City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the Lakewood City Council study session of Monday, September 14th, 2026 to order. It is 7 p.m. We are in the chambers. And the first thing we have is the Joint Arts Commission meeting and review of recommendation for the Nianza at Gravely Lake Drive Public Art Project. Anybody who's presenting?

Everyone is presenting. Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. So we have several members of the commission that are here that are going to come up to the table. I'm just going to walk you through the PowerPoint. I get to tap and everyone else gets to speak during this process. So it's perfect. And we do have some members who are online as well. So Earl and Susan are part of the commission. Stephanie will be part of the legacy plan. And unfortunately, there's a couple of members who couldn't join today, but the team before you is prepared to talk about the accomplishments for the year and the work plan. You had a memo and a summary of the work plan in your packet. But we just want to highlight some of the important elements that have already happened year to date in order to prepare for what comes next and to get some direction from you in the end. So with that. There it is. Lonnie's going to start it off and talk a little bit about the Signalbox project.

Mm-hmm.

It's red, it's when it's... Oh, they got new mics, okay.

Hi, thank you, everybody. It's good to be here. We're super excited as the Arts Commission to present the work we have done this last year. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the signal boxes. Mr. Mayor, you introduced perhaps the there's another project on Nyanza or on Gravely Lake Drive, and I could touch on that where the Nyanza intersection is. So signal boxes, this year we had eight that we were gonna wrap based on our budget. There's one box we ended up choosing not to wrap over near, it's Custer Elementary School, is that the one off of? Because honestly, what was clever is the box is very well hidden. Most of them are kind of out front and center. So we're hanging onto that artwork for a future box because we had a great time choosing art from folks. So we started out with a process of thinking we would do student artwork. So we have a couple of pieces that are from Pierce College. um but we were able to transition to working with uh Kellis who's part of our arts commission and I don't know if she's online or not but uh hers is the huasil art studio which I believe is based out of DuPont and she has a tremendous number of artists who submitted pieces um And it's just been, I mean, it was a really, we had so many great pieces of artwork to choose from. And as a general rule in the Arts Commission, we we try to pick pieces that we feel are indicative of lakewood and represent uh just all the feelings of this you know our community the nature that's around this particular year uh stilkin boulevard was completely remodeled in front of the park so you're going to see a theme of a lot of things in front of the park specifically that are kind of connected to the park there's a couple of funny things with pets or you know the nature um yeah it's just really it's been really a pleasure and you know the the boxes add relative to the cost they add such a big impact and it's interesting to talk to folks in the community and they really notice that which is great so we We're going to have to have a discussion with the Department of Public Works about how many boxes are left. I remember studying a map about a year ago. And with the construction projects that have been going on in Lakewood, we've sort of hit these swaths where these roads have been redone. So those are easy. You know, there's a there's there's a sequence of things. But now we have some individualized pockets in neighborhoods where we have other boxes that we can hit and tailor it. So, yeah, it's good. And so I will just, I hope I'm not jumping out of line. Ellis is online now, Lonnie.

Ellis is online now. And Earl's going to talk about the other projects.

Yes, perfect. Jump in.

They know the step to accept their panelists. Oh, she's moved. But it's fine because it wasn't that long ago, council members, that you saw the images. And so, you know, they have been installing those. So they're down to the last couple of boxes. They had some illnesses that push things back, but you'll be able to see all of them that are up now. And as Lonnie mentioned, there's one that's been on hold because the box moved, but there's also one where there's some work on a box. So we're going to wait until it is in its next location before that gets wrapped.

Great, thank you. Anything else? Okay, Council Member Branstetter.

On the boxes, how are the oldest boxes maintaining? Or are, you know, what's the, I mean, what's the anticipated cycle to review of how old was a box get before it gets reviewed to decide that it needs to be refreshed or it can be. rewrapped with a new artwork.

that's an excellent question, I believe the lifespan of the vinyl that goes on these boxes is eight to 10 years on. And we haven't really considered rewrapping any of them yet because we haven't had any of them out there that long yet. And we haven't covered all of them. So I think we'd like to cover... We have the opportunity to use any new or uncovered boxes and wrap those new and then... I mean, it's an excellent question to then be able to come back and go, okay, well, some of these first ones that we wrapped, if the condition of them is starting to fail, now we have an opportunity to do a revisit on that. The boxes have held up great. We only have two that I know of that had some minor tagging done to them. And they clean up. So, and then we do have one box that apparently there was some kind of an accident and the box got taken out and the insurance will repay to put Sam's artwork back up there because he was one of our students. He had kind of this cool dune one off of like 94th, I think. Yeah.

Dave Kuntz, yeah I would say that that for your your future planning on it it's like. Dave Kuntz, Like a park or something like that, and you have to maintain it or take a look at doing that, but that. Dave Kuntz, it'd be interesting because there are some boxes that are in while they're all. Dave Kuntz, worthy pieces of art, there are some boxes that. Dave Kuntz, Perhaps the public or the neighborhood wouldn't mind if you decided at the end of a lifespan to wrap it with new art, on the other hand, there are some that have become. Dave Kuntz, um. wayfinding landmarks and are truly appreciated that a neighborhood might prefer to have refreshed. And so in your planning about how to go about doing that, you know, include the idea that, like, you know, For me, I would hate to see the raccoons on the corner of Gravely Lake Drive and Steilacoom Boulevard go away. Others, I might be open to seeing something new eventually going on. And so that's considerations for you to make. And it's good that they're all still there and that we're not... Dave Kuntz, Needing to do things other than the one accident related item, but it's an item of. Dave Kuntz, Better to plan for what to do, then. Dave Kuntz, have to react to needing to do something.

Are there any other questions about wraps anybody okay so next item is public art for capital improvements wards lake park nyanza. and Gravelig Drive Roundabout.

Yes, that's me. OK. Thank you. OK, so I am going to talk about these projects. So many of these, except for the Nyanza wrap, were collaborations with the Parks Department. And we were able to work with them as we were able to create or choose art that could feature a lot of the work that was done in all of the money that's been invested in rehabbing these parks. And so in selecting the art and the artists to work with for these, we consider kind of the design and the hopes and dreams of the Parks Department for how these parks would be used, as well as the communities that are using them and the environments in which they're in. And so you can see here artist Craig Cundiff did the wrap for that Portland loo at Ward's Lake. Lori Davenport did the signal boxes, which we envisioned as a way of kind of welcoming visitors to this park that people often have trouble seeing from the road and highlighting it as a nature park, as a kind of a natural environment for folks to access in an urban place. And so, so much of the work of that park, as you know, was kind of rehabbing the ecosystem and the ecological work. And so we really wanted to highlight that with the art that we chose. and the artists that we worked with. And kind of as with all of our public art projects, it's beautification, but it's also showing the value that we see these parks having in our community and the community members using them. And that all people deserve in our community beautiful places to go and art to experience and see. And so we really wanted to kind of really embody this in these parks that we went to. And so I've, time. as well as kind of see this work in its place. So, yeah. And then, you know, the project we're hoping to kind of do a similar thing on the road as a way of, we have this kind of blank canvas of asphalt, which is maybe just asking to be tagged at some point as well. And so thinking of a way of kind of continuing to think about this as a corridor into Lakewood, as a way of welcoming, community um as we kind of move towards the town center as well um and so we're wanting to highlight things kind of related to the again the ecology and the uniqueness of Lakewood um so pulling on things like the Gary Oak which as you know is a native species here um and kind of all of this kind of building kind of an awareness for these kind of the unique environment of our city

so council members in your packet i know we're trying to work earl the vice chair also wanted to speak to both of these projects so there's actually two different elements in there there was a work order request or work plan request to the arts commission to look at a statement piece right the sculpture and so when evaluating the sculpture and the size of it and something that would fit the theme and also be lasting you do have that separate memo which is basically identifying a $250,000 investment to create something. So the image in the middle is more about inspiration. That is not the actual design, but it was used to be able to evaluate what the cost might be to go through a process and fill the roundabout with a sculpture. The wall that's being referenced is a separate project, but really because it leads up to the roundabout, wanting it to have the similar theme. And that one is under $10,000. That is something within the public art budget. So there is actually an artist that has been identified that will be bringing the art to the October Arts Commission meeting for them to evaluate and make a recommendation so that that could come back to you. in October and be able to get the wall work done. So whether that would be in advance, obviously, of any decision related to the sculpture. So again, sorry, Earl is in Arizona. He was doing his best to log in. And I know Kellis also teaches Monday night. So I think that's part of the issue there. So I don't know if anybody else in the group wants to share about your proposal or recommendations before we turn it over to Daryl.

And you hear me? I wasn't sure if anybody could hear me or not.

Yes, we can hear you now.

Okay. Good evening, Council. I appreciate your time. And thank you. I'm at work in Arizona, Phoenix. It's very, very, very, very hot. But anyway, I have been extremely excited about this endeavor to put a new landmark and sculpture together. at this brand new roundabout here on Gravely Lake in Nyanza. And we do have an artist that has really thrown his hat into the ring that we would like to showcase this for you in October as well.

Great. We look forward to that. Any questions? Council Member Lauricella.

uh thank you mayor boki uh just one maybe suggestion as we look at that that wall area as uh i'm sure you've already got as you said someone's working on a proposal anywhere that we could incorporate acknowledging that that is right where clover creek goes through and gets to lake stilicum would probably be a great way to represent the ecology of that area something thank you

Hi, I'm Calis Paulette and I actually called up the signal boxes from my students and I actually like my students are really really want to see that when actually completely wrapped so I simply hope that these signal boxes will be installed beautifully and then most importantly like the students have been waiting for a long time to see and attend like you know when it's gonna be done but so we're still working on it I know that and then there's some a few boxes I've been you know driving around there's empty boxes around Lego City and then one in the South Tacoma and it has been you know car accident got the destroyed so I wonder it's gonna be a reinstall those signal box wrapping where or it's gonna stay there or just, you know, before art piece is going to be reinstalled there or not.

Hi, Kellis. This is Lonnie Neal. Yeah. So that the insurance company is going to reinstall the original artwork on that particular piece that you're talking about.

Yes. All right. That sounds great.

Okay. Daryl, are you, you're gnashing at the bit here.

okay good evening mayor um uh deputy mayor uh bell and um city manager russell and the rest of my distinguished members of the council it's a pleasure to be on the arts commission i've been here a while and one of the things that i have appreciated the most working with my colleagues is their professionalism and diligence in vetting and choosing the artist we have been able to bring and this past year is no different. We started off in January with the MLK exhibit and The artists that were chosen were carefully vetted and with the variety of artists and media medium they chose was truly a delight and I actually humbly was able to be one of the people that were included. So I think Sally especially and members of the commission for making that come to light so that was january and uh that was our first quarter our second quarter featured the excuse me featured the um Oh yeah, sorry, Korean American artists Association of Washington and they're getting a lot of play here tell us kudos to you and your students, they are amazing they're well represented. Not just in single single box raps but they had a very well attended reception and amazing amazing young young people tell us, can you tell me what the youngest person that was on display. Just blows me away. At five, I wasn't even thinking like that. So it was quite amazing to see the talent that we have. So that was our second quarter. And following that up, we had, let's see here. Back to my notes. Oh, MP Carr Show. Sorry, I'm looking at the wrong page. mp car show uh which are um partners for many of our city lakewood events um coming up they'll be uh on full display at our fiesta de la familia uh in september and uh they were also well represented um they just now i believe have come off the wall right and so replacing them in the fourth quarter will be pierce college and what we have is the employee art They are now on display at Pierce College, but they will be coming to City Hall. Excuse me. They'll be coming to City Hall in October and they're well represented as well. So we've like I said, when I when I started, we've been very, very fortunate how the process that we introduce and vet these artists, a lot of us take a lot of pride in going out in the community and looking at art, searching around to see who might be interested, whether it's Waze Goose or Tacoma Arts Live that has a wonderful event that they call the Artist in Residence. And you spend the weekend going to these places and some of these people have things in their garage. Some of them have them in their living room. And you know it, it doesn't take much to ask, would you be interested in, you know, presenting some of your work and it's been really as a wrap up. It's been a real pleasure to be part of that process. So thank you all.

Thank you, Daryl. Next up is Beloved Community. I don't see Lua, so Emily?

Emily's also not here, so you get to hear from me again. Okay. I'm back. So many members on our committee also, we have an MLK committee that also has many people on, that 7th Arts Commission are also on that committee, along with many other community members. have come together to put together a MLK Beloved community event. This year we moved it to Pierce College. The event is held in the winter, which is always a hard time to have events. It's rainy and it's cold and we're all tired from holidays. But it was a real success. This year we had so many people come out. We featured a play, so we partnered with the Lakewood Community Playhouse for a play performance, and so we had tickets available to the public so that they were able to access that play for free. We also had food served as well. That was also kind of an open table for people to come and have community talk with one another. We had community outreach events, including kind of events for children, we had some keynote speakers, we had performances by musicians, and we had participatory art projects as well. You may have seen the quilt that was in City Hall for a while, and that was created as a collaboration with many community members coming together to make that quilt. And so we are continuing this work again, hopefully next year. And continuing to build on this kind of relationships that we're developing with the community and hoping to foster new ones. And thinking about this as a as a though the city is actively involved in this as a grassroots movement as well. So inviting a lot of people who have been doing work in our community civil rights work and other work to kind of kind of honor that work really in this event. are you gonna do it at pierce college again we are um yeah it seems there's a lot of room to kind of have different events at the same time um yeah so and i think we're thinking about the same space at pierce um for now yeah

Yeah. Yeah. So this year we are focusing on students, college students, high school students. They're going to be presenting poetry, music, theater arts. So it's going to be really cool.

Oh, great. Adriana.

Actually, Shauna. So the Arts Commission is a proud supporter of special events offered by the city, offering ideas for entertainment and art to be a major feature at these events like the Street Festival, Farmer's Market, Summer Concert Series, and Summerfest. Our anniversary logo was inspired from a coin designed by our own Sylvia Strava. The 30th anniversary theme of the mighty oak influenced the street festival farmers market and some hands on community art will be created and installed at the end of this year. Art vendors and music are important part of Lakewood special events that we host.

Thank you very much.

next sylvie with the the next item next up everybody say viva fiesta coming up in less than two weeks and we are so excited um This year, it's been a little bit challenging because we lost our core people from the city. So I can't say that it's been easy getting this together because Sally Martinez, Lonnie have been so integral in making this a success. And I didn't realize how much work they do. Because I've had to do a lot of it too. But it's worth it. Because this first of all, thank you all for inviting us here to council. And we're so happy and grateful that you support this event, this cultural event. Last year we had 19,000 people at this event, which was pretty amazing. People as far as Port Orchard, it's gone beyond people from Seattle we're coming to because They've heard about it through social media posts, through networks that were posting free events, and that was really awesome. This is a cultural enrichment that Lakewood is just offering to the Pacific Northwest, and it's so important. And because I believe our population is 19% Hispanic, This is important and thank you for recognizing our culture here in Lakewood. We are We are here, and we are making this community better. We are working hard. We are providing so much in Lakewood. And thank you for recognizing that and allowing this event to take forth this year. This past year, we had our highlight, which were the Skagit Latin Horse Association, and music, children's parade, art, Music, dancing, we had the ofrenda with the tribute for loved ones. who are no longer with us. The Children's Parade was amazing, and it's just a really great, joyful event. And last year we had no problems at the event, and we're looking forward to the same for this year. In a week and a half, and I hope to see you all there. Mayor, I hope you're going to be there presenting. And this year we have Dancing Horses and Floriadores, the Trick Ropers.

Oh, good.

So not only do we have Dancing Horses, we have the Trick Ropers music. We're doing art again this year. This year we're focusing on block art with Fiesta Flair. So there's going to be hands-on presentations and hands-on so people can do the art as well. We're going to have the Children's Parade led by the mariachis and the floriadores and the horses in the back. Yeah, it's going to be so much fun, and I hope you all will come out and dance a little, learn how to do a little bachata, have some tacos.

The mayor will be there, but the real treat is going to be the deputy mayor who is going to make the greeting in Spanish. What?

i think we might be getting ahead of ourselves we are we are getting ahead of i will read it in spanish i'm not very conversational but you know i can i can spanglish it i can pronounce it and uh i can get by but i will be uh yeah doing that doing something it's gonna be awesome yes yes

Are there any questions?

That's turned into a great event and we really are looking forward to it. Arts Commission Retreat.

And Susan is online.

Hello. Can you hear me all right?

Yes.

Great. Thank you. Yes. We are all professionals in the art field and we've been working together for a long time. And the annual retreat is an opportunity to further our education and, um, um, do great work for the city. So, um, this year's retreat will be on November 6th. It'll be the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, thanks to Lua Pritchard. And we're in the process of working up an agenda that will help us further our work plan and execute it successfully. Last year, we held our retreat at the Museum of Glass, who donated the space to us. And we toured an exhibition called Field Notes, Artists Observe Nature, a hundred years of how the art world has changed its representation of nature. It's a very interesting exhibition. And then we did an art activity. and discussed our work plan. So they are very helpful in furthering our goals and ambitions for the city. That's it.

Thank you very much. So next up is the Holiday Parade of Lights, which is of course the council's favorite. because it's free campaigning and we're giving out candy which is just even better right and weather's always perfect and we never have enough candy we bring more and we still don't have enough so

All right, so this is also the Arts Commission's favorite event of the year, particularly mine because I love to participate in it. It's the end of the year and it kind of wraps up everything that we've done. This year we will have special art to celebrate the 30th anniversary here in the building. The parade celebration anticipates 30 floats and hundreds of walkers. The best part of this event is that there's all ages. We have the school districts involved, neighboring businesses, and just people that want to come out and enjoy the city and the whole community and present what they have either compiled or sing and dance and all that stuff that they do. So I have participated in this event many times and look forward to participating in it again this year.

Well, I would classify this event as every year, no matter, and it always seems like it rains very hard. It's a lot of good energy. A lot of kids and just a lot of good feelings. So thank you. So any questions on anything we heard? Council Member Randstetter.

A couple of comments. I think Mr. Mayor, this is an opportunity for you to do better than your predecessor at influencing the weather. To be able to go and do that. And so I guess that I don't really have comments on things that I heard. I have a couple of comments about things that I didn't hear. A number of years ago when we were all together, there was some discussion about the city beginning to invest in an inventory of city-owned pieces of art to be able to go and do that. We never really... move forward with it on either side of the table, I don't think. I don't think we budgeted it. But on the other hand, I don't know that the Arts Commission has prioritized it.

Could I answer something there? This is Susan. We actually wrote a collections plan, and you need to have a collections plan before you start collecting art, so that you know how you're going to care for it, how you're going to repair it, and, sorry, my dog's barking, and take care of it over the long term. And you also have to have a deaccession policy that is very critical in case you need to move something out of your collection, which is always a very touchy policy. subject and has to be handled very carefully for public relations. So we did make a start on it and we've laid a foundation and you're welcome to see the collections policy.

Well, I guess I would say that I noticed that it wasn't mentioned. No, it wasn't. It's not over there. And it wasn't listed under the we would like to list of things. Dave Kuntz, So you know I I and we've moved on to some very specific things like the Bradley like intersection and things things to do that, but I i'm glad to hear that. Dave Kuntz, You started at the planning process for that. Dave Kuntz, That. Dave Kuntz, I guess that I would just tell you that, from the city council's point of view, we. John Potter, I guess I'll speak for the console idea I sort of defer to you as to the the benefit of doing so okay and if there is one, then we would want to move forward to it, but I also sort of see that this is. a ball that's somewhat in your court, okay, as to when and how and perhaps at some future time when you think that the plan is complete enough to share it with us, okay, as to how to do along with whatever asks then you're going to have of us to try to make it go and do.

Yes, yes, absolutely. I do think that the plan is ready for you, Council, to see. It's based on the American Museum Association's collecting policy, and I think it's a quality document. But I'm so glad that you're interested in that. It's very exciting. Yes.

So I, I'm just going to add one thing that part of the reason why that's probably not on the agenda right now is because we're kind of in a time of transition. Now that we have a different leader, and we're still trying to work all that out, because we had, you know, Sally, who was really on top of things and really So promoting the arts and everything that we do. And we miss her. We do. And we're glad to work with the new team, but we're still transitioning. We're still working things out. So that's why everything might not be on the agenda for us, but we're trying to get back to speed because we made so much we made so much progress in the last few years and Lakewood starting to become an art community. And that's really cool. And that's going to bring people to Lakewood. So we just were asking for a little time to sort things out.

Well, you know, I don't mention it as a, as a criticism, other than it was a, something that I expected to hear the status of, okay, to be able to go forward.

We really appreciate that. And we really appreciated the opportunity to lay a really solid foundation for the care of what comes into the collection. And I think we have that. And I certainly honor your question because it's a really fundamental question. You shouldn't be collecting art if you don't have a plan of how to take care of it and what you're going to do with it in the long term. So thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, wait. The Deputy Mayor, who is the representative on the Arts Commission, would like to speak.

Thank you. First off, I have all the confidence in the world that you guys will be able to keep it going, keep the ball going. It is starting to get really known as an arts community in Lakewood, what you guys are doing. And it's because you bring this level of professionalism and you always get things done. So I am very proud to be the council liaison for the Arts Commission, just to let you know. And I have every confidence that things will continue to go great. A couple things on when I'm going through this. I wanted to loop back around to the Nyanza-Gravely Lake, the two projects that are there. I think that I've heard from a lot of people and I believe, I don't know if Earl is still on the call and Lonnie, but you have talked to some community members who would like to possibly start something like a partnership for parks, but something for the Arts Commission to raise money. in Lakewood for arts projects specifically. So I know that there's been some talk with that and I would love for council to know more on that if that is something that is being pursued, if that is something that can be pursued because I am hearing want to give money. So I don't want to turn them away, you know, and they're asking me, is there something I would love to give money? And specifically what I have people, a couple people have talked to me about is the roundabout, how they would like to contribute money to that roundabout specifically. So I think that that affects the funding, too, that we have on there. So I think we need to know a little bit more on that. But I know that it's going, it's moving. But Roxanne, I hear there's money out there. I would love to get it from... private people and so i don't know where we go from there and then also on the wall wrap the concrete part that was first correct you guys had already you're vetting that you're going to do proposal and there's funding for that already right correct so that's something that's already done okay i just wanted to make sure that council knew that those two things were separate but similar And they're moving along. So I would appreciate if we could hear back on the actual sculpture part, what the money, because I know we'll need some help in that portion.

And thank you, Deputy Mayor. I still am on the call. And that's a very good question. And so I have been working with Jason Whalen to see if we could actually have the partners for parks actually set up an account to where we could actually see about raising funds through the community to actually help assist with this kind of this project. And it looks like it should be a very easy venture to actually have partners for parks actually add a separate account, you know, for this endeavor.

You're saying to be the fiduciary responsible person. OK, yeah. Exactly. So I think anything that you guys want to come back and talk to us about on that, that would be great. That would help us figure out better on the funding from the city and all of that moving forward. So with that, one other quick thing I had is that this isn't on the work plan. I know that there's transition. I wanted to add this as about something about maybe banners or something that goes on the Tilikum pathway connector. So something that ties us through there. Maybe there's banners that go around gravelly then down the pathway and all the way into Tilikum. Something that ties it together. It's not a sculpture, it's not something crazy. We can replace out those banners if we need to. I'm not sure if there's going to be street poles on the, I would assume there's going to be lighting on the pathway. so something you guys know what i'm talking about that whole connect report so that they're connected to lakewood and that we show them that because i think that tilikum it's just they're doing some really cute things down there i see the businesses doing stuff i would like to pay them some art slub that way too that's it for me mayor good idea deputy mayor councilmember laura sella

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Deputy Mayor Bell stole my thunder because I was going to talk about the Telecom Connector. No, it's great. I know. We're just, we're simpatico or whatever the word is, right? We're in the flow. And again, first, really appreciate everything the Arts Commission has done over the past years since I've been here. I've been blown away and we get lots of great comments back on all the signal boxes and the murals in the park. And it's just really, really a cool place to be. So thank you, all of you, for that. One thing that I was going to mention that the mayor brought up is that telecom connector. As I understand it, you're essentially going to have a mile long blank canvas of a wall on the side of it that if we don't get some art up on it, it's going to show up automatically and it may not be the art we want to see. and so i'm curious to hear what your suggestions may be maybe it's an opportunity to partner with the school district and each classroom can have a section of wall that they decorate i'm not sure but i it's a great opportunity that i'd hate to see us miss to connect us with the rest of liquid as deputy mayor said so thank you all right bill did you come down here to

May I ask a quick question, please, regarding this topic? Go ahead. Do we have a projected due date over the Tilikum or over this Tilikum project? And would we be able to perhaps even take a tour of it to actually see what's all involved in the scope of the project?

I don't know when it's going to open, but I was amazed when I went by there how much progress they have made. Do you know a date, Mike?

No, it's kind of going on, but I'm sure there'll be some sort of ceremonial thing going on to do that. One thing I don't know is who owns the wall. i think the country club it could it could it could if it belongs to the country club isn't it uh because they asked for that wall to be built for their benefit uh to do that but there are there are actually two walls there's the upper wall that's the country club and then there's the lower wall that sits below the road along the railroad track but is equally visible from i-5

Bill, you were going to say something.

No, but I'm about to.

Okay, please.

Hi. Does everybody have a copy of this flyer? Okay. I am the oldest surviving member of the Lakewood Arts Commission. I'm probably the oldest member. Also, I am on the Lakewood History Museum board. And as you may know, the Lakewood History Museum is located in the Colonial Center in what was formerly the Terrace Restaurant, which had a very, very long history and following. But when we took it over, we did a lot of remodeling, and we had a large open space that we were trying to figure out what to do with. And the decision was to try to put an historical mural on that open space which we recently completed. Now Lakewood and the land that Lakewood is on or in goes back thousands of years. So when you have thousands of years of history and it's only 17 feet and a two page handout, it can be rather challenging to put all this together. But I think we did it. We did it in seven significant segments that you'll see on the handout. And we used the Gary Oak acorn as the unifying tying item within the mural. And the reason for that is, as you may know, the Gary Oak is the city of Lakewood's traditional tree. So we fitted that in there. And also to make the mural more interesting, we put in a lot of hidden gems that are inside. They're hard to see on the flyer, but you can see them in the mural. And there are things in there to include the February 1966 founding of the city of Lakewood. There are other items in there. There's also a very, very famous gorilla who is related to Earl.

Yeah.

Well, he is. Yeah, he is. In the mural. And this is to make it more interactive as you go through it. So I would like to say thanks to a woman named Mindy Barker, who was our artist. And when you're trying to get a bunch of historians to agree on dates and events and what should or shouldn't be, and then to design something that replicates that, she deserves a big round of applause. And I would also like to say thanks to the Nisqually tribe who actually funded this project. So it's up and available. This is a handout. You can go through it. Actually, there's a lot of history in it. And I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Well, that was easy.

Any questions for Mr. Raskin?

Historical or art?

No, just on this. We're not going to start asking historical questions. So without any other questions, I'm going to say goodbye. this is really important work you're doing for the city of Lakewood. And it's really Council Member Branstetter who has told me at least twice that the biggest, one of the largest, biggest changes he's seen in the city is that there are actually arts events since in the last decade or so. So we really have made progress, and I know a lot of you have been a part of this for a long time, in really creating these different opportunities. We are fiscally challenged going forward. I'm not going to pretend that, and that's why this Gravely Lake Art thing, which I think we're all in favor of. I don't hear any of us saying that a quarter million dollars is a lot of money when you're talking about cutting back on other things in the budget so this is a very it's going to be a difficult budget and but we just all need to be patient and keep working towards those goals um the box art's been incredible and i think we all all agree with that and the council's been fully supportive but we really do we really do um I mean, it's hard to it's hard to really express in words that it's really important work and it really has improved the quality of life of the folks in Lakewood. And, you know, Mike wants to add to that because you're the author of that and telling me that that we just didn't have many events like this. Right. And we've got the lakes. We go to the lakes art thing at the it's photography at the at St. Clair Hospital and. It's all, it all works. So any other comments?

Well, I would just say to all of you that I appreciate the energy that you bring to this work to try to better the community through art, both visual and performance and other words. I think, you know, the... And as Mayor said, I remember when I came on the council, there was an arts commission. And in sequential budgets of the city, there were $0 allocated annually. the arts commission. And we started to making an effort to try to come up with and increasingly done that when we funded some major pieces when they were there. But we looked at revenues coming from the McGavock Center to be dedicated so that there was some dedicated revenue coming in that would would go to art so that we were essentially um we still expected you to make bricks but we thought we'd give you a little bit of straw And over the years, I've seen the enthusiasm of this group go as you thrived over your own success. Okay. And it truly is. And I will tell you that art is something that Every piece of art isn't for everybody, but there are many, many in the community that notice something that touches them to be able to do that. And maybe it's a signal box. Maybe it's the art on a restroom somewhere. Maybe it's an event that has art infused into it. But you truly are... You're not just making a difference, but you're making change. And that's important to go on.

Thank you, Council Member Branstetter. So with that, we'll let you go. Thank you for your good work. And we'll have some continuing conversations. And the Deputy Mayor will keep us abreast of that when we need to bring you back to talk about some of the things that she brought up today. Because that trail will get done. So we'll see what we can do down there.

And Mayor, I believe the clerk has applications for the Art Commission for members who need to renew their terms. If anybody forgot to download one of those, they can accommodate you over here. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Enjoy your evening. Thank you, Council. Earl, did you have your hand up? You wanted to say something?

No, I asked something a little while ago, but thank you very much, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, have a good evening.

Thank you.

Thank you. So next up is the 2026 legacy plan update. And this is Ms. Roxanne Miles, the director, and is Mr. Thielen here to speak also?

There he is. Okay.

What's that. Okay.

Thank you. Okay, so who's going here? Mr. Thielen, are you going? It's on page 25 of your packet. It begins the legacy plan update presentation. Take it away, Mr. Thielen, associate planner.

hello ladies and gentlemen members of the council i have for you today the 2026 legacy plan update it's the draft of the legacy plan so we are absolutely still taking feedback from both the community and yourselves okay so here a little bit of background just what we're going to talk about The Legacy Plan is a 20-year comprehensive parks, recreation, open space, and trail, or post, or prost, apologies, strategic plan. It becomes our North Star, establishing the steps that need to be taken today to keep pace with the growth and the needs of tomorrow. It keeps us eligible for funding from the state because we know the what, where, and why for our grant requests. And it helps us prioritize and schedule the best investments to be made with limited resources. So here, the plan structure. We have eight chapters now, and I'll note which chapters are new from the last 2020 update. We start with vision, mission, and goals, and that is the vision, policies, and goals that guide the legacy plan, and those come from the council, as well as our other documents, the comprehensive plan, strategic... Oh, shoot, what's the name of it?

Strategic Answers?

there we go strategic management plan the second chapter city demographics and department profile this is just a look at Lakewood as a whole and the department as it compares to other departments in other jurisdictions parks and open space the third chapter and that is the what is the current state of our city park system that's just our physical inventory of parks Chapter four is new. That is the trail section. And that is all about our trails, how we connect to other trails in the region, and what trails are coming in the future or opportunities for more trails. Five is recreation programming. And this is the programs that the city offers. And because of the way Lakewood has a lot of service providers within the city boundary, we also take into account all the nonprofits and other like school programs, library programs, that sort of thing within the city. Chapter six is a demand and needs analysis. And this is to show what the community wants, what the community needs, and gaps in the system and where we can make our best investments. The parks capital facility programs, chapter seven, and that's a 12 to 15 year look at what our next projects are, what's in progress and what needs to be done in the future. And then chapter eight is also new and that is strategic management. And that is a comprehensive look at how do we effectively implement, staff, and maintain the Future Parts system and programs. So getting right into it. The vision, mission, and goals. the legacy plan's vision is a healthy community a vibrant community and opportunities abound the legacy plan mission is to deliver quality parks diverse programs sustainable practices an engaged community and a livable community the city council's strategic goals for the plan are downtown parks and multi-generational community center development public safety parks and lake access for everyone, and the downtown and Lakewood Station District sub-area revitalization for sustainable growth. And so the citywide priorities are water access, providing downtown experiences, and our regional park Fort Steilacoom Park. So here's a snapshot of our demographics as a city. This should be no surprise to you. This is just census data. I'd just like to point out that we do have large populations of people who identify as minority, people at or below the poverty line, people with disabilities, as well as older individuals and younger individuals. So here this graph shows our 2044 Growth Management Act population target of 71,983 people. And that's about 11% more population than we have today. And in order to keep the same ratio of parks and park lands to residents, we will need to add 45 acres of parks and open space lands to keep pace.

Council Member Ranstetter.

Dave Kuntz, yeah I read that in the draft plan and I am. Dave Kuntz, was trying to decide why that's a goal. Dave Kuntz, That it's it's it's it's kind of a. Dave Kuntz, mathematical calculation this many people this many acres and it doesn't have a qualitative. Dave Kuntz, element to it Okay, in other words. Dave Kuntz, I think you can one of the ways to look at having a greater population and a changing population is is is to take a look at not just adding land but. Dave Kuntz, What you put on it, the existing land, and if you find some that we have consistently been. Dave Kuntz, Successfully and unsuccessfully sought pieces of property to add to the park system, and I think we will continue to do that, but I not necessarily thinking that this is a goal like it's it's not quite the same thing as. Dave Kuntz, Having a certain ratio certain number of police officers per thousand people in your population, I think the. And we are an example of the fact that as you have a significant number of people, when Lakewood incorporated, we inherited a great deal of parks that are nowhere near, that were nowhere near Dave Kuntz, The quality of serving the population, then they are now, I mean we we've done that, so we even with the same same acreage at Fort silicon park. Dave Kuntz, that's now a valuable amenity for a much greater level of the population, and I think that that is also true, and it also doesn't acknowledge that you know the efforts that we have have going on so. Dave Kuntz, Well, I don't. Dave Kuntz, dispute the accuracy of slide I i'm not necessarily that i'm looking at at so many acres per thousand people as a as a. Dave Kuntz, As a goal over what are the amenities that we have on the land that we can get.

your point is taken this is just to point out just if we were to keep the same ratio this is how much we would have to add it's not necessarily a goal we don't have to hit this target but we'll go much more deep into this in the demands and needs section which looks a lot more at where the parks are located within the city about the 10-minute walk shed of you know how the parks are accessible by residents as well as the amenities that we do or don't have in those parks

councilmember pearson thank you mr mayor um yeah i i would echo mr brandstetter's points on that i don't know that this so like if we if we got seeley lake park that's 47 acres now we're done for the next 20 years right so that that's not my idea of like moving the needle forward so um but i also think that we're missing I don't know how this data, what kind of cities use this population target versus acreage and stuff, but I can see it being wildly different for really urbanized cities versus suburban cities. If you have a lot of developments that have a lot of open space requirements, you probably don't need so many parks. But if you have skyscrapers everywhere and there's zero open space for the developments happening, then you do need more parks. you know, I, I, I think that it'd be hard to kind of set a specific target. I think that we just need to keep moving the needle forward with the parks that we do have and constantly thinking about what can we do in different areas that are void of parks and stuff. But also incorporating the new and existing development on what kind of open space is available Because that, you know, if you have a large apartment complex that comes in and they have this wonderful open space, well, that's kind of the whole point of that is serving the people that live there. And so we wouldn't need to put a park across the street. They've already accommodated that. So I think that we need to look at all of those when we look at this.

absolutely and you'll see that we'll get into the demands and needs but you know this really is just the ratio and to your point it is used as a national standard and part of this is growth management so it's really saying this is what we need to do if we wanted that ratio the same but the ratio by itself is not a standalone barometer or the thing that is a measure that is the final factor because all the other things that you mentioned come into that, which is why the demands and needs section really gets into how we utilize our properties. And even you'll see why we, where we're currently at, most of that property is in one location. So that creates its own potential problem statement and design. So that's where this is information to allow those priority conversations.

Great, continue. Okay, so now we'll jump into the park system and programming a bit of our inventory. So here we have a map showing the parks and open space, both owned by Lakewood in the darker green, as well as parks, open space, and recreation opportunities that are not publicly accessible or owned by Lakewood. So we do show Sealy Lake. We do show the golf courses, respectively. And we do show the Puget Sound Wildlife Area, just so you can see them on the map and how they're related to each other here. And as of right now we're classifying 16 park and open space sites. But did we want to mention downtown So the right now the parcel that used to be the bagel shop is counted in our inventory as open space of colonial plaza motor avenue. So it's counted in that park. But because of feedback we're receiving and since it is a council priority, it may make more sense to classify that as an undeveloped downtown park to be developed in the future. So we may actually have 17 park and open space sites and then there would be another undeveloped park essentially. So just an open space that we have available. So just a note on that slide. what what currently is your undeveloped park park in development uh edgewater edgewater okay and then uh the only other undeveloped site would be the blueberry farm sorry oh okay so honestly i i

I'm not understanding the one undeveloped street end piece of data. I understand the one in development, and I'm thinking that there's a dozen that exist. So I'm not quite sure what one undeveloped means on this particular piece.

And I can address that. So we currently the in development is West Lake Avenue. It's the one selected as the first street end for development. The undeveloped street end is Lake City Boulevard. And we mentioned that because we do maintain it, though we haven't actually developed the site, it sort of has just been used by members of the public and we kind of, you know, clear the vegetation and But it's not really a fully developed park in that sense. So that that's why we wanted to include it because it is used sort of like a park, but it's not quite developed like we would want it to be.

Okay. And you know, from this slide, you you've indicated that there are some non city owned places, but that they contribute to do that. Um, I think that, um, for folks who use and do recreating and things to do that, that it would be good to show how many acres of accessible state-owned water we have. And in which we have American Lake, we have Spanaway, Steilacoom Lake, Lake Louise has got public access and there are folks to do that. And those are things that while we want access, the acreage of those lakes is actually a resource that is used by people Dave Kuntz, Recreate in all sorts of ways from actively running around on on jet skis to to to fishing, but to being out on the water and and we we maintain. Dave Kuntz, Several launching sites for boats being able to go and do that so by extension, while the lakes aren't owned by us and they're not a part of our park system, they are a part of the community's recreation. Dave Kuntz, inventory.

And it is not included in this presentation. This is just a slice of the draft plan. Obviously, I can't include everything. But in this update, we actually do include a table and a small section listing all of the lakes and bodies of water and the water access, whether they're accessible by motorized or non-motorized craft. whether they're swimming accessible, et cetera, et cetera. So we do include something about the waters now in the plan. It's just not in this presentation.

Go ahead, keep going.

So here we have program priorities and populations. So community building program areas are facility access and rentals. That includes boat launches, picnic shelters, sport fields, and community gardens. We also have wellness and active lifestyle programs and community and signature special events. And as I said from the demographics slide earlier, noting the larger populations in Lakewood. Our priority populations that we try to serve with both physical inventory as well as recreation programming are folks with low income, youth, seniors or older adults, BIPOC populations, and persons with disabilities. And so here is a department snapshot. This may be news to you, may not. It's not exactly just census data. This is pulled from a number of sources. The most interesting things of note here are our operating budget per capita, which is about half of what you would expect from other departments of cities of about equal size and also park department size. So a number of Like total number of acreage and number of parks, as well as our full time employees being at 17.5 and that'll come up in a later slide. So here we compare our jurisdiction to Sammamish, Burien, and Shoreline to show the difference in staffing. And one of the national standards used is FTEs per 10,000 residents. And our Parks Department has 2.71 FTEs per 10,000 residents, which is significantly lower than our peer jurisdictions.

And to clarify, because most people will be like, wait a minute, you know, I saw in a budget book. So we have street maintenance and street landscaping and facilities, building operations and human services housed in the department. So this number is just those folks who are focused on parks maintenance and programming as the last slide called out. And it doesn't include those who actually don't have core park responsibilities in it.

City Council Chambers, Thank you for that councilmember table.

City Council Chambers, Thank you for this slide and I also just wanted to quickly perhaps it's a comment or question but some of these comparative cities isn't it, is it the case that they also. City Council Chambers, assess park impact fees regularly. And we do not assess park impact fees comparative to the cities.

We didn't break down all their different funding. So he'll mention in a minute. Some of it is because they have community centers or types of programs. So what they focus on, but generally between the impact fees or business and operation taxes or a more dedicated stream will come into play. um but that financial assessment would have to be looked at and especially when there's so many in many form actually parallel park districts but then you have junior taxing issues so thanks

yeah and this information also is in the plan but there isn't a slide for the exact breakdown but I can just tell you the two main differences we see between Lakewood staffing and pure jurisdictions is one recreation program coordinators and There's a significant gap there, but a lot of that is due to, as Roxanne said, we don't have a city run community center. So that would be a large number of staff right there. A couple of maintenance folks and the people to actually run the building, run the programs. So that that. cover some of that gap, but the other gap is simply maintenance. Um, I, I can't recall the number off the top of my head, but to be on par with jurisdictions, I think we need to like 10 ish, 12 ish maintenance staff, something like that.

Five and a half more FTEs, but that equates to 12,000 hours.

Councilmember Talbot.

Thank you. Just one other question on, on the previous slide. Um, referencing the operating budget at 3.1 million thereabouts. Does that include the street maintenance function that is housed in the Parks Department? Okay, thank you.

Thank you for that slide. I think it's important we need to see that.

Okay, so overall findings from everything we've talked about so far. Lakewood has almost exactly the national median amount of parks and open space lands by acres, and that's at 7.9 acres per 1,000 people. What's interesting about Lakewood, though, is because of Fort Steilacoom Park, over three-quarters of our lands are in one park, one regional park that serves a regional audience and not just Lakewood citizens. We also have open spaces and urban nodes that are important features, but not all count as a park or have all the same amenities that are desired by users. We have the opportunity to strengthen access in partner-provided spaces. And our current park inventory requires 5.5 more O&M FTEs to meet the standard of care. And we have fewer program staff due to a lack of the city-run community center and focus on partnership coordination for youth programs.

Could I just want to emphasize Council Member Branciter's earlier point that not all parks are created equal, right? And again, we have this huge one and then we have small ones, but even at that point. So when we start to show gaps and talk about those things and we say who has access to a park, we don't count Blueberry Farm as somebody's park when you can't get there. Or Ponder's Park, these urban nodes or even a street end, it's not fair. Right. To say that's yours down the corner. But I have I have awards late. Right. And I have an American League. And so that's part of the importance of why you saw that 12 developed parks and even Edgewater in its current state really is an open space. It doesn't have the bare minimum standard to count it as a park. um after development it'll move quickly into our community park standard but the assessment really comes out and that's why those classifications really matter because some of them count towards what you should be able to walk to and other ones don't count for that it's more about a city-wide system okay so now we move into demands and needs

So here's some of our levels of service. We want to provide a publicly accessible park or open space within a 10-minute walk of all residents. We would like to provide access to core amenities, and that's a ratio of facilities per 10,000 residents. We want to provide access to special use facilities and citywide experiences, and that, again, is a ratio per residence. We want to provide a connected trail and active transportation system. And this is measured in miles per resident and percent completion of trails network. We want to provide well-maintained parks and facilities. And that again is just that designated level of care and bringing our parks up to that standard. We wanna deliver a user experience, and this is shown through survey results and just feedback that we generally collect from the public. We wanna provide programming that especially touches on those priority populations, and we record attendance numbers, coalition recommendations, and public sentiment. And we want to provide a healthy tree canopy, and that's that 40% canopy cover goal citywide, not just in our parks. So here is the 10 minute walk shed analysis and also partnership options. So right now, only about 32% of Lakewood residents have a park with core park amenities within a 10 minute walk of their home. And those core amenities are a playground, like benches and tables, just your generic neighborhood park experience. We've identified seven populated areas without a nearby park. And some of these areas are densely populated. And you see these areas shown on the map to the right. Population density is the red areas are the densest areas and the white areas are the least dense. So you can kind of see where the dense areas are in those zones where we need to fill a gap. And the plan identifies partnership opportunities to provide parks and open space in these areas. Some of them that are called out are the former Lake City Elementary School, South Puget Sound Wildlife Area, Clover Park Technical College, Seeley Lake Park, and the Lakewood Water District property in Area 6. And that's just a few ideas of ways that we could provide that experience by partnering with some of those partners. this map shows the distance to a special use amenity so here black is showing the greatest distance and luckily we only have a little bit of black showing mostly down in the Woodbrook area and then the industrial area kind of by 512 and 5 so it's a little more difficult to provide a park experience in those areas just because of the location But right now, most addresses are within a one mile walk shed of at least one amenity. And the residential areas with the lowest amount of access include Tillicum Woodbrook, Lake City, and Ponders. And so this is a very similar map, but showing distance from water access. And right now you can see a lot of central Lakewood is very far from core water access. And that's because we're not including Edgewater Park because it's not developed at this moment. But once that is, that'll fill in very quickly. And there are some other areas, again, Woodbrook and the industrial area of 512 that rank the lowest among the city, but that's sort of to be expected. So here are some findings from the public survey that ran in most of 2025 and wrapped up in February of this year. so the most valued amenities across the city are simply nature and water access and also people value trails and paths usually for the nature and water access so luckily that's you know the thing that we see people want most is just being in nature So there's demand for more support facilities like restrooms, seating, and shelters, as well as some special use facilities like indoor community space, skate parks, spray parks, and dog parks. Other needs that we've noted are improved maintenance and park quality, expanded and improved programming, better information about parks and programs and when events are happening, better safety and better access, and especially safe walkable access. So people don't only want to be safe in the park, but they also want to feel safe getting to the park and getting into the park. And so here are a few of our gaps and needs. So we have the level of service and then how we find whether we're achieving that and then the rationale. So publicly accessible parks are open space within a 10 minute walk. That's in progress. Right now we have about a 32% rate of success on that. And we're working on filling those gaps as a top priority. access to core amenities is strong as we showed a good amount of the city is in a reasonable distance to core amenities access to special use facilities and city-wide experiences is a little less strong we need to do a little more work on figuring out which amenities we need where and where we can place those which parks can actually accept those amenities and support them And then the connected trail and active transportation system we've put it moderate, we are not currently meeting the level of service, but we are making a lot of progress. Especially with the gravelly like loop and the plans for the green street loop that will change the the trails landscape quite a bit and lakewood. For well-maintained parks and facilities, we've noted that in progress. Our average quality score, and that's the PACA scoring, it's our internal scoring system. We have an average of just over two out of three, which is good but not great. Maintenance capacity challenges, are an issue, as well as some facilities are due for replacement, including several playgrounds across the city. If memory serves, there's four or five playgrounds that are either overdue or coming up in the next year. Our user experience, we put it in moderate. It's steady over time and decreases for some parks and amenities, but in general, Lakewood's parks get good reviews when surveyed. For programming, we put that at moderate. We've increased rentals and event attendance, and there's demand for youth programs, but we do not have a community center, and there's definitely room for more programs. And on tree canopy, we've also put that at moderate. The goal is 40% coverage, and we currently have 24% coverage, but we are firing up the urban forestry program and hope to close that gap soon. And here we have opportunities. We have opportunities for partnerships for programs, park sites, and open space, opportunities for acquisition of public lands for parks in access gap areas, street ends and waterfront park investments for water access, opportunities with maintenance and safety investments, investments in quality and development of specific amenities, and opportunities to plant trees in plantable areas in parks.

So here's the fun part and everybody likes to flip through it just to get to this chapter, but I wanna say that really everything sets the stage and that demands and needs is really important because it really lays where we are, but here's the recommended program for moving forward. And this particular program is based on really the priorities that have been established, but it is multifaceted. So I want to say this is not the CIP. You'll see the CIP shortly, but it really is a program that if we were to advance all of these goals that you want to see advanced, what would it take to be able to do that? So I want to highlight the first part, as we said, that the citywide goals, the system that everyone in the city can benefit, had Fort Sillicum, had downtown parks, had water access. So being able to advance those in the urban forestry and trail projects, um all at one time is how do we incrementally design and plan for those things that everyone benefits to hit that city-wide level of service there's a line there then that also says we recognize that there were seven gaps where there's some lack of service or some opportunity to improve service for those local residents so some of it will be looking at those gaps and as appointment earlier some of them do have other providers Some of them are relatively close or don't have a lot of density living in that particular area. So in order to turn, we can use that information to set some priorities about which gaps to try to fill first. And that's that 10 minute walk shed. And so those last two bullets really about our local park system where the first ones are our citywide system overall. So the legacy plan includes this projected capital program that it would take to do all of those things. One thing I'll say is this plan does introduce a concept or a standard that you can accept or reject, and that is that every park should receive a site update or equipment replacement at least once every 12 years. That's not a brand new renovation but I'll tell you at this point we have a couple shiny new parks and we've got some that it's been a significant amount of time and maybe what did happen was a playground replacement or a small improvement. So this kind of really sets some equity standard to try to make sure And when we start build this plan for the next 12 years, how do we make sure older parks are touched as priorities in this next 10 years before we're circling back to the American Lake, to the Ward's Lake, to those that just got some major investment. So having a capital program in this long range really gives us a predictable timeline so we can start talking to the public about expectation in terms of designing and seeking the funds and bringing it forward. It allows us to really budget these things out knowing that it takes four to six years to get a single project. So one of the biggest part is that we should be able to have grant-ready projects and align with the grant cycles so that's even years with the state it's odd years with conservation futures as we talked about one of the things you'll see in this next slide is that on average by looking back the city has spent an average of three million dollars per year over the last decade on parks now you can see on the slide that wasn't three million steady at the time there's definitely big projects that came to happen and you know many of those projects took three to five grants in order to bring them to fruition. So our portfolio is about 60% being from grants or outside sources in order to make a project happen, which makes hitting those grant cycles really important and having design in place in the minimum amount of information we need in order to put forward a successful grant application about cost and timeline for construction. So this is what it breaks out to. We said Fort Sillicum, that's a priority as a regional park. It's looking forward every biennium to be doing something in partnership and working on design in a single element project. You know that the H-BARM restoration is already on site. We have sport field partners out there who are very eager to get the next step of that project looking forward. So an opportunity to do feasibility and move things forward so that we're in position for the grant cycles that we need to submit on our part, potentially in 2028 or 2030. One of the things that was an interest to the community is a spray ground. Those are not only kind of complex, they're very popular. So we only have a couple sites even large enough to house that type of interest in the restrooms and everything that goes with it. So that would be one piece of an evaluation. The downtown park and Colonial Plaza, we have identified some properties, so we have the ability to plan and move forward with design. Again, the goal would be to try to land on one of these even years in order to make a submittal. But in terms of the community center, there's still a lot of feasibility work in terms of determining a site and what that might look like. But again, this kind of etches what it would take and how aggressive in terms of resources human in order to evaluate these things as well as financial. The public water access, we have Westlake, as we mentioned, underway. We have the opportunity to look and we ultimately would want to make sure we're planning and designing the next one if that's determined to happen so that then we're able to submit that for outside grants or state funding in the upcoming cycle. The Camp Murray boat launch, you're going to get back a master plan. And so based on the master plan, there's a lot of decisions you'll hear shortly, like need to be made related to that, even with ownership and operation rights and who would be pursuing this funding. The urban parks, trails, and forestry, just really starting to look at how do we set up programs in each one of these elements in order to identify advancements. Having a Lakewood City trailhead access into Chambers Creek that is more established is something that there's been some prior work on that we could move forward if that's a priority of the council. So here's that neighborhood and community parks then. Again, there's many that have already started. We added there when it was last updated and we are looking to move forward on some projects that already a new playground at Active Park has been identified because it is due. As you can see, early 2000 was the last time, so we're ready to move that one forward. So there's continuity of what's already in play, while there's also then bringing into the cycle what we would need to do next in order to hit that 12-year rotation. So there's a couple of slides that give you how that line out. And these are really best case scenarios that if we are moving aggressively with the years in the activities and they were fully funded when we could look at potential construction happening. Again, a new site, just having an acquisition strategy, being able to prepare those applications or secure the funding in order to bring them into the system once determining what some of those priorities might be. So when we know that those are the targets in the capital program, some of it is what is it going to take in terms of management strategies to get there? Being able to maintain, get the park access that we're talking about, what does it mean to position those properties, evaluate those properties? evaluate programming. There definitely, as you read through in there, are key elements that advance the council goals as well as the comprehensive plan goals, but being able to maintain what we have and bring resources in when new sites are brought into the system, working more closely, and it also takes some resources to manage volunteers and partners who can help us with our habitat spaces and keep them at a level where they are benefiting the ecology the way that they are meant to. With these timelines being sure to have the capital capacity on the park project management side in filling those in, but also pursuing trees as aggressively as we can within the park properties, why we know the city is also working on full urban forestry strategies overall. We did hear quite a bit that there's a general satisfaction with most of our programming, except for there's really a desire for more directly facilitated and supported programs for youth. I think there's a lot of nonprofit partners who've been doing programs for a long time that are struggling a little bit and keeping some programs going. And so, as I mentioned, we've got two coordinators who are focused exclusively on special events because that's a huge arena. We've got one that's doing all the rental in some of our partnership with youth, and then we have our senior and our wellness programming. So that's the portfolio that we've been able to maintain and build in partnership. So really wanting to activate our sites and then to continue to build on the public art in historic interpretation. One slide, a lot of summary of what's in that particular chapter, and hopefully that's a good introduction for you. We're really here still in the middle of reviewing this draft. We're taking feedback from you, from the Park and Recreation Advisory Board, from community meetings. We're testing facts still and wanting to move things, refine and make sure that everything is accurate. We will refine it and we will be bringing it back before you. So in October, you have to have a scheduled study session, and that will be a revised version of whatever comes out of these particular meetings to be able to talk through that one before then we'll be for you for the actual adoption with the goal to have it passed by the end of the year so we can submit it to our regulating body and be able to submit grants next year to the Recreation and Conservation Office.

Thank you very much. Any questions from Director Miles and Mr. Thielen? Okay. Oh, we got questions.

Council Member Pearson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Lauricella.

Just a couple of questions. So one question, I don't, I just, I couldn't find it. I don't know if it's something that belongs in here necessarily either, but I, the way I understand this document is it helped us be able to go and get funding for specific things. So if it's not in the document, then we probably can't get funding for those kinds of things. So Um, one of the things, and I don't know if it'd be in strategic management or something, but one of the, I think the, the items that has come up time and time again is how do we partner with the school district on gaining access and kind of partnering on maybe, you know, doing something where I think that we have access to a couple of or we have some agreements were a couple of schools, but not all of the schools. And so how can we expand that and and be able to tap into that resource? The other one that I didn't see anywhere in here that I believe was in the 2020 legacy plan was specific mention to the Lake City property. And so I just want to make sure that we're not losing sight of that. I think that is a really, um, that has a lot of potential for being a, you know, kind of a cheap, easy project that we wouldn't have to necessarily the school district, I don't believe would sell us the property anyway, but we could probably partner to use in lease the property for a period of time that they don't need it for a school and do something cool there for the next decade plus, because I don't believe that that's in their plans for putting a school there. So You know I like a couple things like that that jumped out to me that I would like to see more explicitly in there as part of our goal in the next you know, seven years to do something with the school district or or drive one of those forward as well, so.

mentioned so yes within the strategic management in terms of non. When do we count a school location? Because most schools do have the playground, right? But access. And so there really is kind of a bar to count something as a neighborhood park in terms of what additional amenities are there and what type of public access folks have. And the most successful models of that extend a playground out into something that is more accessible during the day. So having a policy that determines that. And there was... A little bit where we didn't just grab anybody's space and say that counts as our park, right? Because we don't have that formal agreement in the capital. And I went through that quick. There was, you know, there was an asterisk. That's a possibility. And I think that's something to come back. There's multiple possibilities within each in those areas. And so choosing which one best fills the gap and also choosing which gap is most important to do is also a decision that's gonna come out of some of the research. So when it comes to applying, it doesn't have to specifically say in this one, we just have to have it turned in. If it's not turned in, we can't apply. But us to be able to say this project we're doing now is because we found a gap in that location and we built this partnership. and here's the people who live in that area who's been living without, who will now have something, and that this allows us to build that case for a priority.

Council Member Lauricella.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Ms. Miles. A few questions starting high level and then getting down into more details, but first sort of a reflection. So in my opinion, it appears We've gotten a lot of improvements to our parks and expanded our parks. We've done really well with ARPA funds and other things. And it feels like we may have overbuilt for our allocation of maintenance and operations budget. So in order to provide sort of minimum standards for our parks, do we need to focus on specific areas? And does that mean de scoping or prioritizing some areas more than others? Or as a council, do we need to make a decision on prioritizing parks budget over other city services? Right? Just an overall sort of strategy question for you.

Well, those are definitely all going to be budget before you and in priority questions. One thing I'll say is that of the seven staff who do parks maintenance, one is a supervisor and he works very well with our volunteer community partners as well as managing that. Three are housed at Fort Steilacoom Park and the events we all love, right? These are very high demand and the more we put in that park, you got three people handling that as well as Oak Brook. So one of our bigger challenges and when we go back is they're all a very dedicated team, but there's regular daily stuff you have to do, right? In terms of just pulling the trash and then there's taking care of seasonal maintenance, the annual maintenance, every asset that we've built in. And so when they get to a certain point in the life cycle, all we can do is replace them. But our big challenge is daylight changes. And so that group hasn't grown. And so that has been, I think, a budget and policy decision before about whether seasonals and career staff were allocated when time doubles. And I think you're very aware that the popularity of waterfront parks so to have the same level of staffing as a baseline from January to December is something where you know they do feel like they're losing ground and so that's one of the scenarios and one of the many things that you're gonna have to to deal with but the numbers you've been given in the shortage is not just comparison to some benchmark that's out there it's also in comparison to what we should be doing in terms of managing our turf and our assets

Thank you, and so, if we were to find budget for those five and a half more fts would that allow us with our existing parks inventory to get everything to that minimum standard.

So in terms of the labor to take care of all the different things on the capital side, there's just still some assets that are beyond their useful life. But in terms of quality of care of those and, you know, the biggest one is we are more short. in the in the small team of three who are trying to take care of every other park than the three at fort silicon and and we leverage volunteers and partnerships you know i would just we haven't left anything on the table uh but being able to sustain that is is something that the assets will only we if we're not doing those annual things yeah

okay thank you and then sort of expanding on the shared spaces things that uh council member pearson mentioned so school district is one but there's also the library property pierce transit south of their facility has a large area of land that's undeveloped that might be a good opportunity to partner with pierce county has a large piece of property on the east side of town east of i-5 north of springbrook park that could also be something we could look at as a possibility. It's a lot of acreage that I think is an underrepresented area of our community that could really use it in addition to Springbrook Park.

So within the, I mean, part of it is investing time and some research to be able to evaluate all of those and to craft those agreements with individuals. And so one of the kind of the requests back to you and in the plan says, Which ones do you want to start in terms of targeting? We did list Lake City and some of the properties that are talked about that are public ownership. So it's a lot easier to to talk about potentially partnering those. But that was not a comprehensive list, nor have we gone in to evaluate all the public and private opportunities that might be to fill gaps. But. very little possibility to work on all of those simultaneously so being able to identify which group or which gaps are the most pressing and that's often hard because sometimes the easiest gap might be the one that has is the smallest one right where the residents have access to a lot of other partner opportunities or waterfront or you know the density isn't nearly as much there as some other areas where We didn't have a starting point right in zone three or four, but those might be the ones that are the ones that have the furthest gap.

That's two more things. I didn't see anything in the legacy plan about acquisition and divesting of city property for parks. Is there is that part of our strategy?

And it does talk about acquisition strategies going along the gap. There's not a divestment in terms of us having excess property or too many properties in a single area. So there wasn't a lot of overlap. I think some of it comes in that if there is some overlap, we are very size-restricted and opportunity-restricted. And Washington Park is a great example. It's a great little park, but it's definitely going to be that community-level park just because there's so limited footprint for parking, and it's really designed for that walk-in. And so being able to maximize those spaces and And say with the acquisition, we get somewhere, you know, adding on to a current and partial is great because we start to have a little bit more of a destination, but that won't solve any of the gap. And if we're okay on acreage, but we have gaps for our residents, you know, for bringing more acreage in, where should we place those is one of the key things that that is in there to help guide us to make that decision.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I was specifically thinking about places like Ponder's Park that likely doesn't have a whole lot of recreation urban node. Yeah. And last thing, a couple of really specific pieces that I've been asked about. So Edgewater Park is the plan to have a Portland Lou there at some point or some sort of restroom in the near term.

so it's a 30 design and so there's a lot of environmental things going on currently the footprint has that and we're working through the permitting standards to make see what all can stay and then we're bringing in a number of treatments to make sure that the whole site functions better than it currently does so we'll be able to brief you if that's still an element in there but ultimately you know restrooms were a high priority our community parks have those restrooms And so it's a desire. We're trying to make sure it's still there. And last, it has been, but we still have to make it all the way through the permitting process and the requirements of variance.

Sounds good. And as we're getting to the end of the recreational season, it's probably not as big of an issue there. But as we get in the next summer, I'm sure it will spring up again. And the last item. So we had a big transportation project on Nyanza Road. Part of that was what was considered to be maybe a linear park. They took down some trees. There's a space that they were talking about making more of a park space. Do you know anything about that?

No.

Okay. We'll find out more as we go on. Thank you.

Councilmember Talbot.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I will try to just be brief with my comments in the interest of time. But I did want to put out there, thank you for doing this plan. Thank you for starting it early on. And I know you've dealt with the staff transitions in the plan. And the work that has been completed to date is commendable. So I want to acknowledge that. One of the reactions that I've had since the beginning is, and if you wanted to go back to any one of the slides with the, I think it's the 10-minute walk shed map. But one of the things that has struck me about our park system, even when we were doing this plan, is that I do worry a little bit about Actually, more than a little bit. I have kind of been concerned for some time that the areas that we're mentioning, Springbrook, Tillicum, but even Lakeview, the Station District, what I know as formerly Southgate Elementary, which is now Early Learning Center, But that whole swath and area, and even this area across from Bridgeport, across from the water tower, this neighborhood here, you know, this whole swath of the city has not seen any new park expansion probably since incorporation and beyond. And what I was eager about the completion of this plan was because I was looking for, okay, like Councilmember Branstetter has mentioned, our 30-year vision is expiring. And so as we go into the future and we have this... we form this new vision where do these areas and where does our vision for these parts of the city find themselves in and in manifesting itself in in our parks system and so still yet we have these these walk areas that um you know, Lakeview, what I call Southgate area, but the areas that I've mentioned, they also have not had neighborhood associations. So they haven't had the impetus and the community just kind of social framework to help bring out and help these communities have a format to voice their needs and needs for community and park space in general, so I just want to make that what i'm trying to get to is that there are some very key priorities in this plan. Like the downtown like the colonial Center, we know that those are there, but. i don't want to and mr mayor miss deputy mayor i i i don't want to see us spend the next five ten years with all the focus and emphasis and impetus and just the downtown and the community center when it comes to our park system i want to make sure that that um that we are equitably looking out for the parts of the city that just haven't seen haven't been able to see the acknowledgement and i recognize that those areas also don't lend themselves easily to land that is easily available to acquire but i don't think i don't see that as an excuse to just to just neglect that and, or dismiss that and move on. I think to that point, I think all, Council Member Pearson's point is that I don't see it as a goal to partner with the school district. I see it as a little bit as an imperative that we need to kind of, we really do need to get on some established, whatever that usage agreement can be for specific schools or playgrounds or spaces. And to have that kind of in force and in an implementation in a five-year timeframe, six-year or CIP timeframe is reasonable to me. So I just wanna put that out there to the rest of my colleagues. The last question, the only question I really wanna ask is, What is the plan for Blueberry Park as far as access and just otherwise?

It's a natural area. There really is no way to make it publicly accessible, given where it is and being in the wetlands in the storm area. I think there were attempts a few years back to bring in a lot of chips and sod just to be able to kind of harvest on the days that it was there, but really nature has had its way. So, I mean, the main thing this plan was, again, acknowledging it is a a natural area. So, um, you know, the folks in the last plan that that was counted as their park and they couldn't get to it. That's part of the importance of the classification in your point that, you know, the capital in there shows you, I mean, what it would take to move all of these priorities from improving what we have to adding new sites to the citywide, you know, in it, um, the CIP is going to come before you. And part of that is in deciding what those priorities are, because in the absence of, um, an absolute $3 million every year being there. And then even these, right? Some of these are large size projects going to take above and beyond that. So figuring out the resources to line up with what's most important, this plan, this plan is not going to dictate. It's providing you that information to make those decisions and, but it goes back to the first legacy plan was done in 2014, right? And it really was, this was not designed from the beginning as an equitable system, right? Growth has happened over time and it wasn't until 2014 when you map it out with the type of tools we have now where you can see where it is. And when you have a system where 77% is in one location, right? I think that makes those partials and those things closer home a little bit more valuable, but You know, we do have partnership opportunities.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And to your earlier point about, you know, feedback that we can lend you as to how to prioritize the bullet points that you had. And I guess when I'll just speak. For me, as far as prioritization of partnerships, it's the school district and the county on Sealy Lake. I just, I mean, I've brought it up before, but to be able to do something about Sealy Lake, look, yes downtown colonial center sure absolutely want to want to get that done but that is just going to be an an ongoing um process to get through and in the meantime i think if there are wins that we can make and ways that we can get ahead in partnerships with those two entities i think we will get our we'll find ourselves on good trajectory thank you customer brandsteader

Well, thank you for your time this evening, and thank you for all the work that has gone in over the past months to work to get the draft to where it is now. I have a couple of comments to just follow up on Councilmember Talbot's things over there. One is that there is an effort in the draft plan to identify privately owned, but recreational assets to do that. The racquet club, for instance, is mentioned, the Oak Brook golf course, a number of other things. And we've got some non-Lakewood owned, publicly owned things that are mentioned that have different levels of agreements to how much say we have over what is going on there to be able to go and do that. But One of the things that seems to be absent is a discussion about certain sorts of recreational abilities, particularly as they approach youth or in some cases seniors. For instance, there isn't a section or there wasn't a mention in here about the Boys and Girls Club, which sits in the middle of the Lakeview neighborhood, actually is kind of sitting right within a piece of school property to be able to go and do that. But that is open for a variety of events to be able to go and do that and is a magnet for some number of young people almost daily during the week to be able to go there. The YMCA similarly is certainly, I think, provides much greater level of recreation and type things Then the racquet club, although the racquet club is somewhat unique and is there and provides for the things that it provides is a bit of a sole provider for some of those things. So looking at that inventory Dave Kuntz, A little bit more about the things that have acreage and as well as places that maybe it's not acreage but it's activities that we should call those out, I think, in the plan. The. The other thing is that I really like the slides in your presentation that you put under the heading of capital projects and management strategies. And I think that for chapter seven of the plan, which is really what that says, that chapter should be titled that way. rather than as a parks, capitals, facilities program. Because in the glossary, you mentioned parks, capitals, facilities is something that lists specific dates with cost estimates and things like that. And we publish that in recurring budgets where we have those. And it occurred to me, though, that we don't, while it's worded as almost looking similar to the Transportation Improvement Program, that the Transportation Improvement Program, we engage with the community every two years where we look at having a six-year TIP to do that. And we went through that just not two months ago. where what you put in that gets noticed by and generates conversation with the public and neighborhoods and things about what they would want to see. And we might, you know, I'd be interested in knowing whether if we were to make the effort of saying like every two years do an update of the capital improvement program, extending it out six years, Okay. To be able to go and do that. There would be value to that as an engagement strategy with the public.

Okay, that's I think that's a different discussion. So, I mean, you're so you don't want to go forward with this plan or you

Okay.

It sounds like you don't, it doesn't sound like you want to go forward with this plan.

Yes. That's a different subject. I just have one other thing that I think is a city-owned asset that ought to be mentioned in the plan, being able to go and do that, and that's the interlocking bridge. the interlocking bridge is there isn't a day that i drive drive over it that there aren't people there fishing for it it's designed to be able for people to be able to do that it fits into our strategy of water access and we ought to mention that it exists and think about whether we might be able to do something yes how many of us have come close to running people over

um okay so you got lots there um i think you've done good work on this as a group and i think um when you talk about things that are kind of moving along it's it's it's really opportunity right so i i agree with councilmember talbot i mean we always have to be looking and and the school district is the landowner in some of these neighborhoods um i think steely lake's out there it's at some point i don't know what the county wants to do but i think we can make improvements to it to make create something out of it and then um because i'm not going to talk about it later but i went to a to a lake city desserts in the driveway the other night the lake city property is huge i mean i've driven by there But when I'm actually in the middle, sitting in the play shed there, eating cookies, the dang thing is huge. I mean, if we developed a third of it and left the other two-thirds, I mean, you could build a trail that goes all around the perimeter that would be probably close to a mile, according to the city manager who's, you know, from the country, and so he knows all that stuff. But the... I mean, we don't even have to develop. We don't even have to develop a majority of that property. A perimeter trail and a park on one third. I mean, I was amazed at how when you actually get on ground and walk it, it was like. This thing. Yeah. And it's flat. And so I do think there's opportunities there. And of course, we're gung ho on water access. So We look forward, and to the earlier part of the conversation, I think this council is going to have to have some very serious policy discussions as to what it wants to do with parks. Because I think what it gets down to is we can keep running like we're doing, which we can't add any parks, really, is what I'm hearing, right, with the people that we have. So if we're going to add parks and we're already in the process of adding parks, we need more people. So how that looks and how you do seasonal hires and that kind of stuff is an important policy consideration that I think we have to have that discussion. Because that puts a cap on any further development of parks. Okay, with that, thank you. So I'm gonna note it is, we've been here two hours now and we've gone two items. We've got three more and an executive session. I'm not gonna be here at midnight in an executive session. So we either start treating these next three items as informational rather than debates, or we start dropping stuff off and get to the executive session. So with that, we'll have Ms. Krause come down and give us an update on the second quarter report. Thank you, Ms. Krause.

Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and Deputy Mayor. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. I'm just gonna highlight a few pieces. So the report that you're seeing is very consistent with what you've seen in the last quarter and it's become what we're expecting. So overall sales tax is up. and building permits is down from what we estimated. On the sales tax side, we're seeing that a lot of it has to do with construction, which is more on a one-time basis, but the extra revenues that are generated in services and retail. A few pieces that I added was council member Brownstetter had asked about the $2 million of the economic development and how we use that. We have used it and I've highlighted it on page four, a breakdown between Edgewater Park and Downtown Park. So the bottom line is we have spent about $115,000 more than what was available in the economic development fund. However, we are keeping our eyes on the ARPA fund, the ARPA grants, and council had already stated that whatever excess there is can be used for downtown and Edgewater Park. So we're looking at right now there's 115,000 that we can shift over and that's just as a second quarter. So there are more expenses that are coming in and we'll just take advantage of the excess dollars if there are any. I also want to highlight that I did add a section for the property tax as it relates to TIFs so that we're tracking on how much we've taken in and whether it materializes or not and what to do with those funds. And then lastly, I just want to bring out to your attention that we did start getting some public safety sales tax. And so we're tracking that as well. And as we stated to the city council, all of the monies that are generated for that will be earmarked for public defense services. And that's one of the reasons why we're putting that in. So that concludes my presentation.

So when I look at page 65, which is page three of the report in the general fund, We're slightly above budget on expenses, 0.8%, so that's not much. But the revenues are 1.5% below budget, and that's mainly because of the development service fees, which are almost $1.9 million below budget. Because most of the big items probably came last year. And we're running hot on construction because of the... the large construction projects right now. Okay. Any questions for the This is a very long report. A lot of different items. Council member Laura Sella.

Thank you, Mayor book. You just a quick question. Is it looking? I understand this is just second quarter hard to project for the rest of the year. But as you said, any additional arpa funds at the end of the year get put towards edgewater in downtown parks. Does it look like we're gonna have

a significant amount of leftover arpa funds at the end of the year for that potentially an area that could have some excess arpa funds is in the street pilot program the street ends program and right now as we look through the expenditures that have been incurred as of august 31 there's about 342 000 But in the other areas, because they're on contract, it is anticipated that they will be spent 342,000. If we had to spend that down, there are expenditures in the current Edgewater capital projects that could be charged to that. and there's also about 75 000 that's left over from the city reader boards that's being used by the uh the edgewater capital project so i don't really have a concern that we won't be able to use it just because we are still incurring expenses in the general fund for edgewater and downtown park thank you any other questions mike did you get your question answered on that other thing

uh i i got a clarification of where the two million dollars went that uh what i think there's a discussion that we have to have that that two million dollars was a policy decision in 2021 that we would have that sort of a fund and that we would when we funded it over a number of years to get it to to two million is where we wanted OSBT, Dave Kuntz, Now that it's at zero, we need to decide to give some guidance to the city manager about at what how gradually do we want to rebuild it up if we want to continue to have an economic development fund for opportunities. But that's more of a budget discussion than a report discussion. Thank you.

So, Ms. Krause, we just got done talking about parks and parks capital in particular. So the REIT becomes important, and that's on page 151, 89 of your report, 151 of our

of our total packet tonight looks like we're doing okay but not and then with the higher interest rates now i don't know what impact it's still the same so in 2024 you'll see that we're about at 2.4 we're seeing it about the 2.3 2.4 we did a little bit better in august but i don't I believe we're going to come in at exactly the 2.4. There may be a little bit slightly under. So just looking forward with the interest rates even increasing, I don't think we can expect a whole lot more from that.

Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Grouse? Any additional questions? Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

That's really the last one we'll see before budget, right?

Yes, which is coming up very soon. Thank you.

review of annual development regulations and i looked at this and this begins on page 206 of our packet but this is really just changing a few things there's several hundred pages there though so so help help me understand i i agree thank you and good evening making several hundred different changes or i i think

I just felt since there was only four applications for this one that we needed to make it really complicated for you. Okay.

Yeah, please help us with that because it was like, I was like, wow, there's all sorts of stuff in here and then it was maybe not.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. So yes, this is the annual process where the city takes a look at, we just call it kind of a mixed bag where there's sometimes things that are coming at the request of members of the public when they come across a problem in code or if it's by staff that there's a problem in the code. Maybe other changes that are just needed because of other changes in state law we didn't catch in our annual development reg cycle related to the comprehensive plan. So as I just mentioned, there are four items. And what makes this the most lengthy packet that you see is the change that would replace 14 different land use tables that are already in our code right now with two. So consolidating many separate tables into just two. I'll walk you through that with just a little bit more detail in a moment. Then the second one is related to just correcting and clarifying how recording needs to happen for certain types of actions, short subdivisions and boundary line adjustments in particular. The third is to clarify how applicants need to file an appeal should they wish to do so, related to chapters 1.36 and 5.02 in the code. And the final one is probably the most substantive out of all of them, where it's talking about now allowing limited exemptions for approved weekend and night construction work if needed per the department's review. And if criteria are followed and satisfied, it's a discretionary decision by the department director. So the first one, as I just mentioned, this is the biggie. This is what makes it so long. But there really are no substantive changes. What we're doing is taking multiple codes chapters, sorry, code tables within the chapter 18A40. So for instance, right now there is a separate table just about residential, separate table just about parks, separate table just about industrial uses, and putting all of those into a single table. And then the separate one that is the second new table is related specifically to the Clear Zone and the Air Corridor 1 and 2 because of their special land use allowances given the safety concerns with North McHord Field. The only substantive change here is what you see at the bottom talking about zone setbacks within the open space and recreation zones. And that, again, is something where parks would be dealing with the public works director, planning and public works, to come up with the minimum setbacks. In no case would the setbacks be lower than 10 feet. So this is what a current looks like. You see on the left-hand side, no need to read the actual words, but you see there's 14 tables. And then on the right, you'll see an example out of one of those tables that shows type of use. In this case, it's, quote, civic uses. And then you'll see all of the zones across in each column and whether something is permitted outright, conditionally, or not at all. The new code, first of all, will be color coded for ease of reading. And then what you see here is a sample now where it's all of those uses other than those ones for, again, Clear Zone, Air Quarter 1 and 2, whether they are residential, whether they are industrial, whether they are parks and open space, it's all in a single table. And again, you're just looking across the columns to find which zone you're dealing with. This is the air corridor zone, similar setup, but it is slightly different text just because of the way those zones are dealt with in our code. So there are not substantive changes here other than, again, just those setbacks for open space and recreational uses. Otherwise, it is the same as the current code. The second one is the record of survey and how things need to be recorded with the Pierce County Assessor and Public Works signature boxes. Third, telling people how to appeal through our code. And fourth, this is where maybe there's some additional conversation, so I'll pause if there's questions on any of the other three.

Any questions so far on the first three? Council Member Ramstener.

John Potter, So in the new table that is the comprehensive table that replaced the other tables. That. The only thing that I looked at in my packet that looked like was a red line change was under hotels and motels where there was a red C. I'm looking at page 222. There's a red C under C1. So I don't know whether that's because it was that's a red red line change in the table is that because it was a p before or it was blank before i will have to go back and look and verify that for you for next week's meeting i'm sorry i can't give you that off the top of my head and and i and i'm saying that was the only thing that looked like it was actually a change when in transpiring the table on the other hand it's in it's in a

section that's got a purple background so i don't know it's red or not okay yeah yeah all right i will i will provide that clarification for you uh councilmember brandstetter for next week um so the fourth and see if i can get back to the larger display there we go This fourth proposed amendment would again allow for, per discretion by the Planning and Public Works Director, case-by-case construction work being allowed either after normal daylight hours or over the weekend. And there are criteria as you see here in your packet. It's talking about the conditions in section two. It's looking at avoiding impacts and that would be one main reason why work would be allowed in these outside of eight to five Monday through Friday hours. There's also requirement for public notice ahead of time. And there also needs to be a limitation on hours and duration of work, using noise reducing equipment, limitations on how you orient your lighting, how long things are allowed to idle your equipment, and then a contact person for on-site issues that may come up at any time. And then if there is a need to, the director would have the authority to revoke that at any time. And there's also no, quote, vested right, meaning just because a company or an individual got one of these approved ones doesn't mean they will in the future automatically. So that was substantive one. In terms of the legislative schedule, tonight is this conversation regarding what it is. A week from now will be your public hearing, and then it will be back in front of you for action on October 5th.

Can I ask a quick follow-up on that? That last one, how did that come about? Did you have a request from people or was that just something we thought up that we don't have? I mean, how did that pop up?

We didn't stroke our white cat and went, ma, ma, ma. This comes up regularly during private projects all the time. Western State Hospital Alliance is a really good example of wanting to do weekend work or night work. In addition to private projects are public capital projects. in the roadway we have very limited flexibility on when road closures or lane closures occur sometimes in the best interest of the traveling public night work is better suited but under a case-by-case but we're seeking as flexibility to determine that on a project by project consideration I will say vaguely remember I think some paving projects like on Lakewood Drive

When we had some issues there remember they found the stump and and they were and I thought they had worked at night, but. Maybe we just never had anything official?

There's been informal determinations when there's signal work on an intersection because of the number of vehicles to bring out a technician to fix that, electrical service provider, what it may be. We do not have the code backing to authorize that, but sometimes.

Just sometimes.

Sometimes you've got to.

And that's been a long time. I mean, that's been 10 years or more. Council Member Pearson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I mean, I'm supportive of allowing folks some flexibility. And I think that this Custer Road project would honestly have been a good candidate for emphasizing weekend and night work to try to use the time frame that all the businesses are going to be completely, you know, exposed or unexposed, rather, for that period. So I'm supportive of it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Any other questions, Mike?

There was some public comment about whether one of these things, I think it may have been the subdivision one, was going to lessen our ability to enforce our critical areas. And quite honestly, I didn't understand the public comment that came in, but it was in reference to that. And I wasn't sure whether they were understanding it clearly or not.

The proposed night work or weekend work has nothing to do with our critical areas ordinance. It's a separate standards and conditions. What I believe is referenced is the last council meeting as it relates to an unauthorized and unpermitted tree cutting that occurred over the Labor Day weekend and how some of those trees were apparently one was a Gary Oak and some other Douglas fir cedar potentially. So we're working with the property owner on the appropriate permitting process and

that a permit is in a notice of incomplete as we requested additional information on that so the comment wasn't in reference to one of these four changes okay thank you i have nothing further mr mayor if there's no other question any other question thank you very much for this i think we're a go on on all that thank you miss silva Review of cannabis code amendments. That begins on page 466 of our packet.

Mr. Mayor, deputy mayor, council members, again, tonight is kind of introduction study session as relates to draft code amendments requested by this body, as well as reviewed by the Lakewood Planning Commission. so where we are in the process here is over the months of july and august the planning commission did consider draft amendments as well as hold a public hearing on it on august 5th they did render their recommendation and i'll go over that in a little bit moving forward scheduled for your monday night is a public hearing to consider public testimony whether verbal or written as part of the amendment process. And as we move forward in the month of October, you're tentatively scheduled to deliberate as well as take action. Again, this schedule is tentative. If additional time is necessary, we can adjust and pivot where needed. on the planning commission recommendation on august 5th they did render their recommendation as unanimous to not consider or move forward those code amendments for several different reasons health concerns was commented by some planning commission members identified community as well as health impacts low revenue benefits as it relates to possible sales tax generation that could be used for other city programs In addition to little to no community benefit, while location may be desirable, closer, closer convenience for those overall, what the Planning Commission believed was not a benefit to residents or neighborhoods sufficient to justify replacing the current citywide prohibition. So kind of just a recap, our current regulations here at the city prohibit completely any marijuana or cannabis businesses, whether that's for recreational or medical use within the city boundaries itself. It's prohibited all zoning districts. It does not allow anyone to lawfully establish, even though they may be licensed at a state level to operate within the city of Lakewood itself. Like most development regulations here in the state of Washington, there is a layer cake or two-layer cake when it comes to it. So state law as well as administrative rules in this particular example administered by the Liquor and Cannabis Control Board set forth a lot of minimum standards and operating conditions for whether you're a city, town, or county itself. They regulate, in particular, enforcement licensing at the state level. They set minimum standards, like a mandatory buffer on protected uses I'll go over later, operational standards based on license type, license renewals at the state level, but also compliance and enforcement. at the local level where cities can regulate we can decide whether or not to allow a cannabis business within the jurisdiction itself and if that answer is yes you look at which zone zoning districts would that be appropriate what are the operational standards in addition to state law should be considered as well as if you have a local business licensing program should that be considered as well as buffer reductions where allowed in state law In Washington State, there is six license types. One, the most common, is retailer. So this is the public facing of all cannabis business. To reiterate, to use or purchase cannabis products in the state of Washington, you have to be 21 and older. So this is an adult conversation. As it moves forward to other license types, this other... Other types include producer, which cultivates the cannabis and also sets through state agency rulemaking how big those canopies can be, whether indoor or outdoor. A processor, who processes packages and labels the products themselves for wholesale. Transporter, which moves that product from one location to another. researcher, so who may possess or produce the product on approved research purposes, and testing laboratory, testing that product for quality assurance and many other areas. Again, of all the license types, the only public facing open to the public would be a retailer in this entire list. In addition to those license types, state law identifies mandatory buffers, minimum buffers on protected uses. And protected uses can range from an elementary or secondary school all the way to a public transit center. State law sets the minimum of 1,000 feet, measured at the edge of the property line, not dead center in the middle, but the edge of the property line. In addition to that, state law does allow local flexibility or discretion to reduce that buffer as low as 100 feet for certain protected uses, such as a childcare center. What state law also allows if a local jurisdiction wants to say, I don't want to do 1,000 feet, I want to do 500 for a recreational center. That is allowed under state law. In addition to that, state law allows, hey, I don't want to do 1,000 feet, I want to do 1,200 feet. That is also allowed under the law. So this map looks a little familiar to you all. This kind of looks at all the protected uses in state law and applies not only the thousand foot buffer, but also reduces depending on the use type down to 100 just to understand what that may mean locationally around the city without applying zoning. So I want to keep that in mind. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. So some in additional to the framework itself, when it comes to retail uses, there is a formula based on population as well as estimated consumption that is defined by the state. For the city of Lakewood, and this was confirmed by LCB during the planning commission process, the city, if allowed cannabis retail, we would have allotted two retail stores citywide. And I want to separate that from the allotment of retail versus recently, a couple of years ago, state law was amended to allow social equity licensing for those who are disproportionately impacted by criminalization, as well as prosecution of the cannabis industry. statewide there's a total of 51 licenses available that could be assigned to a number two of jurisdictions that do allow a business if a local ordinance caps retail that would be applied here if a local ordinance doesn't cap there would be additional social equity licenses that could be applied within the city itself As it relates to producer, there is no business cap per state law, but it does establish several different canopy tiers based on sizing and their operational standards. So the highest canopy tier could go up to 30,000 square feet in size. Processor, again, no cap or no per jurisdiction allotment. Researcher, no cap. It's a project-based, but again, a lot of accreditation is required as part of that licensing, in addition to testing lab. No cap associated with state law, but a lot of accreditation. In addition to state law, it sets retail hours. So right now under state law, 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. or midnight is the operating hours for the only public-facing operating. Producers, labs, researchers, processors do not have state hour limits because they're not open to the public. Another component of that slide deck before you, there was a question during planning commission process, like, okay, what are other local jurisdictions doing? What do you see in their codes, et cetera? And there's a more detailed summary table in your background packet. But just to give a sense of what folks are doing locally here in Pierce County, Tacoma did have a recal cap at 16 per the LCB allotment. They don't apply an additional one. They do allow 100% medical endorsement is required, and they also allow processor, producer, researcher, and retail and all allowed uses with no reduction in local hours. Unincorporated Pierce County, no numeric cap. They maintain the 1,000-foot store-to-store dispersion buffer. Indoor production is, in their code, limited to 10,000 square feet. Five, all license types are allowed, only in eligible retail areas such as a regional commercial zone. And again, no cap or hours limited.

Buckley, a little bit different.

They have three parcels where you can locate a particular cannabis business but prohibit it in all other zones. No reduced buffers and no hour provisions beyond what state law caps it at. Kind of just following that trend of what other jurisdictions are looking at, we did do some research about what about jurisdictions that went from a complete ban, like Lakewood, and maybe consider allowing legally established businesses. So in 2019, Clark County lifted its ban on the top big three, as I call it, the producers, processors, retailers. They allowed it in their rural and agricultural zones, as well as in their industrial zones as well, and some commercial zones. pasco in 2023 first of the tri-cities that lift its band over for a 10-year period they only allowed retail and limited that to commercial and industrial zones they did cap in their local ordinance at two three stores with four additional social equity licenses And then more recently, Linwood lifted their ban for only retail-only businesses and up to four stores near kind of their commercial corridor there. Productioning and processing remain prohibited. However, every part of their local ordinance, every retailer must hold a medical endorsement for a store opened spring of this year. So kind of takeaways, key themes on jurisdictions went from ban to regulation. Here's some observations staff found. Zone, don't just permit. This means every pier lifted its ban only in designated commercial and industrial, keeping residential and civic areas untouched. Another key takeaway, cap the store count. A small few incorporated local retail caps tied to LCB license allotment. So they just said, this is what the state is. We're going to put that in the ordinance. Calibrate buffers deliberately. So allow reductions where it's appropriate and that vary depending on which jurisdiction in that policy choice. So for example, Linwood had a 100 foot buffer on some of the retail versus comparative to Olympia at 500. Third, fourth takeaway, match the scope to the land base. So Pasco and Linwood, again, one of those recent from ban to regulation, allowed only retail. Clark County permitted several license types by treating production and processing as industrial uses with performance standards, meaning state law. Align hours with neighbors. This was very unique. I wouldn't say this was a common theme. So Clark County, when they went from ban to regulation, they were also looking at peer jurisdictions like the city of Vancouver and what are their operating hours. So remember, retail under state law can operate between a.m. to midnight. The city of Vancouver made the policy choice to close at 11 p.m. and Clark County followed suit in that. Another policy lens we look at as relates to regulation is kind of the economic impact. And this was a good conversation with the Planning Commission as well. So part of that is looking at the sales tax revenue. So overall, through the legalization of cannabis in the state of Washington, it's a 37% excise tax related to that. in addition to that there is a shared state excise that was distributed with first pool is a 1.5 percent if a jurisdiction allows retail and that gets distributed uh within the city itself the second piece of that slice is a 3.5 percent per capita distributed by population but only two jurisdictions that allow the big three, retail, processing, and producing. So in short, if you want to get the revenue associated with this business, you need to allow the big three, retail, processing, and producing. Another element of potential revenue or economic impact for allowing these businesses, we take a look at our specialty license. We require general business license or specialty license to operate a business within the city of Lakewood. This would be no different, and that would add potential licensing revenue to the city. In the fourth topic, this was a discussion part of Planning Commission. What about property taxes? There is a statewide cap in how much we can grow annually as it relates to tax levy growth, excluding new construction as well as improvements that add to assessed value. However, if you look at context of where jurisdictions do allow these businesses whether that's retailer, producer, or processor. A lot of these businesses are going into existing commercial or industrial buildings. So not a lot of new construction, if you will. So you won't see that big jump in the property tax revenue unless you see some pretty significant building improvements to meet up to code. So just wanted to bring that forward as that was a discussion. And as we look at economic, we look at the potential revenue impact. So we're making some assumptions here. This is not precise. Excise tax forecasts are very difficult based on sales, based on, in this case, would be considered population growth as well as part of that per capita share I mentioned previously. So if we assumed maybe three to four retail licenses, as well as some revenue generated by permitting and licensing fees, we're ballparking at around about $150,000 to $2,000 annually for potential city programming. And just going on more on the economic impact, we also look at wages. What's the average retail wage compared to the state minimum? What's the average industrial wage compared to a cannabis retail, or excuse me, cannabis producing role? As you can see on the chart on the far left there, cannabis industrial averaging statewide, not here in the Puget Sound, statewide about $22 an hour. That's comparative to about a little over $17 per hour as the state wage minimum. General retail averages about $21 an hour compared to cannabis retail positions close to or just shy of $19 an hour. In addition to, as we look to potentially site cannabis businesses in our various zones, what is our capacity to take on those? And we took a look at our Lakewood industrial areas. We're about a 9.1% with a little over 300,000 square feet available for light and heavy manufacturing. So what do these amendments do? So in the draft, it's a wonderful concave of a whole bunch of words in red as well as existing language. So as I move left and right to the screen, we do have to take a look at our definitions and how we define cannabis businesses. So that's also in the proposal itself. So seven new definitions. In addition to, like any permit process, we identify who should review and approve this and whether or not there is a public notice or public hearing associated with that. So 18A20 takes a look at that and identifies the appropriate decision process. HNA 40, that zoning use table Tiffany just went over, that includes four proposed cannabis uses, producer, processor, retail, as well as testing laboratory, have been added to the use table in which zones they would be allowed and the permissibility. When I say permissibility, does that mean a conditional use permit before the hearing examiner, after a public notice and public hearing, or is that an administrative department decision? In addition to that, currently under code, cannabis is prohibited outright, so we would have to repeal and replace that. Under H&A 40, you're looking at proposed revisions there to consider the uses of four cannabis businesses, but also those operating standards consistent with state law. Like any business, you got to park it. So we looked at our parking standards and we'll be going over that shortly in this presentation as well. And then last but not least set up a new chapter in our licensing code to address the licensing type of the proposal itself. So again, just definitions. This is just a snapshot. I will not read every one, but it's pulled and meeting the minimum standards of state law, but also addressing if cannabis businesses should be allowed in the city. What does that mean in a draft proposal for discussion? Where each use is permitted, as of right now in the draft code, cannabis business is not allowed in residential areas. It's also not allowed in neighborhood commercial zones, for example, what you would find along Silicon Boulevard, nor in our public institution or parks properties. Specifically, retail, you're looking at a number of our commercial areas citywide, including downtown, as well as the station district. And the proposal in the draft identifies that as a type one, meaning that's a department administrative decision with no public hearing or notice. similar as you walk down into the processing category the proposal includes in the various industrial areas and again a department decision cannabis producer indoor only outdoor be outright prohibited is in the draft proposed to be in our industrial zones Air Corridor and Air Corridor 2 is proposed in that, but a little bit different, and the next slide will cover that. Testing laboratory, similar, looking at our industrial and business park zones as a department administrative decision. As it relates to the Air Corridor, as you look at this particular code in today, It really focuses on agricultural and light manufacturing uses. Many of the cannabis businesses operate like an agriculture as well as an industrial like uses. So in the draft proposal, there is proposed to allow cannabis producing indoor only as part of the air corridor one and air corridor two zones. differently compared to the industrial areas elsewhere in the city what is being proposed here is a type 3 meaning this would be a conditional use permit after public notice and public hearing and the reason for that is allowing additional discretionary review and conditions of approval based on comments related to noise as well as JBLM compatibility related to them As part of state law and any development regulation that may impact military operations, we need to provide JBLM commander a 60-day notice to provide feedback. That was sent to them in July, and I believe that 60-day concludes September 27th. So we haven't received anything, but just wanted to flag that we did provide that notice to the base. And just here's a summary of that review and approval process I covered over previously in the distinctions between them. Again, type ones administrative by the department. Any administrative decision can be appealed to the Lakewood hearing examiner, but there is no public notice or hearing comparatively to. The draft proposal for the air corridor one and air corridor two zones that is proposed as a type three conditional use permit, which requires public notice in a public hearing. Key operating standards, a lot of the administrative rules set by LCB set forth a lot of operating standards for these types of businesses. The draft proposal mirrors a lot of that and the requirements proposed for whether you're a laboratory all the way to retailers themselves. When it comes to process and producers, it also sets forth odor control requirements and standards through the Department of Ecology. as well as when you get to researcher or testing laboratories, there's accreditation from the Washington Department of Agriculture as well. And just some parking standards. I won't go line by line here, but looked at our parking code, what similar type of parking standards as it relates to retail or industrial uses and mirrored that as part of the business itself. And then on the specialty licenses, again, recognizing the state has its own licensing that is required to operate a business if allowed in the city of Lakewood, but also an own city of Lakewood business license would be required. So recognizing you have to have both to move forward. in addition to this new chapter also recognizes the four license types in the draft proposal itself as well as protections if you violate any of those permit conditions you'll get your business license revoked you can go and appeal that decision but identifies the process for enforcement at the local level with that hopefully mr mayor that was a short reader's digest version and i'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you very much for that, Ms. Silva. Do you have any thoughts on, before we go into questions, what the Planning Commission, reasons for their decision?

I think health impacts.

You did talk about it at the beginning.

Yeah, three primary things. I think the testimony received that hearing was largely negative, meaning they were opposed to the legislation itself. So that played a role, I believe, as well. And some planning commissioners, this was not the first time this discussion came before them.

Yeah, I apologize.

I forgot you said that at the beginning.

Are there any more questions for Ms. Silva? Council Member Lindholm.

Thank you for this presentation. I'm hearing from the public. Do we have good numbers for how this impacts public safety? We've heard from our police a little bit on this, but I wonder if we have good numbers, if we have any studies, any anecdotal things.

great great question we did reach out to our partners and the Lakewood Police Department their crime analysts what they shared with us because it's not a legal regulated business activity they don't have crime statistics or calls for service what they did recognize is that we had a couple of legal gross and they're going through the the legal process for that but again illegal grows is not a regulated cannabis business I want to separate those two What the police department also shared was a couple of reports that is noted in the background material and hyperlinked on some state studies as it relates to property crime, crime statewide when the legislation shortly passed in 2012, but also more recently they did a 2025 report that started looking at the mental health of long-term use of cannabis. That is also summarized in the report itself, but... Overall, statewide, there's not a lot of data saying there's a significant increase in criminal behavior, property crimes, you name it, related to it.

Do we have any before and after studies from neighboring jurisdictions?

No, we do not.

Thank you.

Another question is from Council Member Laura Sella.

Thank you, Mayor. But I'm going to expand on Councilmember Lindholm's last question to start. So you listed three municipalities that have rescinded their bans. So Clark County, Pasco, and Linwood. Do we have any data on how that's gone for them? Have they devolved into mass anarchy or people burning down things in the streets? Or do we have any sort of feedback on how that's gone?

No feedback, but also no significant crime statistics. If you do a good general search of their website materials, you contact staff. What they're seeing, again, I'm not seeing significant.

Thank you. In terms of controlled-ish substances, does the city have any additional restrictions above state levels for alcohol sales?

In terms of buffer and siting requirements, no.

Uh, speaking of buffers, I think it's interesting that cities are allowed to establish things that are less restrictive than the state. Is that a common thing in other areas where usually the state sets rules and we're allowed to be more restrictive for certain things. Is that normal to have the opportunity to be less restrictive?

Are you referring to the buffer reductions? I would say, so this is my second time working on marijuana legislation since the state law passed in 2012. The first round shortly after, very fearful, didn't know what was coming. There was not a lot of data or statistics available on enforcement, you name it. At that time, it was a minimum of 1,000 feet. State law, I want to say circa maybe 2019, 2020, was changed to allow the reduction of buffers because oftentimes when you layer zoning as well as the mandatory buffers you become a de facto moratorium in many many areas when you start layering that cake so state law changed some jurisdictions did amend their code to drop it down to 500 100 and some didn't they stayed status quo

Okay, thank you for the lightning round. State law caps. So we could cap a number of licenses. Do we can we set a cap on the number of social equity licenses or is that not allowed?

The state law administers the social equity, so we cannot say this is much. But if we say 10 retailers or five retailers or three retailers in local code, that is a common trait in some jurisdictions.

Gotcha. So where we would have been allocated two regular licenses, if we set a limit of four, that would, by virtue, make that so two social equities maximum.

That is correct.

And then I saw revenue projections for retail. Do we have revenue projections for processors and producers?

No, because the sales tax is really sales tax generated. So part of the $200,000, we did assume license and permit fees generally for the other license types.

Perfect. Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. Oh, council member Pearson.

Brief question. So, um, I guess one of the, a couple of things here, um, It looks in this one of these attachments in the state fiscal things. It talks about the total excise tax collected back in 2021 was peaking at 555 million. And then since then, it's been pretty steadily going down. And actually, since 2021 has reduced down to 454 million. So. the notes in here indicate that signs of market saturation continued statewide market contraction you know i guess with those kind of typically i wouldn't be promoting businesses that are you know having significant um reductions in in numbers so that isn't super compelling for me um i You know, estimating for licenses and seeing this data here. I don't know if we would even get for licenses and maybe it would be one or two. And when you start layering on where it can really be cited. It can't be cited in an NC, you know, so it really is. Out into the the Pacific Highway kind of South Tacoma way area. And at that point. You're just like a four minute to six minute further drive from another place in Tacoma or out in Spanaway and stuff. And so I guess. Have we heard from like what is the problem that we're trying to solve here with this? I just don't see the specific problem that is trying to be solved here. Other than just saying yeah let's just do this, but like there's a lot of people that are saying the opposite of that, and so I don't see there's a lot of. Good information here to justify making a change when I don't i'm not connecting like the dots on like what the problem really is and what we're trying to do for the Community so that's just my something to think about.

Any other questions. I'll get that right. So I do have one question about the planning commission. Did the planning commission just solely focus? It seems like their response, their negative response to this was based on all on retail. Did they have any discussion about separating out and allowing testing, which seems to me kind of innocuous? production which has issues or the other thing that you mentioned did they did they have those separate discussions or do they just say no on retail because it seems like they their reasoning was they didn't want retail

It wasn't primarily retail. There was some discussion about smell for processor and producers, for example, but I don't recall their recommendation was solely focused on retail. It was cannabis businesses in general.

Any other questions? Thank you very much, Ms. Silva.

Okay.

city manager russell yeah just a couple things it produced a lot of stuff um but do you need to know if everyone's going to be available on the 21st to retake our council picture yeah be around 5 40 yeah okay we'll plan on that then and just wanted to hit the oak brook neighborhood association tomorrow night at 630. and we do have an executive session and i'd recommend 20 minutes for potential land acquisition and 10 minutes for pending litigation thank you very much any questions for the city manager okay council member comments council member talbo

I really don't have much in the interest of time tonight as well. I will save my council comments for next Monday.

Okay. Council Member Branstetter.

I would just say that I had the opportunity to go to the 911 remembrance meeting I was at the West Pierce Station in University Place. It was a good ceremony and it was as it always is.

Everything.

For those of us that were around on that day in 2001, you know, it's worth remembering being able to do that, recognizing that anybody who's under 30 these days has got a real memory of how that worked. But I did appreciate the speakers who sought not just to remember 25 years ago, but sought to bring context to today to it, including Mayor Boeke and a number of other speakers there that talked about the lessons for today that could be learned, not so much from the event itself, but from the aftermath of the events for our country And that hopefully to get back to where we were in 2004, in the aftermath, that we don't need another significant event like this to get some unity back in our country to be able to go and do that. So, yeah. Again, it was well worth going. Mr. Mayor, I had just two comments about the items proposed for the agenda next week. First of all, it has the approval of our goals and priorities for 2027 and 2028. And while we may have discussed those, I would... rather not have that just be a consent agenda item. I think it should be there that we should have and maybe have the opportunity to make some comments for public consumption about exactly why we chose those goals and priorities rather than just put them in the consent agenda. And then the other item is there is an item that says to approve an agreement on the Westlake process, but the agenda item itself doesn't say like they usually do who we'd be at approving an agreement with. And I just like to, at least have the agenda. It can be on the consent agenda, but I think it should be better explained what that would be. Thank you.

Thank you. I think we can move our goals down there because it looks like we only are voting on one other item. So we'll take care of that. Council Member Lindholm.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Knowing we're going into executive session, it's after 10, I'm going to hold mine for next week.

Council Member Lauricella.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be brief as well. So first, just to thank all our presenters tonight. Lots of really good content to go through and review. So I appreciate everyone's patience. The only other thing is on Friday, the Bridge to Hope Pierce County Suicide Prevention Summit is occurring at the Penmet Parks Rec Center out in Gig Harbor. It's from noon to seven. I plan to be there and encourage others to do the same. So spread the word. Thank you.

Council Member Pearson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will also be very brief and pass on comments tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will not be brief. No, yes, I will. I just wanted to say that I went to the 9-11 memorial service with the mayor and council member Branstetter on last Friday. And, Mayor, you gave an excellent, heartwarming speech. Really appreciated your words. So I thought it was very touching, and the whole event was very moving. I encourage everybody next year to attend if you can. And I also wanted to say thank you to all the presenters today, especially for the Arts Commission. Sorry, I'm always going to give an extra shout out for them. They are so amazing. And the work that they've done since I was on Arts Commission and how it's come like just leaps and bounds. They do amazing work and really bring some great things to our city. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. The 911 service was very, very nice, very well done. They really do have a very nice park there, Memorial Park at the West Pierce Fire and Rescue Headquarters. A couple of items tomorrow, the Oakbrook Communities Association. I'm going to try to make that. Friday is LTAC Day. That's the day we're going to get the presentations. I think it's in here. So we get the presentations and make the decisions. So that's a big day. Um, and, um, then Saturday I'm going to give a little, uh, welcome to Lakewood at the Fort Steilacoom Invitational, which is the, um, which is a big cross country event. I don't know. I have signed a, uh, a letter, uh, For the APAC, the Korean event at APAC. I don't know if anybody can make that on Saturday morning. It looks like about 11 o'clock. I want to tell Council Member Laura Stella, thank you for going to the suicide thing is a big deal. The council member Denson and her staff or CA have worked very hard on that. And it is very important. So I'm glad you're showing the flag there. With that, oh, I better read the We will recess into executive session for approximately 30 minutes. Do we need to break out the 20 minutes for pending litigation or no?

I believe that the script says 20 minutes for land acquisition. I would start with that. At the end of that time, I would come out and announce the next one.

Okay. So 20 minutes for pursuant to RCWRC 4230. At point one one zero one B to consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase when public knowledge regarding such consideration would cause likelihood of an increased price and for approximately 10 minutes. And then we'll come out and do 10 minutes to discuss with legal counsel, the agency litigation or potential litigation. And I'll announce that separately. Yeah.

And yes, that would be my preference. And I had discovered that the law is now even more constrained. You have to say what time you would come back out. And if you're doing 20 minutes, it's 1028 would be the time that you'll do that.

Yeah. Okay. So let's set, I mean, it'll take us a minute or two to get in there. So let's say 1030. Okay. Thank you.

Correct. So you're recessing for an additional 10 minutes. Thank you, mayor.