City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Hopefully everyone's trying to stay cool on this very warm Tuesday June 16th at 6 p.m. Regular City Council meeting and I'm gonna call it to order Councilmember Dunning is attending remotely, but all other council is present and Oh, he's absent. Okay. So council member Dunning's absent this evening, but all other council is present. And with that, if you're able, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I would also like to acknowledge that 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 Squawks Indian Tribe. With that, can I get a motion to approve this evening's agenda and consent agenda?

Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda as published. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? And that motion passes unanimously. First up on our approved agenda this evening is public recognitions and proclamations and presentations. And first up is the recognition of our community academy graduation, Jenny.

Good evening Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council Members. Thank you so much for giving us just a little bit of time tonight to recognize our attendees of our Lacey Community Academy this year. So this is the second year that we've held this program and it's a seven week program that gives community members a chance to have a deep dive into how the City of Lacey departments work. And so each week we focused on a different Department we had 15 wonderful community members this year summer and in attendance here with us but I just wanted to kind of give a quick highlight of Some of the things that we did. So week one was Lacey 101. This was a highlight of our city managers and just kind of a broad look at the city of Lacey. So we had some wonderful members of our city manager's department help us present that night. We had a few participants up here at the council dais acting on behalf of council and working through council agenda and making a decision when not everybody agrees. So I think it gave them a good look at what you all work through weekly. And then week two was our wonderful Public Works Department. We were here in the council chambers for a presentation for about an hour and then we headed out to our Hawkes Prairie Water Treatment Facility and had a wonderful tour of the just inner workings of that facility. And then a brave group climbed many, many stairs. I don't know if you guys remember how many stairs it was, but it was a lot up to the top of the water tower that was out there with beautiful sunset views. So I think that was definitely a highlight. Week three was finance, which can sometimes be a tough subject to talk about for two hours. Budgets and taxes. But Troy and Chelsea did a phenomenal job finding engaging ways and fun ways to explain everything that goes into the working city budget and And then week four, we had a wonderful tour of our Woodland Creek Community Park. We hosted that week out at the community center, which is on that park's property. And we had a beautiful day. Everybody got to take home a Frisbee, golf Frisbee disc. And we went out and practiced throwing that a couple of times. So we had a nice tour of that facility. Community and Economic Development. We had a presentation in our community room and then we headed over for a tour of our Lacey Makerspace, which many members hadn't even heard of the resource that's in our community. So I think everybody really enjoyed that and I have a little memento here to pass along to you all for our attendees, which was made at the Makerspace for you all to take home. And week six, we had the police department, which is always a highlight for this group. Chief Almada did a wonderful presentation. And then we had a couple of staff to showcase the new taser that our department is going to be using soon. We ran out of time for the wrap demo, unfortunately. All good information, and I mean, the police department is always beloved in our community, and that evening just showcased why. And then our final week, which was actually added this year as the first time, we had our wonderful city council members come. Almost everybody was able to be there, which I really appreciated their time. I think our attendees really appreciated your time, and it gave them an opportunity to ask a lot of good, hard questions, and... So yeah, it was overall a great success. I'm really grateful for the attendees who were able to participate. It's a big commitment for seven weeks every Thursday night to come and spend their time here with our staff. So I'm just really grateful. I have some certificates and then the Makerspace did a little coaster engraving for you to take home to remember us by. Mayor, do you want to say the names or would you like me to? Go ahead. Okay. Karen Cunningham. Again, some might not be here.

And then we'll do, oops, a coaster with it.

And then for those that are in attendance, if you could stay and we'll do a picture. Do you wanna do a picture as a group or?

Okay.

Okay, Sharon Huff. Ruth Lehman. Martin McElliot. I don't wanna be in the back of all of them. Josh Miller. Nakia, I don't think she's here tonight. Gabe Salzetti, did I get it right? Yes. Susan Swinehart. Greg Urquhart. And Amy Zarian. That's Greg. And Amy. So council, thank you for your ongoing support of the program. Do we want to do one group photo? The members can come back up and we'll have the full council come up and get a picture with y'all.

All right, ready over here?

Next up, we're going to bring Jenny back up. We have a public service award for Tulane. Oh, another Jen. I mean, another Jen. Sorry. Other Jen.

A lot of us Jens.

I know.

That Jen.

You're off the hook.

Yep. Well, I'm Jen Burbage, Director of Parks, Culture, and Recreation, and it is my honor to help to introduce the Public Service Award of one of our historical commissioners. And so, Commissioner Patani, do you want to come on up? Commissioner Pitani served almost 3.5 years on the Historical Commission from late 2022 to 2026. And during that time, the Historical Commission partnered with the Thurston County Historical Commission to develop an interpretive kiosk at the RAC. awarded the Ken Balsley Historian of the Year Award to Dr. Thelma Jackson, who actually saw here tonight, in 2023, Paul Webb in 2024, and John Jajic in 2025. The commission also completed historic preservation assessments of the Jacob Smith House and McKinney buildings. They accepted more than 30 new acquisitions into the museum collection, opened the new location of the Lacey Museum on 6th Ave, and identified 343 properties on the historic property inventory. So these are just a few of the things that the commission was busy with during Commissioner Pitani's time here. So just wanted to say we really appreciate your service and thank you very much.

And on behalf of the City Council, first of all, Our boards and commissions are such an integral part to what we do at the city of Lacey. All of our advisory boards are so important to making sure that we're connecting with our community, that they're advising the city council on really important things. And I have a deep love for our historic commission. It's actually how I got started. serving the city of Lacey. And I have a family that goes way back here in their area. So I've always really, really admired the people who are willing to step up and celebrate our history and do things that remember, that the community can remember our community. So on behalf of the city council, it's my honor and my privilege to give you this Distinguished Public Service Award for your time on this work Council from 2022 to 2026. So thank you so much for your service. You can say a few words about your experience. There you go. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. I would first like to thank our Heavenly Father for this blessing, and I would also like to recognize and thank our city mayor and the rest of our council, especially the board that I served on. Most of the times, because I still work full-time, and I am a full-time student. I attend the board meetings via Zoom, but it is a passion for me to serve the community. I had requested to step down from the Historical Commission Board because I am about to defend my paper to obtain my doctorate degree. However, I plan to come back and serve the community. Thank you again for this opportunity. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. And so we'll go right into our next item, which is our presentation of the Celebrating America 250.

This Jen again?

Yeah, that Jen.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, City Council, again. It is my pleasure to give you an overview of what the city is doing to celebrate America 250. And so we have a lot of festivities planned and have already done one of the items, which I'll share. But before I begin this evening, I do want to echo the words of the land acknowledgement. That was read at the start of the meeting. We can't appropriately acknowledge the anniversary of this country without also recognizing our responsibility to call attention to the histories of dispossession, forced removal, and abridged treaty rights that allowed our nation, state, and city to develop as they have today.

I do not believe I have a clicker.

You want to pass it down? Oh, thank you. So the first thing I wanted to highlight, and it's already actually taken place, was May 17th at 11 AM, the America's First Corps Band performed on the main stage at the Lacey Spring Fun Fair. And the next thing I wanted to highlight is that currently the Lacey Museum is participating in a statewide exhibit initiative out of many, one. And this is an initiative inviting museums to partner with their communities to identify and exhibit an object, image, or artwork from their collections that reflects the American experience. Items selected by participating organizations will be represented on the state's interactive online map and be displayed in their communities starting in the summer of 2026. So for Lacey specifically, what our museum put together is for the public to vote on their favorite artifacts or their favorite one artifact out of 10 proposed items in the museum's collection. And then we are going to be exhibiting the top five that were chosen in the exhibit case at City Hall down by the parks counter. and the utility billing counter from the end of June through mid-December. And so the five items that were selected by the community are here on the screen. We have the treaty tree photograph from 1998. We have our beloved Mount Rainier mosaic from 1999. There's a jazz festival hanging quilt. a St. Martin's Diploma from 1897, and the Women's Olympic Marathon Trials T-shirt from 1984. So these are the items that you'll be able to see here in just a couple of weeks at City Hall on display in celebration of our 250th anniversary. Of course, we'll hold our annual Lacey Fireworks Spectacular event on July 3rd at Rainier Vista Park. That'll be from 4 to 11 p.m., Last year we welcomed over 40,000 folks to the park for this event and this year's festivities will include more food vendors than we've ever had before. We'll have our traditional kids zone with free activities and shows geared toward the kiddos and then we'll have live entertainment on the main stage and a fireworks show to end the night and everything is free except for the food just like we have had in the past. Next, we will have the oldest state-level American Legion band in the U.S., and they're from right here in Olympia, and that's the Department of Washington American Legion Band. So as a part of our free Lacey in Tune summer entertainment series, the American Legion Band will play at Huntermer Park on July 9th, and that'll be at 11.30 a.m. The next thing I wanted to highlight is Museum Day. So the Lacey Museum is participating in this statewide day. It's co-sponsored by the Washington Museum Association and the Washington State Historical Society. And that's going to be August 8th. The day is designed to engage communities in history, arts, and cultural experiences. And so we encourage folks to come to the museum that day and celebrate with us. That'll be all day, but you can drop in any time between 11 and 4. And then the Lacey Police Department have created a special patch. The American flag and 250 years were added to the patch to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. Officers can put a patch on their uniform. It will go on the right shoulder and remain on the uniform for its duration. Patches should be delivered around the beginning of July. And this patch will also, the image will be used on Lacey Police Department's social media. So with that, I'd like to thank you again, and we really look forward to continuing to celebrate these things with everyone this year, this special year. Thank you.

And with that, we're going to go into our proclamation for America 250.

City of Lacey official proclamation. Whereas on July 4th, 2026, the United States of America will commemorate the semi-quincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and

Whereas this historic milestone provides an opportunity to reflect on our nation's history, honor the diverse contributions of Americans throughout the generations, and reaffirm the democratic principles upon which the nation was founded, and whereas the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, following the Treaty of Paris of 1783, established a framework for territorial governance and the creation of new states,

ultimately contributing to the establishment of the state of Washington in 1889, and whereas the city of Lacey was incorporated in 1966 and continues to be shaped by the civic participation, public service, innovation, and dedication of its community members, and

Whereas organizations such as the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, historical societies, museums, educational institutions, veterans organizations, and community groups help preserve and share the stories, values, and experiences that shaped our nation's history, end.

Whereas the American 250th Commemoration encourages all Americans to celebrate the nation's achievements, recognize the sacrifices and contributions of those who came before us, and inspire future generations to actively participate in their communities and civic life.

Now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, Mayor of the City of Lacey, on behalf of this Lacey City Council, proclaim June 2026 as America 250 Month in the City of Lacey, and encourage all community members to commemorate this historic anniversary by exploring our nation's history, participating in community events, and reflecting on the ideals of liberty, democracy, and service that continue to shape our country. Signed by myself, Mayor Andy Ryder, on this day. And several members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, come accept this.

Thank you.

Each of you could say your names and I wanted to let everybody know that Marilyn Roddle in the white cap and blue dress is our America 250 coordinator. And Fernida on the end is our chapter regent. And do the rest of you want to introduce yourselves? And I'm Shirley Sterling. I'm the State DAR Proclamation Coordinator, and so I write up drafts for some cities, and then they take and work on it and make it their own, which really makes me happy. And as a citizen of Lacey for over 30 years, I was very happy that you decided to work with us on a proclamation, and I just love the... edits that you made to it. It's just beautiful and I'm so happy that we have a copy of it. and I'm really pleased with all of the celebrations that the city of Lacey is doing. I wanted to tell you about one more event and it is something started by the state of Hawaii and it's a simultaneous reading of the Declaration of Independence and it will be all over the country and many places throughout the world and the idea is that they gave out the time frames for each time zone and that we would be reading it all at the same time. And so Art Dolan, one of the SAR members, he found out that there wasn't anything going on at this point in the city of Olympia, and so he went ahead and we will be helping him read the declaration on July 8th, Wednesday, under the dome at the Capitol Rotunda, and it will be at 2.45, an introduction, and then at three o'clock, we'll start the reading. But I just want to say that Lacey could also participate and do their own reading at the same time, and if you're interested, I can give you more information. But thanks again for including us, and we are delighted to be here. And, you know, we're certainly not a perfect country, trying to make it better all the time. And I think that the Declaration had the right spirit, and it's helping us move in a good direction.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, and we have one more proclamation, the proclamation for LGBTQIA Pride Month.

All right, City of Lacey official proclamation. Whereas this month is intentionally recognized as Pride Month, commemorating the Stonewall uprisings of June 28th, 1969, an act of resistance against police brutality and oppression, and a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for LGBTQIA plus civil rights, and

Whereas the legacy of Stonewall has inspired generations to pursue equality, dignity, and visibility for all LGBTQIA plus people, and Pride Month serves as both a celebration of progress and a reminder of the ongoing work to ensure safety, acceptance, and inclusion for everyone regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, and

Whereas Washington State has championed progress in LGBTQIA plus rights, notably passing anti-discrimination protections in 2006 and 2009 for sexual orientation and gender identity, respectively, and enshrining marriage equality through a voter approved referendum in 2012. and continues to advance significant statewide protections and initiatives today. And whereas the LGBTQIA plus community has made invaluable contributions to the social, cultural, and economic fabric of Lacey and throughout Washington, strengthening the city's diversity and vibrancy and

Whereas, despite significant progress, LGBTQIA plus individuals continue to face disproportionate challenges, including discrimination, housing insecurity, and threats to their rights and well-being, making public affirmation and allyship more important than ever, end.

Whereas the city of Lacey proudly supports and uplifts LGBTQIA plus individuals and affirms its commitment to ensuring that all community members are treated with dignity and respect and have the freedom to live openly and authentically.

And now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, mayor of the city of Lacey, on behalf of Lacey City Council, do hereby proclaim June 2026 as LGBTQIA plus Pride Month in the city of Lacey and reaffirms the city's UNWAVERING COMMITMENT TO PROTECTING AND UPLIFTING THE LGBTQIA PLUS COMMUNITIES AND STANDING RESOLUTELY AGAINST HATE IN ALL FORMS. SIGNED BY MYSELF, MAYOR ANDY REITER ON THIS DAY.

Hello. Oh, hi. I'm Elle Sanchez. I'm the executive director of Pizza Clatch. This is my daughter, Lobo. If you're not familiar with Pizza Clatch, we're a nonprofit that runs in-school lunchtime support groups for LGBTQ plus youth across right now 14 public schools, mostly high schools. And all I really want to say is it's a really rough time for our community and our youth. I are scared. and support programs like the Pizza Clatch, not just Pizza Clatch, but any kind of support that we can provide, reminding young people especially that they're seen and they're valued is really important. I'll give you really quickly, we do a... anonymous survey in our schools every year amongst all of our students. And one of the questions we always ask is, because of attending Pizza Clatch, they always say every year, just because of attending Pizza Clatch, 60% of them say they think about suicide less. This year it was 64%, and that's across all of our schools. 58% say they self-harm less because of attending Clatch. So it's really important. And if you're not familiar with what we do, I think sometimes there's a misunderstanding that as the adult facilitators, we go in the school and we teach the kids what it is to be gay or what it is to be transgender, and that's not true at all. The students know, because they are, and that's why they're there. But most of the time, they talk about homework. They talk about anime. But they also talk about how they're getting bullied in school or at home sometimes. And a lot of times, Clatch is a space where they can meet other people in their school that have the same identities they have, that have the same struggles they have. And just knowing they're not the only one breaks the isolation. And even though our mission statement isn't inherently that we stop suicide, because that's would be unrealistic, unfortunately. That is a huge part of what we do. And I think just breaking that isolation of young people being able to see other people like themselves and being heard and valued as who they are and their authentic selves really does prevent suicide and really does save lives in a lot of way. So thank you so much for this proclamation. It means so much, especially this year and the time that we're in. And it helps to feel safe in our community. So thank you.

Thank you. So now we're going to go on to public comment. And we did have a couple people who signed up. First was, was it Dana? Burkett? Danny Burkett. Danny Burkett. Dana?

Danny.

Is it Danny? Danny Burkett. Oh, sorry. I got that. I was reading that wrong. Yeah. Danny, sorry. Can please introduce yourself and you have three minutes.

Yes. My name is Dan Burkett Lacey. I'm here to talk about homeless youth and young adults. Um, council mayor, when will we have unsheltered homeless youth and young adults as a matter of discussion to city business? Remember when you turned 18, What a big day that was. The day you graduated from high school, the world suddenly seemed a little bigger than it did the day before. Many of us had parents, family members, or mentors who supported us as we entered higher education or began finding our way into adulthood. Think about the support, leadership and guidance and mentorship that helped us get to where we are today. Now consider the many homeless and unsheltered youth in our communities who are seeking that same opportunity and venture into adulthood. How are we supporting their journey? They deserve access to the same encouragement, stability and opportunities that many of us were fortunate enough to have while growing into adulthood. What are we doing to support them? Council, our young people need stronger and better support systems that are centered around their needs. Many homeless youth do not qualify for certain services because they are not currently in a school setting. Yet without support, leadership, and guidance, it is incredibly difficult for them to even enter those systems in the first place. Our sheltered and homeless youth need a safe place they can call their own. A youth service hub that serves not only street youth but all homeless youth by definition. I ask that we seriously consider investing taxpayer funds to support homeless youth before their situation turns to chronic homelessness. Prevention is far more effective than writing and waiting until these young people fall deeper into crisis. Our youth deserve the chance to build a future, just as many of us were given that chance. Let's make sure that they are not left behind. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is Thomasina.

Good evening, council members. I am Thomasina Cooper with the Thurston County Fair, and I have with me this evening two of our fabulous fair board members, Heidi Thompson and Chris Pettit. As Mayor Ryder was speaking earlier about the role of your advisory boards here at the city, oh boy, same is the truth for us here at the county as well. Our fair board is a hardworking board of 16 volunteer members of the community who've given all sorts of different ways to our fair to make it a success. I thank Chris and I thank Heidi for your gifts of time. So Heidi and Chris are going to hand out some things as I speak, if that's all right. It is a pleasure to be here this evening. And we are here this evening for two purposes. One is to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of the donations and the support that you give to the fair from your lodging tax funds. So we wanted to recognize and appreciate that gift to us, and we are putting it to good use this year. You've had many people this evening speaking of America 250. You will notice on the items that you just received, you will see a little eagle. That is Colonel Beek's eagle. He is inviting you to soar on in to the Thurston County Fair to celebrate America's 250th birthday. So as many of the others are doing, we have a number of different components of the fair that will speak to America's 250, including Daughters of the American Revolution, Sacagawea Chapter is hosting an apple pie baking contest. We have got the Secretary of State's office coming in with a beautiful archive display and Washington and America 250 display. We're also going to be hosting the Billy Frank Jr. statue, Maquette statue, at the fair as well. So lots of different things happening. This year, the lodging tax funds have allowed us to increase our advertising as well as increase our entertainment. So we have all sorts of interesting things coming in. We've got things for littles like a diaper dash. We've got things for bigs like an evening fire show, two nights. So all sorts of different fun that we're cramming into the fair this year. The schedule is packed and there's going to be something for everybody all four days. Fair does run Thursday, July 30th through Sunday, August 2nd. So the second reason I am here this evening is to invite you to our welcoming ceremonies. Now, those of you who have been to welcoming ceremonies know that it's not just fun and excitement about the fair and awards for recognitions and volunteers, but also we have an elected officials contest. And of course, I am not allowed to tell you what the contest is, but I will tell you bragging rights are fierce. It's been a while since I've seen a city of Lacey council member win, and I think this would be a good year to start. I'm just putting it out there. Sheriff Sanders has won a few years in a row. I think he's due a little competition. Anyway, I encourage you all to join us. The welcoming ceremonies is on Thursday evening, July 30th at 6 p.m. at the main stage, Lucky Eagle Casino main stage at the fairgrounds. Please join us for that. Please join us for fair. There's lots of fun. Of course, all the good fair food. I know you're hungry now for the scones and the curly fries and all the good stuff. So once again, thank you very much for your support of this event. Appreciate it all.

Thank you. I'm sure it's going to be a great year at the fair. We have one more person who signed up. Michael Stubbin. Hey, buddy.

Mayor Ryder, my friend, Deputy Mayor Miller, and the Institute Council. You guys know who I am. I'm Michael Steadman. I reside at 6402 37th Lane Southeast. And we come to you tonight to tell you about the Walnut Hills coming to Lacey. So I'm the guy that's handing out the flyers, and our chair, Jorge Castellon, is going to present. And I hope to see you guys there. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Michael.

As Michael said, my name is Jorge Garcia. I'm the chair for the Water Hills Lacey Washington. Again, thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, council members, committee members. First of all, I want to tell you what the Water Hills is. In 1982, the Vietnam Veteran Foundation decided to dedicate the Vietnam War Memorial, also known as the Vietnam War. quickly became one of the most visited monuments at the Washington Mall, averaging over 5 million visitors per year. But in 1992, the foundation realized that not everybody could go to the nation's capital and visit and experience the wall. So they created the Wall of the Hills. Since 1996, it has been traveling to 25 to 30 cities a year, giving people the experience of the monument, giving Vietnam veterans the welcome home they deserve, and giving family members a place to honor their loved ones. We are proud to say that we have been selected as the only host site in the state of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho this year, and the Y will be here next week. Why you're hearing about this now and not months ago is because this project has unfortunately passed away two times. Our two sites before that have pulled the rug from under us. We have kept it alive. And because of the hard work of half the individuals in the committee that have never even met before this project, we have brought this back to life. And I just want to thank the the committee members real quick by name. Obviously, I have myself, Michael Stegman, Greg Urquhart, Chris McFadden, Bob Whitney, Arlene Acosta, Travis Hackelsburg, and Crystal Beeler. These are all veterans. Like I said, half of them I didn't know before this project, and I'm glad that I did make this project happen. A little bit about the wall. It is a three-quarter size replica, so it's about football size big. So it's still pretty big. It comes with a 53-foot education trailer with artifacts, memorabilia, photographs, and we'll be giving guided tours. Once the wall is set up, it will be open 24 hours a day. It takes about 250 volunteers to pull this thing off and about $30,000 that we are raising on our own as a community. So we want to put the word out to visit our website. The Water Heals Lacey, wa.org. We'll be passing out some QR codes so you can get there where you can volunteer, donate, sign up for tours, and get the people out. One of the things we don't want to happen is for the wall to get here and somebody that could truly appreciate it or needs to see it misses it out because of where it didn't get out. And I think it's kind of ironic in a good way that After the proclamation was read today about making June a 250 celebratory thing and where we should pause and remember, we also have to pause and remember some of our service members that didn't get treated the way they should. So I think this is a very poignant moment for us to happen. So we just want to get the word out. And I also want to thank the city of Lacey. I don't know if you guys saw. Yesterday morning, the banner actually went up above College Street. So thank you for allowing us to do that. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And, Al, you signed up again for a problem? I didn't think so. Okay, no problem. Is there anyone else wishing to address the council this evening? Seeing none, then we're going to go on to our next agenda item, which is the, under agenda items, the Contract Award for Veterans Hub ADA Improvements. Ashley.

Well, good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. I am not Ashley Smith, but I am going to be joining Ashley Smith for this presentation just to give a little bit of background on the Lacey Veterans Services Hub and some previous improvements. And then Ashley will be talking about the actual contract and bid award here. So to dive into the presentation, just for background, the Lacey Veterans Services Hub has been in operation for a number of years here in the city of Lacey, but I do want to take you back to 2012 when it was starting, and it started as an idea of how can we get all of the various providers who are providing veteran services into one location. That way it's easier for community members to access. I do know that there are like the mayor, for example, and past council members who were instrumental in making this happen. This has been something the council has been supportive of since 2012. And what happened in 2012 was we were able to secure a veteran affairs mobile service van here at the Lacey City Hall campus. This came twice a month and was able to provide services to veterans operating out of our parking lot just outside here of City Hall. Um, with some planning, uh, the city council directed, uh, staff to start taking a look at what could be a permanent solution for providing services, recognizing that services were going to be necessary, not just at that time, but into the future. and so the city started to take a look at available properties, and one that came up was a partner with SPSCC. They were working on renovating some of the campus, and there was a building that was available. As you can see, this building right here is now the home of the Lacey Veterans Services Hub. It was built in 1986, and when the city took over its tenancy there, It hadn't really been updated since 1986, and so it needed a lot of improvements. However, we were still able to start providing services to our veterans in the community. You can see here the building started to provide those permanent services in 2014. We used the original building. We had a very small square footage, but we're able to provide really meaningful services. Since then, we've been able to use that facility and work with the college campus who has been really great partners on this project in providing this space and allowing us to lease it. And we've been able to manage a couple of expansion and improvement projects. So you can see here in 2014 when the original facility opened, It had 1,200 square feet of space to provide services. This was effectively a couple of offices for folks to come on in and meet with service providers. In 2016, we were able to secure a larger footprint within the same existing building and expand services to 4,400 square feet, which allowed us to offer several more office spaces for nonprofits to join us in providing services. and here more recently in 2020 and 2021 we were able to expand the footprint to the entire building so there is 8 000 square feet of space available for service providers and right now what we are looking at is doing some additional updates that would increase accessibility for folks who are coming to get services at the veteran services hub So just really quickly, I know I talked to some of this, but I do wanna mention that you can see on that bottom blue corner, that was phase one. There were the four offices that services were provided out of. And then when it got extended in 2016, it had that first whole floor adding all of those additional spaces. In 2021, to provide a little bit more detail on this, the city was able to secure funding to upgrade the facility, including about a half million dollars from the Department of Veteran Affairs to improve interior improvements, specifically related to their space, the VA center. We also were able to use and secure federal block grant dollars, almost a half million dollars for additional improvements. And then also received a large funding source from the state of Washington, working with our delegation for $2 million that helped us really work on the structural and energy and ADA improvements in the facility and expand that 8,000 square foot print. I do just want to note at this time, too, with SPSCC, we are also able to negotiate a long-term lease. And so we have a 15-year lease that extends to 2035. And while I'm going over some of the background of some of the construction projects, what I also want to bring up for awareness is that Brian Wananen, who is the Lacey Veterans Services Hub coordinator, will also be back in front of council tentatively scheduled on August 11th to talk about the day-to-day operations. And we're really here just focused on some of those capital improvements at the hub. Just to show you some of those improvements, you can see here the entire building in 2021 was pretty much gutted from the outside and the inside, which you can see all the siding coming off here. They have replaced that. And you can see the Vet Center has their logo. Since then, we've also been able to add a giant Lacey Veterans Services Hub logo as well on the side of the building so that individuals know that the Lacey Veterans Services Hub is located there. We expanded the footprint, like I mentioned. So on the left-hand side, what you have is the bottom floor, and you can see all of the new office spaces, including some additional telehealth space that was expanded. We also added a computer lab for individuals to come in and access services there. On the right-hand side, that is showing you the expanded vet center space and the offices associated with that. them and then here in this picture in the green is the additional multi-purpose meeting room that was added so this is over a thousand square feet where we are able to provide services to the community and also host nonprofit groups and community presentations. Here in 2026 the proposed updates we did receive some funding back in 2022 it was secured by Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland and Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell They secured $500,000 to help continue to reduce barriers and enhance access at the Lacey Veterans Services Hub. And the intention with those dollars was to install a wheelchair lift. This is a vertical platform lift. This is something that's often used where the distance is shorter to travel. It requires less space, which if you look at the footprint of the hub, It has some limited space, and so finding a solution that works for the space that is there, and it's oftentimes more cost efficient than adding a full-on elevator. It's also going to add automatic door operators at the restrooms, plumbing upgrades so that they can also be hand-free, upgrades and reconfiguration to the outside ADA stalls, and then an upgrade and reconfiguration to the routes from the ADA parking stalls into the existing building structure. So what you're seeing here on the left-hand side is a very small overview of the project. I see it's pretty tiny to read here, but on the left-hand side, you're looking at the interior of the building where the elevator will go, and you can see this tiny space right here. It is limited, and so we are looking at adding that lift in that location. WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID EARLIER IN THE PRESENTATION IS THAT WITH THE 2021 FUNDING, WE UNFORTUNATELY DIDN'T HAVE FULL FUNDING TO BE ABLE TO ALLOW US TO ADD LIFT AT THAT TIME, BUT WHAT WE DID DO WAS WE ADDED THE INFRASTRUCTURE SO THAT WE COULD COME BACK AND PROVIDE LIFT ONCE WE SECURED ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR THE PROJECT. WHAT YOU'RE SEEING ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE IS THE UPDATES TO THE ADA PARKING STALLS. some improved ADA parking stalls over here and then also over here, and then access to the walkways to allow for enhanced accessibility. As I mentioned, we're looking to add the lift. This is an example of what the lift looks like and what a lift in another location, again, kind of saving space for getting folks from the first floor to the second floor and the second floor to the first floor. Currently, if you do visit the Lacey Veterans Services Hub, You may have to walk completely around the envelope of the building to be able to access the first or the second floor if you are unable to use the stairs. And so this will be a significant improvement for access to services. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ashley.

Thank you, John. I'm happy to be here tonight and recommend the award of PW contract 2024-17 to J.A. Morris Construction. This project was advertised for about four weeks and we did receive four bids for it. However, one was rejected for an irregularity. There are 90 working days allocated to the project and we have a tentative start date for fall of this year. Excuse me. However, I want to caution council that there is a lead time on the lift that we'll be procuring. Right now we're estimating about four to six months if the contract is awarded this evening to have that. And with that, I'll open up to any questions.

I would move to approve project PW 2024-17 to J.A. Morris Construction for $385,022.48. Second. It's been moved and seconded.

Discussion? Go ahead.

I have one question. The lift, so it's obviously big enough for a wheelchair. Is it big enough for like one of those ride-on scooters as well?

Check that it's about four feet for the platform open space Thank you and so obviously We got a federal grant of half a million dollars And I just really want to thank our federal delegation for supporting this project really from the get-go it was it was Denny heck back in 2012 and when the VA basically said the mobile van that we're having in your parking lot is being used, way overused and booked way out and is no longer going to be efficient to see clients down here, so they're going to no longer have the van come. And so that puts in sort of, okay, what are we going to do? And luckily... out of a lot of conversations and SPSCC having purchased the property over there, we were able to get to this model. And even then, the VA was unwilling to have any sort of permanent vet center you know, counselors be here on a full-time basis. And so then we had to sort of, you know, have our federal delegation step in again and get them to come and have part-time, you know, counselors come down. And after, you know, several years of that, and they could all see that the need was here, that they were really continuing to just make it easier for their clients to come visit them because a lot of those same clients were having to go all the way to Tacoma, which was the closest place. Finally, after a lot of years of sort of battling the system, they now have a full vet center with their own staff and 100% of their own crew there. And the idea to be able to match that with all the different nonprofits that are working out there has, you know, was really one of the first of its kind in the nation. And it has taken the continued support of not only Thurston County being there for, you know, from the get-go to help us with the rent, but our federal delegation from starting off with Danny Heck and then, you know, our two Sanders and then... Maryland Strickland has stepped up and continued to fight for our veterans and access to the benefits that they've earned and deserved. So it's been a long time to get here. And we turned this building that was, if you've gone back from the get-go, you're like, well, it's a good price, but it was really old. It was straight out of the 80s for sure. And we always recognize from the get-go, it's like, well, it's going to be hard to get between THE FLOORS HERE. THERE WASN'T AN ELEVATOR. THIS WAS ON OUR WISH LIST GOING WAY BACK TO 2022. WE COULDN'T QUITE GET THERE BUT WE PUT IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND PREPARED IT SO AT SOME POINT IF WE COULD GET ANOTHER GRANT, WE WOULD GET THERE. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT YOU'RE SEEING IS THAT THE TOLL ESTIMATING FOR THIS TOLL PRICE IS ACTUALLY GOING TO BE A LITTLE OVER THE HALF A MILLION. And so we have the other $74,000 that we're going to be pulling out of our own building and capital reserves that we have. So we're putting $74,000 of our dollars into making this a reality. But I think it's so important because there are so many vets who are coming and have mobility challenges. And one of the things that we have learned way early on when we started this was that veterans, if you can get them to come and you know ask for help and can get them to the to the Lacey veteran services hub what you Find out is that usually they have more than one thing going on and instead of them having to go try up to six seven different places to get that Issue solved it can be all solved for the most part or you know right there They can definitely find the answer there But in this case they might have to go from floor to floor and that's been a challenge. So this is really You know, it's been a long time coming, but I'm so proud of this council. I'm so proud of our community. I'm so proud of all of our volunteers and everyone else who has made this a reality. So I will definitely be supporting this award assignment because I know how important it is to our veterans and the families and the people that Veterans Service is serving. So is there any other discussion?

Just real quick. I think I had one for Troy the The award amount difference between the award amount and the budget amount and then there's the federal grant amount and the capital reserves amount so the difference between the ward amount and the Budgeted amount that we budgeted for was a little over twelve thousand dollars twelve twelve six But that is going to be covered in the seventy four thousand dollar Reserve amount that we're gonna use that correct.

I Know that I guess you're asking what's difference we got 500,000. This is for 385. Where's there? What's the difference?

Yeah, I was just okay so so the difference between The amount that we budgeted and the amount that the bid came in was twelve thousand six hundred and twenty six dollars and sixty six cents Which is gonna be covered in that seventy four K the sound, right?

Right. The difference would be construction management, engineering, you know, those added soft costs to the project. So that makes up the difference.

So you have the total project cost, and then your bid is for just the construction portion moving forward.

Yeah, I get that part. I was just kind of expressing that there's a $12,000 difference between the bid and the estimate. or the amount that we budgeted for this project of 372, 395, and 82 cents.

Oh, the engineer's estimate is just an estimate. That has nothing to do with the actual, yeah, that was just our engineer's estimate on it. No, no, I'm not talking about the engineer's estimate. I'm talking about the amount that we budgeted for it. Oh.

So we budgeted 372, 395, and the difference between that and the actual cost is 12.6. But the total cost of the project,

It's included in the total cost of the project. Our gap is a $74,346, which we'll address through our capital facility reserves. That $12,000 is included.

Part of that. When we see the budget amendment, we'll just see the $74,000 or not, and that's it?

Correct. Okay. I see where you're coming from there. I have a question. Go ahead.

Will services be modified during the construction period?

The idea is to limit impacts to services. Certainly there will be some disruptions, but not to the actual service provisions. Most of the services aren't happening in that hallway, but there could be some minor just changes in shuffling.

Thank you.

Is there any other discussion? Then it's been moved and seconded to award this contract to the low bidder. All in favor of that motion? Wait, did we get a motion for that?

We did.

All in favor of that motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? And that motion carries unanimously. Okay, next up is our Ordinance 1701, our Business and Occupation Tax Update. Chelsea?

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council.

My name is Chelsea Knight. I'm the Deputy Finance Director.

Tonight we will be discussing a minor amendment to the B&O tax language within our Lacey Municipal Code. So staff is recommending Ordinance Number 1701 be adopted, which would amend LMC Section 3.02.050 in order to clarify the city's imposition of B&O tax. Some background, staff review of LMC identified a lack of defined scope, specifically for the service and other activity business classification. All activities considered other are already taxed, so this is just a housekeeping amendment versus an actual change to taxation. Our goal is just to make it clearer for businesses. The proposed solution is to add subsection four from the Washington State B&O tax model ordinance to clarify the scope. So we have some existing language and there's three subsections. One is to go over retail sales tax and it's taxed at 0.1%. Another subsection is printing, publishing, extracting for hire, and processing for hire, also at 0.1%. And then we also have retail services, which is taxed at 0.2%. This is where we think we have some opportunity for improvement though in the LMC. So subsection four language that we would like to add covers all other business activities. It specifically calls out services and a few other specific examples, but it also includes phrasing I think is most important to highlight and that the wording is among others and without limiting scope. So that helps illustrate the expansive application of the tax. As a reminder, these activities were already taxable. This subsection is just adding further context. So the proposed language is in alignment with the Washington state B&O tax model ordinance. This is agreed upon by the 54 cities statewide that levy a B&O tax as required by state law. Subsection four is an optional provision within that model ordinance. Staff review has found this provision to be applicable to Lacey B&O activity and we also determined that it would help clarify LMC. There will be no impact on businesses as we've talked about. This is an amendment, does not impose new tax and also the existing rates and exemptions remain the same. So to recap, Ordinance 1701 seeks to add subsection four to LMC 3.02.050, which will cover all business activities not identified in subsections one through three with an applicable rate of 0.2% of gross business income. The key operative text in the added language is, quote, upon every other person engaging within the city in any business activity other than or in addition to these enumerated in the above subsections. So again, all other, oops, sorry. So council action. Council is briefed on this proposal at the work session on June 9th. It is staff's recommendation to adopt ordinance number 1701 amending LMC 3.02.050 to add subsection four.

Can I get a motion please? I would move that we adopt ordinance 1701 amending Lacey Municipal Code 3.02.050 related to the business and occupation tax ordinance.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Is there any discussion? This is obviously just boilerplate updates as recommended by the state. So it makes sense to adopt this. I had some questions when we were going over this in the work session. But since then, those questions have been answered. And I just realized that we're just trying to make sure we're capturing everyone who should be paying B&O tax. And this is the recommended language. And so with that, I will be supporting this ordinance as well. Is there any other discussion?

I just wanted to thank Troy for sending out such an awesome email explaining and answering all of our questions from the last work session. So thank you, Troy.

Appreciate that, Troy. Anyone else? Okay. Then it's been moved and seconded to adopt ordinance 1701, which will be updating our Business and Occupation Tax, LMC. All in favor of that motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries. Thank you. Thank you. Now we're on to Ordinance 1702, which is to talk about our latecomer agreements.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. I'm Joey Etter. I am the Engineering Development Review Manager, and I'm here tonight to present Ordinance Number 1702. For your consideration, it's regarding latecomers agreements and specifically amending LMC 13.52.030 and 13.52.050. Basically what it entails is RCW Chapter 35.91 currently, which is state law, states that latecomers agreements have a reimbursement period of 20 years. Our development guidelines and public work standards that are currently in place also state latecomers agreements have a reimbursement period of 20 years. LMC 13.5 2.030 and 13.5 2.050 currently state 15 years. This is basically a housekeeping item to bring the LMC into agreement with state law specifically RCW 35.91 and our development guidelines and public work standards. This was previously discussed at the council work session last Tuesday with Dave Schneider. And just briefly, latecomers agreements are something that are put in place by either private property owners or private developers when they pay for the installation of improvements to the city's utility system. And this allows them to capture or be reimbursed for a proportionate share or pro rata share of their cost from property owners that either connect to those improvements or benefit from those improvements. And we currently have eight latecomers agreements that are active. They all are for a period of 20 years. I know it came up at the work session. Were there any that may need to be amended? We do not have that issue. Everything that is currently active is for 20 years. So we are in alignment with state law. This is, like I said, just a housekeeping issue to bring everything together. So with that, city staff recommends ordinance number 1702 be adopted. Can I get a motion?

I would move to approve Ordinance 1702 to update the LMC 13.52 latecomer agreements.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

There is one thing I was unclear about on latecomers and is it, okay, so it's a proportion of share of their cost and then that reimbursement is that facilitated through the city?

That's correct. We, I don't know if this is the right term, but we actually, The agreements are recorded and executed, and then as developers or property owners come in to connect our utilities, we then at that point in time figure out what the pro rata share is of their cost, because we not only have the cost that's in place per the agreement, but you also have interest that comes with that based on the amount of time gone by since the agreement was adopted. So we do collect those fees at the time that connection fees are paid for those projects. And then do we have like an interest table that we use? The interest rate is established through the latecomers agreement review process, which is done by the city of Lacey. they submit their documents their costs everything that comes with supporting what they're asking to execute and we review that and then we also review the interest rates too which are in place at the time that it's adopted

Okay, so then by that rationale, sorry, I'm not trying to turn this into a conversation. So then by that rationale, they pay their fees, and then we take a portion of that fee and give it to the original developer?

That's correct. When we collect those fees, they go to finance. They're held for a period of time to make sure that there are no issues that arise during that process. And then once everything's cleared, we then release that money to the developer or property owner that put the agreement in place to begin with.

Okay.

So imagine it goes back to the property owner. Cause if, if that property owner sells to another property owner, I'll go do that.

That's correct. It goes to the property owner or developer that put the agreement in place.

The agreement in place where the, what if, if a property owner sells it to someone else, Does it go back to the original person, or does it go back to the person they sold it to?

Well, typically what we see is that the developer develops the property, and then if they sell it, anything that goes with that latecomer's agreement that was put in place by that developer goes to that developer, not to whomever buys the property. So it doesn't really run with the land. It runs with the agreement. It runs with the agreement.

It runs with the original developer. Have you ever been in a situation where you're a late comer and you end up paying more for it because it's 20 years later and there's interest and everything else than if you would just put it, if you had been responsible for it?

You know, that's a good question. I would say based on, if you add interest in over 20 years, yes, your cost is going to be definitely much higher. The thing is these agreements, when they go in place, we do send out letters that notify neighboring property owners that they're in place. So they do have the opportunity to come in and pay them immediately, which would avoid that interest. But yeah, if they waited 20 years, I mean, that's a tough question to answer, but the interest would definitely add up. I mean, if you're paying 8% interest on a big chunk of money, it's definitely going to add up. But there is also, you've got to have the capital in place to do the improvements in the first place, and that's a tough thing for anybody but developers, it seems.

Okay, interesting. So really by expanding that from 15 to 20 gives the developer an extra five years to collect on that latecomers agreement. Okay. Is there any other questions? Then it's been moved and seconded to update ordinance 1702, which is the late-comer agreements under our Lacey-Miscoula code. All in favor of that motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is our Commission on Equity Work Plan. Shannon.

Well, good evening again, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council Members. I am here tonight to go over the updated draft 2026 Commission on Equity Work Plan. You will recall that this was previously before the Council at a work session back in February. And since then, the Commission on Equity has continued to take a look at it and review it both at their April meeting and at their May meeting, which was held in June. And the recommendation tonight, and this was a recommendation from the Commission on Equity, was to approve the updated draft and not make it a draft but the 2026 commission on equity work plan Overall, when you're taking a look at the draft work plan, the substance remains largely unchanged, and I will just stress that it's also in alignment with the activities that are identified in the adopted City of Lacey diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging strategic plan. There were several administrative updates, including identifying items that have been completed as we've worked through this year, as well as talking about rescheduling just the pace of a few items. We adjusted the placement of a few items as well just to align better with some anticipated timelines and schedules. And then we also had some conversations that led to some refinements of a few items based on feedback that we heard from the council and then also feedback that we heard from the Commission on Equity. And I will get into a little bit more detail over some of the topics that were discussed. On the table here, this just recaps some of the feedback that was provided during the discussion between the City Council and the Commission on Equity. There were three main areas of conversation and that was number one, talking about opportunities with North Thurston Public Schools and what that looks like with the Commission on Equity. Also looking at how there could be better updates to communication between the Commission on Equity and the City Council. on listening sessions and other types of community forums and activities, and then also how we could identify where there could be future events that the Commission on Equity in the city may be able to engage with in the future. So kind of going item by item, if we start with the top on meeting with North Thurston Public Schools and what that looks like, there was discussion about a potential meeting, And so one of the things that the Commission on Equity continued to talk about was seeing if there was a way to hear from various representatives from North Thurston, including the board of directors there. And so we put this in the work plan and it remains in the work plan. It was tweaked slightly, but the language says local education representatives meeting. This allows for flexibility based on direction from the city council. So if the city council wants to determine what is the best mechanism for moving forward with communication with North Thurston School, There was discussion about a potential joint meeting work session between elected bodies. So with you all and North Thurston public school body, and then other options such as having like a meeting of the chairs was discussed as well, where potentially there would be an opportunity for the presiding officers of both of the elected bodies as well as the advisory boards to get together. And so that's one of the topics of conversation tonight looking for some more direction from the council on. On the second item, receiving updates from feedback of listening sessions and community forums, there was some discussion on how information can get back to the council. And so one of the things that we are looking to do is to hold two focus groups here in the remaining part of the year connecting with our Asian Pacific Islander community members and our Hispanic community members. And one of the things that we could do is we take notes from that that are approved by the Commission on Equity, and we can make sure that those get routed to the City Council so that the City Council has the opportunity to review those, either at a future Council meeting or just as a general update. There was also discussion at that work session meeting on whether or not having a Council liaison join one of those, and that is certainly something that the Council could consider as well. But we have continued to keep those items in Q3 and Q4 of having focused groups, conversations, and community forums. For identifying future items, one of the topics of conversation was, you know, how can we be aware of or think about what future, you know, events and community engagement that the city and the Commission on Equity may have. want to engage on, including social gatherings and food sharing. And one of the things I did want to highlight is that the Commission on Equity did provide recommendations in Q1 on the community and cultural grants. This included providing funding to several community events that are doing some of the very things that the Council was interested in seeing more of, including a community cookout. So I did want to highlight that. And pending future budget direction, If that is a program that continues, that would certainly be something the Commission on Equity by Policy would continue to be an active participant in reviewing and providing recommendations to the City Council. And so with that, the City would continue to take a look at future opportunities to expand community connections and events as resources are available. So I want to pause here and see if there's any questions or comments or discussion from the Council.

What kind of budget does the commission have to host events, produce events, make events happen?

So the commission on equity itself doesn't have a budget for hosting events, but you did provide funding for the community and cultural event grant program, and that was the $25,000. Okay.

Any other discussion?

Okay.

Go ahead.

I would just say you had mentioned wanting some feedback on how they get information back to us from some of their listening sessions. And I think getting a report back, whether it be a written report or them coming and reporting to us, either way would be good. I'm not a big fan of the idea of a council member being there. I just think that crosses the line. They're an advisory body, and I think it's never a good idea to have part of the elected body at an advisory body meeting.

I remember we had that discussion. It will change the dynamics in the room. So I would have to agree. Anything else?

Okay.

Great. Well, then if it's consensus across the council, we can work on a way to get the communication and those meeting notes in front of you all at a future time.

That would be great. Thank you.

Right. Well, um, with that, uh, again, the recommendation is to motion to approve the updated 2026 commission on equity work plan. And I know there were a couple of other, um, topics that we'll follow up with the city manager on, um, and get some, uh, you know, future direction. So, so moved. Second. Second.

It's been moved in second to adopt the 2026 commission on equity work plan. Any further discussion? Keep up the good work, Commission on Equity. I appreciate it. All in favor of that motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries. Our next agenda item is the City Manager's Report. Do you have anything?

Yes. Thank you, Mayor and City Council. I do have a couple of routine interlocal agreements or contracts to report out on. The first is in an agreement, it's an intergovernmental service contract with... South Sound or for South Sound Green. This is a contract with Thurston County Conservation District and the other parties of the contract are the cities of Olympia, Tomah and Thurston County and the the purpose of this is we all have storm and surface water utilities with you know and it's a regulatory responsibility or requirements from the state that we provide education to the general public and we found that the best way to provide that education and curriculum is through jointly funding, working together and using the Thurston Conservation District as that convener and to implement those education plans in the community. So with this contract, it's a renewal contract for this current year. The City of Lacey's portion of the contract is $19,666 of a combined total of $66,432 which of course is under the $25,000 threshold satisfying as routine contract. The second item is something that the council has been, had some committee report outs in the past by the mayor and his work on the Transportation Policy Board. I believe there's also a report out from Thurston Regional Planning Council. It is the participation in an interlocal agreement with Thurston Regional Planning Council for the implementation of the Rural Community Support Program, which if you recall, this is an effort to receive roughly $692,000 in federal dollars to apply to the city's College Street corridor federal project. It already has federal funds to free up non-federal funds to be able to support projects that are in South County, Thurston County. And this is a mechanism that we use in the regions in order to maximize that value and that impact to the rural communities so they don't have to waste a lot of effort on contract management and meeting federal regulations where we're already doing that. So that is a, basically we will be applying $692,000 of federal funds to College Street and then freeing up the $692,000 to go to the rural programs. And it's signed that into agreement last month. One other report I have tonight just as a follow-up from the previous council meeting regarding our water shortage response plan and our even water watering days. The question came up in terms of the even and odd water schedule at the city. abides by that in the irrigation of city properties. And the short answer is yes. We follow the even and odd water schedule for all of our properties, except for where there is, with exceptions for public sports and athletic fields that have frequent and heavy use. So I just wanted to make that a follow up and clarification. And I provided an email to council that provides more information on that even and odd watering program as well as the website where you can get more information.

A quick question. So when we de-federalize the funds for another jurisdiction, I'm not exactly sure how it works, really. So if we have a grant for the 695 or 694, whatever the number is, and then we take that same amount of dollars out of general funds and we transfer it to the other jurisdiction, right, It almost feels like a gift, and I'm just trying to figure out, like, did they have funding?

Can you break that down? Sure. So this usually has historically worked when you have a big project that has a lot of federal funding on it. And so once a big project that has a lot of federal funding on it and you're continuing to get federal funding to complete the project, that means you have, it's highly federalized, right? And so what we do, and it's not a gift because we're getting that 695 in federal funding and applying it to the project, but we're taking our, and it's arterial straight funding, and to replace that, to allow them to use those fundings without the federalization that makes it so difficult for them to do projects. And so we swap it out, but we also take, but they're not getting penny for penny either. We do charge them a fee because we have to make sure we track their, all that for reporting purposes as well. And so they don't get the full 695. They get most of that, but with a fee that we take out of it. So it's sort of a win-win. We still need the money to go into that project. We're getting it from the federal aside. They're able to take that similar amount and be able to do a lot more. It goes a lot farther when you're not have to do all the federal tracking and everything else that they just can't do.

We're already doing the federal administration work anyway. We're doing it anyway. Instead of them doing the work as well, we're doing it for them.

Were they anticipating receiving some dollars?

Yeah, so this is a program that's been set up for a while where the federal funding that we get for transportation projects that comes to this region the rural areas, they get some of that. It's that money. It's in the budget, but they can't use it because there's so many strings attached to federalizing it. So what they're doing is like, okay, this money we're going to receive, We're just going to give it to Lacey.

That's the piece I was missing. They are receiving dollars and they're saying, hey, we don't want to afford to spend this money because of all the tracking, all the costs. We can't. We'll give it to you guys. You guys give us cash.

They don't have the resource, staff resources plus the overall cost and they lose the value of that dollar for the project.

I didn't see where they were putting into the pot. We're getting their portion.

With a little finer point too, it's the $692,000 in the federal funds that are being um, um, accepted by the city, but we also total, we're going to receive 800,000. So we receive about 108,000 in administrative costs to cover our expenses.

Okay.

So 692, so the, the, the, the dollar exchange is the 692,000. Right. Ah, so we receive admin dollars.

So then they still fall under the 20% rule. Correct. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're receiving more to cover that expenses. So instead of them receiving the 800, they're receiving 690. Yeah. And so we could put that whole, yeah. So, I mean, it's still very gracious of the city of Lacey that Thurston County picked this up for a while and was doing it for South County. And, uh, they basically kind of came to TRPC and transportation policy board and said, we don't have the staff to even follow this extra money. And so they didn't want to do it anymore. And. And Lacey, they then came to Lacey and said, hey, we know you're still doing College Street Corridor and you have a ways to go. Is there enough there left if we gave you this money to defederalize it? And we said, yeah, we would do that for you. But even before the county did it, years ago, it was probably back to the College Street Corridor. We've been working on this thing for such a long time. We've done this before for South County. It's not the first time. on this project where we've taken South County dollars and put it on this project and gave them different dollars to do it. This has been a long standard. Hopefully that explains it. Thank you. Thank you both. Anything else? That concludes my report tonight. Thank you. Well then, my report's up next. There's quite a bit going on this weekend. Obviously, this Friday is Juneteenth, so happy Juneteenth to everyone who observes Friday the 19th. And so that's happening. And then we also all saw the flags and the hands out today from our fan zone. We were just asked today, kind of last second, if they could come and drop off their flag and we could do a quick flag-raising ceremony and take some pictures and some stuff. And so the First Lady and myself and several other people were here, and we got a photo op, and they dropped off the stuff. And so starting – well, they're going to start setting up on Thursday, but from 10 o'clock on Friday, the fan zone kicks off, and they're going to have – big screen that's going to be playing the USA game. They're going to also have food and, you know, a beer tent and all the, you know, activities for the kids. The First Lady is actually volunteering all day on Friday as well. And they're also going to have a concert that, for a two-hour concert, a Queen band is going to be playing that is apparently really, really good. Your $10 ticket gets you in for the whole thing with all day's activities and the concert. So it's a pretty good deal. I'm looking forward to spending the afternoon on the 19th, Friday the 19th as well. And then Saturday the 20th is the Relay for Life opening ceremonies. And so I've been asked to go there and say a few words and do a lap as a cancer survivor myself. But for everyone else, it's going to be at North Thurston High School on the Saturday the 20th at their stadium. And so I'm going to be, you know, Be there around, you know, a little after 1, and I'll be speaking right around 1.45 or so, and then we're going to do the lap. So Relay for Life is this Saturday as well. So there's a lot going on. Obviously, it's been a very warm past couple days too, which is, you know, all winter we complain about how cold it is, and then it hits 90, and it's like, oh, we're all melting. But if you... Make sure you do drink water, stay hydrated, because the heat can really get to you. I also want to give one report out about the Transportation Policy Board. We met last Wednesday at June 10th, and we had just had a pretty small agenda items. We were in a call for projects. year right now and we got an update on that which really was just to confirm the membership of the evaluation subcommittee that I'm going to be chairing and so we basically take a we'll be taking a look at the the staff does a initial scoring of the projects that come that come through and then we take a look at that scoring just to kind of confirm that and then we'll move it on through the process and we confirmed who's gonna be on that committee. The major update was about our emergency detour routes prioritization criteria and draft route scoring. This comes back from the state when we had the derailment of Amtrak and it shut down I-5 and the whole sort of this whole region was like how are we going to move goods and people north in this shutdown emergency and we didn't have really preferred alternative routes and so it started this whole process of okay we need to do a better job of understanding where an alternative route is if there is a shutdown of I-5 from, say, three to five days. There's bigger plans out there if it's a major emergency, like a major earthquake like that. And so they brought up a map of looking at some alternative routes. One of the things that I sort of realized is even looking at the alternative routes was that it didn't necessarily coincide, some of the routes that they were looking at didn't necessarily coincide with the routes that we all know that we take whenever I, someone, you know, steps, you know, puts a firm brake in the middle of I-5, and I-5, it gets slowed down, or if there's an accident, you know, we all have, you know, this crazy technology with Waze and wherever else that will immediately reroute you to save you five minutes worth of time, and that reroute, DOESN'T NECESSARILY, YOU KNOW, CAN SOMETIMES GO PLACES WE DON'T WANT TO GO. MAY GO THROUGH A NEIGHBORHOOD. AND SO I MADE SORT OF A RECOMMENDATION THAT WE REALLY NEED TO LOOK AT THE DATA, THE REAL-LIFE DATA OF WHERE PEOPLE ARE GOING ON A weekly basis or, you know, if, if I five is being backed up, uh, where are those routes? Where are the people, most of the people going through, you know, use of, uh, our current data and, and decide, is that the route that we want it to be? Or what do we need to do to update? So it will actually, um, be safe and not be routing people through, through neighborhoods. And so we had, we had quite a bit of a discussion. The other thing that I thought was pretty interesting that it didn't show any alternative route using the Port of Olympia. And so it just felt like, well, it felt to me like they should at least list that as a possible future alternative route in case of, you know, I-5, something happened with I-5 by having the Port of Olympia be involved. But they said that scope would be, a little too much for what they were looking at. So, but they're going to hopefully come back and look at the methodology and the, you know, everything that they're looking at and hopefully bring in some of the new technology and see if it matches up. Because if it doesn't, it just feels like, you know, if we want everyone to go to an alternative route but no one's going to use the route, it seems like a not a good use of our time and our dollars. So then the last agenda item was looking at our multimodal level of service and evaluating those as well. And so we just had an update about what that looks like and how each different mode is working and how we can look at the framework to make sure it's been successful or not. And so that is my report. Deputy Mayor. I do not have a report. Okay. Council Member Greenstein.

I do not have a report.

Council Member Cox.

Okay, I have three things I want to talk about. First was I went to, and so did Council Member Ryan Seeu, we went to the ribbon cutting for the Lacey Museum and Cultural Center. For those who don't know, it actually replaced an older building that had housed it that was a little... off the beaten trail, shall we say, and this now is housed at the Bell Square Center at 6th and Slater Kinney, and they've done a remarkable job in a small amount of space of telling the story of Lacey. We had a nice ribbon cutting, a nice turnout, and do you want to talk a little bit about the experience of having a kid there and what you picked up on?

Yeah, I was going to do that when it got to me, but I can check in later, or now. Go for it. Yeah, it was so much fun. They had activities for the kids to make buttons. They could make their own, or they already had some pre-made or pre-printed Lacey buttons. They also had rock painting and a scavenger hunt for the kids to go around and find different facts and things about the history of Lacey. And yeah, it was just, it was really fun. They had, they put so much into organizing that event and it was, I thought it was flawless. It was amazing. So thank you so much, Jen, for your team's work and as well as the Historical Commission's work on putting that together.

I wasn't there for the ribbon cutting, but I was there later in the day and really enjoyed. You know, I pass by that museum all the time, and I think I need to go in there and see what it's all about. And I was really pleasantly surprised at some of the things I learned. I thought it was well done, and it was a lot of fun. Perfect.

There's one artifact there that just scared the bejesus out of a lot of the women. It's a permanent electrical, permanent wave machine, and it's got all these clamps hanging down from electrical cords there. It looks like it has better placement on death row than it does in a hair salon. I heard lots of comments about that. What people go through to be beautiful. On June 10th, I attended, instead of Council Member Hsu, the ORCA, that's Olympic Region Clean Air Agency, meeting. We started with a public hearing on the 2027 budget. Board members called for conservative approach as funding outlook is not so great, and we don't want to get in over our heads. Should unanticipated funding arrive from state or federal level, the ORCA budget, well, the board's budget committee and then the larger board would decide how to use that. They're predicting a deficit of $568,000. This is a very small agency. I think it has 19 employees. That's a lot for them. The executive director, Jeff Johnston, was very complimentary of one of the employees, Lauren Weibrow, who got her professional engineer's license, and that's a big deal for them. And he's working with other regional clean air agencies in Washington state to jointly hire a lobbyist to represent those agencies in there. in the legislature to try to get a little bit more support coming our way. We had compliance updates, air quality monitoring reports. A couple of quick notes on that. In Raymond, over near the coast, Weyerhaeuser is installing a continuous kiln. which is gonna be more energy efficient and clean air efficient than the older models. May air quality was good as were ozone levels and the College Street Monitoring Station at Mountain View Elementary School passed its audit from the Department of Ecology. And then the last piece I'll talk about is they're working on smoke readiness education. They're anticipating a really tough season with wildfires and then resulting smoke because of high temperatures, low participation, and an ever strengthening El Nino weather effect. So they're doing a lot of media outreach and updating brochures and flyers, but I think this is a summer we're all gonna have to keep our eyes open and be very careful about fire and taking any kind of risks that could be harmful. So the lot, that's the Lacey Olympia, Tumwater, and Thurston County Clean Water Alliance met also on June 10th. And at that meeting, we got our first look at a draft of the biennial, the two-year budget. Things are looking fairly stable there. We discussed possible elements of a future updated climate policy and we're updated on annual greenhouse gas emissions. We received a draft resolution from consultant on the Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project, and I think most people know what that is, but just in case, this is removing the dam at Fifth Avenue and restoring Capital Lake, well, the Deschutes River, where it's been dammed off into an actual estuary again. Lacey has not had too direct a role in that, is still part of our culture here. We heard about an upcoming project to install a new carbon dosing system for the biological process that's used in the treatment and then an overview of Class A plus water technologies that we're going to be demonstrating next year. Class A plus is Reclaim water that is then retreated further So that is it is safe to drink so it's and it's it's exciting project because I think that's going to be the wave of the future as water supplies to drive up and We're going to be the folks who have to test it out and say yes, it's safe to drink so That's my report Thank you Councilmember Turner

I don't have a report.

Council Member Sieb.

You heard my report earlier. I also wanted to thank Council Member Cox for attending that Orca meeting in my stead. So thank you.

You're welcome. I didn't know that was your whole report.

Okay. Well, with that, we have reached the end of our agenda. We are going into an executive session in the council session. In terms of the executive session, discuss current or potential litigation. With that, we will be in the executive session for 20 minutes starting at 7.50. So 20 minutes starting at 7.50. Then I'll come out and adjourn the meeting or add more time as necessary. So until then, we're going to be adjourning to a work session. We have just come from our executive session. The time right now is 8.10. No decisions were made in executive session. So now we've reached the end of our agenda. Objection. I'll call this meeting adjourned. And as always, you keep it classy, Lacey. Stay cool.