City Council - Regular Meeting

It is Tuesday, July 7th, 2026, 6 p.m., and I'll call this regular city council meeting to order. All council here is present besides Councilmember Dunning, who's excused this evening. And if you're able, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Also, I'd 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 Squally Indian Tribe and the Squaxinian Tribe. In fact, 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 that motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? then that motion unanimously carries. First up on our approved agenda is a public comment. We'll go with the people signed in first. Margaret Green, can you come up and introduce yourself? And you'll have three minutes for public comment.

Margaret Green. I'm a Lacey resident and I live in Jubilee. I am not an official representative of the HOA. I'm here as an individual resident. In June, I came before council having just heard of the proposal to remove 140 of our community's oldest and most beautiful trees to allow for sidewalk repair. I talked about the proposal being a short-sighted, uncreative, and antiquated approach to the problem, and I suggested Lacey follow the path of other cities who have found a better way. I still believe that is the preferred solution. The board of directors of the Jubilee HOA is the elected body and officially speaks for the community. The board has voted to accept the city's proposal, though we understand they were rushed into the decision. Despite requesting additional time, which would have allowed more time for community education and engagement, even now some residents don't know what is planned. We understand the Board was told if they did not accept the timing, funds would be used elsewhere. We all support sidewalk repair in Jubilee and using funding for that purpose. We are happy there is a focus on safety for our residents, but I am disappointed as it seems the current timeline has not allowed evaluation of alternative options, which could provide both monetary and tree savings. Today I'm providing a petition to council on behalf of resident owners in the Jubilee community who are learning more about this project. The petition is signed by 263 residents who care about and appreciate the sidewalk repair work the City will do, but wish to request of Council and City management to use more sustainable and proven methods of repair to preserve a larger number of our trees. The reason for action is listed on the petition as...tree removal destroys our urban forest resource and all its many benefits and values. Lacey is losing tree canopy at an alarming rate. Leaving a legacy of destruction is not the correct choice for the future. We can still protect pedestrian safety and trees. This is the choice that can and should be made. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm going to provide the petition.

Thank you. Next up is John Green. Yes, we can get you to sign up Go ahead and introduce yourself you have three minutes

Good evening. My name is John Green and I'm a resident of the city also. I live in Jubilee and I'm representing myself, not the community of Jubilee. Can you hear me okay? Okay. And I don't mean this first sentence to be disrespectful, but the city of Lacey talks the talk when it comes to tree city and tree canopy, tree canopy concerns, but it fails to walk the walk. By ignoring your own method of sidewalk repair that preserves the trees and repairs the sidewalks, you're reducing the tree canopy in the community of Jubilee by a minimum of 10% by removing 140 mature trees. This will never be replaced because the new city species requirements require removal for one for one are no longer equal because of the size of the trees that we're replacing. The required watering for the new saplings for three years as directed by the city will consume many thousands of gallons of water at great expense to the senior community of Jubilee. The present mature trees do not require watering. I'll reiterate from my last visit, the city has successfully repaired sidewalks in the past, 75 in Jubilee alone in the past five years without removing trees or losing a single tree. At the present time, the city does not install root barriers during repair as it is done in other cities for proven long-term success. This method is permanent and cheaper than removing mature trees and planting new saplings. For that process, the sidewalks are lifted using the sidewalk sucker, which the city owns. The roots are pruned away from the sidewalk, a root barrier is installed, and the panel replaced. This is the method used by other cities, and the only thing that is missing here from the city of Lacey is installing root barriers, which is vital to keeping those roots from coming back again. I would ask the city to use this more sustainable method to preserve our 140 trees and their associated canopy, which Lacey is losing at a disturbing rate, as declared by the city's own numbers. And pedestrian safety will also be insured, but the sidewalks will be repaired. And we definitely think that sidewalks need to be repaired. This is a senior community, and we have a lot of people who like to walk. I'm providing the photos. We went to another section of Lacey where this particular project was done years ago. And every tree, you'll notice every tree, every sapling is dead. So I don't know that, you know, I'm not, I'm concerned that we know enough about doing this right now to keep these trees alive. So anyway, uh, uh, it's, um, it's a disturbing picture is you'll see all the saplings are dead. Uh, thank you.

Thank you. Uh, next we have, um, Mary. Great, thank you. But I agree. Well, then let's do the last resident from Jubilee who just signed up. Clayton. Clayton. And then we'll go on to the other ones.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm kind of spontaneous. My first meeting here, I used to be a part of the community council in another state. But I just wanted to let you all know that I think this was Please just introduce yourself. My name is Dot Clayton, Dot D-O-T. And I just want to mention that I think personally, as a resident of Jubilee, this was not handled very well. you know, I know that you guys have arborists. I don't know if they've been out to see our trees, but this situation is causing a rift within the citizens and the residents of Jubilee. And my feeling is, or my thoughts are, that I believe that, you know, the clock should be turned back. And I think that The arborists, the tree committee, and the HOA need to work together. There should not be a rift in this situation. I think there are lesser ways to deal with the trees in terms of not cutting all of them down. I think that pruning the roots on some of them would be okay, and I think that would be acceptable. I think there are some that need to be cut down, but I think that the safety of the residents is primary because we have a lot of older folks, and I understand that somebody sued the city of Lacey and then went all the way down to Jubilee. So that is a primary issue, too, is the safety of the residents so we don't have a major lawsuit. And also... making sure that the community stays beautiful. We want some of the trees to stay and we want some of them to be pruned. I want some of them to be pruned and I want some of them to be cut down because I think they're not safe for the people that are like in their 60s and above, a lot of them in their 80s when they're walking the sidewalks. So I'm hoping that maybe the city council can take a look at this and wind back the clock It did not work out well with just two days' notice after the city decided to offer Jubilee the million dollars, which is very generous, by the way. But, you know, to work with all these different factions together, including your arborist, and then come to a good, positive resolution that is there for everybody, not just one or another. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Dawn. Do we know if the person online is also want to talk about this issue? Not there? OK. Then next we have Cortina. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes.

I'm Courtney Marie Holthaus. I sent 31 public records requests to the Washington State Department of Corrections in 2025. 23 of those 31 requests are still not complete. What I have received instead are scraps, delays, piecemeal disclosures, heavy redactions, a slow drip of obscured information from a public agency that answers to the people. Why does that matter? Because I was the solo federal plaintiff in case 3 colon 25 dash CV dash 05257 dash TMC against the Department of Corrections after I spoke up about something I believed could seriously endanger children and vulnerable people in our community. I was not looking for a fight. I just was terrified for the safety of the community. I was just an accountant processing payments for housing vouchers when I saw something I normally never would have seen. An attachment in an email that revealed the department was providing housing assistance to repeat violent sexual offenders. One case stopped me cold. This was not a minor offense. This was a person who had repeatedly done unspeakable things to children, including a child under 12 years old. When I saw it, I immediately emailed my manager with my concerns. I also included the housing provider because I believed the issue was urgent and serious. The response I got when I was pulled into my manager's office was not concerned for public safety. The response I got was that I should have kept it internal, as if the safety of children and the public should be treated like a secret. But I will say this clearly, public safety is not a secret. Protecting children and the vulnerable is not misconduct. Speaking up when something is clearly wrong is not the problem. I do not regret what I did. I have told the truth to the best of my knowledge. I regret that this system made integrity so costly. I regret that asking questions brought silence, delay, and immense suffering. I regret that a public agency has worked this hard to keep the public from seeing the truth. But I never will regret speaking up. I survived. I still care and I still want answers. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to address the council this evening? Then seeing none, we will go on to our next agenda item. I do just want to give an announcement. This issue is going to be discussed. Actually, study manager, you want?

Right now, depending on the schedule for bid proposals, this could be coming back before council at your next council meeting, which is July. I have to look at the calendar, the date, but the next council meeting this month.

Two weeks from today? Two weeks from today. Is there a possibility that we can have a work session in between then, just as a quick briefing? Because we've heard a lot of different information out there. We did have some information, but it'd be nice just to get sort of a recap of this entire process. I mean, obviously this is a decision, a big decision, and it'd be just nice to get all on the same page again after all that information.

On the meeting for the July 21st, it was planned to have a broader presentation and background on the project. We could look at scheduling next week on July 14th of opportunity on that work session to have a presentation and conversation about background. I'm going to look at the events over public works to see if that's something that's possible.

Well, I'd rather have a conversation about it on NEXT WORK SESSION, IF A FINAL DECISION IS GOING TO HAPPEN FOR ACTION THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY, IT'S ALWAYS TOUGH TO GET INFORMATION AND MAKE A DECISION RIGHT THERE, ESPECIALLY if we have to mull over a couple different things.

So I'd rather... We can put together for next Tuesday night a briefing on the background of the project. This project has been around for several years. There's been a lot of analysis and review of the best methods to address this circumstance and in line with our policy related to sidewalk repair and replacement. So we can go through that conversation next Tuesday. to make sure the council's aware of the full background and how we got to this point today for going forward with the project.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Then let's go on to our... Did the person from online ever show up? Okay. Then let's go on to our next agenda item, which is the contract award for the Madrona Connection 2337 events.

Thank you. Good evening honorable mayor deputy mayor and council members Vince McGowan here interim public works director And I'm here tonight to request a motion to award Lacey contract public works 2 0 2 0 2 3 dash 0 1 Which is the madrona connection to the 337 project so the city opened in Eleven bids for this project on June 17th. Bids ranged from 2,418,000 to 3,205,000. The engineer's estimate was $470 million. Sorry, I should back up there. I meant $2 million. $2,418,450. $3,205,183. Engineer's estimate was $4,070,728. The low bidder Pacific civil and industrial infrastructure of Tacoma is capable of performing the work which includes the installation of approximately 3300 linear feet of 12 inch and 16 inch water main. This contract also includes a 15% apprenticeship utilization requirement. The project site is located just southeast of city limits within the urban growth area. Aging water main in the 8th, 9th, and Spruce will be replaced with a main connecting the 337 pressure zone to the Madrona well field that will be installed along Pacific Avenue and Millbank Drive. This main will increase transmission to the 337 zone, improving the distribution of water across the system and giving the system added operational flexibility. So with that, I would like to respectfully request a motion to award Lacey Contract Public Works 2023-01 for the Madrona connection to the 337 to the low bidder, Pacific Civil and Infrastructure. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Can I get a motion, please?

Go ahead. I move to approve PW2023-01 for the Madrona connection to 337 to low-bidder Pacific civil infrastructure of Tacoma, Washington in the amount of $2,418,450.95. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion?

Will there be any tree removed? And if so, will they be replaced?

I believe there are some trees that need to be removed along Pacific. I'd have to follow up on the full plans. I'm happy to follow up, but I don't have that information offhand.

And will the 337, how long will the 337 or the new, how long will the connection serve the 337 zone before we'll need another update?

This is a pretty major project, so it's going to allow us to move water around from our different sources a lot more readily, which really improves our ability to handle those peak demands. So we don't have a project of this magnitude in the foreseeable future for connecting the two zones. This is the big project to connect the zones and really help us move water around in that part of the city.

Okay. I noticed the lead time was a little over a year, starting the work in August 27. Normally we have, within six months, we kind of get started on something. Is it because of the size of the project?

There's a few things. Yeah, the size of the project, we're on DOT right away on the 510 there, so there's a lot of considerations with that. You'll notice the engineer's estimate was quite a bit higher than the bid. We put a contingency in there for the possibility of having to do night work. But we were able to work around that and not have to do that, so that's why we had a lower bid. We've got a number of large water projects that we can't do them all at once. We have to sequence them. So we have the Hawkes Prairie Reservoir, which we presented on a little while ago. We've got to bring online pH treatment for two of our sources. So the scheduling is really affected by the sequence of major water projects that we need to do that we can't all do at the same time. Gotcha. Anyone else?

And this project supports the growth that we anticipate in that area?

Yes, yes. This will support the growth in the urban growth area, that whole east side of Lacey. And again, the main benefit is helping us meet the peak demand across our major sources so that we're not putting too much strain on different sources.

That was part of the reason I was asking you the first question about. Is this a Band-Aid or are we planning? Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it's not a Band-Aid. This is a major way to address providing water to that side of the city.

Anyone else?

Go ahead. Earlier this year, we heard from unions about making sure that we are able to utilize union labor with some of the contracts that we give out. I wasn't sure if you had any information about the use of union labor with this particular contract. I know that we have to give to the lowest bidder. That's part of the law. But I didn't know if we had any information about their use of union labor.

You have to use prevailing wage, right?

It's on the last page.

It's on the last page.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, the project does require prevailing wage.

It does require prevailing wage, and I think exceeding a certain contract threshold also requires apprenticeship program. I think that's $2 million.

Yeah. I see that. I'm sorry. Well, apprenticeship programs, any time we do a public project, it requires the use of that wage. Okay, any other questions? Then it's been moved and seconded to award a contract number PW2023-01 to the low bidder. All in favor of that motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? Then that motion unanimously passes. Thank you. Thank you. So next up is Resolution 1182 for the Light Curve Telecommunications Franchise Agreement. We heard about this at our last work session.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. So before you tonight, we have Resolution 1182 for a Telecommunications Franchise Agreement. Sorry, I'm going to move this forward. Oops, wrong way. with Michelle Telecom Incorporated doing business as LightCurve. If you recall, as Mayor just mentioned, we did a pretty extensive review of the materials at the June 9th work session, and then we followed up with some information that you had requested in a map. So just briefly, on March 27th, the city received a telecommunications franchise agreement application from Michelle Telecom Incorporated DBA LightCurve, The agreement is to construct, operate, and maintain fiber optic infrastructure in the city rights of way. And they also paid the application fees. And you can find all the information in your packet tonight. So in short, if all the applicable city codes permit requirements and rights away, regulations are met, the city must approve the agreement. However, if there is an unmet regulation, the city could meet with LightCurve to discuss a remedy. But staff did review the franchise application found that it meets the city's telecommunications regulations. And I also wanna point out that the franchise language is consistent with a past telecommunications franchise agreements. So tonight the recommendation is to approve resolution 1182 granting a franchise for telecommunications and directing the city manager to enter into a franchise agreement with LightCurve.

Thank you, motion.

I would move that we adopt resolution number 1182, granting a telecommunications franchise for Marshall Telecom Incorporated, DBA, Lightcurve, and authorizing the city manager to enter into a franchise agreement with Michelle Telecom, Inc., doing business as Lightcurve.

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? That motion unanimously carries.

Thank you.

Thank you. And then our next agenda item, which is the Lacey Parks Annual Report.

Well, good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council, and community members. We're really excited to be here to share our 2025 Lacey Parks Annual Report, and even better, we have Parks and Public Works Parks Maintenance presenting together. So I'm going to get us started here, sharing some of our 2025 highlights from our annual report, and then I'll kick it over to Jamie Oakland, our Parks Maintenance Supervisor. for that. So just a little bit about our department. Well, and also I'm just doing a couple of highlights because we'd be here for a really long time if we went over everything that happened last year, right Jamie? So our department, our side of the operation includes 17 and a half full-time staff responsible for overseeing parks planning and development. The Lacey Museum, Lacey Community Center, Jacob Smith House, park and shelter rentals, and then a wide variety of programs, events, and offerings that you can see up here on the screen from sports to aquatics to community recreation. In 2025, we held 1,046 programs. Those are the register four programs with just over 10,000 people enrolled. And then we held 32 special events with just under 75,000 people in attendance. To highlight, just diving in a little bit more with our athletics, our long-standing joint use partnership with Northeastern Public Schools really allows many sports organizations access to fields and facilities. And you can see the hours of community field and pool use there on this graph on the screen. The regional athletic complex takes the lead with the hours of usage there with over 12,000 hours of community field use. And then we have North Thurston Public School fields coming in after that. Our staff do program the fields, most of the fields for North Thurston Public Schools, not all of them, but we do bring in just under 10,000 hours of use there. 8,000 hours with our city-filled use, and then just over 2,000 community use hours at the pools. And you can see the revenues for rentals, fields, and leagues there coming in at just over 638,000 from the RAC. And then a few things to highlight with our community facilities and our Lacey Museum and Cultural Center. We had 316 days used at the community center in 2025 with an associated just over 245,000 in revenue. Jacob Smith House, 159 days used. Does that mean my time is up? Yep, your time's up. I was just getting started. 58,000, just over 58,000 in revenue there. And we had 717 park picnic shelter reservations. Those have been on the climb the last several years. We've talked a lot about the museum, but in our new location, we're very excited about that. But in 2025, the staff did all the legwork to get to our new location on 6th Avenue. and we had just over 2,000 History Talk participants last year. As is the case every year, we are so appreciative and value our sponsorships and partnerships with the community. This opens avenues that wouldn't have normally allowed us for sources of revenue and helps us to provide programs in the most cost-efficient way possible. We had just just over 75,000 in sponsorships for special events and we had 18,000 total revenue generated with the regional athletic complex banners that are in our outfields for a total of 61 sponsors. in 2025. We also appreciate our volunteers and here's some information about volunteerism. We had 486.5 hours volunteered in the parks and then 3,621 at programs and events. And that value of the volunteer time was $165,436. So that was a significant contribution. A couple of highlights in the construction and development from last year. We had the groundbreaking ceremony, which marked the start of the construction for Great Keogh Park. And we completed the construction on a new bridge located at Woodland Creek Park. And then we also installed a historic kiosk at the Regional Athletic Complex. That was a partnership with the Thurston County Historical Commission and the Lacey Historical Commission. We hosted a joint dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony for that last year. Some accomplishments for programs, we hosted 12 women's and men's USL, that's United States Soccer League games at the regional athletic complex. We also partnered with Experience Olympia and beyond to track our team origins and visitor spending, which contributed to over 10 million in regional economic activity. We applied for Lacey, Thurston County, and Olympia lodging tax funding for the RAC, and we're able to increase funding from Lacey and also get 50,000 from Olympia. We manage record-breaking attendance at the Lacey Fireworks Spectacular with over 41,000 cell phones tracked, which, look at our timing, we just had our event this year as well. We haven't gotten our numbers in yet, but we will be sure to report out on that once we do know what those are. But had a fun and successful event the other day. We served 821 children in our fee-based camp programs, and we served 698 at two sites for our free program, which is called Playground Pals. We increased participation and revenue for our Lacey Teen Nights, and we had another highly successful Giving Tree partnership with North Thurston Public Schools. I wanted to highlight this one because it's something that not very many people know about, but our staff work really hard on that each year to help families in need. In terms of grants and donations, we were awarded two Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office grants. The Park Foundation of Thurston County awarded $5,000 to support our financial assistance program and $5,000 matched for one of the RCO grants that we got for Rainier Vista Park. We also partnered with the Thurston County Pickleball Club through an agreement contributing over $99,000 toward the tennis court resurfacing project at Rainier Vista Park. We also partnered with Hawkes Prairie Rotary and Lacey Rotary to sponsor a joint parks trail map project, which is very much underway and it's been a huge success so far. So these grants and donations along with the revenues that we bring in from the sponsorships and facility rentals, museum and all of our facilities is just under $1.9 million in revenue total for our department. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jamie.

Is that? Yeah.

I'm Jamie. I'm the parks maintenance supervisor. Thank you for just the privilege it is to get to share a little bit of the work that our team was involved with last year. Like Jen said, I'm just going to kind of skip through some of the highlights. Sorry, it is just a flood of numbers for you. Hopefully at some point you can take away just one or two highlights. So our side of the parks umbrella is divided into three teams. So we have the athletic complex team that maintains the rack in Rainier Vista. We have the parks team that maintains the rest of our developed parks. And then we have a team within parks that maintain, they don't work in parks. They work in the right-of-ways maintaining the roundabouts, the medians, the right-of-way landscapes, and then all the utility site grounds. So we had about 55,000 hours of labor in our department last year. And so a third of that was in the athletic fields of RAC and Arena Vista, a little over a third at the parks, and then under a third in the right-of-ways. So we have 22 full-time employees. 23 temporary seasonal positions, and we divide some of those positions up into part-time positions. So we actually look to hire 27 six-month seasonals every year. Unfortunately, last year, we had to hire 43 people to fill those 25 positions. Just the nature of seasonal employment, we do have turnover in those positions. And so it takes a lot of resources for our team to hire 43 people, train 43 people, onboard 43 people.

And so that's just a part of it.

But they're super important. You can see seasonal employees make up 38% of the labor in our department last year. And even more importantly, 82% of our evening and weekend labor. So we really rely on our seasonal employees to help carry our evening group users, our weekend tournaments. They provide a lot of customer service for us. So as far as our overall maintenance responsibilities, there's a lot of numbers there. I think the general idea is we do a lot, hopefully. what your takeaway is, that we have 1,416 acres that we maintain. We maintain 21 miles of trails, 31 miles of right-of-ways. We have 507 neighbors adjacent to park properties. So if you have a neighbor that you've had to rake up their leaves from time to time as the leaves from their trees fall over your fence, we have a lot of neighbors that we have to have good working relationships with. The majority of what we do is what we call rounds. So almost a third of our time, 28% of our time, or 15,000 hours is spent making sure the parks are safe every single day. And so that entails cleaning bathrooms, Very regularly, most often, clean the bathrooms every day, sometimes several times a day, checking every trash can. So last year, we have 84 single-stall restrooms in our department. Like I said, we clean them every day, sometimes multiple times a day. So last year, we cleaned approximately 31,700 bathrooms. We have 328 garbage cans in our inventory that get emptied. Every day or multiple times a day, we put out 19,000 garbage bags last year. And then we went through 225,000. We provide all the dog poop bags that are in the dispensers in the parks. And so went over 225,000 dog poop bags last year. We spend about 15% of our time doing turf maintenance. We have 226 acres of parks turf that we maintain. We mowed over 8,000 acres of turf last year, applied 30,000 pounds of fertilizer. 4,000 pounds of grass seed. This is an aerial shot before it fills up. This is Rainier Vista Park before it fills up with 40,000 people at the 3rd of July fireworks event. But the idea is we have a nice green space for people to come enjoy. We spend... 2,500 hours maintaining our athletic fields, this is on top of all the turf maintenance. So this is just specific activities oriented towards making the user group accustomed to their needs. And so whether we move the bases, we move the goals, we move the fences, we paint the lines, whatever it takes to set up the field to make sure that the user group has the specific dimensions or the exact setup that their league or their sport requires. Last year we had a unique project. We had this top right picture here is the synthetic soccer field at field one at the rack. It was a five-year-old field with an eight-year warranty and unfortunately the synthetic field failed and so we were able to work with the manufacturer and they were able to replace that synthetic field for us. A couple highlights on these building and structure maintenance projects. We spent 229 hours last year grinding and resealing 84 restrooms. So again, we clean the bathrooms every day, so they have to get mopped every single day. And so making sure that we have clean sanitary surfaces is really important. And so we resurface our bathroom floors every single year so that we can get them as clean as possible. We had a beam at the Rainier Vista barbecue awning at one of the picnic shelters that had rotted out. So we saved $4,000 by just doing that project in-house. We conducted playground audits on our playgrounds quarterly. So last year, we did 69 playground safety audits. And as a result of those, made 11 play toy repairs. And then unfortunately, just part of the nature of it also is graffiti and vandalism mitigation. So we had 136 acts of graffiti that we had to clean up afterwards. Oh no, I don't know how to go back. Sorry. Almost there. Tree maintenance is another important project for our department. So a couple highlights within our tree maintenance work. Last year we pruned 412 street trees. That number varies greatly depending. So we usually prune the trees when they're dormant, December, January, February. And so it really depends on What other work is taken away from our tree pruning time? If it's a year where we have a lot of regularly reoccurring storms, we're not able to prune as many street trees, right? And so, however, some storms create more pruning. And so last year we pruned 412 street trees. We removed 565 yards of leaves from parks and right-of-ways. Spent 2,400 hours just cleaning up leaves. We spent 194 hours pruning site obstructions, so just on the drive here, I kind of drove from the Thornberry Park area and drove through two different intersections that we've pruned in the last month, just making sure that as people are driving around Lacey, we have 14 feet of clearance on the street so that they can see the traffic signals, and we have ground covers that are under three feet so they can see oncoming vehicles. Things like that that we do very regularly to make sure that as people are driving through Lacey, not only do things look aesthetically nice and welcoming, but also they're safe for the public. We removed 55 street trees from the 22nd roundabout. The graph on the left is kind of just a picture of, overall picture of the removals and replacements that we do every year. So you can see the green is our removals and the two colors of combined blue. So we plant significantly more trees than we remove every year. And lastly is our rapid response team, kind of our team within the team. We were here last fall, for those of you that were here, recognizing them for the life-saving work that they did on the Woodland Trail. And so this is some of the additional work that they did, 55 camp cleanups, 136 roadside cleanups. They were able to remove 322 shopping carts from the right of ways and then return those, clean them, sanitize them, and then return them back to the local merchants. I think that's enough of a flood of numbers, sorry.

I'll pass it back to Jen.

You're good. I think it's great to let people see what you guys are working on. And we just super appreciate Park's maintenance team. We're like the left and the right hand. So we just work really closely together and super appreciate all the support they give our team. And they're just great people to work with as well. We wanted to round out the evening by recognizing that this month is Parks and Recreation Month, so each year the National Recreation and Park Association puts out a theme, and we do social media posts and really celebrate and appreciate the many full-time staff, but also part-time staff, volunteers that spend countless hours creating healthy community in Lacey. And so this year's theme is the power of Parks and Recreation. And I hope it's evident from our annual report really how much the staff in the Parks and Rec industry really love what we do. We love it because it's a direct service to our community. It's a chance to foster connections and core memories and create opportunities for people together. And we work so other people can play. It's super rewarding work. This year, the powerful connections that we're celebrating, there's some different categories. So the power of connection, that's where... Relationships grow, cultures can meet, and communities can bond. The power of play, from playgrounds to programs to youth sports, play fuels creativity, joy, and lifelong learning. The power of community, public spaces offer room for everyone to gather, celebrate, and even to heal. The power of nature, nature restores and inspires us, and parks ensure that everyone can access its benefits. The power of belonging. Welcoming parks and programs make every person feel valued. The power of well-being. Parks and recreation advances health, resilience, and shared community benefits. So city council members, we just really want to thank you for your support and continued support to really make all of this happen. And truly through your support, we're able to do everything that we do for Lacey. So thank you.

Thank you. I think so.

Go ahead. Just real quick, first I want to say thank you to both of you for the amazing work you guys do throughout the city. The residents really do appreciate it. But I wanted to just point out specifically the July 3rd event this year. I spent several hours out there, absolutely amazing. Staff from I know every department in the city is involved in that event. Everything from parks to police to everybody a great event all of the comments I heard from people both directly people calling me emailing me and social media Just everyone loved it. Just another spectacular event.

So, thank you Really proud of our parks department and it goes hand-in-hand with our maintenance department You can't have one great thing without without the other so big shout obviously our parks are amazing here in Lacey, and I know our community loves them, and so thank you for all of that. We appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Then city manager, do you have a report?

Do you want to... Thank you, Chief. Just wanted to pass out the flyers and remind council that we're having our annual Cops, Cars, and Kids event, a free community event for all ages coming up in a couple of weeks on Saturday, July 25th. It's going to be running Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and it'll be located over here at the new Lacey Police Station in the parking lot. Just as the flyer talks about some of the activities that we'll have from here with the car show, the meet and interact with LAC police officers, popcorn, food trucks, and all the type of things. And I think if you've been to this event in the past, it is a really great community event where you can get to have some fun and see some great cars and interact with, again, our LAC police officers. One of the things as a side note, I just want to give an update related to the police station. This past June 26, we were able to receive a temporary occupancy. And what that entails is it allows us to start utilizing the site for moving in equipment and supplies. also be able to conduct employee training in the training facility, and we'll be able to also conduct tours that are hosted by the Lacey police staff of the site. So that will also be part of that Cars and Kids events upcoming Saturday. We are still holding off on final occupancy because there are still issues to be resolved with the generator. The generator, of course, has been a long lead item. It's probably the most substantial item. We finally have it set and in place, but now we have to go through the commissioning process under the manufacturer's specifications to make sure that we maintain all warranties. So that's going to take a little bit of time to get the generator commissioned and tested and run at cycles. But once that's done and a few other punch items, we'll have final occupancy for the for the police station. So we're just real close. We're almost there.

Do you have like a estimated timeline when all that's going to happen?

I do not have an estimated timeline as of yet, but I will expect to have one by the end of the week. I can get back to council. Okay. We'd appreciate that.

For giving tours, do we also have an open house scheduled?

We are going to plan a ribbon cutting, but that's going to be related. I have to look and go back and look at where we are looking for that date for the open house, but we want to have final occupancy and full move-in for that.

Thanks.

That concludes my report tonight. What about Great Couleau Park? Oh, thank you. Great Couleau Park, that is anticipated to be ready to be open to the public on July 29th of this month. We are still working through some final issues with the installation of the playground equipment to make sure that it meets manufacturing specifications as well as some roof of the shelter. Once those things were resolved we anticipate by in the next couple of weeks We'll be opening up to the public on January 29th, and we're still planning a ribbon-cutting event in August I'm looking at Jen for the date in August We're waiting to see when the opening date is to set the actual grand opening and ribbon-cutting It's possible that it would be in September.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you Jen Great. Okay, then on to the mayor's reports. I do not have a report on So I'll turn it over to the Deputy Mayor.

One quick report. The EDC board met on June 24th. One of the things that I've been trying to do through the EDC is local business follow-up. There are a lot of businesses who found this spaces and, you know, placemaking came through the EDC and or one of the jurisdictions. But I really wanted to follow up with them because, you know, we kind of help them and then They get set up, they build their building, and then we don't really reach out to them until they need something and or there's a problem. But I kind of wanted to set up just kind of a follow-up. So you guys remember... I think it was two months ago, and it was in April, we had ECOS come and talk to the board, and it turned out that their senior management became one of the people who spoke at our women's conference, the Aspire Women's Conference. That was fantastic, and became a board supporter. This time, I invited Uline. to come and speak to the board. Uline came to us from, I believe it was the Auburn area. They had outgrown their space and needed a new space, and they give really high praises to the EDC, but even higher praises to Rick Walk. as he went and spoke with them multiple times, had speaking engagements with them, just kind of talked to them about the benefits of moving to Lacey. They did that. They built a building here. They have a fantastic campus. But I wanted to invite them in and just say, hey, you know, you came, you set up in our community. How's it going? What are your future plans? Tell us a little bit about what your wants and needs are. And even though they did a bump out on their building, I think it was two years ago, they are ready to expand again. And we wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to make sure that the EDC is part of that, the city of Lacey is part of that. So, you know, he came down and gave us just kind of a history of the company, where they are right now, their expansion plans. And they really want to stay close to their current location because they ship a lot of products, not only here, but internationally, nationally and internationally. And so for them to have multiple warehouses, they really need to have a seamless flow between the warehouses. So they want to get as close as possible to their current warehouse. So they came and talked to us about that need. They also talked to us a little bit about their workforce needs. And as a board, there's 23 people on the board representing all the jurisdictions, a lot of the local businesses but that really kind of just gave them a platform to to say hey you know if anybody can help us fill our needs then then we'd be willing to listen so from what I understand they did get some attention from local jurisdictions after that meeting so hopefully their expansion will happen nearby where they are in Hawkes Prairie right now we we did have a little bit of a brief from Annette Roth who is the executive director of our economic development district Which is a tool that we can use to access federal funds So we hadn't been part of Thurston County's never been part of an economic federal economic development district It's been in conversation since 2008, but it's never happened and now it has and so