City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. Well, it is 06:00, Tuesday, March 17, and I will call this city council regular meeting to order. Before we get started, we have the mayor and the city manager are excused absences, and council member Turner is also excused out sick. And with that, if you are able, 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.

We, the city of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Treaty of Medicine Creek, including the Nisqually Indian tribe and the Squaxin Island tribe. And we acknowledge or remember those tribal people not recognized today who were absorbed or relocated into other tribes for survival. And with that, can I get a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion about the agenda or the consent agenda? Seeing none, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes unanimously. We have an agenda. And the first item on tonight's agenda is our Lacey Youth Council report.

Hi, counsel. My name is Luca Prelik, and I represent the including, sports events for me. And, also, last weekend was the SAT, so I took it as well as a bunch of people I know. That was at Olympia High School. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, counsel. I'm Isabel Valerio, and I'm representing River Ridge High School. So as of now, we have our upcoming blood drive. It's our second round, which I'm very excited for. We had our first track meet today, which I just came from. Hair is still wet. And we have our other spring sports active. We just had our SATs and our zone choir concert, which involved multiple different middle schools and elementary schools. We wrapped up our talent show, and we had our Sadie's dance in the theme with stranger things.

Hi. I'm Joy Degren here to represent Northwestern High School. Today, there was a track and field that come that was for River Ridge, Timberline, and North Thurston. Spring sports are in full swing and many there's many sports events this week, including tennis, which I'm a part of. Oh, recently, we had one of our students win FFA state championships, and this month is colon cancer awareness month. And we all wore blue on Friday, March 5 to honor the late great vice principal, miss Groen. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah.

Good evening, council. My name is Sheila Matua, and I'm representing Timberline. Our Timberline Theater just finished their musical, Something Rotten, and we sold out two nights in a row. We also had a reward matinee for students to come to. Key Club just had decon, and a lot of the members said that it was quite the experience, and they had a lot of fun.

For spring sports, the boys soccer season is still going on. And we're not doing the best, but we're still trying. Our Timberline choir also had a performance last night, which was very successful. Our Timberline Spring Orchestra concert is on March 17, so it's currently it's coming up. And our track had a jamboree today. Tennis has a meet at the end of this month, and baseball had a game last night. Softball is still also currently going on, and volleyball is going on too. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, council. My name is Henry Boy, and I am representing the superintendent student advisory council. Today, I have the very special honor to attend the Lacey Youth Council roundtable meeting, and we talked to we had a presentation, a short presentation about Lacey one hundred one. So just like the fun things, recommendations that we have here in Lacey. And then we broke up into small groups.

We talked about what things you want to see around Lacey. And some things we came up with was we want to see more recreational stuff or activities, so like a water park. Also wanted to see an ice skating rink. We also talked about how we wanted to see more restaurants. Restaurants and clothing stores, more outlets. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Youth Council, for your reports. You guys are all doing amazing at public speaking, so good job. I also wanted to recognize our North Thurston Public Schools superintendent today. Joining us today, Troy Oliver, thank you for being here. Next on our agenda is proclamations. And today, we have our transgender day of visibility proclamation.

City of Lacey official proclamation. Whereas transgender day of visibility founded in 2009 by Rachel Crandall, honors and celebrates transgender youth, individuals, and communities while recognizing the legacy of courageous leaders, including the transgender women of color at the Stonewall Uprising in 1969 who advanced the movement for equality and justice and

Whereas this day recognize the accomplishments, resiliency, and contributions of transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary individuals while raising awareness of the ongoing work needed to eliminate discrimination, harassment, and violence based on gender identity. We celebrate the many ways transgender Americans contribute to every facet of society, including serving in the military, building businesses, raising families, sharing their stories, and strengthening our communities. And?

Whereas despite progress, transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary individuals, particularly women and girls of color, continue to face disproportionate rates of discrimination and violence. And whereas on this day and every day, the city of Lacey stands with our transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary community members for dignity and equal rights and to provide inclusive and healing spaces. And?

Whereas the city of Lacey is committed to fostering a community where all people are safe, respected, fully accepted, and free to live authentically without fear of harassment or discrimination.

Now, therefore, I, Malcolm Miller, deputy mayor for the City Of Lacey, on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim 03/31/2026 as transgender day of visibility in the city of Lacey and encourage all community members to celebrate and respect the lives and voices of transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary individuals and to work towards eliminating violence and discrimination in all forms. And tonight, we have Larry Cronquist and Lucas Miller accepting from, PFLAG of Olympia.

Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, members of the council, deputy mayor, I am Lucas Miller. I'm on the board of PFLAG Olympia, a local chapter of a national organization that provides support, education, and advocacy to LGBTQ plus people, their friends, families, and allies since 1973. And I would just like to say thank you very much for standing up and and recognizing that at a time when the transgender community is under attack in ways that we have not seen since Germany in the nineteen thirties, it is more important than ever that bodies like this one publicly and in writing with proclamations such as these stand up to support people who are, you know, many of whom are leaving red states and moving to Washington as refugees in their own country. As you may be aware, you know, dozens of red states, have laws on the books now, all but outlawing gender affirming care, the participation of transgender people in sports, and the use of public utilities and public facilities in public spaces.

We actually have two very harmful initiatives coming up on the ballot this November in Washington State. One, trans athlete ban, and the other repealing the safety act that has protected transgender youth in schools for for quite some time now that would force teachers to out transgender students to unsupportive families. PFLAG Olympia has partnered with other organizations to try to fight these initiatives, and our national organization has been involved in challenging the Trump administration's harmful measures, trying to deny lifesaving, gender affirming care, especially to transgender youth. But, you know, it's not only transgender youth that are are in the line of fire right now. Some of you may be aware that a couple of weeks ago, over a thousand transgender Kansans woke up to discover that their driver's licenses had been invalidated overnight.

You know, this is this is a move against the entire community, and it will not stop there. So once again, it's it's very important that elected officials such as yourselves, you know, stand up and speak up for a community that, you know, is is very much under attack right now. So I really wanna thank you for declaring March 30 first transgender day of visibility because right now, visibility is our best weapon and our best defense. So thank you very much.

Thank you. The next item under our agenda tonight is public comment. It looks like we have two people signed up for public comment. Are there any people online for public comment? None. Okay. And were there any written public comments? None. Okay. So first, we have Sandra Curry Lewis.

So just if you would just please state your name and the city that you are from, and you'll have about three minutes.

Perfect. Thank you very much, commission council members, for your time. My name is Sandra, and I'm from the city of Lacey. I'm a registered nurse, and I'm the founder of Ground Zero Outreach here in Thurston County and in Lincoln County, Oregon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Some of you were introduced to my to our work last week through our vice president, my dad, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you guys directly here tonight. I just wanted to give a little bit more information about who we are and who we are developing into within the community. We exist to meet people where they are, particularly individuals experiencing homelessness, substance use disorder, and those that are overcoming barriers to accessing care. We work on the front lines, building trust with individuals who are often not yet connected to services, helping with case management and building trust with those individuals. And we work alongside them step by step into stabilization and recovery.

In practical terms, our work includes helping people access detox and inpatient services. We offer laundromat vouchers and gas vouchers to those in need. We connect people to medical and behavioral health services and help them navigate the system in locating those. We also provide basic needs support, like hygiene, clothing, and survival resources. We're also an authorized distributor of Narcan through the Department of Health.

And then, we follow-up with these people so they don't fall through the cracks. How we are growing. We're building the structure to support contracting for peer mentorship and case management support, and this will allow us to extend the reach of existing systems by engaging with individuals who may not otherwise have access to those services. One critical barrier that we're working to solve right now is for individuals who have animals and pets. Many of them delay or refuse treatment because there's no safe place for their animals, or they're afraid they're not going to get them back.

So, we're actively working to build partnerships with local veterinary providers, and specifically, I had a meeting today with the Joint Animal Services to create a temporary foster options in regards to somebody could house their animals, they could go to treatment, get better, and then receive their animal back and not lose, you know, their companions. This is a small but powerful intervention that can significantly increase treatment rates, and our work directly supports public health and safety by reducing overdose risks, decreasing strain on emergency services, and helping people move towards stability. So we're not duplicating services here, we're bridging gaps between systems that already exist. As we continue to grow, we're looking to collaborate more closely with the city of Lacey, and that could include strengthening our referral pathways, supporting outreach efforts, exploring small scale funding and resource partnerships, and working together on solutions that reduce those barriers to treatment. I wanna be clear though, this is this work is happening already in our community, and I would like to say that there are some great partners we're already collaborating with.

Organizations like Our Arc and God's Land are already doing such amazing work, and it's an honor to be working alongside them building our community care and stronger community based networks. Thank you for your time.

Very good. Thank you for your comments. Next, have Danny Burkett. Please state your name, your city that you're from, and you will have about three minutes.

Good evening. My name is Danny Burkett. I am with Owl Arc, and I am the founder and executive director of IT. We work with homeless youth here in Thurston County, ages 13 to 25. Let me ask you a question, council members. I want to ask you a simple question tonight. Where do our young people go during the day? Not at night. We've had that conversation, beds, shelters, and temporary places. But I'm talking about the 16 year old who was couchsurfing last night, the 19 year old aging out of foster care, the 21 year old trying to hold a job while living out of a backpack or in their car.

At 9AM, when shelters close their doors, where do they go? The library, the streets, Evergreen. They go to parks, go to libraries until they're axed to leave, hopefully, they're sleeping. They go to sidewalks, fast food lobbies, anywhere they won't be noticed or seen. And what looks like lotterying to most is actually surviving.

At our arc, we walk with these youth every day. We hear the same things. I just need somewhere safe to be, somewhere dry, somewhere warm, somewhere I can think, somewhere I don't feel invisible. Not just a bed, a place to exist. What we are missing in our community is not compassion, it's connection and coordination.

We need daytime safe spaces for our homeless youth, places where youth can come and rest, eat, shower, receive mentorship, apply for jobs in a safe place, and finish their schoolwork. Not just services. Stability, dignity, and belonging. But here's the truth. Government cannot solve it alone, neither can a nonprofit solve it alone.

This requires a community movement. We are calling on churches to open their doors during the day, not just for Sunday, but for sanctuary. Rotary clubs and civics groups to adopt sites, fund meals, provide mentorship, and stand beside these young people who are in need, of your guidance, your leadership. Local businesses and residents to become part of a network of safe, supported places. Imagine this.

Instead of youth being pushed from place to place, they are welcomed into a network of care. Instead of being seen as a problem, they are seen as potential. Tonight, we ask for your partnership, not just funding, but leadership. Help us create a daytime shelter strategy of faith and civic coalition and a community wide call to action. Because the question is just where do they sleep, it's where do they belong. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments tonight, all of you. Next on on our agenda is under ordinances, and we will be taking a look at ordinance number one six nine eight, twenty twenty five carryover amendment. And tonight, we have Chelsea Knight.

Alright. Good evening, deputy mayor and council. I'm Chelsea Knight, deputy finance director. For your consideration this evening is the 2025 carryover budget amendment ordinance. This is our first amendment of the year. This is limited to projects, priorities, and initiatives that we weren't able to complete in 2025. And so we're looking to finish that work in 2026 for the council and the community. And to do that, we need those budget appropriations move forward into this fiscal year. This amendment is $34,200,000 across all the related funds. I do just wanna call out that the staff report that was originally published had the an outdated total on there.

So there is a new one. It's on the website, but I also have printed copies if anybody needs one. Essentially, there was a $174,000 change between the two documents. Most importantly, though, exhibit a and the ordinance itself were accurate as published, and that's where all the details are for this amendment in that exhibit a document. We also reviewed the major highlights during the work session last week. And so, basically, I won't go over much of the details. But if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer those. And so staff recommends, for counsel to adopt ordinance sixteen ninety eight authorizing the 2025 carryover budget amendment.

I would move to adopt ordinance sixteen ninety eight amending the 2026 budget to reappropriate 2025 budgeted amounts for projects not completed in 2025.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any questions or comments?

Just one really quick comment. I wanted to just say congratulations. When you introduced yourself, you obviously have a new title.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Any other questions or comments? Okay. Seeing none, all in favor of approving this ordinance, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Next on our ordinances, we have ordinance number one six nine nine, the repeal of social card prohibition. Looks like our assistant city manager Shannon Kelly Fong will be presenting.

Good evening, deputy mayor and council members. I'm glad to be here this evening with you all from a different vantage point here. So this is a first time giving a presentation over here, so please bear with me. Just to start off, the recommendation tonight is to move forward with adopting ordinance 1,699, which would repeal, chapter 5.06 of the Lacey Municipal Code, which is social card games prohibited. For some background, the council has reviewed information on, gambling taxes at several of council meetings, including this August meeting where, was discussed was the statutory framework for gambling taxes, particularly taking a look at social card games and punch board and poll tab tax rates, taking a look at the current gambling tax rates, including ours, the state maximum rates, and then potential options that are available to the city council, and an analysis of comparable city statewide for social card games and punch board or pull tabs, and also took a look at what the potential revenue for, all of the above options could be for gambling taxes.

At the January 13 meeting, the council provided the following direction to city staff, and one was to return with an ordinance repealing the prohibition on social card games, and that is what ordinance 1,699 would do. The other was to continue to monitor social card game taxes and to consider increases to pull tab taxes at a later date. And there was also some additional questions that had come up during that meeting, and so provided in the staff report some answers to those questions, and I'll briefly go over those really quickly. Then And some updated information too on poll tabs specifically. So really quickly, in the packet, what you will find is some information on some of the questions that were asked at the last work session, including the number of social card game rooms statewide.

This was a question of, you know, what kind of fluctuation have we seen in recent years. And what we can see is there has been some fluctuation, but the number has remained relatively the same going from 43 in 2019 to 41 in 2024. There was also a question of how many entities in Thurston County, Lacey specifically, offered pull tabs. Again, there are some fluctuations in some of the numbers, but consistently around 50 licenses were listed for 2024. And of those, 43 were commercial and seven were nonprofits.

Finally, there was a question about an example of social card game tax rate increases if they had been applied in previous years. And so what we've provided here in table c is just an estimate using the current rate of seven and a half percent, but then also if the rate had been 8%, 9%, and 10%, what that projected net income or loss would have been based on the information that was available. There was also some questions that came up with pull tabs and an opportunity to provide some clarification on some information that was provided. So upon further review, the option that was previously presented to the council to increase the punch board or pull tab rate to 10% was incorrect, so I do want to clarify this. State law does distinguish between gross receipts and net receipts.

So gross receipts refer to the total amount taken in by selling tabs, whereas net receipts refer to what remains after prizes and costs. And so when taking a look through this again, what we found was that the max rate per state law for gross receipts is 5%. The max rate for net receipts is 10%, and that lies the distinction between the five and the 10%. So doing some research on this, by state regulation, most pull tab games must have a total prize payout of at least 60% of gross receipts, for each of the series sold. So that means that for every $100 that they take in, at least $60 needs to be paid out to those who are playing.

That means that the maximum theoretical gross profit is around 40% of gross receipts. However, it's really not likely to be close 40 of a profit just based on, you know, purchasing the the game itself and then any infrastructure that needs to go into providing the game. And so when you take a look at, table e here, it's just doing a a comparison of gross versus net receipts. And what you can see is that example two is where there's a profit margin of, you know, 50%, and that's where you can see it being the same of a 10% rate with net receipts versus the 5% rate of gross receipts. So, staff's recommendation is not at this point in time to consider increasing or changing to net receipts.

But if the council does want to consider a gross receipt, change in the future, that is something the council could do and increase it by 1% from 4% to 5%. And just an update information on that, like I was mentioning, the council, could increase the gambling tax from 4% to 5% of the, the gross. And what you can see is that for every half a percentage of a rate increase, this would increase revenues by around $5,000. So in total, that would be a $10,000 increase. Also, just wanna point out that we also updated table f based on this information to show what is likely net receipts versus gross receipts, which it did not make the distinction last time we reviewed this information with the city council.

So, again, we're here for ordinance 1,699, which would be repealing social card games, is chapter 5.06 of the Lacey Municipal Code, and the recommendation is to adopt ordinance 1,699. I'd be happy to answer any other questions that the city council may have on this topic.

Move to adopt ordinance sixteen ninety nine repealing chapter five point o six of the Lacey Municipal Code, social card games prohibited.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Let's get into some discussion. Go ahead, counsel.

I just wanna say this is one of the things where sometimes and a lot of questions that we had were, does anyone, you know, want to do this stuff? But actually getting some public feedback was actually rather surprising, and I thought that that was telling because only a very small amount of information that that I think we get put out reaches the people who who could be interested. And so I think that's telling that that there is opportunities there for these things.

Yeah. I noticed too that we got some some some good mail on that and people said, you know, if you guys do this, I I would be interested. One of the things that I was thought about or concerned about was how much we're going to concentrate in one area. How many card rooms are we going to allow in Northeast Lacey and Midtown Lacey. Don't know if South Lacey is going to be affected or hit by this but I didn't know if we had in this ordinance or maybe we'll do it in the future talked about you know zoning and concentration levels at all.

So the question, deputy mayor, is just what in this particular, ordinance, this would just be a general repealing. And then what I'm hearing you say is potential future conversation for a council to consider of zoning in the future.

Correct.

So to keep monitoring that for future conversation.

Yeah. My I I guess what I'm looking at is, like, okay. If we have a lot of interest and then all of a sudden we have, you know, six card rooms pop up in, a two square mile area and we'd turned into Vegas or something like that.

I mean

There's 41 in the state. I don't think it's a big concern.

I don't think it's a big concern,

but I just want to make sure that that's a conversation that we have in the future.

That makes sense.

Got it.

Just curious, under our current zoning, is there any I mean, because they were prohibited, I'm assuming there is nothing in our zoning for where they could could or couldn't be.

I can't

be correct.

I cannot speak definitively on that question, but I will work with our community and economic development, department to see if there's any more information we can provide on this. Great.

Thank you. And that will be a conversation that we have. I guess that will be the next part of part B of this conversation is how many and where we'll get into the zoning portion of it. But for now, we have a motion and a second to pass this ordinance one six nine nine to allow additional card rooms in the city of Lacey. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Are there any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you for guys for all the hard work.

If I could, deputy mayor, our community economic development department is very fast. So they did provide an update here that there are no specific rules. Okay.

That was quick.

So we'll have to get into that and have those discussions at a future work session. Next on our agenda tonight is the mayor's report. Back to you, Shannon.

Great. Well, we have, two items here on the city manager's report.

Did I say the mayor's report?

Yep. But I'll I'll

The mayor's there is no mayor's report tonight. The city manager's report, that's my fault.

Fantastic. Well, we still have two items on, the city manager's report. And I wanna start, with our contract award for the Chatham wastewater looping and annual valves. And for that, we're gonna have David Knox, our utility engineer, provide the presentation.

Alright. Good evening, honorable deputy mayor and honorable council members. Again, as Shannon introduced me, my name is David Knox. I'm a utility engineer here at the city in the Public Works water resources department. And tonight, I will be presenting on or requesting a motion to award contract number PW2025Dash08 for Chatham wastewater looping project that is part of our annual wastewater annual valves program for maintaining wastewater infrastructure in this in the city.

This contract was advertised for three weeks. We had 12 bids opened on February 25 ranging from 438,000 to 632,000 with an engineer's estimate of $509,253.89. The low bidder was Rocklands Incorporated at $438,946.94. The specifics of this project, would be installing about 800 linear feet of piping along the northern section of Chatham Drive located the red line there, which would connect three existing center step force mains on the North Side Of Chatham that are connected on South, but it would connect them again on the North and then connect them to our gravity system in Stellacom Road. That would allow an alternative path of relief in the event of system maintenance shutdowns for about 400 homes in the in the Madrona Park neighborhood.

And then we will be replacing sewer valves within the project limits that are are aging and nearing their end of useful life. Yeah. So I request a motion to award contract PW202508 to Rockland Incorporated for $438,946.94.

I motion to approve to award Lacey contract number PW2025Dash08 to low bidder Rag Raglands?

Raglands.

Raglands, Inc. In the amount of, $438,946.94.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to award this contract. Is there any discussion or questions before we move on?

One question. Do you have any idea why the bid came in so much lower than the engineers estimate? I mean, I can't imagine that economic conditions have improved.

Right. I mean, the engineers estimate was pretty much right in the middle of the spread of the 12. So I mean, I can't speak to any exact reason, but my best guess would be just uncertainty in the economy and people not knowing exactly, what things are going to cost tomorrow.

Probably bidding on a lot of things if there's 12 bids too, they probably knew they had be competitive.

And sometimes you take a job just to keep your crews working.

Yeah, if I could kind of respond to that. So the methods that we use to put together an engineer's estimate are not the same methods that a contractor uses to put together their estimate. We look at historical prices, yeah, we'll contact vendors, you know, check to see if material prices and things like that have gone up. Contractors though, they go through a much more detailed approach typically. They crew it out, they've got their labor rates, their bidding rates, their production rates, their equipment costs. So they do a much more detailed estimate. So they're two different methods to come up with the numbers.

Okay.

Are there any other questions or discussion items before we move to a vote? Okay. It has been moved and seconded to award Lacey contract number PW202508 to the low bidder, Rocklands Inc, in the amount of $4.38 $9.46 94¢. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Is there any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes unanimously. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you, counsel. I have one more report for this evening, and that is a public safety briefing from our, police chief, Robert Almada.

Good evening, counsel. Wow. 06:35. I got lots of time. I'm not sure if I should take if you want me to fill that time or you're looking to get out of it early, but or I just have a history of being verbose. I'm not sure which it is. But good evening, counsel. Thank you for having me today. I'm very proud to talk about our police department with you. And we're gonna talk about 2025 and and what happened and how it turned out statistics wise and some staffing, and we're looking to move in 2026.

Thank you.

Okay. Now ah, there we go. Okay. We're talking about staffing and diversity and overview. So our commission officers, we have twenty twenty five, how they they do a point in time count. And when they do the point in time count, the I talked about this with the city manager. Make sure you tell council how they calculate that number because we authorized 72 positions. How is it we have 58? So he wanted to make sure that I I really drilled down drilled down a little bit into this this information. So on average, actually, the point in time count that we reported to the FBI was 58 positions.

Now when there's counting those positions, they're fully trained and able to deploy to the field. They do not count officers in training. They don't officer count officers pre academy. They don't any two people having backgrounds. They don't count anybody. They don't command they do not count command staff. So myself, the deputy chief, our four lieutenants are not counted in this in that number. So you go through the math. An example, I believe I have on next page. There we go. So how's it calculated? Here's just kind of a little so on thirty first of each year, they say, how many how many deployable officers do you have? And so as you saw, it was 56. Just so happens when I looked at the other day, it would still be 56. And this is why.

So of the 72 positions that we have funded, two are command level officers, four are lieutenants. So those six don't count. We have three in the field training program. Those three are officers. Two just got out of the academy. One is a lateral officer who's been the training the the field training program for better part of a month and a half now. We have four at the academy currently. We have one pending the academy for June, and we currently have two vacancies. When you add all those numbers up, we have 56 deployable officers, but that counts for the entire 72. So that's so, fortunately, by October, that number actually should be higher than 56, less retirements or anything else that might happen along the way.

So if there's any questions, I'll be happy to answer those. But it gets a little wonky when you look at the stats and how the FBI likes to count them. So how long does it take to to hire a plea hire and train a police officer? That's a question we get very often. Our hiring process is rigorous and robust. We wanna make sure that we select the finest officers for Lacey, which will tell why our other stats are really low. It's really important that we get the right people here. So it takes between the written test, the PFQ, which is the physical agility test. It's about four weeks to get that process done. Before you get your first interview with the Lacey Police Department, it's about six weeks on general.

These are all averages. After if you're successful in that first next interview, the next chief's interview is about three weeks after that, then we put you to a background. And depending how long your how much life you've lived, it'll be six to eight weeks. If you've lived longer life and you've deployed a lot of places or you've lived a lot of places, had a lot of jobs, it'll take a little longer. If you're right out of college, haven't lived a lot of places, it's a little bit quicker.

After that, we part of the background is the integrity interview where we take all the information you provide and verify it and and clear up any discrepancies. We talk to your references. We check your history. At that point, you take a polygraph by state law. You do a psychological evaluation, a medical evaluation, and then the final offer that talks takes approximately twenty one weeks on average.

Then you start your training phase. That's two weeks before the academy while I prepare you to go to the academy and get your uniforms proper, give you some basic contextual information while you go to the academy. In the academy, it's about four and a half months, eighteen weeks. Then post academy is another two weeks. As soon as you come out of the academy, we go through a series of validating the information you receive in the academy so you know we know that you can apply the law that you learned in in situations as well as qualifications on various systems that we have.

Then you go into a fifteen week field training officer program where you ride around with a senior officer who's trained who's specially trained to train officers, and you go through three different training officers during that that fifteen weeks, and that totals thirty seven weeks. And so in general, it takes fourteen to eighteen months from the day you say, I think I might wanna be a police officer someday. You take the written test, that starts the clock. It take fourteen, eighteen months before you're field ready to deploy as a deployable police officer here in Lacey. And that's actually an accelerated system than when it was six years ago.

Actually, I have one question. Do do most of these guys hold down a job during that guys or girls hold down a job during that time? How does that

Well, I pay them as soon as they come out of the out out of the as soon as they start pre academy prep, they start getting paid.

Okay.

So all their training is is they're full they're fully paid at step one as a police officer. There's not a training pay. It's an actual full pay as a a step one police officer.

So the left side is unpaid, the right side is paid? Correct.

Okay. So generally, either they're finishing the military billet during that hiring process. They're still transferring out of the military. So they're still in the military where they're going through the hiring process or they're finishing college or they're still working the other jobs they're at currently. K.

Okay. Question might come up. Why do you have four lieutenants? That's why. They do a lot of stuff. And it's mice type. I know it is. Sorry about that. But we have a lot of pro we have a lot of programs and projects going out at the police department that we're required to do by state law as well as part of being a modern police department. And so we divvy those those projects out both to make sure they're done properly, but also to develop our newer newer command team.

We have two relatively well, you know, my my really senior commander just retired last December, and we just brought on our newest lieutenant. So my most senior lieutenant has three years. My most senior my most junior lieutenant has it's March 17. He started January 1. So he's got just under just over two months under his belt.

So we give them the projects and programs to develop them under the guidance of myself and the deputy chief, and the deputy chief has a whole bunch of roles on that as well, and I'm responsible for everything. So there's a lot going on at the police department that we're responsible for to make sure everything is done properly. Okay. Our racial composition. So numbers are based upon the 2025.

You'll notice we reflect the community that we'll see that next slide. We have approximately 61% of the department is white and this is both commissioned and professional staff. Then you have 11% are African American, just about 13% are Hispanic I'm sorry, Asian, another 13% are Hispanic, and then we have unknown and Native American as well. We look at the composition of Lacey for 2020 census as well as the current composition of the North Thurston School District, which is what we really look towards. We actually have very similar diversity to those two sets of information.

So when you look at our field activity, field interviews, that's when an officer talks to somebody who documents information or issues a citation, that's an infraction traffic citation. You'll notice again, when you look at the amount, there's no no bias indicated in the in the statistics that we use as far as issuing citations, racial composition, if like that for both field interviews and tickets as well as arrests. Again, primarily white white white folks are being arrested here at Lacey. So the difference here between those two stats, one is all arrests, two are the second one is all discretionary arrests. So when you look at discretionary arrests, those are so what's not included in a discretionary arrest?

So that takes out all the domestic violence arrests because those are those are mandated. All DUI arrests, those are mandated. All warrant arrests, those are mandated. So when the officer has has the discretion whether or not to arrest somebody, those stats almost exactly match those of the mandatory arrests. Again, indicating no no indicated bias.

Our gender breakdown at the police department for the entire police department is 34% female and 66% male. Remember, when I got here, it was about 10%, 15% female. So one of our big goals was to get towards that 303030%. Looking at commission officers, we're at 23%. We've been a size 25% or so.

So we're still trying to zero on that 3030% for for commissioned officers. We're still working on that. Civilian personnel, we're definitely heavily females on our professional staff. And that makes up noncommunity service officers, that's sport officers in the field doing field activities, evidence technician, our police record specialists, our executive assistant, our car washer, those are all professional staff. Department statistics.

So these so here are some definitions you'll hear. Citizen initiated call, that's when the citizen starts the call by calling 911 or flagging down a police officer. Officer initiated call, that's when the officer tells dispatch, hey. I'm going out on this vehicle or I see something suspicious and then initiate a contact. A case is when we actually start writing a crime report.

So total calls for service, they're up. Four four thousand eight hundred and forty two calls for service in 2025. That's a 5% increase over last year, and that's about a nine and a half percent increase over the five year trailing average. So activity is going up. But that's remember, that's also involving officer initiative, and we've increased our number of officers over time.

So additional officers doing more activity, you would expect that. Number of arrests, we peaked in 2024. So we're a slight decrease year over year, but still an increase over the average of about 28%. Again, having additional officers in training, doing additional and proactive police work, you're gonna see more arrests. Total citations, large increase, about 30 about 38% increase year over year.

1,922 citations for 2025. That's a a 58.7% increase over the five year trailing average. When you have young officers being proactive, they tend to write citations. They tend to do a lot of vehicle stops, which is interesting because that's not really an indicator of how many vehicles we actually stop. We actually do a lot more education in our in our vehicle stops than we do citations. We try to get voluntary educated voluntary compliance folks because it's longer lasting compliance than if I compel compliance with some type of enforcement mechanism. So we try to do it education first. If you've seen the same car doing the same things, that tends to get a citation or if it's a really, really egregious citation or a violation. Traffic collisions are down. You do more traffic enforcement, collisions go down.

It's kind of an interesting correlation. So we're about 10% decrease year over year and about a 5.5% decrease over time, which is really good to see. Engine collisions are down slightly, about 5% year over year, and then again also 5% over the five year trailing average, which is also good to see. I think that's a function of enforcement visibility and roundabouts. Lots of roundabouts. Okay. DUI arrests, we're about even, 88. Pretty consistent year over year. About a 20% increase over the five year trailing average. NIBRS, that's a fun name.

National incident based reporting system. We used to have a different system. This system has some interesting nuances to it because it's the new FBI system of what it it counts victims. So you're gonna see some differences in the numbers on how things are are calculated. Okay. Our population, as you well know, our population for last year was 60,380, a slight increase over the sixty two ten of 2024. So take that in mind. Our crime rate. So the crime rate is the number of crimes per thousand residents in the community. Okay? So it's not the actual numbers of crime. It's the crime rate.

Mhmm.

It's really important to know because that's got a various part as far as part as a function of your population. So when you look at your five year trailing average, we've had a 194% decrease over the five year trailing average. That is something to hoot and holler about my friends. That is not usually seen. So we're down considerably.

Year over year, we're down 12%, which is outstanding. But to my mind, the longer trend is that we've been trending down now for the last five years, and it's almost 20% down over the last five years, which is pretty darn amazing. Again, it's an emphasis on proactive police work and knowing our community and and really focusing on the items driving crime. And habitual offenders that drive crime, we tend to focus on, and that has some of the biggest impacts. Violent crime.

Here's something I wanna pay I want you guys to pay attention to and kind of explain it to you a little bit. So violent crime, the violent crime rate, again, that's as a percentage of population, rose about 22% year over year. And we isolate it really down to one thing, and that's aggressive assaults. It has to do with the number of victims. A lot of our aggravated assaults involve multiple victims.

So whether it's a bar fight or domestic violence incident where there's one perpetrator and several victims in the family who get assaulted, aggravated assaulted, that would cause that number to jump. So we did a little bit of analysis on that. That should be in the next slide. Here we no. It's not on the next slide. Sorry about that. Okay. Sorry. It's not on that slide. But we looked at it, and about eighty percent of the incidents had multiple victims on it, and it ranged anywhere from two to three percent. Thank you. I'd to get that for you. Let's see here.

So it sounds like one incident multiple victims can drive the numbers or the the stats up.

Oh, yeah. So one good bar fight where a lot of people get have an aggravated assault will definitely drive your numbers. What we saw in the in the 81 incidents or eighties we had about 80 incidents or so that involved multiple victims. They tend to go from from two to four victims. We had a couple that were kinda landslide that really kinda offset the whole thing. It skewed it a little bit. But by and large, it was two to four victims involved. Okay.

I have a quick question if I could. Sure. So I know obviously population is based off the city limits. Are these statistics based off just what happens in city limits, or

what if you guys get called,

you know, into a Thurston County or an Olympia area? Would those fall under?

The counselors are statistics, not ours. Okay. Just making sure. Even if if a Lacey officer responds, like, say, sometimes Olympia gets busy on a on a on a a disturbance above border distance downtown. We'll take over their their South Side calls for them. It still reflects on their crime stats, not ours. That's just mutual aid.

And then the UGA counts on the sheriff's stats?

Yes. Okay. Definitely. Robberies are way down. 50% decrease year over year. Again, it's small subsets. We were talking about this earlier, council member Greenstein. Small datasets tend to show large sways in percentages. Again, this is getting a very small dataset from where it once was. And so but still, we've seen a remarkable decrease over time, over thirty four percent. Forcible sex acts are down as well. That's four categories, rape, sodomy, sexual assault with an object, and fondling. Those are down over time of about 1620% over the five year trailing average. Here's our aggravated assault slide. That's what I wanted to show you.

So 8282 individual incidents this year versus 75 last year when you break it down to actual incidents. So we did have more additional incidents, but really the biggest factor here is the number of victims involved, which is one of the kinda interest one of the nuances of NIBRS is how they count crimes. It's per victim.

Well, in the in the method before this, then it would it would it would have counted just the number of incidents, not the number of people.

It was just number of incidents, and it was the most aggravating crime. Here, it's kind of that way. But some somebody wants to it. Simple assaults are down a a bit, about 9.4%, about a 2.93% increase over the five year trailing average, but pretty consistent within a range, frankly, for our simple assaults. It's the aggravated assaults that are are the the more concerning issue.

It looks like simple assaults took a real dip during the COVID.

Yes. A lot of things took a great dip, but definitely, simple assaults were were way down. And and folks used to report a lot of things during COVID. Sure. It's also a big part of it. Motor vehicle thefts, as you've seen throughout the state, are way, way down. We only had 64 stolen cars last year. As opposed to twenty twenty two, we had 271. You might say, gee, chief, what happened in February? Or it happened in 2022.

That's when we couldn't chase anybody Mhmm. Statewide, and that caused an explosion in stolen cars, frankly. And so what happened in 2023, we brought pursuits back, and over time, that number started coming down. And and so the fact that law enforcement throughout the city of Washington can can conduct pursuits had a had a very large impact on this number. So, coincidentally, I'm on the state board for auto theft prevention. It happened to go down when I joined. I don't think there's a correlation, but it just kinda happened. I started on a sweet time. So I'll take it.

Take the credit.

But anyway, but it's down about 40 I just think it's funny. It's down about 46% over over a year over year and then 66 over the five year trailing average, which is just tremendous. Really happy to see that. Burglaries as well, way down. This is both commercial and residential burglaries are way way down. We started seeing this decrease last year after the peak in 2023. And again, this is really working on habitual offenders. As you know, our proact team that we work called CERT with Olympia And Tumwater really works on folks that are engaged in this kind of activity, and it's having a big impact.

So I don't wanna sound like I don't I I just asking this question is gonna make me feel kinda dumb, but I don't really understand the difference between robbery and burglary.

Oh, that's okay. So robbery is the taking of properties in force or fear. Burglary is interest entrance into a usually a structure to take to commit a felony or take or take or steal.

Okay. So robbery is from a person or Using force or fear. Using force or fear from, like, if I run into you on the street or whatever the case may be.

Well, yeah, you can do a street robbery. Mhmm. You can do a residence robbery. You can do a carjacking. You can do all you know, if you use force or fear, if I got a gun and a knife or I just scare you, you feel threatened, that's a robbery.

Okay.

Right? So, like, say I'm doing a petty theft. Right? I'm I'm at one of the local stores. I steal something, and a loss prevention agent goes, hey. Don't take that. And you punch the loss prevention agent, that's now a robbery instead of a petty theft Okay. Or a shoplift. But anytime you use force or fear, now it becomes a robbery for taking property. Burglary just means that you entered a structure with the intent to commit, usually, a property crime of some sort. But it can also be any felony. It could be an arson. It could be a burglary can also

be an adjacent crime. Burglary is more damage?

Burglary is more taking of stuff.

Taking of stuff.

Yeah. Without force or fear.

Without force or

when someone goes to your house and you're not home or someone breaks into your store when you're not there Okay. And then it takes something. Thank you. In very, very general terms. Okay. Larceny, that's just taking up stuff. If there's so many categories of larceny, it gets kind of ad nauseam. But this is eight categories. The big the big ones, pocket pocket picking, purse snatching, shoplifting, theft from a building, like an open building. You walk into, like, an open building, steal a purse off a desk, that kind of thing.

That would just be a theft if it's open to the public. Theft from a coin machine, theft from a motor vehicle, leave your car open, or say it's say it's convertible. I know it's Washington, but still say it's convertible. And the top's not not up. Right? You take something out of the seat. Theft of vehicle parts, you you take the spare tire off a Jeep, that kind of thing, or in all other threats. There's just tons of different subcategories. Those are down 16% over last year, and we've seen a decrease of approximately 24% over the last five years. So, again, really, really working on and focusing on habitual offenders really is having a big impact for us.

That's gonna go away. I'm gonna be closer. Okay.

Chief, would that include your emphasis on shoplifting that you've had in

Yes.

Various big box stores?

Right. So our our community resource unit on a monthly basis does a focus on one of the major retail outlets here in town and we work with their loss prevention teams to really focus on shoplifting and retail theft. And they've been very effective in doing that. Okay. Structured property again is down about 13% year over year and about 19% over the five year trailing average.

A function of that is really focusing on intervention with juveniles engage in in this kind of a behavior. We've seen a lot of the parks trying to mark up the parks a bit. Our park our crews at the parks have been very good about documenting it with their phones. We can identify the person who did it, and we can't figure out pretty quickly and then do an intervention with that youth. Either either through school school resource officers or or general patrol officers.

Is it broke? I don't It's weird. Okay. Drug narcotics equipment violations. First of all, it wasn't a crime for a for a part of the five year period where we really couldn't do very much. Like, half the year, it wasn't a crime and then it was, and we went back and forth on that for a little bit, then they made it a crime. And now it's been going up on on a pretty regular basis. And really, drug and narcotic equipment violate violations are proactive to activity by officers. So this is what we want officers to be doing. Right? Just be if you saw no crime here, that would be an issue because we know we have drugs occurring in our in our community. We wanna make sure officers are being proactive and going after those crimes. Yep. And majority of of type of drug we see is methamphetamine.

Is it true that cities that are located on major freeways and that have ports have a little bit higher drug issues than non freeway in port cities or is there any statistics on that? That's just kind of a statistic that I ran across, for trafficking and for drugs.

Yes. It's corridor. Yeah. I in fact, when I work in Southern California, I actually work work Interstate 5 Corridor for narcotics. And I actually followed a case from Santa Monica all way up to Blaine, Oregon Blaine, Washington. So they were trafficking MDMA out of Canada and taking down Interstate 5 down to Santa Monica. So so, yeah, it goes pretty far. K. Uh-oh. Going too far.

Okay. See, did it for you. Sorry. There we go. Professional standards review. Okay. We're gonna move on to professional standards for for our officers. You know, remember I talked about pursuits earlier? We had one in 2025. And that was for a first degree robbery that was in policy. We had an another incident where, it didn't quite rise to a pursuit. We didn't engage with the suspect. However, we did get him for felony evading, which was interesting. They actually filed felony evading even though we weren't actually engaged in the pursuit at the time, which was unique. But they did make a an affirmative attempt to to evade the police officer, so they were able to get him for evading.

But we only technically had one pursuit in 2025. Personal complaints, we had four formal complaints and eight informal complaints. Formal complaints related to employee conduct both on and off duty. Informal relates to allegations of minor policy infraction or errors, sometimes courtesy, those type of things. We had police vehicle involved collisions. We had 14 that we had six that were preventable and eight are non preventable. A preventable collision is when the officer is found to be at fault. Non preventable generally means the officer got ran into. People tend to run into police officers. WADEPS.

If you have not heard of WADEPS, it is the Washington State Data Exchange for Public Safety for Public Safety. And what that is is the state through senate bill five two five nine sent signed in law in 2021 went into effect last year. And what it did is it wants all law enforcement agencies to report a standardized use of force. Well, that's a problem because law enforcement agencies throughout the state of Washington do not have a standardized use of force. Whereas we're very strict on how we document force, now we investigate our uses of force.

Other agencies say, well, if there's no injury, no harm, no foul, we're moving on. There's nothing to investigate. What WADEPS is is an attempt to try to equalize across all agencies and get everyone to report a level of use of force. And the criteria they're using are fatalities, uses of force resulting in fatalities, great bodily harm or substantial bodily injury during an interaction, discharging or pointing a firearm at a person using a choke hold or vascular neck restraint, deploying a taser, pepper ball, or less lethal ammunition, striking a person with an impact weapon that can either be with a baton or with a projectile, a less lethal projectile, using a vehicle to strike a person, deploying a canine. Right?

Then there's another category. But those are the criteria that they want reported. So under that standard, had five reportable uses of force, two of which were launching of a 40 millimeter launcher impact weapon. That's the blue nose impact. Then we had two pepper ball deployed into a vehicle and we had one impact strike that was either a punch or a knee, one of the two.

So so each use of force technique is reported per officer using the technique. For example, officer a uses a 40 millimeter launch projectile to break out a car window of a barricaded suspect. Officer b then launches a pepper ball into the vehicle where the window was broken out to get the suspect to leave the vehicle. Suspect then surrenders without further incident or the need for additional force. That would create two separate WADEP reports under the criteria.

So it's not per incident. It's per officer and per technique used. So under that criteria, we had five. So under our standard, we had 48, which again, remember we had 44,000 incidents. So really, still a very small use of force as a percentage of incidents that we're involved with.

So of those 48 incidents of uses of force that occurred, remember, whenever we have something meeting any of these criteria that requires full documentation, view by a supervisor, investigation by a supervisor, view by our use of force cadre, and then by command staff to make sure that when the technique was used properly, was it effective, and did we follow our policy. So of the 58 tech of the 48 incidents are reported, 58 techniques were used including 15 times we used the wrap, which is a physical restraint device where a person is put into a seated position in this in this restraint, prevent them from hurting themselves. And it's a recovery position, so they don't have any opportunity for positional asphyxia or anything like that. 24 takedowns to the ground, physical force. That's our greatest use of force frankly as we tend to take people to the ground, hold them to the ground while we handcuff them.

Six wrist locks, three tackles, two taser applications. We had three punches or kicks. We had four extended range impact weapon strikes and one firearm on target without a discharge.

Quick question. Sure. As you were talking about the WADEPs, you mentioned only one impact strike met the met that threshold. And then over your professional standards that you just went over, there were three punches or kicks that you mentioned. What is the difference between what rises to the level of a WADEPS versus just like a regular strike?

It had to do with the reporting period when they started the reporting. Okay. The reporting started in the fall, I believe, is when it actually started. So all the other ones were prior to that. Okay. Thank you. So was it more of a timing issue for part of them? So professional standards used by demographic. I'm sorry. It's a little small there. But, again, majority of force was used on the on on on the white population and then black and then Asian. Included in the white population is Hispanic. It's not broken out under the under the NIBRS criteria. They don't they don't include Hispanics. So I'm not counted under their stats.

It's all white. We're trying to get that changed. This leads to our strategic priorities for 2026. I did pretty good. Okay. So for 2026, what we're concentrating on, obviously, is crime prevention, suppression, investigation, and apprehension. Our new building is going to require new procedures and standards. How we do stuff, how we load out the car, how we get our equipment, how we brief, how we move about the building, how people are accountable within the building, all those kind of things. So we're working on those standards even now. Enhancing and promoting our culture of excellence and service.

So it's kind of a funny one. You really have to be careful with with your teams when you're talking about culture. Right? So if you say, hey. We wanna change the culture. The response from the old guard is, well, what's wrong with our culture? Because they're really proud about alright? And it's like, no. We like that. So really, it's about enhancing and promoting our culture of service and and really working to make sure that we're seeing as part of the community and not enforcers in the community, which is really our our biggest compliment that we get.

And we will make sure we we keep that standard. And so succession planning and subject matter expert development as I said, we've had some retirements over the last six years. We've changed out the department quite a bit as far as newer officers here at the department, so we wanna make sure we're developing those new subject matter experts in the department as well as the the folks that are gonna be following myself and the deputy chief and and the rest of the command team and the leadership team throughout the department, the sergeants and corporals. So we have that next round of leadership for to keep on going internally. And then we work, of course, always on recruitment, retention and wellness for our officers.

We do a lot of recruiting and retention, obviously. Wellness, we really have a a large emphasis on wellness, both from an emotional standpoint and physical wellness. I've I've spoke to the council a couple different times about the tolls this job will take on on just the cardiovascular system, for example, between, you know, sleep pattern, disruption, cortisol, adrenaline, all those kind of things really tend to disrupt your coronary system. But also on the behavioral side, it's important to have systems in place so so officers aren't aren't getting burned out. And so we recently also beside on the physical side, we do segment tactical wellness, which is helps to find a coronary disease and and police officers and and get them on get them the help they need.

And then we also have ready rebound, which if folks are if our officers or employees are injured, gets them back gets the medical services and providers very quickly so they don't

have to worry about a

lot of bureaucracy and bureaucratic paperwork. And then we just went have a contract with first responder wellness, which is emotional behavioral support for officers and our employees, as well as routine check ins with them if they're in critical details, such as they're looking at objection material related to children, real violent crimes, all those kind of things. We'll make sure they're checking in. Our our folks that do a body worn camera redaction, I'm very concerned about them, frankly. They know everybody in the department, and they have to watch as people they know are being attacked by people in the field, verbally berated in the field, are in really dangerous encounters.

Right? And and that can really take a toll on them. So I wanna make sure that they're also taken care of. Okay. So that as well as next priority would be complete or complete our policy review and transition to Lexapol standard. We've been doing this for several years, but it's kinda taking a while to get to where we need to be. The DC has really embraced this, and we have four lieutenants now that have also embraced it lovingly. And they're working on on making sure that's right and and correct and where it needs to be. So we're we're actually moving on pretty quickly on that, and we should be be ready by November with that that whole stand all of that transfer to the Lexapol policy standard. Then finally, enhancing our professional staff capacity.

And that as I spoke about earlier, our body worn cam camera redaction, that's kind of a right now, a sole person doing it with the other folks kinda helping when they can. And so we're really working on trying to find ways to fund an additional additional capacity for the professional staff. Because with the number of officers right now, maybe I told 56 in the field. Right? Well, I'm gonna have more when they get out of training. That's just that much more material being put through the back end that's be the paperwork and the body worn camera and all that all the all the casework and everything else, that's additional work that's to be processed. So I have to make sure that there's enough capacity in the professional staff to handle that. So that's something we'll be looking at. The city manager and I and Troy have been working at. Looking at ways to to to fund that.

And there'll be more to follow on that on that later on. So and with that, that's it. Got 43 slides.

Questions or comments for Chief?

Thank you for the presentation. I did have one question. And before I ask the question, I'm gonna say this just makes me so proud of our police department. But there was a mention of Shoot. I forgot the term. But, anyway, it was of the offenses and the by officers, the complaints by officers.

Yes.

And then I think there were four that were, anyway, were any of them firing offenses?

Yes. I guess it's it's clear. I can't talk about individual incidents. I had one resignation in lieu of termination. I report out every quarter to the civil service commission on hiring information and on discipline. And one of the report outs was, in fact, there was a formal complaint. It rose to the level of termination. He retired in lieu of termination before we got to the and during the lateral process or just prior to lateral process.

Councilman Greenstein.

I I just wanna say, you know, I don't know if this is true in other communities or not having not been on the council in any other community. But we hear from the public a lot as council has elected. And we hear about our parks. We hear great things about our streets and all of that. But we hear a lot from the public about very positive interactions with our place. And I don't know if that is as common in other places. So just want to say you guys do a great job. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Dine? You kind of

already answered this, but one thing that I had been hearing is that there was a little bit of a reduction in fentanyl, but methamphetamine has started to kind of make a comeback a little bit, which kind of scares me. But I was wondering if you have or departments noticed any kinds of trends in the region, you know, with that. So

I can tell you that much like fashion trends come and go, drug trends come and go. And it tends to go opioids, stimulants, hallucinogens, weeds kind of always the underlier. Marijuana is always kind of the underlier. And so it just kinda it depends on where you are in the trend. We're not as heavy into opiates right now where fentanyl was really, really big and heroin was really, really big.

It's still around. I'm not saying it's not, but now you're starting to see more of the stimulants, the methamphetamine, the cocaine, that kind of thing. And so it was really it really ebbs and flows, and it's kinda like the flavor of the week. It's sometimes people get nervous because of the fentanyl scare. They don't you know, they're really concerned about that and contaminated drugs and things like that, so they'll go to something they think is safer. Yeah. So, yeah, it is drug culture is interesting. So you'll you'll see these these shifts over time to different drug trends.

I was I was also wondering if there's a a difference in the interactions because, I mean, methamphetamine is a little bit more of a, you know, a stimulant than fentanyl or an opioid would be and how the police officers kind of tend to deal with that and how they're dealing with that. I'm not getting a

lot of reports about excited delirium like a like and, really, it's a potency issue as well. Excited delirium and those different type of things where, you know, generally, it's really strong methamphetamine or PCP or some other psychedelic that's, you know, both a stimulant and a psychedelic like PCP. That's when you really get the violent excited delirium, the dissociative episodes, the manic strength, those kind of things. That's not really what I'm hearing a lot about. You know? Now we still have fentanyl with to have opiates. We still have those things, but but mostly what we're seizing, a lot of stuff that we're seizing, majority that we seized was methamphetamine. But it it and, also, it's geographical. It kinda depends on what area you're in. And, I mean, if you go to Downtown Seattle, you're gonna see a lot of fentanyl. So it just kinda depends on the geography as well.

Well, thank you for your presentation. I I I I guess, for me, it it it just you know, a lot of the programs that you've instituted and a lot of the practices that you've held upheld and and brought to the city of Lacey, obviously, are really working really well. You know, our numbers are are looking really good. I didn't know that they were this good, but I guess with that, I would say that you guys deserve every square inch of a new facility.

Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.

And I hope we get that one up and running sooner than later. I also want to, acknowledge and recognize, our deputy chief who is with us here tonight and, his new spot with the Washington State Justice Assistance Grants Advisory Committee. So congratulations to you. And, if anybody unless somebody has something further.

I will say though, on that list of responsibilities, the deputy chiefs ones were kind of you know, there wasn't as many on there. So I was thinking maybe

He got a special he's gotta deal with

me. A little bit.

So, I mean, it takes a lot of his time just talking me off the ledge. But but, also, he's in charge of all the lieutenants and all all of operations. Every everything you see happening on the operational level, he's handling. He's also taking on he's trying to learn a lot about the budget, frankly, and doing a lot with the budget issues. He's also in charge of bringing a lot of programs online, developing a lot of new programs, making sure the things that we retain are needed to be retained and things that we don't need to retain are are going by the wayside.

So he's also doing an awful lot with that. And frankly, he handles the majority of the of our bargaining with the bargaining units, and that's coming up this year as well. He is he is definitely well suited for his his tasks and and very, very happy to

have him on board and be my partner. I doubt there's any shortage of work to be done. Next on our agenda tonight is our council reports. And are you done with the city manager's report? I'm sorry.

I am done. Thank you.

Okay. Council reports. The mayor is absent, and I do not have a report. Council member Greenstein? No report. Council member Cox?

One report. This is on the LOTT Clean Water Alliance, March. We received a budgeting overview and details of drivers and next steps. The board will take part in retreat on April 1. The date is not a joke. No April fools there. In preparation for the retreat, the board reviewed budget topics to be discussed, and I should note that lot does two year budgets. So we're entering into the next cycle on this one. So every other year, it gets very intense. We approved an interlocal mutual aid agreement with Thurston County.

We got a briefing on phase two of the digesters upgrade project and approved an alternative contracting method for phase three of that project, which is biogas utilization. Human resources reported out on the wellness program, which has given Lot for the sixteenth consecutive year, winning in the Well City Award. And then finally, I'm happy to announce that Lott has hired a new communications manager, Colleen Keltz, who currently manages media relations for the Department of Ecology's water quality program. So she comes in with a lot of understanding about what LOT does and what its mission is, and, hopefully, she'll start working about a month. And that's my report.

One report, the VCB met earlier today. Mike Reed, formerly with Olympia now at the port, gave a presentation on the some land they have down at the port that they wanna turn into a hotel recreation right next to the marina. They've entered into kind of an exclusive bargaining time period for that over the next six months. And we, the VCB, put together a or we're doing a draft letter of support for that, which I'm gonna bring back to the city for review just to see if they have any input on necessarily that the city needs to take any action on it, but I just thought it would be good that, you know, we all saw it. We know what's going on.

But it's a really interesting project that they wanna do down there and kinda turn Olympia into, you know, a little more of a destination area, which could be good for for everybody. So I'll have a lot more details over that. It wouldn't go in they wouldn't be finishing it probably till 2930. So we're we're a few years out. Okay. But it it is a really interesting project. Next month, we won't be having a meeting. There's actually a tourism conference, up in Vancouver, BC that a few of us would be going to. Rick really encouraged me to to go to that. He went to the last one about, like, ten years ago Mhmm. And said it was a really, actually a really, really good conference that they put on to hopefully bring some things back to the council and the the region. So I'll report back on that next month.

Alright. Thank you. Councilmember Hsu.

Yeah. I have one report, from Orca. The they will be meeting at Mountain View Elementary School, next month to look at their new air quality monitoring system, and so that'll be new and exciting. And then the only other major thing was that they're talking about the asbestos cleanup fees increase, and that'll be proposed at the next meeting, and it'll be read up for adoption as part of 2027 budget proposal for in May.

And that's it. All right. Well, thank you. It looks like we have reached the end of our agenda. We are also at the end of our legislative session, which was a sort of short session this year. I would encourage all staff and community members to take a look at the different pieces of that session that have passed and not passed for just basic community information. And if there is nothing further, I will call this meeting adjourned. And as usual, you keep it classy, Lacey.