City Council - Regular Meeting

It is 6 p.m. on August 8th 2026 August 18th 2026 then call this Regular City Council meeting to order all council members are present so if you're able please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance

of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I also want 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. I also have an amended agenda recommendation. I would ask that the council add a new item 6B, our new council member recognition, the council member recognition and remove item 12A and the public works bidding process. So we're going to be adding 6B, council member recognition and removing 12A public works bidding process. Move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, then all in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? Then that motion unanimously carries. We've approved our amended agenda. And first up on our approval of our amended agenda is public recognitions and proclamations and presentations, which is a proclamation for Overdose Awareness Day.

City of Lacey, official proclamation. Whereas International Overdose Awareness Day shares the message that overdose deaths occur in all communities and among people from every walk of life and...

Whereas the city of Lacey stands beside and uplifts those who have lost loved ones to an overdose and those who have a substance use disorder and are diligently working toward recovery and...

Whereas overdose deaths are preventable and can be caused by alcohol, over-the-counter medications, stimulants, opioids, and other substances and...

Whereas, like many communities across Washington State, the national opioid epidemic and other overdoses pose a significant threat to public health in Lacey, and people who experience an overdose deserve quality care and kindness. Ann?

Whereas, the City of Lacey is joined with other Washington communities in the One Washington Memorandum of Understanding to access funds vital to responding to the opioid epidemic in our community. Ann?

Whereas Washington State has implemented a state opioid response plan, and whereas anyone can visit the statewide resource, www.stopoverdose.org, and the recovery helpline at 1-866-789-1511 for 24-hour information and help, and... Now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, Mayor of the City of Lacey...

on behalf of the Lacey-Seale Council to hereby proclaim August 31st, 2026 as Overdose Awareness Day in the City of Lacey. I encourage anyone whose life has been impacted by a substance use disorder to call the Washington Recovery Helpline at 1-866-789-1511. Signed by myself, Mayor Andy Ryder on this date. And can we have Katie come up? Proclamation. Thank you so much.

Perfect. Thank you. Katie Strozik, Opioid and Overdose Response Program Manager at Thurston County Public Health and Social Services. I first want to say thank you to Lacey City Council for doing this proclamation again. It's been multiple years now that you all have done the proclamation, and it really shows dedication within our community for our opioid and overdose response efforts. I also want to say thank you to City of Lacey for all of the work that you guys have put in on our Thurston County Opioid Abatement Council. It's been a huge lift to get our opioid settlement dollars out the door, and we really couldn't do it without collaborative efforts, without our jurisdictions. And because of our great partnerships with City of Lacey, we've been able to make great progress on getting contracts out into the community and getting those dollars out to actually help people within our community who are experiencing substance use disorder. So Overdose Awareness Day is really near and dear to my heart. I've lost many friends to fatal overdoses, and I've responded to multiple overdoses myself. Overdose Awareness Day is really a time for us to recognize those who have lost their lives to overdose, but also those who have been impacted by overdose deaths, those who have responded to overdoses in the community, and those who have survived non-fatal overdoses themselves. We're really fortunate in Thurston County where within the last five, six years, we've stood up a ton of infrastructure to help folks move across that continuum to make sure that they don't lose their lives to a fatal overdose. So we have multiple new treatment centers in our community, including a new one from Nisqually Tribe that's set to open soon. We have new peer services, we have Franklin Street harm reduction downtown, and we really have worked on growing a robust system of care to meet people where they're at so that we can follow people all along their way so that we can hopefully move them fully into recovery and save lives within our community. So while Overdose Awareness Day is on August 31st every single year, we will be holding our Overdose Awareness Day event on September 2nd from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. downtown at Franklin Street Harm Reduction. I have flyers to leave behind, but it'll have a bunch of community partners. There'll be resource sharing. There will be art projects. There'll be ways to recognize folks who have lost their lives to overdose. Just a lot of great ways for us to come together as a community, memorialize folks who have lost their lives, and also share stories and build relationships and really build community because we know that when we build community, that saves lives. So thank you again to City of Lacey.

Thank you. Go ahead. Before Katie leaves, I just wanted to say thank you. Your leadership on the Opioid Abatement Council was absolutely critical in getting that work done and would not have gotten done without your help. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. So next up on our agenda is the new item, the recognition of Councilmember Nick Dunning. and also to accept the resignation of council member Nick Dunning effective at the adjournment of this meeting on August 18th, 2026. The council has been given a letter that Nick has written. This is please accept this letter as the formal written notice of his resignation from his position at effective end of this council meeting. As per our policy, We have a motion needs to be made to accept Councilmember Dunning's resignation, and I will make the motion that we do accept his, Councilmember Nick Dunning's resignation effective at the adjournment of this meeting. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. We'll have some discussion. Go ahead.

I just have a question. So what if we don't accept it?

Yeah, this is... Do I get a vote? Yeah. Actually, this is really more of a formal process to really recognize Nick and for his service to the city of Lacey. This is a a council policy, it's not in law. But I was not here this last week when you made the decision to have this be your last meeting. And so I just want to be able to take this time to thank you personally for all the time you've put into the betterment of our community. I know very well, after my 17th year, of volunteering your time to the city of Lacey and to this council, not only for what happens here in the city of Lacey, but what we all know has become even more and more important these days is on all of our regional boards and commissions where the really big issues facing our region are being discussed. And it's really important that we have people who understand where our council is, who's bringing that opinion forward and advocating for our community and our council. And Nick, you've always done that. You've always, besides whatever your personal opinion may be on an issue, you've always deferred to where the majority of this council is, and that is the right thing to do as a council member. And I've always appreciated, you know, a lot of times, a lot of this council, we may not get along or agree on every single issue, but we respect the process and we respect each other to make sure that that process is being followed. And it's been just an outstanding time to get to know you better during this time. And I really applaud you for making this very adult decision, really what's based on what's best for the city of Lacey. We've had these conversations and And you said, hey, there's a lot on my plate. I'm not sure if I can give everything I can to the city of Lacey right now. And for you to be able to step aside and allow someone else to come up and give their time and energy while you focus on things that you need to focus on in your life is very admirable. And I think very selfless. Because again, you're putting the needs of Lacey ahead of your personal needs. And that is not an easy thing to do. Being a council member and being a local elected official, it really is a thankless job. You get screamed and yelled at all the time from people who may disagree with you personally. You get screamed and yelled at by people who are things that are completely out of your control. You have nothing, no direct say in. You know, it's not like we're getting paid to do this. We have a small stipend, but for those of us who are business owners, we end up losing more money, you know, by volunteering for your community. And so it is really difficult to do this job and to really put the type of energy that you need to effectively represent your community. It takes a lot of time, and it is... You know, it can be exhausting. And I really admire that you've made a decision on, again, what's best for the city of Lacey. And I will always remember that, and I will wish you well, you know, in your next endeavors. And I know you'll continue to give back to this larger community, as always. And so, thank you. Thank you for your service.

So... Nick, I just wanted to say that I've watched and I'm more of an observer, but from the beginning when you came in and just jumped into the budget, first of all, you ran a really good campaign, but it doesn't go unnoticed how much time you spent with the staff. digging into the budget, going over the numbers with Troy, police department, public works, all the different spaces and areas that you kind of jumped in and attacked so that you can get a full understanding of what is behind the curtain. And that was very admirable. I loved watching you do that. And it inspired me. And then the other thing I like is having gathered all the information, you set out to make the community as a whole better. I saw your initiatives with the cleanup project. I saw that, and I was like, I should be doing that too. And in addition to that, I know you run a business all day long. So I understand what that is and what it means to be watching a PNL over here and trying to do this over there and then making these meetings. And so I guess what I want to say is you've really poured yourself all the way in. You're an all-in kind of guy. And I love the fact that you speak your mind. and say, wait, why is it that way, right? Because I think it could be better. And so I hope you don't stop doing that in the near future, and I'm wishing you, I guess, all the luck and success in your next endeavor. Go ahead.

So, Nick, I think you know we had a pretty rocky start when you were running and we were running at the same time and didn't always get along real well. But I've learned to respect you greatly and really appreciate your friendship. I think we've become pretty close friends during this time. And I think what I admire most is that You come at every issue with your own thoughts, your own opinions. You're not parroting anybody else's. You're not taking a party line. You come in prepared for everything and ask a lot of tough questions, make people accountable. And I think that's the job of an elected. And I wish you all the luck in the world in the future and hope to be sitting with you at some other meetings.

Well, I'm going to keep this short because Nick is trying to get out the door to get to another event. But I've appreciated serving with you. And it seems like a lot longer than just two and a half years, but it is. And I was wanting to say some of the things that Lenny said. I really appreciate that you do your homework and you ask tough questions and you stay true to yourself. So keep it real.

Well, I'll just make a few comments. I said some things last week, but I want to also say again to you how I haven't known you very long, but I've appreciated having you as my seatmate and for you being very generous with your advice. I appreciated the times that you backed me up or asked me questions. I know we don't always agree on housing and things like that, but what I really appreciated was you were willing to take the time to at least sit down and talk about it, and I really appreciated that about you. So, Nick, I wish you the best. Thank you.

Always welcome.

Again, I'm going to try to keep this short since I think I said most things last week, but I just want to reiterate that you've been so generous with your time, not just with the city, but with me as a newer council member sitting down and talking about your hopes and dreams and your vision for the city in addition to advice on how to approach our particularly council reports at the end of the meeting since I'm again the last person down here. And, um, yeah, and, uh, I just really appreciated, uh, you being so open and so willing to share yourself. So thank you and best of luck.

Well, there is a emotion in a second. Um, all in favor of that motion signify saying aye. Aye. Does anyone oppose that motion passes unanimously. Nick, do you want anything? We actually have a couple gifts for you. Turn it over to Rick. Should I come over there? Yeah, go ahead. Bring it up to the dais.

Well, you know, a lot's been said tonight. I guess now it's Nick. It's not Councilman O'Donoghue officially. That's going to get hard to get used to. But I really do appreciate you coming on as a new councilman right about the time I came on as a new city manager and learning a little bit together. And I really appreciate you taking the time to ask questions, think, observe. and then really showed where you wanted to come through and see where policy goes, as well as how you would represent the city and serve the city. And one of the things, too, I thought was really nice was the advocation for folks that were out in the unincorporated UGA, because we have this conversation about city lines and county lines, but really Lacey community is more than just a city boundary, and you advocated for that greater community as well. So do appreciate that and all you have brought to the table. And also how you worked and interacted with staff and supported the staff work. I know they're all appreciative of that effort as well. So again, congratulations on a good run on city council. And it's customary to service on the city council or leaving the city ranks is our, thank you for serving the city, leaving the city of Lacey's sign. And, oh yes, why don't you hold that. And also we noticed that you kind of have an affinity for Diet Dr. Pepper. So we make sure you have a good supply as you go out the door. And then also this gift bag full of different Lacey Swag and a certificate to one of the Lacey restaurants. And we got the shirt I was promised. That's on order. And also I want to thank Dahlia and, you know, for giving to us for this time and supporting him in that effort and serving the community. I know he does a lot about the public, but there's a lot of toll on the families and in this community service and he can't do it without that support. So I want to thank you especially for

I was joking last week about getting emotional, but this is a little different. I'll do something I don't normally do and try to keep this brief. I honestly don't feel like I have been here long enough to deserve any of this, but I'm definitely grateful and appreciative of the time. That I've had here, and thankfully I got to say a little bit of goodbyes last week. But I will say something for those who weren't here last week. One thing I've always wanted to do is say, Troy, whoa. Inside joke. But I've never been able to do that publicly. I greatly appreciate the time. And I'm a numbers guy, and so I... can't imagine what the city looks like without chore over the last you know 15 20 years and what it's gonna look like in the future Vanessa and Ryan I don't think Ryan is here but I loved working with you guys and I see great things with you in the future Vince Public Works is like the least I knew about and the most impactful thing to our entire city and just how open you guys all were It was really, really grateful. And I have so many relationships with people in our police office, and I still see them on a daily basis. And a lot of the reasons talking to them is why I ran in the first place. And then, Jen, I mean, people know our city because of what you do. That is who we are. We are parks, and that's what... I remember Sheriff made a joke one time when I was at an event. He said, go with Lacey, build another park. I'm like, well, probably. Yeah. That's, you know, that's our thing. I spoke to a lot of you. Lenny, you weren't here last week, but your voice on this council is often different than everybody else's, but it is so valuable to this council because you help bring balance to it. And I can't imagine how difficult that has been for you in so many instances. And, you know, Andy... Andy, you are the definition of Lacey, you and your family. And who knows what we would be without the leadership you provided. And I know whether it be in a couple years or four years or how many times you convince your wife to allow you to run again. But you've made a huge impact and you deserve to take your pack off sometime soon and enjoy your life. And lastly, Rick, I got to meet with Rick earlier, and we have a lot of discussions, but the one thing that I can go home feeling comfortable with is that as long as Rick is here, Lacey's going to be okay. We're going to have different council members. We're going to have people come in and out, but as long as Rick is here, With the assistance of Nicole, who is the backbone of our city. And just helps make everything run, Nicole. Really, like... I don't know if I'd still be here if it wasn't for you. Like, you just always have such a positive attitude. And I know you, to everybody, I know you make a huge impact. I really try in my job and with my employees to challenge them to be better people. And that doesn't mean be like me. That means be the best version of themselves. And that can be really difficult sometimes. especially for this one, Nikaya, and probably my wife sometimes too, because the people I surround myself with, and I don't know if you attended my wedding, but I always challenge people to be the best version of themselves, and that can be really difficult at times, and I know I can be really difficult at times, but I want to see greatness in everybody in all that they do, and I try to see more in somebody than they see in themselves. So that's where I've always carried myself with, but I know that can be difficult at times too. And this isn't the end. This is just the beginning, and I am leaving this position to hopefully even have a bigger impact on the city of Lacey. I never thought this is where I would settle or I'd make my home, my family, but it is, and it was meant to be that way, and I plan on... continuing that for as long as I possibly can. So thank you, everyone here, for the impact you've made on me. One more thing, because I'm never actually going to be able to say this. Keep it classy, Lacey.

All right, everybody bring it in. A little tighter.

And for those of you who don't know Dr. Pepper, I'm actually allergic to water. That is what we call in our household dark water.

Thank you, buddy. I know you've got to go. Isn't that cool?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all you. Thank you so much And with that Nick actually hats has to leave to get off to another planned event so Our next agenda I am is public comment. We did have one person sign up for public comment From a marriage on Halverson, please. Come on. I

Hello, everyone. My name is John Halverson. I live in 5016 Sheridan Drive Southeast in Lacey. I know you like to know if there are residents or not. I'm here to talk about a community celebration that we're organizing with the, I'm representing the Lacey Historical Society. And on the 8th of September, we have a great event called the Community Celebration of America 250 and Lacey 60. And it's going to be at the Lacey Community Center from 3 p.m. in the afternoon until 7 p.m. We have 19 partner organizations that are going to do exhibits and answer questions, talk about their history in this area. And it should be fun for lots of folks. One of the groups is going to be Olympian Genealogical Society, which will help people get into their history of the founding families of Lacey. We're hoping to encourage that to happen and that more people will join us in our work. So again, that's on September 8th. I've got flyers for everybody. I'll pass those around. I see my time is moving real quick. So there. I think there's one for everybody all the way around. And on the back is the schedule. I hope you'll join us. I hope the public will come. You'll see a lot more in various media, Facebook, websites, and so on. I have one other thing. I'm also a member of the American Legion Post 94 in Lacey. And I hope some of you will come and help support the recognition of first responders, which include many people from the city of Lacey. So mostly people of City of Lacey. And I put this in your box so you'll have it somewhere and hope you'll come to that. That's two nights after our event. I'm pretty excited about the event celebrating the city. The city was six years old when I came here. And if you add up quickly, I wasn't six years old. It was a wonderful pleasure to serve nine years on this council and a few years as mayor, not as many as Andy. So carry on doing a great job, everyone.

See you on the 8th. Thanks, John. Thank you for all of your years of giving back to this community and you continue to give back to this community, which is absolutely amazing. John, it was a huge influence in my life. And I want to thank you again for everything you've done for our community. Okay, does anyone else wishing to address this council this evening? Seeing none, we did receive two written public comments that are part of the record. So our next agenda items, I have several appointments that are gonna happen and if without objection from this council, I'll do the first two together since they're both for the historic commission. I'd move that we reappoint Kevin Wyckoff to another, a second term on the Historic Commission, and that we approve the appointments of T.J. Tenere and John Zajic to the Historic Commission as well. So I'd move that we reappoint Kevin to a second term and appoint T.J. and John to their first term.

Second.

We've been seconded. Is there any discussion?

Thank you all for stepping up to serve.

Yeah. Okay, with that, All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously passes and we have now reappointed Kevin and appointed TJ and John to their first term on the SOAR Commission. Our next is an appointment to Angela Christensen to the Library Board for her first term and I would move that we do appoint Angela to the Library Board. Second. We move and second it. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Then that passes as well. Thank you, Angela. And then the last of the appointments is for Barbara Mock to be on our Parks, Culture, and Recreation Board, and I make that motion that we appoint Barbara to the Parks, Culture, and Recreation Board.

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 anyone opposed? And that motion unanimously carries. Now, we do have John here and Angela and Barbara. If you guys want to come up and just introduce yourselves real quick to the council. I'm not the one putting you on the spot. No pressure. No pressure. We all know you, John. Come on, all the way up.

Good evening. My name is John. My last name is not pronounceable. I've been here since 1960 and actually have served on the Lacey Planning Commission a long time ago, which makes me qualified for the Historical Commission. And I appreciate your support. Thank you very, very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Angela, you want to come up and just introduce yourself real quick? Hi.

My name's Angela Christensen. I came to Lacey first when I started at St. Martin's back in 2007. Graduated there and did part of my graduate school as well and then came back when it was time to start a family and bought a home here about five years ago. I'm excited to be on the library board and actually spent about two hours there last night with my son. So it's really just kind of learning a little bit more about what they've got there.

Great, thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. And then Barbara?

I'm very chatty, so I might say a little bit more. My name is Barbara Mock, and I'm new to the community. I spent my entire career, 44 years, with local government at Snohomish County Planning and Development Services. I started in the 70s as a receptionist, and I ended as the planning director. And so Rick and Vanessa and I know each other from planning directors' conferences. I moved here because my grandchildren moved here. They relocated about three years ago and we realized we were missing out. So we moved in 2023. I live at Ovation at Oak Tree, an active 55 plus community. And we're just learning about our community. So I've spent a lot of time at parks, baseball games, volleyball games, soccer games, and so forth. as a grandparent in the stands, and you have an amazing, amazing legacy. There's no place like the RAC that I've ever attended in this state. I've been looking for a place to serve, but having a unique skill set of things like comprehensive plans and writing staff reports and everything, I thought, gosh, where could that be? And then I got involved in the advocacy for the Karen Woodland, Karen Fraser Woodland Trail Extension, and I started diving deep into your plans and your comp plan. and I saw this position opening up. The reason I want that trail extended along with all the parks you've got is I live in a part that's underserved in the unincorporated urban growth area. Macalester Park is a great future park, but I don't have a way to get from my house to your trail system, which is amazing. So I'm a member of the bicycle club. We have 50 members. show up this last Wednesday and 16 of us rode around our neighborhood because that's where we feel safe. So I'm really excited to help you, support you, be whatever you need me to be to get the connections made in this community to all the wonderful parks. So I'm really grateful and I'm excited to be on the board.

Thank you so much. Pretty amazing, huh?

Okay.

Well, thank you. Thank you for stepping up and continuing to serve the community. We really look forward to your help. Okay, our next agenda item is our public art donation policy briefing.

Good evening council members, mayor, deputy mayor. It's good to be back again here with you tonight. My name is Chanel Pierce. I'm the city's special projects administrator. Tonight I'm revisiting the public art donation policy I first shared on April 28th. I'm here providing more information for discussion only. Action will be at a later date. On April 28th, during the work session, I noted that the current policy doesn't specify what the city should do to handle private art donations. Recently, some community organizations had expressed interest in donating objects such as statues and monuments, revealing a gap and promoting the creation of this new subsection. During the April 28th work session, the council asked staff to provide additional information on maintenance responsibilities and approval thresholds, so that's why I'm here tonight. On the screen for your consideration are options for maintenance responsibilities. Option one is for the prospective donor to maintain the object themselves. Another option is for the donor to make a one-time monetary contribution to an endowment. Outdoor objects, for example, are exposed to all sorts of environmental wear, like UV fading, bird droppings, cracking from temperature fluctuations, and sometimes vandalism. Some cities want to make sure that a generous gift from a donor doesn't turn into a financial burden for taxpayers, so they set up a one-time maintenance endowment funded by the donor. I can share information on maintenance endowments from other donation policies and other municipal governments if you wish to review them. Returning back to this slide, option three is to remove all donor maintenance responsibilities and have the city maintain all objects regardless of their size, complexity, or location. The policy could have one of these options or a combination of options. For example, the policy could state that the city maintains donated objects, but for objects that require special care such as those that are interactive. have moving parts, or are fragile, a one-time endowment may be required. That, for example, would be a combination of options two and three. Another example would be for the city to maintain all objects unless the donor wishes to maintain the objects themselves. That would be a combination of options one and three. The current draft policy combines options one and two, requiring the donor to enter into either a maintenance agreement or an endowment. and I'm gonna pause here for discussion.

So I've had this conversation, actually had this conversation with John because this is, it's the talk of the historic society donating a statue, but in this case, going into, agreed upon going into, it would be going into our Lacey Community Center, but we realized we didn't have a policy around this. In this case, it's a pretty straightforward because the statue is going to be inside a building that doesn't have really any maintenance at all. So to expect to have a, a, the donor at that point, I have to contribute anything. Uh, doesn't make a lot of sense. So a simple agreement, um, makes just a lot of sense in accepting it. And in this case, um, having Lacey basically maintain it since it's inside one of the facilities. I guess it could be a little bit different if it was someone wishing to donate a piece of art that didn't have a direct connection to the city of Lacey and it was more of like, I have this piece of art that I think would be great in a community and there's a want from that individual donor to have it displayed within the community. That is the only time where I'd see some sort of agreement endowment situation would make sense. Otherwise, I think the decision making needs to happen at the time of the proposal of the art donation. Either that art donation is enhancing, helping preserve Lacey historic history or some sort of meaning that it's a benefit to our entire community to accept it, then it should be the benefit to that benefit, we should maintain it, right? I mean, if it's, you know, Kite Girl, right? If someone donated Kite Girl, well, you know, that is contributing a lot to our community, and at that point, the community should agree to maintain Kite Girl. It gets a little bit different, say, if you get into a big mural situation, where I would love to see a mural program happen, you know? And that would be a little bit different, because you're trying to get artists together, and then there has to be some sort of agreement for that mural to be maintained. And that would usually be done by a group of volunteer artists, where you've seen that happen in the city of Olympia. That is a case-by-case basis. So for me, I keep coming back to it depends on what the art is, what the purpose is for. If it is solely from someone feeling good and wanting to contribute something, but there's not a direct benefit besides the beautiful art piece, then OK, we could have some discussion of what should be the ongoing maintenance costs and who should be responsible at that time. I wouldn't want someone to say, hey, I want to donate this beautiful hawk. But if I'm going to have to go through the whole process of donating the hawk, and then I'm responsible for maintaining it in perpetuity, then that doesn't make any sense to me. So again, I think it should be a case-by-case basis. And I would love to have a committee that would sort of vet some of these and bring forward a recommendation to the council. We're not quite there yet, you know, but I'm hoping that's gonna be something in the near future that we've talked, I've talked to city manager about this on numerous occasions of, you know, How do we expand that and get more public art in our community? Because I'm a strong believer, as this council knows, if you have a budget line item, then you should be using that budget line item for the benefit of the community. A budget line item that just sits in your budget and nothing happens to it is, to me, it's heartbreaking. So that's where I'm at. I think it should be a case by case. Basis, I would love to have some committees or make a recommendation to the council on accepting it and what those what makes sense at the time But I think it should be a combination of the city maintains it unless there's a specific circumstance where You can't show a overall community good where it doesn't make sense.

I

Councilmember?

I almost completely agree with you on that. The only exception I would think would be in something where it requires some kind of expertise to care for it, right? Like, for instance, the mural, like you said, right? I can't go out and fix the mural because, you know, I can't paint a straight line, right? You need an artist to do that. But, I mean, other than that, I mean, I think if we're going to accept the donation, kind of accept the responsibility of caring for it, And if it's something that we don't feel we can care for, we probably shouldn't accept that donation. Or maybe in that case, the person or the group donating it might be willing to put up an endowment for maintaining it. But I do think it almost has to be a case-by-case scenario situation. I agree. Anyone else?

I agree. I would hate to see a policy that would discourage people from donating. They're already being generous and now you want me to pay more? It just feels like an insult. It doesn't seem right, does it?

No, murals are different. I'd love to have a longer discussion about murals and having more of those in our community. That would require ongoing And there would probably be, they would need to show if somehow the city supported it and helped it, that there is some sort of committee that maintained it. But other than that, you know, I can't see. Anyone else?

I'm in agreement, too. I think you have to look at a case-by-case basis, but then I also would like to see some consistency in how we do that. I'm in full agreement that we should develop maybe an arts commission or some sort of committee like that. That would be fabulous.

Ryan, what do you think? Nothing that hasn't already been said.

It could be an ad hoc committee. It's not like we have someone trying to donate art to the city on a weekly basis or a monthly basis. We could form a committee as needed. It could be an as needed type thing.

That's what we've talked about in the council conversation in the past is looking at an ad hoc committee when things come up. One of the things is do we want to accept a donation of art? Also, Where is it going to be displayed? I think you mentioned the current idea with the statue. There hasn't been any decisions yet, but that's one of the locations is looking at some city properties where it could be displayed, but that's something that would be a future ad hoc committee discussion. And then I think it's also important to every donation, maybe not the same, because there are something that may be very simple to maintain. It may be something that's, you know, the totem we have out in front of the gift from the Squally tribe is one thing, but maybe like the cool clock is another cool clock on Slater County is a different thing because that is something that takes special maintenance pieces. And so there are some different case by case measures. So we can look at setting up a final policy that displays that. And one of the things we gotta be looking at too is as we look at the seventh and college intersection, that could be our first test of the policy and also the ad hoc committee format.

When we first got this, the amount that was suggested was like 10% of the value of the piece, which obviously after 10 years they've paid for it again, and then after 20 they've paid for it twice. I thought that was kind of silly. An endowment doesn't sound too bad. I know that we have art dollars that we don't use, right? We have yet to find a way to expend these dollars. They just kind of sit there hopefully gaining interest. That would be nice. But if if we accept a piece of art or if we're looking at accepting a piece of art, it should be on us to say whether we can afford to maintain it or not. If we look at something and say we can't or don't want to afford to maintain that, then we should reject it because once we accept it, it's on city property or it's on some personal space, but it becomes the property of the city of Lacey, and I wouldn't expect somebody else to come and pay and maintain. An endowment would be nice, Um, I, I, I could see, but, but I don't, that could prevent somebody from even wanting to, to, you know, donate if I, if I have to, if I want to donate something, uh, and I have to give you five grand at the same time, maybe I don't want to donate that then, uh, after that.

So I agree. I do think there should be an agreement that spells all that out when we accept it, that, you know, this, because what we don't want is like in the case of the clue clock, Right. Where it's sitting there and needs some repairs and everyone's like going, okay, how do we do this? Um, and then you'd be nice to be able to go back and look at, well, here's what the agreement says. And so in a, in a case like that, um, there could be agreement says, you know, on any future repairs, it's a 50, 50 responsibility between, you know, we could figure that out, but leave that up to the ad hoc committee. and to accept it or reject it at the time.

We have some pieces of art now, I know, like for instance, the military statue that we have, that the Rotary Club that donated it also maintains it. So I mean, you know, voluntarily, right? They go and do that. So I mean, I think there's a lot of different options on how to do this, but I think it's got to be a case by case.

I have a question. Sure.

I'm wondering if an Arts Commission can operate like an ad hoc committee because there may be some other things that that commission can do other than accept or screen artwork.

I would love to have the conversation about an Arts Commission and what that would take. I think that in some cases is another conversation that we need to have separate from this. But let me maybe go on. You have some more information? I do.

I do have a proposal for you to consider that I think meets everything I'm hearing. And so that proposal is to strike Section 6 entirely from the proposed draft policy, which is maintenance responsibilities. And then in the section above it, just above it in section five, add the yellow highlighted sentence. So in section 5BE, it would read maintenance. Because the city must be able to provide proper storage and care, no objects requiring extensive or extraordinary preservation or care will be accepted. Furthermore, at its discretion, the city may request the donor to establish an endowment or a maintenance agreement for objects requiring Substantial maintenance and then as the policies already currently proposed in written in section 4e There is a donation agreement and it does say maintenance responsibility So that's where it would outline whatever gets agreed upon the city's gonna maintain it That's what the donation agreement says or whatever is agreed upon I'm not quite there because there may be an object that requires extensive preservation and care that we do want to accept as

if it was based on overall benefit of the community.

It's discretionary, right? If it's too expensive, if we don't want to maintain it or can't afford to maintain it, we don't have to accept it, but we have the discretion to be able to.

But the sentence above that says because C must be able to provide proper storage and care, no objects requiring extensive or extraordinary preservation and care will be accepted, period.

You could change it to discretion if you wanted discretion as well, no problem.

I think that needs to be that. Yeah. I think you should just get rid of that at its discretion. The CMA request that the donor just get rid of. Yeah. For maintenance, just start with your highlighted at its discretion. The CMA request that the donor establish an endowment or a maintenance agreement for the object.

We'll come up with some language says on a case by case basis, we'll have a discussion about the maintenance responsibilities so that the city is informed of what that responsibility is. And if the city can do it, we can add some language that way. Yeah.

I had a question for Troy in regards to the budget that we have for art. And it is a percentage of something. It's a dollar per population. $60,000 per year. So then my thought became, if we don't exceed a percentage of that amount, and I'm even thinking as low as like, you know, 2% or something along those lines. Because if we take our per capita, our 60,297 people, I think it is somewhere in that ballpark, and we say that, you know, the value or the maintenance on this item cannot exceed a percentage of that number or something. I don't know.

Does that make sense?

We can do something about it. And if we have to look at some maintenance, we'll come up with a financial strategy. Part of that... per capita art fund was to actually use to be able to fund art projects, and that's something that would be used, for example, if we do another thing like the Hawks in Hawks Prairie or the military statue, if that was something the city initiated. So we can use that fund for that initial, but we also would have to have a financial strategy, and so future conversations could be looking at that or other sources to be able to fund the ongoing maintenance.

I mean, and then the proposed approvals for thresholds, I... I would like to think that any significant piece of art that's gonna come into our community, that this council would at least have a conversation about. There may be something that's right under, that costs less than $7,500 that you could approve, but you would think at that point there should at least be a conversation the council's having about an art piece or something major coming to the city of Lacey. That's just my opinion. Yeah, it's not an easy value.

Did we hire an appraiser? What's up? Did we hire an appraiser?

No, like, yeah, how do you figure out what the value is of some of this stuff, too? So that's where it'd be nice if there was a process that any a piece of art that's been, it goes through a ad hoc committee that gets a recommendation to the full council. So all this stuff can be talked about.

So it is written in the policy as proposed that the city manager can do it, but you can also take it to the council. It's written that way for something if it's, you know, cause it all depends on what it is.

Sure.

So if it has a high value, it wouldn't supersede, Rick, taking it to the council just because it's under $7,500.

And something, too, it's very similar to, like, the agreements, the interlocal agreements that are major and minor in nature where you'd have a report out, but there'd be a decision so not everything's coming to council. Because everything, again, you can have some things that are very routine in nature, but you also have the staff time, the adult committee, and then the recommendation in that process. And so it's just trying to make some more efficiencies. and how we administer it, but it's very similar to the current policy related to the council and the city manager on agreements.

Would you like to take a quick look at the thresholds at other cities, what they do?

No, I mean, you're right. I think if it's routine in nature, that's one thing, but I think if it's a piece of art that's going to go out into our community, it should go through a process regardless. I mean, because it could be something where I don't know. It could be a bunch of pigs and people don't like pigs. I don't know. I don't know. I think that this doesn't happen very often anyway. It's not like we're dealing with this on a regular basis.

Right. So as it's written now, there's an initial review by the city, the manager's office to receive it and see if the application is complete and all of that. And then it's going to go for internal preliminary technical reviews for input and things like that. Um, and then that's where it becomes, if it's 75 above or below, if it can be approved at that point or come here to council, I think at that point it should hopefully go to that and ad hoc committee for.

for a recommendation or not. And that's when all those things can be discussed of ongoing maintenance, you know, all, all those things.

So we do say that it will go to an art committee and if no art committee is in place, which is our case, it'll be an advisory board designated by the city manager's office to review it and give recommendations. That will happen.

Yeah. With hopefully a council member being a part of that committee. Yeah. Where, yes, no?

Well, review donations, I think. That's to make a recommendation before it comes here. Before it comes here.

So it's got internal technical reviews and it's got external board reviews.

So it's a form of ad hoc each time we'd use like the Commission on Equity or an appropriate advisory board to review it and then make that recommendation. Like the library board.

like the library board, yeah. Okay, I think you've, yeah, or the store commission, right, depending on what it is, yeah. Okay, I think you got, do you got what you're waiting for?

So you're good with the 7,500, it sounds like, or do you have other comments?

The council?

I have a council vote on this.

Yeah, you'll have a final language come before you for future action.

Sure, I'm just getting a sense of if there's consensus there for how to proceed.

I mean, one other consideration, and maybe if there's an ad hoc art committee, is, like, setting... some standards for what we'll accept and also to maybe test the boundaries a little bit. And perhaps there's something rather avant-garde that is meant to challenge or inspire or that sort of thing. Is it going to play in LACI?

See, that's why I think it's important that it goes through an ad hoc committee because it could be under $7,500, but it could also then be very controversial. And so for that to... not have gone through a process doesn't seem appropriate. I don't know.

So it does say the city manager may seek recommendations and input from an advisory board before making that decision and may bring it to the city council for final approval. So that's kind of the out if it's, you've got to use good judgment. I trust Rick has it. If he doesn't, I'll make sure he does on the art donated piece. I have lots of help. It leaves the longer process always possible regardless of dollar amount of value. Yeah.

And I don't want things being turned away, too, and say, oh, that might be controversial. I don't want to be in a circumstance like that. I like to go through a process before, yeah. Okay, I think you, do you have enough? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Okay, so I just want to recap real quick. So I'm hearing that first piece, you're good with striking Section 6, anything about maintenance agreement, maintenance responsibilities, and then adding some language in Section 5. You gave some comments there about how long you wanted that, what you wanted, and then good with keeping the decision regarding approval thresholds at 7,500 with the language that's in there.

I think... Yeah, it's not for so much a dollar amount in my case, it's more of like, there should be more than just a dollar amount process for approval. You know, so I'm still not, I'm not sure about that.

Suggestions.

Yeah.

So I think we could fix that part with one word, really. So right now it's the city manager may bring it to a commission. How about it will bring it to a commission, resolves that, I think, and gets it in front of more people looking at it, whichever body that is. Sure.

I'm happy with that. I'm happy with that.

Sorry.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Not that we don't trust you, Rick.

But again, when you're making plans or policy, it's not for necessarily who the current city manager is. It's for the future of the city. And I don't know who the city manager is going to be five years from now, 10 years from now, right? And we don't know. Hopefully it'll still be Rick, but you know.

He could drop dead in like any second. Okay, let's go. First meeting back for a while. Yeah, let's see here. Okay, next up is our flag policy update, Shannon.

Well, good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and council members. I'm here tonight to talk about a potential update to our city flag policy. I know many of you are very familiar with this section of the city council policy and procedures. Tonight it's for review only and discussion and we'll take this information and come back at a future potential regular meeting for any potential council action. So what we're looking at tonight is the city council policies and procedures section 5.11. This was last updated in 2022. The updates, one of the reasons why we're looking at this is we have added new flagpoles since this was created. And then this also came up in conversation at a former informational dinner meeting where there was some discussion on flying and displaying other flags. And so it did also come to our attention that we have agreements that are not contemplated currently in the flag policy. So taking a look at this would also incorporate the existing agreements. and then also consider potential future displays. Any change to this section of the council policies and procedures would need to be done by resolution, which would potentially occur at a later date. So just really quickly on the new flagpoles, I'm sure as many of you drove into City Hall, you'll see the new police station. We do have some new flagpoles located there, and I got a picture of it right here. We also have a flagpole at Rainier Vista Park that was not contemplated in the policy, so we wanted to make sure to incorporate both that new flagpole, that new flagpoles at the police station, and then the flagpole at Rainier Vista were included.

She had a quick question. At Rainier Vista, is it the three poles? It is a single pole. It's a single pole.

The other thing, like I mentioned, was we do have other types of flag poles that were not included, and that is city-owned poles with flag brackets. And I'm sure you all are very familiar if you've driven down College Street. Just as an example, this is a picture that I'm showing here from College Street. And so what the amendments would do would formalize the existing agreement that we have with the Sunrise Lions. And I've included that agreement as part of your packet as attachment to. And one thing I just wanna note is that as an evergreen agreement, there is no deadline for that agreement to expire. What there is a requirement for is the Sunrise Lions to communicate 60 days in advance of flying those flags of where they plan on flying those flags so that our maintenance team can ensure that those are the correct locations if there's any issues with brackets, et cetera, that we can take a look at that. And so that would be formalizing the possibility of having this type of an agreement. It would also be amending language to allow for the display of other city council approved flags. And over here on the side, you can see that the city council approved flags currently include the United States flag, our sister city flag, the progress pride flag, the Juneteenth flag, the Nisqually Indian tribe flag and the Squaxin Island tribe flag. And then also would allow other third parties to enter into agreements with the city to display only council approved flags on those city owned flag poles with brackets. Those are the updates that are contemplated as part of the proposal and I'd be happy to answer any questions that the council may have.

Is the Washington state flag not an approved flag?

That is absolutely an approved flag, but it's part of the earlier part of the process. If you take a look at the displays to the flag, it does say U.S. flag, POW flag, Washington State flag, City of Lacey flag. So these are really in addition to. The reason I highlighted the United States flag was specifically because of the existing agreement with the Sunrise Lions. So you would be correct that those are approved to be flown in other locations, including our new police station.

Great. Lenny. So I have a question and a concern. My question is, so I know the policy where we have the three flag polls. What is the current policy then like for Rainier Vista where there's only a single poll?

Yeah, so on Rainier Vista, it would be the U.S. flag and then the city of Lacey flag. And the city of Lacey flag could be... replaced with a different flag based on what was approved by the city council. So under the council approved flags there are specific flags that could fly at different times. I'll use the example of the Juneteenth flag that can be flown annually from June 19th to the third weekend of June or the third weekend of June to June 19th depending on which comes first when the holiday falls. And so on that single flagpole you would have on top the U.S. flag and then below it the Juneteenth flag for that period of time.

Because I thought our policy on all of those flags that we approved, other than the U.S. flag, obviously, was only where there were three polls. That's how I thought the policy read previously that we had agreed on. Because we still, because where there's three polls, like here at City Hall, we fly the U.S. flag, obviously. We fly the state flag. And then on the third poll is where we fly the other flags. In replacement of the city flag, we fly the pride flag or the Juneteenth flag. But I've not seen anywhere where we've flown it on the same poll with the U.S. flag, where there was a single poll. I thought that policy was only for three polls.

So we have flown that, what we're talking about of the US flag and then the city council approved flags. And I think it, the council, you know, it could choose to fly, you know, whatever city council approved flag that it's looking for, and I'm looking for the particular language that you're speaking to of.

I don't have a huge issue with that. Where my bigger concern is is really on the city flag, not the flag polls, but the light polls, where we currently have the agreement with the Lions Club, who put up the American flags for the period of I forget the exact dates, but I know it's there for Flag Day, it's there for Memorial Day, Labor Day, you know, for that stretch of holidays, the Fourth of July. My concern is switching out the American flag for any other flag through that period of time I have a serious problem with, serious concern.

Well, that's their concern. poll, right? Well, no, there are polls. But there are brackets. There are brackets?

I believe there are brackets, and they're using our brackets to put their flags, because what this policy is talking about is allowing other organizations or other flags, other approved flags, to fly on those same brackets. Am I missing something there? That's what we're talking about, correct?

Correct. So, yeah, just for clarification, you know, the poles and the brackets are city infrastructure. In the case with the U.S. flags, the Sunrise Lions, they do own those flags that are being flown. Right. Councilmember, I think your question is a good one, and certainly the intent would not be to, you know, replace where the Sunrise Lions are currently flying their flags. And that's why with the existing agreement that we have right now, the Sunrise Lions have the opportunity, you know, 60 days before they fly their flags, which are from Memorial to Labor Day, to let us know what flagpoles that they're being used. So that would be the intent would be to keep with the existing agreement. But in other locations, there could be the opportunity for additional flags.

I guess where I'm still missing something is my understanding, because I've helped them put those flags up in years past, they fly them all over the city. I mean, I don't know that we have areas that they're not flying those during the holidays. And that's where my concern comes, because it just so happens that the timing of the other flags is during the time they fly those flags, right? Because Pride Month is June. Juneteenth is in June. That is during the period that they fly the American flags. So that's my concern. I would have a serious concern with us taking down the American flag to fly another flag.

But it sounds like what we're saying here is that the lions get first right. And if there's anything left over where the lions aren't Doing that.

No problem with that.

Okay.

But is that the case, though? I mean, because if we would be going into an agreement with anybody else flying these flags, is the existing agreement with the Lions Club going to take precedent over those other agreements? So they would have first right of refusal. That's not in their agreement at this point.

But we would be adding that, right?

That is certainly something we could go back to the Lions Club and take a look at the agreement that we have so that we can make firmer language to that point if the council would like us to do that before coming back with this policy. Great.

Within 60 days, I think that it's been tradition enough in this community that 60 days, they have the first right of refusal to put flags wherever they want during that. Formalize that, and I think we're going to be...

Right, we need to formalize that in the policy. It would be critical to me.

That's fine.

I'm okay with that. If I can follow up with the question you had about the protocols for the three, where we have three flagpoles versus one. The way the policy reads is the Lacey Council may choose to fly a different flag in place of the city flag. It didn't say one pole or three poles. And so in the example Shannon provided at Rainier Vista, you have the U.S. flag and then the city flag underneath it. That's where we can switch that out for a Council-approved flag to be flown. No. And in our policies, there's, of course, a description of all the different locations, which we want to add additional location to this amendment, and identify the flagpoles and the order of flight.

I would think it would make sense to leave it a little more open-ended in the sense of not necessarily naming the locations of the flagpoles, but city flagpoles, right? So that every time we add a new flagpole, we don't have to amend the policy like we're doing now for the police station or Rainier Vista. I mean, it would be, I would think it'd just be easier to make it for any city-owned flagpoles.

Yeah. Can we make that change too? Because you're right. It doesn't make sense coming back. We can add that, right?

We can certainly take a look at updating that table. It would just require us kind of fleshing out, you know, again, with three flags versus one flag, and that could simply be done.

And any future city flagpole. Correct. Adding that language so we don't have to come back and approve a new flagpole, a new, yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. I just had a quick question. Do we have, I guess... Going back to Lenny's point of that the Sunrise Lions has first right of refusal on all of our brackets for flags in the city. Do we have a list or are we keeping track of which ones they're not using? Because if they just monopolize the whole thing, then the flag policy doesn't actually apply and doesn't really let other people fly their flag if they're just going to be the ones that have that right.

All the time. Just a distinction of what I heard was, you know, taking a look at the existing flag poll brackets that the Lions do use currently and contemplating that with the future agreement update. That wouldn't mean that there couldn't be opportunities or that all flag brackets are used currently across the city to add additional opportunities for other types of city council approved flags.

Okay. When I was hearing first right of refusal, it sounded like that they're like, we're going to use all the brackets and therefore we're not going and then preventing the hanging of other flags during that time. And so we can, then that would be my kind of my worry about that is.

No, I do think they do have a lot of places, but they've been main, it is a sort of a lacy tradition for a long time. You know, there are other, places, I guarantee you, that we could do this, that outside of the, we need to, here's what we currently have, you know, they can then, Sunrise Alliance, you know, basically say, okay, we want to use this mini, we need to take an inventory and know what the inventory is. And then, so, in the future, we could add to more flag, you know, to other pools or whatever. Yeah. Thank you, yeah.

It's like, if we don't have an inventory, it's hard to know where they're going. Do we have an inventory?

We do have an inventory of a lot of our infrastructure. And again, the way that the Sunrise Lions have operated is they provide kind of like what streets they're going to be looking to fly the flags. And we are able to respond whether or not we have equipment on those streets. But also it's based on some of the resources and bandwidth that they have as well. And so over the years, that has looked different, you know, depending on the volunteer levels that they have. And so that's certainly something that When we take a look at the language, we'd want to make sure that we contemplate as part of that.

In some of the years, I can tell you that AUSA and soldiers from JBLM have helped put up the flags because Sunrise Lions Club is, you know, they generally have gotten a little older over the years, the group that's there, and some of them are just not quite as able to put up the flags. So they've struggled with the volunteers to be able to actually put them up and take them back down. So AUSA and soldiers from JBLM have helped several of those years.

Okay. I think you got what we're looking for, right?

We've got some great direction and we'll do some follow-up and diligence before we bring anything back to council.

Perfect. Our next agenda item is the economic development update. Sarah.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council. I'm Sarah Schelling with the, I'm the Current Planning and Economic Development Manager with the Community and Economic Development Department. And tonight I'm here to give an economic development update that includes both a touch on the economic development and our initiatives that we're taking care, or working on right now, as well as a brief private development update as well. So we're gonna start first with our economic development side of current planning and economic development. and we're gonna talk first about the Knight Market and the Food Truck Depot. I know the Knight Market has come up before this group recently, so let's talk about the market in 2026 and what a great success it's been. We're in our third contract year with Sway Knight Market, and each year that Sway has been our operator, he's grown interest and attendance in the market, and the vibrancy of it has just increased over the last three years. This year, the night market has averaged 78 vendors per event and is averaging 7,734 visitors per night. That's a 27% increase over last year. Each market night is themed. There was recently a K-pop night and an island night, both huge events. Upcoming, we have a country night, a Latin night, and then it finishes up with a fall fest as well as a holiday market in November at the community center. We have participation with vendors throughout the community, both private businesses and government. The Commission on Equity was able to table at a couple of events this year. Our stormwater section has also talked about putting tables at the event to provide stormwater education as well to members of the community. So it's been an enormous success for the city and small business owners who participate. Of course, the success has had some unintended consequences, which is what you'd heard about just a few weeks ago. So we'll go ahead and talk about, whoops, wrong way. We'll talk about parking. So in 2026, we've been fortunate this market season that st. Martin's has agreed to partner with us Partner with the city in this event and to allow parking at one of their Lots Adjacent to Pacific Avenue. So this parking lot is less than a half mile down the road there's a safe controlled crossing with ample parking for anybody who wishes to park there and This is parking lots in addition to any available on-street parking as well as on-site parking. This is a new partnership again this year and it actually didn't come into effect until probably four night markets. So it's new and it's gonna take some time for people to learn that it's available as an option. Helping to educate people as to whether or not it's an option has been one of our focuses in economic development and communications the past few market events through probably June, where we've been advertising the availability of parking at... St. Martin's University. In addition to advertising the availability of parking, we've also included requests in our social media posts to ask people not to park in private lots. We've provided directional signage both at the market itself as well as at the parking lot and on sidewalks adjacent to private lots where we've had parking issues, directing people to St. Martin's University as well. We've also provided information regarding some of the other options that are available. Buses are free in Thurston County. People can ride the bus to the night market. The market's on a trail. There's great opportunity to ride your bike as well as to walk. So we're continuing to promote other options, promote the availability of this parking lot at St. Martin's, and we're really grateful to St. Martin's for allowing the city to do that and provide that for this event. In addition to those options, the night market staff is actively directing patrons during night market events to additional parking lots. So we feel like there's ample parking available right now for the night market and all the events to take place. The hope is that with continued messaging from both the city's end as well as the market staff's end that people will learn that they can park at St. Martin's and it will stop being an issue for adjacent property owners.

Do you know if inner city transit has a bus that stops very nearby that people might be able to?

I believe there's one directly on Lacey Boulevard right next to the market. Yes. Our operator, Jason, too, has been in discussions with inner city transit about providing a shuttle service as well. A free shuttle service may be sponsored by Toyota to move people to and from the night market as well. So we're continuing to look at other options to try and help relieve the pressure that the parking situation has caused. Great. Thank you. So next I want to touch on some of our economic development work program items. You'll remember the economic development team was before you last spring with a two-year work program that we intended to begin. to implement based on the economic development strategic plan that was adopted also late last winter, early last spring. So the work program has TAS identified and assigned staff with the intent of beginning those initiatives in 2006. Shortly after we brought that program to you for review and adoption, we lost our one full-time economic development staff member to a new position at a different location. So we've had a staffing issue in our economic development section. So the loss of staff capacity has resulted in a delay of those new initiatives, and that's really in order to maintain capacity in the other areas where we need to have it, like management of the food truck depot and the night market itself. So that being said, we currently are working on some of the items a little bit more slowly in our work program. The street merchant ordinance, we're updating our street merchant ordinance to make it more reflective of the type of street merchants we see popping up or asking questions of us in the city. Shannon Vincent, our special projects planner, took that to Planning Commission for its initial briefing last week and that is gonna begin moving forward. We're advancing that work and that should be before council. later this fall, probably early winter. What else? We are also advancing our food truck depot ADA improvement project that is right now in public works engineering. They're working on final designs to hopefully get those ADA pathways in front of the food trucks to allow access. Hopefully that project will be constructed this fall. And we also have a request for qualifications for a depot feasibility study ready to be issued, just waiting on a staff member to manage that contract. And Hunnamer Park, that project continues as well with the search for funding. We were able to close out a conceptual design contract with a landscape architect last winter. We have some conceptual designs that will move forward once the project becomes funded. And then finally, our economic development vision. We did promise you that we would be back here to work on our vision statement last spring, and we're going to do that again later than we'd hoped. We have it on a work schedule council meeting for October 27th, I believe. And then, speaking of exciting news, we are hiring. We are actively hiring our economic development strategist. We're hoping to have that person on board by the October 27th meeting so that they can be introduced to you and they can be part of that discussion on the economic development vision statement. We had first interviews actually just yesterday and so that hiring process is continuing and is moving forward. Let's see. Now we'll move on to the private development side of our economic development update. We'll first take a look at our land use permits. Our administrative review applications are trending similarly to 2025 numbers. Administrative land use review permits are those that don't require a public hearing and are really based on reviewed and approved at the staff level and the site plan review committee level. to ensure they meet the underlying zoning and city and other development regulations. Our quasi-judicial projects in 2026 are actually trending higher, and these are projects that require a public hearing and a final decision by a hearings examiner. That would be things like major subdivisions, projects requiring critical area studies and permits or conditional use permits. Those have a longer permit review timeline and require some substantial staff review analysis. Each one of our three planners has at least one quasi-judicial project that came in over the last three months. Two of them have at least two in right now. Some of them quite visible, and I'll touch just on those. They're new in the last few months, and I'll touch on those towards the end. Our commercial and industrial building permits are also up in 2026. Building permits as well as additions are up. Some of the bigger projects would be some of the new multifamily buildings, which are considered commercial in the building code, multifamily buildings on Carpenter Road. And then one of our big TI's is the JNI permit at South Sound Center. We issued that recently and they're actively moving forward on that construction. Housing permits in 2026. We're down a little bit from 2025. The multifamily permits just went crazy in 2025 with 602 new units coming on board. 237 at this point in the year is pretty good. We anticipate at least a few more multifamily projects getting their permits by the end of the year as well. So that number should increase. So those permits, those unit numbers are reflective of land use applications that received approval probably two years ago. So we had a huge number of multifamily projects that came in in 2023 and 2024, and we're now seeing those constructed and come online.

So the two projects that are out by Northeast Lacey off the first roundabout, I also know there's a hotel going in there somewhere. Yeah. What's going up right now, are they both multifamily, and the hotel hasn't gone up yet, but?

Talk about that, but yes, yes. The multifamily, there's one multifamily that just got a certificate of occupancy, and then another one is coming, but I'm gonna get to those in just a couple minutes here.

Oops, I think I moved too far.

Oops, nope. And then the single-family housing permits are also up a little bit as well from last year, and that's reflective of Morrell Meadows, which is the mushroom farm that came online. Additional permits are expected on that, as well as Ventura Crossing, which is up on 15th Avenue. And now we'll talk about the quick project update Updates Midtown 7th Avenue apartments building one. They're looking to have certificate of occupancy in May of 2027 so it's getting really close It's quite a difference in Lacey Midtown to see that large apartment building going up We don't have a timeline for building two just yet but this building one will add 150 new apartment units into Lacey Midtown and MJR has also recently completed the interior TI for the Bottega restaurant. So that's an exciting new addition as well in Midtown and Hunter Park. We've also received building permits for the yard, which is right across the street from Seventh Avenue Apartments on College and Seventh Avenue. It's actually both sides of Seventh Avenue. So this is the tap house and outdoor recreation space designed to provide some open space amenities for not only the apartment residents, but also other residents of the city of Lacey as well. It's gonna go on both sides so pickleball or sport courts on the south side Avenue and then the tap house as well as room for potentially food trucks Yeah on the north side as well.

Okay. I was wondering what they're gonna do that other spot.

Yeah That's really a fun project. We do have permits in for that and are waiting for we've issued our preliminary or our first first round of comments and we're waiting waiting for recent middle from MGR on that development and At South Sound Center, JNI continues to move forward with their redevelopment of the Sears building. They're actively completing their tenant improvements so they can move in by the end of this year. They'll have two additional tenants in that space, and they're actively recruiting on that. I don't believe, or they haven't shared with us if they've signed anybody yet on those two spaces. They also still intend to complete a restaurant out in the northeast parking field, so hopefully we'll see some additional movement on that at some point in the future. You've probably also heard that CDC has sold South Sound Center. We have tried to get in touch with the new owner, Tourmaline Capital. It's been a challenge to get in touch with a representative from that new ownership group, but we're trying to get in touch with them so that we can start working on our South Sound plans.

I'm sorry, what is a Goldfish Swim School?

Oh, the Goldfish Swim School? It's going into the old... Not Ruby Tuesday, Tuesday morning. The old Tuesday morning, which is near Pacific Avenue. And it's a swim school. So swim lessons. So yeah, they're building a pool inside. That's currently under construction. Digging out the foundation. Yes, it is. Yep. Anybody who wants to pay for swimming lessons can get it there.

Wow. Yeah. Awesome.

Pretty cool. 15th Avenue projects, these were in the works for a long time. They're finally almost built out. This was 363 new units on the north side of 15th Avenue. So 15th Avenue has really evolved over the last several years. Residents and what's exciting is that residents can now more easily access 15th Avenue with the opening of the College Street extension this year So that is a really exciting Extent or public works project and has taken a lot of pressure off of Livingston Drive in that neighborhood What good annexation does? The Hickory Project, I've talked about this one for a really long time, and it took a really long time to get some buildings there, but Providence, not Providence, Ole Ortho has opened its doors as well as the Pacific Laser Eye Clinic, so that's some good new medical uses up in the Northeast area. And at Hogan Bay Town Center, all the commercial has been developed. And the first of the four apartment buildings has been finalized. That's what you see going up right now, the four to the east of Hogan Bay Town Center, that's all gonna be residential in that area with some first floor commercial in the first phase. Again, the first building occupancy in August, the second building is going in December, and then the buildings three and four to the north will go follow the same timeline next year that one and two are this year so occupancy in august and december for the final building and that'll add an all told 350 new residential units on the north side of i-5 just in that development

Yeah, where's the hotel then? I thought one of them was gone.

Right here. Oh, right there. Here it is, yes. Oh, okay. So it's just, yes, just to the south is the hotel. It's the treed parcel right now.

Oh, and behind it.

So you go in on the roundabout, and you would immediately turn right. It's to the right of the roundabout. It's the Triangle Hotel. Yes, yep, yep.

What's the name of the restaurant?

So this is two hotel buildings and we do have an update on these. The Homewood Suites, their permits are ready to go, their grading permits. We expect to see some site activity on that parcel this fall. So that is actually really exciting. In addition, the Marriott Hotel, I can't remember which brand of the Marriott Hotel it is, up at Providence or adjacent to Providence in Brinton Parkway, they have also submitted their building permits. So it looks like they are moving forward on that one. 362 new hotel rooms across those three apartment or those three hotel buildings on the north side of I-5 once we get those constructed. Wow. And Homes on Martin is also nearing completion. 96-unit apartment building with some ground floor commercial. They expect to request occupancy by summer of 2027. And two new single-family plots. This is Morrell Meadows and Monarch Meadows. I'm like... which include 312 new single family units. We've seen some of the single family at Morrell come in already. Their final plat for phase two is gonna come and to get approved by council in early September. between Morrell Meadows and Monarch Meadows, which is just to the east. It's another 312 single-family units. And finally, to wrap up, new projects underway, the LEAF Education and Family Center, so this is the North Thurston project, and site work is underway at that location, and permits are approved and ready to be issued. So that wraps up projects under construction, or approved and almost under construction. And just a few minutes ago, I mentioned a couple new projects, and I don't have slides of them all, so we'd be here a really long time. But I will just mention some of the big high visibility new land use applications that we have in the pipeline. The first one is the McClanahan Village in Neal Commons. This is the Housing Authority project. at College and 37th. That includes 60 low-income and senior residents. It's been submitted for review. It's been routed. Public notice has been provided, and Reece Fant, the planner, is taking comments on that currently. He's also taking comments on another single-family cottage development. It's kind of a cool project. It's located on Yelm Highway at Lake Point Drive. This is the Taylorwood Cottages. It's 48 units of cottage housing. It's small units, 8 to 1,200 square feet with a pedestrian-focused site plan. So parking is de-emphasized, and there's lots of open space between units. It's a really neat project. We also have Parkside Place Platte, which is one of the very last projects. large lots in the Summer Walk development. It's a 54 unit development on a parcel immediately adjacent to Rainier Vista Park. That's in for review, that's a plat as well as a rezone, so that council will see sometime this fall. And then the cove at Long Lake, which is on the north side of Long Lake, and it's a 26 unit development. all told 200 new single family units in the pipeline or in land use application stage. I didn't provide slides of them but the link in your packet should take you to our current projects page which will provide all the information if you wanted to look at that as well as any public who's interested. They'll tell you the planner if you want to provide comments as well. I'll show you those projects as well as all the other projects that our current planners are working on right now. And then finally, one last update, and this is in regards to our pre-approved ADU design program. And I'll let Vanessa jump in here if I miss anything on this, because she and Terry have really been working on this primarily. But we do continue to offer our pre-approved ADU plans to the public. Currently, there's four options available, a 400, a 600, 800 square feet. We recently added a 1,000 square foot three bedroom option. Over the past two years, we've only issued two or three permits on our pre-approved plans, and the feedback we've received is that even though the permit process is simple and cost-effective, the cost to construct some of these units is really high. So, to try to address this, Vanessa and Terry are currently working to add two new plans to the portfolio. They're working directly with Olympia Master Builders to design plans that are designed to be more cost efficient with options to add ADA compliance and compatibility as well as options for net zero construction and with solar panels as well as other energy efficiency items. The downside to these plans is they probably won't be as architecturally pleasing as some of the ones we're already offering because it's more expensive to make them look a little bit nicer. So these may be a little bit more basic on the back end, but they are intended to be designed as more cost-effective to construct. We don't have any designs finalized or anything to look at at this point, but that's an update we'll be excited to bring back to you, and we have more details on it in the future. So that concludes my update. I'm sure I didn't cover everything. I'd be happy to take any questions that you might have.

Definitely appreciate you guys looking into lower costs for the ADU programs. I've heard the same thing over the years. It's just too much. I could just go and buy myself a nice motor home, park in the back of my house, and save myself a whole bunch of money. So was definitely looking forward to seeing some lower cost options. I love what the Artisan Group did. I just know what the feedback has been. I did have a question about the Hicks Lake project. We had so much intense discussion on that one. And I was thinking maybe we see it tonight. Obviously when we have land use issues, a lot of people show up and a lot of people showed up for that one. So will there be an update on that one coming soon?

The update is they probably need to go back through land use approval because their permits have expired. Their land use permits approvals have expired.

Okay. And then also the, uh, I see the, the project on Willamette drive, um, is moving along really well. Um, and, and they're going to be completed probably early next year, probably early next year.

Yep. Meridian market. That's Meridian market.

Okay.

And that's going to be the market, the four gas pumps. And then they've got an additional tenant space that I think is intended to be a restaurant. They don't have a user for that at this point.

Okay, and that additional tenant space is above?

No, it's on the ground floor. That additional space above I think is office really for the market.

Okay, gotcha.

Is your presentation tonight kind of taking the place of the summer tour that we've been, bus tours that we've been doing?

That's why I just asked Rick.

Does Rick want to answer?

That's okay.

I'll let you answer.

We did a plan for the bus tour this summer. Last year, what we put together was a driving tour, I think. Did we present that? Did we present that maybe last fall?

There was an opportunity to have a self-driving mobile tour because of the challenge of logistics and schedule, and we're going on the budget, and we're facing the same issues this year. There's a lot of... It's hard to find that time of a council meeting that's not fully scheduled to create that time. So again, we can look at having some level of bus tour, and one of the things we've talked about in that shift is do we look at it on a regular work session night, or do we look at it as an opportunity on a Saturday where it can be a little bit less formal, and whoever wants to attend can go through that tour. But we haven't really meshed on a good recommendation yet, In the meantime, we're just trying to get as much information on our websites as well as having Sarah provide this type of update tonight so we can get a sense of what's been happening and going on.

There is a lot of value of going out and actually looking at the project and knowing what each project is, where it's at, and its phase and completion because the public, we get this all the time as elected officials. It's like, so what's going on on this corner and that? Well, if it's... If it's gone through its normal process, we've never seen it. You know, if it's a part of the approved zoning, right, and it will not go in front of this council. And so it's nice to get a little more heads up on what's going on just because we get asked the question all the time and it's really tough like I don't know what's going on there they said that aren't you the mayor I'm like oh yeah a lot of emails direct hey Rick what's going on yeah I mean 25 people have asked me about this one oh yeah it happens all the time so there is some benefit in and going out there and seeing that but yeah if we have to do it on a work session I think so it's probably worth it well I think it could work to have some more conversation with council about how we schedule it and revamp it because it was a um

Big logistics. We had intercity transit provide a bus. We've had some joint meetings or joint planning commission by other boards and everything. And looking forward, well, as I said, we can have a look at how that can be revamped. The challenge too with land use as we know is you can do that one time a year thing tour and go throughout the community but those projects kind of take a while and those comments keep going so trying to keep that refreshed is also a challenge and keeping that information flowing to council.

As Andy said, it's good to actually see it as it's going up, but also the collective impact. When you look at the whole city and all the new development, you get a bigger appreciation of how Lacey is growing and how that's reshaping our community.

Especially all that northeast Lacey. It really is amazing. Every time I seem like I go over that side of the freeway, There's something new that's popping up, and so that area has expanded so much. Anyway, thank you.

I have a question. I think I went to the McClanahan Village. Yes. Okay, yeah. Is that the only senior housing project in the queue? In the queue.

I would say in the queue, yes. All right. Thank you.

Did you mention 41st and Marvin?

I did not mention 41st and Marvin. 41st and Marvin, it's a 180-unit apartment complex at the northeast corner of the Marvin Road roundabout. 15,000 square feet of mixed-use commercial. It's in the neighborhood commercial zone, so it meets the requirements of the new neighborhood commercial zoning chapter that was passed just a few years ago, which required, in order to do standalone multifamily, they also had to include 50 years of low-income housing, meeting 60% of the annual median income. So it's got a good portion of low-income housing. The project got land-use approval, I believe, back in June. It did get appealed. So we're going through the appeal process right now.

Okay. Did someone in the area appeal it?

The HOA of the Hawkes Prairie Community Association appealed it.

Okay. Anyone else? Good times. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. And our next agenda item is the Council of Vacancy appointment process. Rick, if we need to jump in there.

Yeah. Happy we get the some slides up on the screen here in just a little bit One of the items with council member former council member Donnie now that's going to be tough to get to that transition but leaving the council now it's the opportunity for the City Council to go through the process of appointing his replacement I believe only three of the current council members have been through this process before back in 2019 and What we're going to look at proposing today is very similar to that process that last experienced in 2019. One other thing too to note, and it was asked me earlier about the council policies and that formal action by the council to accept the written resignation and why that was the case, because state law doesn't require it. The thought struck me that, well, it's more likely to have that official action so that you can clock the time period for filling a replacement so there's no ambiguity about a verbal or written resignation and when that official action took place. So that's really helpful in mapping out the timeline for filling a council vacancy.

I agree. How we dealt with that in the past is when we got the letter of resignation, they put the date on it. So that's what started the clock in the past, just for heads up.

Now we have official in the minutes that action and it doesn't matter. Yeah, date receipt and we don't really have date receipts now. So there are some basic requirements under state law. on filling council vacuums. They're very basic. The process is really left up to the local jurisdictional elected body. This is subject to RCW 23.101 and really it just comes down to the timeline. The city council has 90 days from the point of resignation to appoint the replacement. If the city council cannot find a suitable candidate or cannot agree on a candidate within that 90 days, then that appointment moves up to the Board of County Commissioners. And then the Board of County Commissioners would have 180 days to take action to fill that vacancy. And if they cannot do so, then it can go up to the governor of the state of Washington. So again, it's really important that the council follow this timeline and process and provide ample time for that deliberation. because it's an important decision for the council to make and we don't want to have the other jurisdictional bodies making that decision for you. Candidates must on the day of appointment meet the same qualifications as would be required for anybody eligible for the election and while the council may consider and discuss qualification and executive session, any interviews and selection must be held in public pursuant to the Open Public Meeting Act. So there's some gray area and as we go through this process we'll have Consult Dave on the parameters of that executive session and how that could be utilized but we want to make sure too that we show that transparency to the public because this is again an important appointment process. So what are the eligibility requirements for holding office? Well, it's pretty straightforward. You must be a United States citizen, 18 years of age or older, a registered voter within the jurisdiction that you seek to represent, in this case, the city of Lacey, a resident of the state, county, or in this case, the city of Lacey. And in the case for a city resident, must have at least one year before their election, may not hold any other public office that or employment within the city except as permitted under RCW.

So in this case, they must be a city resident for at least one year once the appointment's made. Correct. So they could right now be here less than a year, but by the official appointment date, if they're here for a year, then they qualify.

Yep. Okay. And then also, of course, not currently incarcerated for a felony. So basically on the timeline that the state provides that 90 days, you know, the resignation occurred tonight on August 18th at the adjournment of this meeting. The official seat is vacant. 90 days out from tonight would place the appointment need to occur or actually the swearing in would need to occur by November 15th. And then, of course, whoever is appointed would be required to run for elective office the next election cycle that that position, in this case position number three, is up for election. So that individual that would be appointed, if they want to, again, continue to serve, they would have to run as a candidate in the November 2nd, 2027 election. So they'd have to file by next May. Correct. And then once that election occurs, whoever wins that election would immediately take office. So they wouldn't wait until the cycle. They would immediately take office right after that election.

So it wouldn't be wait until January. It would be immediately after that.

They'd immediately assume office.

After official results come out.

Correct. Okay. And I believe that happened the last time we had a seat open. It did?

Yeah.

So to refine that timeline a little bit Shannon and the clerk's office and I put together what kind of a the timeline could look like for the council and again tonight Receiving that official resignation and taking action on it also tonight having the conversation about what that process looks like. But also one of the things we want to try to get from the council is some direction on the information and format and questions you would like to have on the application. Because if we were able to get that direction tonight, an agreement, we can be ready to advertise this position. We'll finalize the application by this Friday and set up for the notice of application availability next Monday, August 24th. Then we can have a three-week advertisement period for people to consider and submit their applications with that recruitment potentially closing on September 18th, that Friday. And then that will allow the possibility or last work session in September the 22nd to get initial review of the application submitted, and then we can also further define what that process looks like moving forward. One of the things we don't know is how many interested parties there would be, so you could have a handful of applications, or you can have a whole lot. And that's one of the decision points the council is going to need to make is how many applicants are you going to want to interview, if you want to interview all, or sort the list down. But one of that initial review will be done by staff to make sure they make those basic requirements that I mentioned earlier in the presentation.

That's the only thing staff would be looking at.

Correct. Eligibility requirements period and we report out so that council is aware that any of those that were Removed from the process because of that issue And then if we're able to start that review on September 22nd then I'll give between that and the first meeting in October opportunity for a council review those applications and potentially by October 6 start selecting a the candidates you would like to bring in for interviews. And once that decision's made, then we'd have between October 7th through October 29th to figure out a regular hearing date to hold those candidate interviews. What has been done in the past was it was not on a regular council meeting night, it was another night of the week, and it usually started earlier because the format was always to hold the interviews. Once the interviews were concluded, council would start delivering and potentially taking action that night. So again, depending on how many you bring in for interview, that could be a fairly long meeting, but that would be how we would coordinate and know what we have at the time we have the closure of the applications.

We really won't know that until we see how many applications come in. Because if we have 10 applications come in, we can probably agree, have some sort of agreement of who we're going to interview at the mall. or get that done at night, but if we had 30, right, that might take a couple.

As I recall last time, if I could be correct, Hoffman, we had 13 or 14, though. We had a fair number, and we did interview all candidates, all applicants got interviewed. Yeah.

So what does that look like? I'm trying to catch up. Do we sit here, and then each of the candidates will come in here all together?

No, one at a time.

One at a time.

We all asked the same question. We each asked the same question of each candidate.

Yeah, and so what happened was, and how we typically did that is, we did it in order of when they turned in their application. And then we interviewed them all. Same questions, one at a time. It's on camera. Everything's on camera.

But the other candidates are held out in another room so that they're not hearing the answers, so that they're not getting any unfair advantage of hearing the people that go before them. Yeah.

I would like to have some conversations down the line here about how we actually select. I think the process that we've used in the past is confusing. It's unfair. Some applicants don't even get voted on.

I brought this up. This will be my fourth time going through this. The last two times were different than the prior two times. The prior two appointments, we did go to an executive session to talk about qualifications of each candidate. We decided the next two, either it was a recommendation from Dave or I'm not sure how it worked out, to skip that process.

I thought we did do it last time.

No, we didn't.

So that's...

Check the... Alyssa checked the schedule and didn't have an executive session in the last process.

And that's where I think it caused some confusion because without sort of talking about qualifications and hearing from each, you know, council members where they believed, you know, the qualifications to be council, we had no idea, right, what was going to... We had no idea where a majority of what they were looking for in a candidate come out. And so then... it was just the first person to get four votes was in. It was really, it did kind of throw everything off. But we've got to be careful. I don't want to break any rules, but I would prefer that there was an executive session where we did talk about...

The other thing that added a lot of confusion, not as much in the last one, but the one previous to that, was that council members voted for more than one candidate, more than one applicant. That created mass confusion.

Well, and that's how it goes, though. It's a person who gets four... First person get four.

And that's why it's important when you cast your vote, you're voting for the person you really want, at least a first time through, because you may not all agree at that first time, but then you go through that process, deliberate, go through the process again until you can get to a four-vote agreement. And we can also talk about the design of this process and have more information as we get closer, because we do have some time, because once we start... providing notice that we're accepting applications and starting that application period. We also need to work with council, okay, let's start working what type of interview questions. So there's gonna be some process and reiteration back and forth between the city manager's office and the council about framing what questions and what that process will ultimately look like. And then we'll also be able to refine some of those dates and start putting them on the calendar so that, make sure council's available for these special meetings and any meetings we're having this conversation.

So for consistency, do all council members need to be present? Yes. Okay. Some of them we could be online and some not?

Well, that's going to be up to the council, but my suggestion would be everybody be present because it is an important potential deliberation. Right, right.

It just becomes a little more difficult for logistics. I know, like, October, for instance, I'm gone part of the month. I'm sure other people have.

Yeah. We'll provide some options. We'll look at scheduling, but we'll try to get that scheduling going sooner rather than later so we can start preserving some dates.

And I do think, you know, we need to get this out and get the applications coming and cut it off as soon as possible so we know how many applications we work with We may need a day to go through the applications and make a decision point at that point. Again, I do think the conversation about an executive session or not an executive session is really important. After going through this a couple of times, I would prefer the executive session. I just think we can have some sort of agreement the expectations of the qualifications for the next person, you know, because without that, I think it just, like, you just put your vote out there who you think would be a, but, you know, it just, it was.

I agree with that. You can feel it. I'll get the applications. We will. Individually?

Yes. It'll be in your packet.

Every one of them to me. Thank you.

do we need to finalize the whole process tonight before we can start this? Okay, great. I was like, how far into the weeds are we going to have to get into this?

But this is also helpful for, for me as well to hear where, where kind of the council is and what, how to start, you know, getting more correctly in refining this process.

The point you need sooner rather than later is the application questions, right? Right, which I'll have some slides coming up. Because then we have the time period that they're applying for us to work through the rest of this. Correct.

And one thing I want to add, because just for the public's sake, in terms of the executive session, again, as counsel is fully aware, You could only talk about qualifications. There's no decisions, no other activity. And then you come out and continue the deliberation in public as terms of that process. So we want to make sure that when we set this process up that the council has the full faith in parents of transparency.

But discussing those qualifications, missing that the last couple times, I think it caused a lot of confusion because I think it's really important that the council sort of agree on what what we expect for the qualifications of the next council member is. And if you can't really have, if you can't discuss that at all, then it just, it's a, it left a lot of ambiguity during the whole thing.

Yeah, I was here for the last two. You did the one, I think you did one additional one, because I know because I was one of the applicants on that one. That's right. But in the two that I've been involved in, they were not the smoothest of processes, let's just say. It's a difficult process, no matter how you do it. There's no easy way to do this.

Quick question. Before, Andy, you've done this four times, it sounds like. And in all four of those times, it was like first person to four votes is on. Is there any way to do like a ranked choice voting so that way we can like pare it down to like a certain, to a certain number and then we can start that process?

Yeah, I'm happy to have that conversation. I think where that becomes important is how many applicants we get. Hmm? If we get through a dozen or less, I think it's a little bit different than if we have 30 applicants. I think we have time to have those discussions. Let's focus on that sort of outline right now. This is one of those things that every council meeting between here and we're going to sort check in on where we're at and going along.

And real quick, too, can you maybe use that to get down your final slate for motion, the final ones you want to consider? Because you're going to go for interview process and then make motions of who you want to consider, and then that's how you kind of pare down the process.

So that's where I'd agree with. If we have a bunch, then let's talk about maybe doing it that way. Because I think if we interview 30 people, I mean, that is... Is it that many, or is it always around? It totally depends. You know, one year we had like nine. We've had more than that. You know, we've whittled some down before. And so it's just I have no idea until we get the applications in.

So with this tenure schedule, again, if we get moving quickly, that gives us a lot of time the month of October to work around vacations or out of the unavailabilities to be able to have plenty of time to make the council to make that appointment by the November 15th. just confirmed with Dave that it's not sworn in by that timeframe, it's the council making the appointment. So that adds some time too if there's some, again, deliberations and conversations, it gives you some more flexibility to have that time until we don't miss that deadline. So again, like I said tonight, really tonight we're looking at just the schedule looks okay to start out with, but also the application format and questions. So what we've done is we've really modeled this after the previous appointment process, application materials with some slight modifications, but pretty much it's what we've done before. So basically an application that would include area of information that would be contact information, statement of interest, why is that person interested in serving on the council, again, effectively a cover letter, kind of an outline of their education, life, work experience, those type of things that would add to their experience, which would be effectively a resume. What special skills or talents would they bring to council? What's that unique niche that they'll feel why they can serve? And then what is their vision for the city of Lacey? And what are their top three priorities that they would believe the city council should focus on in the next year, 26, 27? And what do you see as gaps in the diversity of representation currently existing on the city council and how would your participation address that perceived gap? That's something that was a more contemporary question. And then of course those basic eligibility requirements. Do you meet the state requirements and listing those basic eligibility as a held office? And how long have you lived in the city limits? Of course, that minimum one year residency required. And then are you interested in running in November of 2027? And then their signature and a certification that everything's accurate on their submittal. So not a lot, but enough to give some basic information to move through. And then of course, you get more refined when you develop those interview questions. So I'm gonna... just kind of stop there. I see some interest in some of those statements, so I'd love to have the council talk about if this format, should it be modified, changed, or as is, and we can move forward.

Well, yeah, I think the outline here is pretty good. I think adding the, I think what, there's a couple step process here. There's this process to get their basic information and their vision, you know, tells us a lot, and then there's the questions we're going to ask during the interview process. And so we don't want, you know, we don't want those to overlap. And so those are, I think the meat and potato like questions of, of, of asking them, you know, what their thoughts are on X, Y, and Z that should be held off to the interview process. And this is more of a high level. What's your, what's your vision of Lacey? So even adding the, the diversity of representation.

I have issues with that question.

Yeah, I think that's a question we could ask during the interview process, but not necessarily here.

Well, I mean, again, if we're running for election, there is no, I mean, diversity is the decision of the people that elect the elected body. It's really not, I don't see it as a question that belongs on that application.

I mean, that's the only one I have an issue with. Yeah, I think that is a question for, but this is, again, different. than someone who's gonna be selected by the people, right? This is us making the decision and what do we see? What would we like to see as a council member representing the community based on the experience that we've had so far. And one of them is, will they fit in and be a productive member and can we work together? Not that we agree with them on everything, but can we work with them? And that's not always super easy to get out of in a small sample size, right? It's really hard. And so, like I said, I don't mind if a council member for their question that they really care about this, and they want to ask that question during the interview, I think that, so that's everything that's happened, is we sort of, as we've gotten through the process, when it comes to the actual questions, we've put in, like, what do you want as your question during the interview process, and each council member has sort of put in a question at that point, as during the interview process, not... This process.

So in about two or three weeks, we'll ask the council to start submitting questions you would like to have asked, and then we'll pull those together, and then you'll get at least one question apiece.

That's an individual, personal deal compared to a basic, do you get qualified, high level.

Do interviewees get the interview questions prior to the interview? No. Not in the past, no.

So I just want to get everybody's thought on this, because what I'm sensing is that that first bullet as a question might be removed from the application, but that could be something considered in the interview process.

If that's a question someone wants, puts on their list of questions that they want to ask.

I'm curious about the origin of that. Is that something that our Commission on Equity?

No, we haven't consulted any advisory boards on this process because, again, we're acting fairly quickly. It was more of the mindset of not necessarily, well, that's one of the challenges with the terminology because it's looking at representation within the community and, you know, it could be, you know, what perspectives or thoughts or experience or those type of things. And so if they would fill a particular coverage. But again.

Yeah. I think that's a, for a council member, that could be important where you want to make sure. And I think this has been a pretty good value on this council all along is we've we've tried to get a wide range of backgrounds and, you know, thoughts where we can, you know, may not all agree, but we can all agree to be, work together for the benefit of our community. So diversity is not just, the diversity of, you know, of ethnicity, you know.

Diversity of thought is necessary for a good... And part of it was... But that question isn't really about that. It could be. It could be, but...

But it comes off as diversity... It doesn't come off as diversity in thought or diversity in... And that's what the intent was? I'm sure that was the intent, yeah.

A lot of it is because using that experience with advisory board appointments, it's always been a... since I've been involved with the mayor in the previous, Mayor Clarkson was looking at making sure you have a broad mix, not only of different ages, perspective, different areas of the community, and trying to create that broader, that was the intent of the question, but it also could be misleading to the public.

I didn't come up with that, by the way. I appreciate you having my back on, I do ask that question. I was like, you know, during that interview process for our boards and commissions, the question was like, okay, what voice are we missing on? I've always asked that, you know, I asked that one to you. And so that's, I'm sure that's where that's coming from. But again, I think we can whittle that down better. If that's something that we can remove that one.

And if there's something you'd like to ask instead, or we can just go with what's currently on the screen without this question.

I think everything, I think we can learn a lot from, you know, why they want to run. what's their vision of the community, and what do you think are the biggest, right? I mean, that's a big deal, right? I think we'll learn a lot based on what, from there, and then we'll come up with interview questions and we'll dive a little bit deeper.

Yeah?

Yeah, I want to just check in with our newer council members, just to make sure they have any questions or anything.

So do they ask us questions? We just ask them and they don't ask us anything?

It doesn't have to be a one-way street.

We can change that. I think all of the interviews I've been doing for all these years, at the end of all the interviews, I always ask, is there anything you want to ask us?

Okay.

Right. And so I think that can be maybe a question that we ask at the end of it. I mean, I think we can talk about that more in the future. I've always asked it because I've always learned a lot about that, you know. And we do it on advisory boards. On advisory, I always ask that.

We even do that in the private sector.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

And is this timed? I mean, do we say for each applicant, we've allotted 20 minutes or whatever?

Yeah, we'll have some type of structure.

Depending on how many applicants we have. Yeah, it depends on the applicants.

But typically, it's a guesstimated time. And of course, just like anything, it's how you run the interview process. And it may have to move on to the next question. It all depends on how that format. But you try to create a time allotment for each candidate to have.

Okay.

enough time to answer questions, but not... Do we put a timer up like we do for public comment?

It's up to discretion of counsel. If we're really going after a quality candidate, I'd rather not be a clock.

No, and I think, again, a lot of that will come to light once we see our applicant pool and know how much time, because then we're going to be able to figure out, okay, can we do this in a night? We'll take two nights. so on and so forth, you know.

Yeah, I get that. I was asking because I know in conducting interviews, sometimes people, some people talk a lot. Yeah. And then other people, not so much. And so I want to make sure that the process is at least there.

Balanced. Yeah. We want a balanced process. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's for Sue? I have one question. Uh, it's about one of the questions on the next slide, which is, are you interested in running for election in November of 2027? Do we feel like that's a needed question or is that, uh, because it should be known that it's a position that'll be up for election starting that next year?

Well, you're right. Um, we've had this discussion back and forth on this council many times on, are we looking for someone? just to fill this out and that's all we care about? Or are we looking for someone who we believe, you know, does want to run again and not just be a placeholder? And that's a discussion that I think, you know, we can, you know, it's a tough question.

But it could be a question that we do in an interview rather than that if everyone's not comfortable with that question because there are, and Andy and I have had that conversation in the past when we've had these, Some people feel it's important that we put someone on who is planning on doing this for a long time, and others don't. Other people think that it's better to fill the spot, whether they're running or not is irrelevant and shouldn't be part of the decision.

One thing I just want to say, too, it also gives that understanding, too, that when you apply for this, you have to run to continue on the seat. But also... just by marking yes or no doesn't commit them, because they're always going to have that choice. It's just an indicator of making sure they're aware and then make some thought behind the application.

You know, and again, that's why I do think it's nice to talk about qualifications, and we can have that argument, you know, we can have that over qualifications, is this something that we think is important or not, right, you know? But we haven't had that. opportunity last two times because we just didn't have it. We went interview and right into vote. It was like,

I just didn't want to discourage anyone from possibly running or applying if they're like, I'm on the fence about it. I would like to talk to people more about what it means to run. But if the first thing they have to do is to put in this application by three weeks from today, then that becomes problematic.

Also, serving for that time period until May of next year, if they get appointed now, serving until May may have a big influence on whether they want to run or not once they see what that experience is.

Yeah, I was going to, but I don't know about you.

Just like your first two or three council meetings, you know, that's when things come up, right?

There you go. Yeah. There you go.

And we can put a disclaimer on there that this is not a commitment either way. It's just an indicator. Cool. Yeah.

I have one last question. So if for some reason we select a person and they're not able to finish the year, do we start this process all over?

Yep. If they resign again, then yeah, we have 90 days to appoint someone and start all over again. But we'll have a practice run. We'll have a practice run.

Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Okay, does everyone feel good so far?

On these application questions, we'll strike the question on the previous page related to diversity of perspective and this run with the remaining questions.

Are we leaving or removing the interested in running questions?

Well, that's a good question, because I was taking that it was okay to leave it on, but I want to double-check, add the disclaimer.

Yeah, I was going to say, there was a mention of a disclaimer, and I think that could solve that issue for me. Okay, we'll do that.

Not that they have to, it's just not a point that they're interested in or not.

Yeah, I mean, we could have somebody really qualified who hasn't made up their mind, and that puts a lot of pressure on you.

Yeah, I would support removing this question first.

I appreciate your patience tonight answering all these questions.

No, no, that's what's important.

Really important process.

Yeah. Yeah. So with that, I got some direction. We can move forward with finalizing that process. We'll work with the clerk's office and the communication team to prepare for the announcement to go out on Monday, and then once we start that process, we'll start having some more conversations to refine the back end in terms of how we conduct interviews, dates, as well as interview questions, and then process for, depending on how many applicants we receive, what the council wants to do in terms of the type of, I guess, calling of those applications.

Does it have to post for three weeks?

That's what the posting was for the previous time was three weeks. I So I went with that we can go four weeks, but that eats into the back end time or less than that We'll get plenty people plenty of time to respond.

Yeah, I think It just gives us more time to get through it all

Well, we plan on pushing this out on our website, social media, press releases, and we can do some continual pushing. I just want to make, well, the reason why three weeks, too, is to make sure we have plenty of opportunity to get people to be aware and to make that decision, too.

In the previous times we've done this, has it always been three weeks?

The last time we did it was three weeks. Yeah, I think it's always been.

I think we need three because.

It's always been three weeks from what I can remember.

You can't quite count on the same circuits for getting information out to the community.

What's interesting, if I remember right, we got a couple applications right at the beginning and then a bunch of applications right at the end.

But I think that would be the same whether you did two weeks or whatever amount of time you did. They're all going to tend to come in that last part of it, whatever it is, I think.

I think I'm comfortable with the three weeks. I'm good either way. I think the schedule has been built in such a way that we will have time on the end. At three weeks, we'll have time on the end to get all the work done that we need to get done.

I believe so. So two weeks, three weeks? I'm down with three. Three?

I'm down with two.

Three? Three. Three? Three?

All right.

Three it is.

We'll do three weeks. I like your enthusiasm, though.

Get on it.

Okay, so thank you, council, so we'll get this going, and we'll start to see what this process starts looking like. Do you have anything under your city manager report? I do not tonight. Okay. I don't have anything under my mayor's report either. Council, is that the order? I do not have a report. No report. Everyone was off this past month.

I have one report. The lot, that's the Lacey Olympia, Tumwater, Thurston County Clean Water Alliance met on the 12th. We're beginning a budget process there on a two-year budget cycle. It's quite a buildup to that. We directed staff to send the preliminary rates to the partner jurisdictions, and we're recommending the 3% that has been the case for each year, so that should be coming very soon. We reviewed a draft joint resolution on the Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project. One of the things that they were successful in doing is removing some of the proposals in the agreement that had an Olympia only application. that Lot just didn't feel comfortable saying, yeah, yeah, we, you know, like, no, you take care of that on your side of the fence and, you know, let's keep this strictly to the group. So I think there was an amicable resolution of that. We got to hear about the education program, the Wet Science Center, how it came about, what's currently going on with the center, and there are plans for the future for new exhibits and perhaps even a new physical space for the Wet Science Center. We received a briefing on two upcoming major pump projects, and those will be kind of a big deal. And we accepted a $453,000 grant from the state for the Class A Plus Potable Reuse Demonstration Project. Again, we would be the first in the state to do this, and we have two upcoming trips One in September to go to Southern California to look at plants that are in various stages of producing potable water from reclaimed water. And one in Florida, probably in early November. And so I agreed to go on the Florida trip.

Yeah, yeah.

And it'll be interesting. It's going to... It's going to require the community to really try to get past, what do you mean you want me to drink treated sewer water? Kind of the yuck factor here. Unfortunately, I mean, I think this is the water of the future as water supplies dwindle and we have to think beyond today and also.

It worked for GM.

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Pure water is pure water at the end of the day. It's a Chemical compound wherever it came from exactly so and inner-city transit authority meets tomorrow night Next week on that I did I did blow it under my mayor's report and that this really has to do with the next item council member Nick Dunning's His meetings right and so Until we have a new council member and we can talk about then I Ryan, you're the backup on RHC. You're the backup on the VCB. There's one other that we don't have a backup for, which is for left. Left board. Left board.

We only meet quarterly.

Only meet quarterly. And it would be my recommendation for Council Member Turner to fill in on that. You're already on the law and justice. committee. You only meet quarterly. I know back when you put in your original recommendations, you actually that was higher on your list, if you remember right. But anyway, I think it just makes sense if you're willing to do that on a quarterly basis.

And I can fill you in more on that because I chair that for many, many years.

Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay.

I don't know how it's going to go, who the new person is going to be, but my situation has changed and I am interested in being the backup for the housing.

Okay. Yeah, we need a now backup for the housing.

Okay. Do you want to talk about that tonight? We need a motion to accept

Councillor Turner to be the left board, I would make the motion that we appoint Turner to the left board. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor of that motion, say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Pointing unanimously.

Do we need a motion for Ryan for RHC? No, no. Because he's already the backup. He's the backup.

You're the backup for BCB. We do need a backup for RHC.

Which I'm willing to do.

Okay. Okay. I make the motion to have you be the backup for AHC. Second. Move and second. Discussion?

I think you'll be a fine addition.

All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion unanimously carries as well. Thank you for stepping up. We will reassess all this when we get a new council member selected, but in the meantime, thank you for this. We're not gonna have a lot of time between that and the end, and what we'll probably do is, usually we do appointments for two years in the past. We'll probably look at reappointments back in January for the following year for boards and commissions. I may step down from TPP, I don't know. Anyway, we'll discuss that at that time. Do we need to also prove Ryan is stepping up to be no no because he He's already on that and I guess we need a backup for you on the BCB I mean, I'll I'll be your backup on the BCB Yeah, yeah Okay doing an appointment to me to be his backup on BCB I

I would move Andy be the backup for the VCB.

Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That passes unanimously.

There's no backup for Nisqually?

No. We don't have backup for Nisqually?

We do not have a backup to Ms. Qualley, I don't believe. I have to go back to her.

I guess Nick was the, he was my backup.

We don't have backup for left one either, which is why we had to do this. We can figure that out when it comes. Okay, well, we did some house cleaning there, housekeeping there, got all that. Okay, then we'll go on with council reports. Council member Turner.

I don't have a report, but I want to say again that I really, really enjoyed the community conversation, and thank you, Barbara, again for coming out and joining us.

Yeah, absolutely. Councilmember? Just one quick announcement, actually. Tomorrow is going to be the Thurston County Resource Hubs block party. It's going to be 11 to 3 tomorrow at 910 24th Way Southwest Olympia. It's a free event for everyone. There'll be over 70 community organizations participating, They'll be offering free back-to-school vaccines for kids ages 4 to 18, haircuts, pet grooming and vet care, health screenings. There's a blood drive. There's just going to be a lot of things happening right there. And so it's just going to be a really good community resource and a community event. So I suggest everyone come on out and see that. what's already in your community. Date and time on that again? It's gonna be tomorrow, August 19th, 11 to 3 p.m. at 910 24th Way Southwest, Olympia, Washington.

Great, thank you. And with that, we've reached the end of our agenda. So without objection, I'm gonna call this council meeting adjourned. And as always, you keep it classy, Lacey.