongoing basis. Also, the Massage Therapy Association sent a website link, and I looked at it, and it listed Federal Way as having 65 illicit businesses. And when I looked at other cities of comparable size, we are way over the top. And I'm telling you, I'm asking the policy group, no more delays. We need this ordinance to reverse this trend. So thank you.

I agree there wholeheartedly. May I suggest also, I mean, just aside from the ordinance, that, you know, a few months ago, you know, there's been some challenges with – safety and things like that in some of the churches and faith based areas and the police department sponsored a I'm not quite sure not a workshop but an informational meeting open to the faith community on what they could do to protect themselves in case of a problem May I suggest that maybe the police offer an informational thing for the massage therapist on what they can do to address some of these concerns that they have on the illicit you know, the trolls and things like that that they're concerned about.

Sure. We can certainly look at it. We would certainly not object to any meeting and explaining and personal safety. Sure.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Council President Honda and Council Member Hamilton.

Thank you. So how will the massage businesses know that they need to contact the police department to request an exemption, an inspection and an exemption?

Sure. The Washington State Massage Therapy Association, they can certainly put the word out. From a police department perspective, it'll be complaint-based. When we come in contact with the business, we'll explain the law. We're not going to enforce the law on the spot. We're going to give fair opportunity for businesses to comply. So they'll fully understand, and if they'll also understand there's an application process, they can fill it out, and then we'll take a look at their business.

so I'd like to talk a little bit about the ordinance and I agree that it should be passed tonight but I don't want this to be the end of the discussion because everybody up on this dais including the mayor has have been talking about human trafficking and this ordinance doesn't necessarily address human trafficking what we've been told by the experts is that when one of these places is closed down they they move to another location another city another maybe state and they take everyone with them and so what i would like to see us as a council do Senator Tina Orwell, who's just over in Des Moines, sponsored a bill last year, SSB 5936, concerning prevention of and remedies for human trafficking. The bill didn't make it through, but she does intend to bring it back in 2027. I would like to see us as a council contact her and support this work that she's trying to do, because human trafficking is absolutely... Can't even imagine what these women and perhaps men Suffer from and I want to be able to as a city provide services for them So I would like to for us to continue working on on this issue because the issue of trying to address human trafficking isn't a these places are closed down we're not helping the people in the places necessarily they're just going to be moved to another location if you click on I was on a website today and I clicked on services for human trafficking and it has all the different counties and if you click on King County there's many many places you can click on most of them are counseling one of them was the Salvation Army in Seattle provides housing and treatment for survivors of human trafficking but that was pretty much the only place that I saw that provided some housing because when when they asked to get out of human trafficking they're going to need housing they're going to need medical care they're going to need psychological care they're going to need going to need a lot of services and i would just like us to continue uh working to to help victims of human trafficking i think that we've done that before as a city we had the organization for many years here in federal way and i i don't want us to pass his ordinance and think that we're doing something to help those victims of human trafficking because what we're doing is closing the massage businesses down that are illicit i agree with that but i do want to offer i do want to be a city that is working to um get rid of human trafficking and so i'd like to us to continue working on this okay thank you thank you customer hamilton

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council President Honda, for your thoughts about human trafficking. I am happy to support any legislation that is going to hold human traffickers accountable, because I want the message to be that human trafficking is not going to take place in federal way. Now, as far as the massage parlor ordinance, I do think that if we can root out the illicit massage parlors, that the message is going to be spread pretty quickly that these services are not available in a federal way. And I think eventually people are going to stop coming to places in federal ways seeking these services. It might take some time for that message to get out, but I think we're going to have a very strong deterrent for these sort of places to pop up in our city. And I represent this city and its residents, and I don't want these places in our city. I think we need to get them out of our city and send a very strong message. Also, I recall probably about five years ago, I had thrown my back out, and so I was actually prescribed massage therapy. And one thing I noticed in the office was signage and then paperwork that I had to sign in on the website. It said something to the effect of... requests for inappropriate sexual services will result in termination of appointments and will be reported to law enforcement. And I thought, wow, that's a pretty strong statement. If I was someone looking for sexual services and I knew that if I asked for that and that it was going to be reported to law enforcement, I probably wouldn't go there. So I invite the massage industry to partner with us in rooting out these bad actors, and I'm sure that taking those types of proactive approaches to try and deter these kinds of people uh... you know requesting this kind of thing that that would be much appreciated my my last comment is just uh... i'd have a lot of empty for people in this industry who are constantly harassed for these kinds of services uh... understand the state law preempts any ordinance we would have a but do we have uh... any ability to create maybe like a federal a minutes for code ordinance for this type of harassment specifically where it can be reported and I'm just throwing that out there as an idea I would probably point you to the RCW

9888.110 where it says a person is guilty of patronizing a prostitute if he or she solicits or requests another person to engage in sexual conduct with him or her in return for a fee so it's already under state law it's pretty clear that that type of verbal or written request is already legal.

So we do have a state law that can address the type of harassment these individuals are facing.

Correct. Is that correct? It's up to the investigation team to get probable cause and go track down that genre.

So how would someone report this type of harassment?

The massage therapist would just simply call the police. We would take a police report and we would look at investigating that. So if somebody comes in and asks for sex act and they turn away, whatever information we can get of that person, then we can investigate. I'm not so sure they're going to be forthright in telling them exactly who they are, and that might make it complicated in terms of investigation. But it is a crime to solicit for sex.

Okay. So, again, I would encourage some of that type of activity to be reported, and hopefully the message can get out on that. Thank you.

Council Member Coachmark?

uh thank you mayor i you know we did have a um as council president honda said we did have a group in federal way that was working on sex trafficking um and it wasn't just people involved with massage parlors it was children in our high schools that were being um entrapped what i'd like to do is ask if our um good chair of our perks committee here, whose public safety is part of that committee, would track the Orwell bill, see how we could get involved, and see what we can. We can't just produce something immediately, but we can try to start talking about it over time. So perhaps you could put it on your agenda as something to look into and see what we could do in the future.

Absolutely, I would support that. I believe it's House Bill 2076. Thank you.

Okay. Would the city clerk please read the ordinance title?

Council Bill 936, Ordinance. Approve Massage Business Ordinance and Ordinance of the City of Federal Way, Washington, relating to massage businesses, adding a new Chapter 12.65 Federal Way Revised Code, including sections detailed in the written title.

All right.

Council Member Sessoms? I move approval of the proposed ordinance.

Second. Second. It's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The matter passes unanimously. I'd like to thank the Massage Ordinance Association and Ms. Chen, thank you, and everybody that's been involved in this. Item C, second reading and enactment, Council Bill 939, Ordinance 2020-25 to 2026, Biennial Budget Amendment Number 3. And Finance Director Steve Groom is available if there are any questions. Would the City Clerk please read the ordinance title?

Council Bill 939, Ordinance 2025 to 2026, Biennial Budget Amendment Number 3, an ordinance of the City of Federal Way of Washington relating to amending the 2025-2026 Biennial Budget. All right.

Council Member Coachmark?

Mr. Groom, do you have any comments on this item?

No, it was presented at FedRec, and we did first reading.

Okay. All right. So I move approval of the proposed ordinance.

Second. I'm going to motion a second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The matter passes unanimously. All right. We are on to council reports. First meeting of the month. We'll start with Council Member Sepedosin.

Thank you, Mayor. One comment, my observation from earlier public comment, there was a lot of discussion around mental health, chemical dependency, suicide, gun violence, and I think there's something going on, right? I mean, it's been going on, and I think it would be great if we could do something about it. It could be hosting some kind of a seminar gathering. I don't know, but I think people are asking. So that might be a good idea and just for us to pay attention and to be responsive to those questions because we probably don't have a place where it lands, but I think it's something that we should pay attention to. And then I read somewhere that addressing homelessness. It says during the one-night count, I think they changed the name. What is it? The one-night count. I forgot what it's called. What is it now? They observed that there was a 9% increase between 2024 and 2026. And the shelter beds are not available due to lack of bed. So too many people needing shelters. And then You know, when we talk about race, a lot of people think race doesn't matter, but disparities and most highly impacted is the American Indian native and indigenous population as highly impacted by homelessness. And one of the reasons cited was job loss. eviction and or increase in rent and I think this impacts and affects a lot of people and I know it's easy for people to criminalize homelessness or people experiencing homelessness. But I think when he's talking about why people are homeless, I think it's more important than looking at them and saying they're drug addicts or whatever. And I say this because of my personal experience for 10 months where I did not have a home and, um, by no fault of mine, I just couldn't afford. And so I think that's something to also focus on. And, um, We also know that Washington State needs $1.1 million over the next 20 years. And so something just to know if we don't hit that mark, people are going to be homeless. And so I don't know how we address it, and I don't think we can ever get rid of it, but it's something I think we need to continue. We can't arrive. I think that's where I'm going with this. And then I also attended the... AWC conference last week and there was some great great great topics I Wish we had more time or I wish there was some that were repeated that did not happen this time But the ones that I attended that were really meaningful to me were like one was Fostering civility what it is, but it's not why it is important and and our role as leaders is around this conversation I also attended visioning your community's future path was another topic and then again housing policy and practice and then civic engagement and community trust and so I think you know we've seen a lot of changes we've seen a lot of discourse but I think I hear this on the dice a lot. At the end of the day, we all want the best for our community and for our people. So how do we communicate that to our constituents and the community is what's so important. What they see and what they hear here could be something that we don't intend to communicate to others. But at the end of the day, I think we just want to make sure that people understand. I think we all mean well. but it's just a matter of how we communicate those differences, disagreements, and so just some highlights that I got from this conference and how I personalized or internalized it. So I think with that, I end my report. Thank you for the time. Great. Thank you. Council Member Moore?

Thank you so much. Well, to my colleague to my right, Council Member Safford, I like your nails. They're very colorful, if you haven't seen it. Sorry, I like to... Yeah, there you go. Sorry, I just... Felt like I needed to say that. Well, it's good to see everybody. I was the one council member that did not attend AWC conference because I was daddying. Some people would like to call me Mr. Mom. So my wife was out of town and doing much needed family with Arizona, in Arizona. and so i got to stay home with the kiddos and you know do what every dad does so that being said i look forward to going to it to next year and i know that Having attended nearly eight times of my eight years in service as a council member prior to this term, I know that there's just a lot of wealth of information, and the opportunity to connect with other elected officials is always, always a great thing, and it's good for the soul as well. With that, some events that have been talked about already, but I'll put a little bit of my perspective on it. And that's I, on the day, on the week slash weekend that I had the kiddos to myself, it was a fun, fun day. We went everywhere. We first started at the Federal Way Farmers Market. And so that was always a lot of fun, and whereupon I was pleased to hear Council President Honda mentioning that kids get the $5 coupons. So we took advantage of that, so we got $10 for one, two kids. And so they actually got to pick out cherries and apples. So they were delicious, and so it's always good to get it from a fresh market. So yeah, so that was a fun little experience. And then, of course, we got to go see Movie in the Park.

Is that what it's called, Movie in the Park? Zootopia 2.

Zootopia 2. Happened to sit next to an interesting human being. Happens to be the mayor. And it was actually kind of fun to observe the mayor. He's very particular in how he wanted to set up, because it's a very serious business. And it was always good to hear a young adult laughing and smiling throughout the one-liners of that movie. It's a good movie. It's a very good movie. And the kids liked it. It was just fun. I mean, it was just fun to see a lot of kids there and a lot of families there experiencing that whole event. And I think my wife was shocked that I was able to make it happen. You saw the setup that we had. I think I did okay in that. And also, obviously, the World Cup and our new parks director, Jason Gerwin, stated this as well. But it is... This is just my perspective. As much as there's negative things that are happening around us, there are good things that are happening here in Federal Way. There are good things that are happening in Federal Way. And I've had the pleasure to, when I was first elected to the City Council in 2013, I remember what that lot used to look like. And to be there when Mayor Ferrell was first elected and to see where it's at today, that was a bold vision. That was a vision with energy. And that's what I'm looking forward to seeing with Tonya. Lena is our economic development director and us as a city. But the Civic Plaza I think is a really exciting concept, and I think it's the start of something new. that a song there's a song there i won't i'll let melissa sing that song but um uh so that being said um so the the civic plaza and the pack uh and the park is just a great concept uh and um and For me, being able to meet up with friends to go hear live music on the Civic Plaza was pretty darn epic. And I really, Mayor, I really want to see that continued. I think it's too late for this year, but I really hope that we can see that happen because that is such a good return on people's tax dollars to be able to enjoy uh that center that area uh and it brings energy there as well so uh i wanted to kind of say that and then the fourth of july um obviously that was a really good great event as i've said to many many people over the years that is my favorite event of the year i always look forward to that i want to do a shout out to the parks commission for doing surveys And whoever idea was to put Karen on to talk to everybody and ask them questions was perfect. Because I saw her getting to people. And I know that she's there. That was the mayor that decided that. Karen's good at that. She has a gift, a natural talent. And so she interviewed me. And I'm actually looking forward to the surveys. I really would love to see the surveys. And so that's that. And then I appreciate the public's comments and thoughts always. And I will say this. Jeff and I, we disagree on a lot of things. But I appreciate what he said tonight. I respect it. And the fact that he brought up Evan Cook is a great thing. I've known Evan for years. He is an extraordinarily talented man who lives right here in Federal Way, who is just straight up authentic. He is the real deal, and he continues to dedicate his life to our youth. I've worked with Evan Cook, I believe, and so he is a phenomenal individual. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and say thank you for mentioning that. I think that was really critical information. And so there's more I can say, but in the interest of time, I will pass it back to you, Mayor. Thank you.

Well, and kudos to you, council member. I did actually move our seats three times. And because right when I set up the seat to watch the movie, I think the tallest person for three blocks around sat right in front of me.

Was that me?

And so then I had like three chairs. I had a love seat and I had another seat. And so I switched over to the other side. And I kept like trying to, you know, like this way. And Martin, who's a council member more, who's with us, two little kids, offered up, do you want me to move? And I'm like, maybe just a little. And he did. And so anyway, that was very nice. So I was unobstructed. Okay, all right, very good. All right, Council Member Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor. I have a few events to report on that I attended. The Juneteenth celebration at City Hall was a beautiful event. Thank you to Council Member Sessoms for being our keynote speaker. It was great to hear all of the speakers, and it was well attended, and I enjoyed that. And also attended kicking it. That was our World Cup event. And you know, just seeing that take place really. You know, it was a good vision of what could be, and seeing the community come out for that and cheering on the home team, the USA team. Kind of sad they didn't win that last game, but, you know, we're kind of more into American football anyway, right? But, you know, job well done to Team USA. They put their heart and soul into it. And then also attended the AWC conference with most of my colleagues and the workshops that I attended, I attended a lot of workshops, but some of the more memorable ones where I attended three workshops on the budget. kind of prep me for going into budget season here as a city and then one of one of the workshops was on indigent defense and I've spoken at length on this issue something I'm very passionate about and that I will keep putting at the forefront is the need for public defense and the funding that's going to happen and the new caseload standards and what we have to do as a city with reducing the 10 every year until we get to the new caseload standards anyway i'm going to keep talking about it and um So I attended that. And then I also attended, probably the most interesting one was called Meet People Where They Are at Health and Housing. And so housing, I think Lydia talked about that. And Council Member and something that I'm also very passionate about. And that's why I keep asking about the red lion. the Booker House, you know, we do have shelter capacity in this city. Last I checked. And it's just a matter of getting people into that housing and getting them to accept the housing. We have a lot of service-resistant folks, and that's unfortunate because the shelter exists. And I'm very concerned. When I look at the King County stats and think about how much taxpayer money is going to solve homelessness and reduce homelessness, only to see the stats saying that homelessness is increasing. That is disturbing to me that we are spending that amount of money to increase homelessness. So I think we need to look at the root causes of homelessness, the real root causes of homelessness, and do better as government. But I'll end it at that, and that's the end of my report.

All right, great. Thank you.

Yeah, there's a few things I'd like to mention. I'll get through them very quickly, though. First off, the Juneteenth celebration, great job. Council Member Sessoms on the keynote speech, a great event. And a very – Juneteenth is a well-deserved overdue holiday. And so it was great. Next, the AWC conference. It was great to have Claire Kim there. I mean, she – well, one of my favorite things at the AWC conferences each year is that the youth scholarship recipients, they get the best speeches of the whole conference. And Claire did a great job this time. And, you know, a lot of great workshops. I did the middle housing tour. It was fantastic. quite insightful. I think that we have a lot of potential here in Federal Way. One of the workshops that I like that Council Member Sefa Dawson mentioned is the one on civility. And it was basically encouraging cities to have a civility code, so to speak. I don't remember the right exact term that they used. they referred to it. But I think it would be great if we adopted one as a city, and we made sure that we, as the electeds, follow it and then encourage the, you know, maybe have it posted there at the podium so as people are doing public comment, they can be looking at it just as a reminder of what is expected for civility in our community. Next, the Kickin' It celebration, fantastic. You know, I think it was very, very successful. We didn't get the attendance that we'd hoped for, but I think that it brought – that I was up there several days watching different matches, and there was the amazing number of people who said that it was the first time that they had ever been into the pack.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that the fact that it brought people in, and they were impressed with it. They were impressed with it and saying, hey, I want to come back for other events. And so I think just with that, it was very successful. The Civic Plaza there, I think it's starting to create a community downtown atmosphere. And with the Civic Plaza, Uh, you know, I might suggest that the, the movies in the park be up at the civic Plaza down at, uh, rather down at, uh, down below at the, at the park and, uh, and, and maybe even the community festival moving it up there. I think that it's a great environment for that type of area. Uh, the, the artwork on the, on the things is, is great. And, and anyway, I, I think that's something that be considered, um, In the mayor's list of things, the community events, there were two things that the South King Tool Library did. And I think that the South King Tool Library is one of the gems in the city that most people don't know about. I have mixed feelings about how much we broadcast it because I really like to be able to go there and have the tools that I want available. And if too many people know about it, they might not be available when I want them. But no, it's a great resource. And I tell people about it, and they go, what? You can do that? And so Amanda and her crew there have done a fantastic job. I think that's about it for me. Oh, the final thing, Jason, great job on your appointment. He is a man of many talents. The only thing that he has more of in talents is the different styles of mustache that he's sported over the years. So anyway, and that's my report.

All right, thank you. Council Member Sessoms.

Let's see. I'll start with the Association of Washington Cities. That was a great conference. Had an opportunity to go to several different workshops, budgeting, annexation. I went to one where they were talking about accountability with public funding. I went to a civility workshop. Very, very interesting workshops. I met a lot of really, really cool people. A lot of leaders out there. And I also enjoyed going to the conference with my colleagues up here at Medeiros. Thank you, Councilmember Lydia, for being my carmate as we traipsed across the state. Let's see, participating and kicking it in a federal way. Great event. Hats off to you, Jason, for your leadership and Once again, the staff were consummate professionals. Everyone in the pit, everyone outside, it was great. I really, really enjoyed it. Had a few people from Seattle come up and check out Federal Way. It was great to be able to point out different Places and in federal way and also different people Tomorrow I'll be going to the PIC meeting It's in Kirkland at At the Kirkland Justice Center, I believe and I look forward to that and without Well, I gotta say thank you to the mayor for inviting me to be the KEYNOTE AT THE JUNETEEN CELEBRATION. SO THAT'S MY REPORT. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER.

CAN I ADD ONE THING BEFORE LINDA? YES, SIR. KUDOS TO THE MAYOR AGAIN ON HIS SELECTION OF MUSIC FOR RED, WHITE, AND BLUES AND STARTING OFF WITH SATURDAY IN THE PARK. I THINK IT WAS THE 4TH OF JULY. I MEAN, YOU KNOW, ANYWAY. AND THE REST OF THE MUSIC WAS GOOD TOO.

YOU GUYS WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING FUNNY? FIRST OF ALL, I HAD ASKED PEOPLE TO GIVE SUBMISSIONS. IT WAS COUNCILMEMBER HAMILTON. IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN THE SHOW. if it hadn't been for Councilmember Hamilton. And I said no if I was like, oh, yeah, right, right. I mean, I thought, I didn't think it was going to be enough. I didn't think of it as fireworks music. But after thinking about it for a day, we had already burned the CD for the fireworks. And then I realized it is Saturday, we're in the park, and it's the 4th of July. I called up John Hutton, and I'm like, is it too late? And he goes, yes. And I'm like, John, we got to change it to that first song. And he reburned the CD. to make sure it had that song in it. But the funny thing was, I got to just tell you something really funny, you guys. I'm sorry. About 30 minutes before the fireworks, and nobody knew. I didn't tell, unless it was going to be in there, I didn't tell anybody what was going to be in the songs. Jack comes over. I'm sitting in my chairs. I'm getting ready for the fireworks show. And Jack Walsh comes up 30 minutes before the fireworks, and he goes, you know, we should really play that song by Chicago called Saturday in the Park. And I'm like, that's a really good idea. So as it was going off, as the fireworks were going on, I just looked over and I kind of winked and I'm like, yeah, it was a great idea. Thanks, Melissa. You're welcome. Anyway, that's how government works.

Mayor.

All right, yeah.

You know, there's a lot of Taylor Swift fans out there.

Yeah.

So I appreciate you choosing a Taylor Swift song as well. Thanks to Sarah, your wife. I know we're talking about Saturday in the Park, but Taylor Swift, come on.

So the other one is, was... Yeah, you did it. Councilmember Moore's wife, Sarah, suggested that song, and thank you for that suggestion. Okay, Councilmember Coachmark?

Well, I think one of the most important things we can say is thank you. Thank you to our staff for all of your hard work. Thank you to the commenters who said thank you to us. You know, it's really important to build community together. I counted up how many events we have during the summer? Twenty. Twenty minimum events that we have going for people to get together almost every weekend in some kind of a festival or event or movie. And I think that we should all be very grateful that we have that in our community. And, you know, because we're building for our family. our memories and we were building something that they feel that they're we're proud to call our home and i think that that's really important and it's important for us to recognize that but it's also important for us to say thank you to our staff who are working so very hard for everything every crazy idea we come up with But thank you to all of you who very patiently listen to us and say, yes, but have you considered? But anyway, and one of the things in the Association of Washington City's conference that I went to and I want to tell you about was discussion of grants. And I think that there's when we actually do have a carousel and we do have something for Christmas, I think that there are grants available for portable ice skating rinks or carousel buildings or whatever. We need to have more things in the... winter as well as just in the summer to bring our community together especially when it's so dark out and people feel isolated they need to have a place to go with lots of lights and excitement and especially for our young people we need to have more dancing in the park sing-alongs take me home country road whatever whatever they're doing those those are things we need to pick up on so again my words to you to the staff to the public who have waited here till the end thank you and thank you to our colleagues and the mayor for their hard work thank you all right council president

Thank you. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a concert of the pack on Sunday, June 28, called Begin Again, Dream Anew. It was from Washington K. Assemble, which is a Korean chorale, and they also had a symphony. It was really, really good. And the pack, every seat was taken. You could not buy a ticket. You had to know someone to get a ticket. Wow. And this is a... probably could be the third year that it's been sold out like that. So an amazing performance. It was really, really good. My husband and I and many of our people I know were at the pitch, the restaurant that was inside the pack, and we watched three games. And I just wanted to compliment the staff, whoever came up with that idea. Maybe you could do it again for the Super Bowl. I don't know.

Whatever big sporting events.

But it was fun. It was especially fun to watch Cindy Dusich's face because she's really into soccer and I don't understand soccer. But watching her face, I could tell when things were good and things were not so good. she was fun to watch i people in there had a lot of fun i i just thank you for having that available i also want to talk about the rhody garden and the bonsai museum if you live in this general area and you haven't gone there you need to go there the bonsai garden the bonsai museum is free they ask for a donation but it's free and they change the exhibit out a few times a year it's amazing You're missing a lot if you don't go there. The roadie garden, you do have to pay to go into that, but it is so pretty that there's always something blooming, and you can buy plants there, which are in really good condition if your toy poodle doesn't eat them when you go home and plant them, which happened to me. But it's just, it's a, we are so fortunate in the federal way that those two gardens are in our community because there there's only one other bonsai museum it's in washington dc and the rhody garden has roadies that don't exist anywhere else except federal way we went to the parade at north lake and it is been going on for over 70 years And I walk it because I enjoy talking to people. And I made it, well, maybe almost 2 thirds of the way down. Maybe not. But anyway, I had a fun time walking. It was bigger than normal, and that was fun. Miles Formiso, there's always a young man who comes in number one. I can't remember his name right now, but he came in first place again this year. Congratulations to him. And I'd like to thank two different people tonight. I'd like to thank Amy Glandon for the work she does for council and for making AWC possible. a positive experience for all of us. She made it really easy for us to go there and participate. So thank you, Amy. I know you're in the back and I know you don't like me saying this kind of stuff, but you deserve it. And I'd like to thank the massage, um, folks who have been here and thank you, Robin. You have given us a lot of information. You're the experts and we appreciate the help that you gave us. So thank you very much.

May I talk about July 4th for a second when is when you were talking about music I think would be great and I said this to you before to have music and other languages might be that uplift and show our diversity and I think you noticed that circle was getting bigger and bigger I didn't know everyone but if they looked Ethiopian I'll just speak to them and I'm here can they join us so that's how I it got bigger but some people was their first time there and they really enjoyed it and one person when it was about time to start they wanted to go to the other side of the trees and I had to convince them to stay exactly just get to see the whole thing like you're on the other side and they were happy they stayed but I think I've seen a lot of I did see a lot of other cultures and people from various countries and I think would be fun I don't know how relatable it is to the event, but I think the music might be great to just mix it and come up with other languages.

Well, thank you very much. We'll talk about it next year. Thank you. Okay, great work, everybody. With that, we're adjourned.