City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. The time is 7 p.m. on August 3rd, 2026. I call this meeting of the Battleground City Council to order. Please stand, if you can, for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance.

All right, clerk, could you please call roll? Mayor Overholzer. Present.

Deputy Mayor Vail. Present. Council Member McCoy.

Here.

Council Member Ferrer. Present. Council Member Munson.

Present.

Council Member Kuypers. Present. Council Member Bowman is absent this evening, and the clerk is present. That concludes the roll.

And I would entertain a motion for Council Member Bowman.

I move to excuse Councilor Bowman from the meeting tonight.

Second. All right. We have a motion by Councilmember Ferrer, second by Councilmember Munson. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimous. Move on to summary reports. Are there any Councilmember reports this evening? All right, hearing none. Been a quiet last two weeks. All right, we'll move on to the mayor's report. And first things first, good evening, everyone. Each month at our city council meetings, we take a moment to recognize the people, organizations, and businesses who work hard to make Battleground a better place. For our monthly Big Heart Recognition Award, we get to publicly thank those who have provided truly outstanding service to our community. And I encourage everyone to nominate a community member, organization, or business whose exceptional service, achievements, and contributions strengthen the spirit of Battleground. If you want to know more about the Big Heart Citizen Recognition Program and to make a nomination, please visit the city's website at cityofbg.org. And tonight, I'm proud to present this month's award to Liz Berrigan for demonstrating outstanding volunteer service as the concessions manager for the Battleground Little League. Miss Berrigan was nominated by Joshua Tax. Liz, would you like to come up to the podium and receive this nomination or this award? And I'll read the certificate out loud. I'll come present it to you. And then I'll give you a moment to speak on your own behalf if you would like to, okay? Big Heart Certificate of Recognition presented to Liz Berrigan. The City of Battleground proudly presents the Big Heart Award to Liz Berrigan in grateful appreciation of your servant's heart and your enduring commitment to the youth of Battleground Your example of kindness and generosity has inspired others to give, serve, and believe in the power of community. Through countless hours of volunteer service with Battleground Little League, you have become the heart of the concession stand and a champion for the league's players and families. Your generosity helps create opportunities, unforgettable end of season celebrations, and lasting memories for young athletes. Your tireless dedication, remarkable work ethic, and quiet acts of kindness have left a lasting impact on generations of players and their families. Thank you for leading by example and demonstrating that the greatest victories are found in serving others with a generous heart. Presented on this third day of August, 2026 by Mayor Eric Overhalzer in the city of Battleground, Washington.

Thank you.

I'm just honored to be here.

This is yours now.

And at least, yes, ma'am, you too.

Thanks. We kind of get it on social media, literally.

Thank you. Like I say, we're fortunate. Thank you again, Liz. All right, before we get down to our presentations, I just wanna make an announcement. If you are in an area with blue tape strike, please just make sure to keep that area as clear as possible. There is a room in the back corners of the wall, and I've been told that media, you're allowed to stay there. So you guys are okay. So next up, presentations. We have a Clark County Commission on Aging Annual Report. I'd like to introduce Mike Anderson, Vice Chair of the Commission, and Megan Anderson, Commissioner. Come on up.

First of all, I'd like to thank you, Mayor Overholzer and City Council, for allowing us to make this presentation. I'm Mike Anderson, and I think you know Megan Anderson, no relation, one of our newest team members of the commission. The Commission on Aging, also known as COA, is into its second decade of providing leadership, developing community awareness, and guiding positive change towards all age-friendly, livable communities. We are so pleased to be able to share a brief annual update with you. The purpose of this work session is to update the City Council on the Commission on Aging's work in 2025. Today we will, oops. I'll let you win it. Today, we will be sharing some background information about the Commission on Aging, giving you a high-level overview of the Aging Readiness Plan, or ARP, providing an outline of the Commission's 2025 focus on healthy communities and civic involvement, and to acquaint you with the 2025 Silver Citizen Award winner and share a summary of a few additional Commission achievements in 2025. To start off, we will give you some background on the Commission and review the work completed by the Commission in 2025. Clark County, as everywhere in the country, is anticipating a surge in the number of residents, 60 or better. By 2035, one in four Clark County residents will be 60 or older. With the knowledge of this coming change, the county council approved the original Aging Readiness Plan in 2012 and formed a nine-member volunteer commission on aging. The commission's charge is to provide leadership in addressing the special needs of the aging population, to manage and assist with the implementation of the county's Aging Readiness Plan, and to update the plan as needs change. That the aging readiness plan is a long range planning document that assesses the county's readiness to serve as a home for a growing number of older residents. The recommendations of the ARP focus on topics such as missing or lacking public infrastructure, support for social services and zoning and planning standards that encourage an age friendly community that older adults can thrive in. The 10-year update of the ARP was adopted by county council in September of 2023. To ensure that the plan reflected the community's needs, public engagement was a focus of the update of the ARP. It centered on what makes Clark County an age-friendly place and what opportunities and hurdles there are for making improvements. Engagement activities included a survey of older adults, focus group meetings with service providers and agencies, online input opportunities, and three public workshops to evaluate existing strategies, brainstorm ideas for new strategies, and prioritize the strategies for improvements in the community. The commission was honored to learn that the updated plan was awarded a 2024 Governor's Smart Communities Awards from the Washington State Department of Commerce. The Governor's Smart Communities Award highlight the effective implementation of the state's Growth Management Act and other local or regional planning procedures. The plan received the Judge's Merit Award, which recognizes success in more than one judge category.

The Aging Readiness Plan includes 18 goals that are implemented through 67 strategies. These strategies are intended to improve the community's capacity to support its growing older population and ultimately benefit all ages. The housing chapter provides strategies to address the various housing needs of the aging community, such as multi-generational living options and affordable units. It also supports construction that enables people to age in place, which generally means staying in their own home or community if their abilities change. The mobility chapter includes strategies based on the transportation and mobility needs of older adults. It outlines ways that older adults tend to travel and areas that could use improvement such as public transit, ADA accessibility, and others. The final chapter is on an emergency preparedness, which was added to the ARP during the update process of 2023. This chapter provides strategies that outline how older adults might be affected by natural and human-caused hazards and outlines ways the county can improve the health and safety of older adults and methods to prepare them for these hazards. Aging Readiness Plan implementation efforts in 2025 focused on healthy communities and civic involvement. The Healthy Communities chapter provides strategies that encourages opportunities in Clark County related to access to healthy foods, parks and recreation, and goods and services related to healthy living. It includes strategies to improve and expand access to resources by creating a welcoming and age-friendly built environment that serves all ages and abilities. The civic involvement chapter establishes strategies based on increasing older adults civic involvement within the county. It reviews ways that older adults can engage with their communities like working, volunteering, attending community events, participating in local government or advocacy work. The Commission began their forum series, which the Commission on Aging calls Fireside Chats, to guests and experts focused on providing access to healthy foods resources, which included information related to food and other resources offered by our local food banks and community gardens. They continued by hosting meetings with experts from Clark and Cowlitz Fire and Rescue, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Hope Dementia to find better ways to raise awareness of available services and support for those experiencing mental illness and those in a caring role. The partnership with Hope flourished in 2025, and the Commission on Aging is looking forward to fostering this connection in the future. The COA invited staff from the City of Vancouver to discuss opportunities for social connection and fitness. They shared resources and information about opportunities for older adults at the Marshall, Luebke, and Furstenberg Community Centers. The commission partnered with staff from the Area Agency on Aging and Disabilities for a discussion about wraparound care options for older adults who wish to maintain independence and age in place. This discussion included input from design doctors that included information on how older adults can continue to live in their homes comfortably and safely. The commission also explored social connection through a special joint meeting with the Clark County Youth Commission. The two commissions discussed cross-generational challenges around mental health and formed relationships that carried through the school year and continued with the Youth Commission Art Show. In partnership with Area Agency on Aging and Disabilities, neighborhood associations and other partner agencies, we shared and distributed best practices for reaching older adults. The COA also hosted a fireside chat with members from the Humane Society of Southwest Washington and explored the value of social connection between people and animals. Commission members also teamed with Hope Dementia and participated in the Stand Down event in October. These events occur locally all around the U.S. and are meant to connect homeless and at-risk veterans with comprehensive support services in one location. The local event is organized by the Clark County Veterans Assistance Center and is open to all veterans and their families. Commission members connected with visitors, provided a listening ear, and gathered feedback about the challenges facing veterans today. Earlier in the year, the COA welcomed area experts from both the private and public sector to discuss housing options for low-income individuals. And in the fall, commission members benefited from a presentation provided by the Clark County Assessor's Office regarding a special tax exemption option for seniors. In addition to the focus on healthy communities and civic involvement, the Commission on Aging presented its annual Silver Citizen Award. To encourage and support older adults and their contributions, the Clark County Commission on Aging established the Silver Citizen Program to recognize older adults who go above and beyond in service. The award recognizes the valuable contributions older adults make to the vitality of the community and is open to any county resident, 60 years or better, who has enhanced the community through their life's work, engagement of others, volunteerism, or impactful acts of service to the community for any age group. Recognition for 2025 was awarded to Sharon Wadke, President of the Board of Directors for Battleground Senior Citizens. She has actively served this group since 2018, and under her leadership, the group has expanded their roster from 90 to over 700 participants and serves over 200 lunches to area seniors monthly.

And finally, other commission work included members and staff giving presentations at several local community meetings in 2025. This included city and town council meetings, neighborhood groups, and advisory bodies. Commission members also provided a presence at meetings for the Washington State Council on Aging, Community Health Access Resources Team, and the Area Agency on Aging and Disabilities of Southwest Washington Advisory Council. They also co-sponsored a County Council Proclamation for Older Americans Month. This is the end of our presentation. We would now like to open for discussion and answer any questions you may have for us or discuss topics of interest for you.

I have a question. Thank you for the great information and for all the work you're doing for the seniors. Two things kind of came to mind. One is, like, is there any coordination or conversations that happen with some of the insurance companies that provide Medicare Advantage programs? I mean, they do a lot of things to kind of come in and check on. their Medicare population. I'm just wondering if there's any synergy that could be gathered between what they're doing and maybe information they have or something you're doing or information you have or... wondering if you're doing any collaboration with the insurance companies.

Well, excuse me. Well, next month, September, we have our planning meeting where we will discuss our next year's agenda for the year. And one of the things I'm going to try to bring to the table is that we need to involve more discussions with those groups under the healthy communities aspect of our aging readiness plan. This year, we're focused on housing and transportation mobility. So I think this coming next year, 2027, we'll be taking more of a look at health issues with the senior community.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. Mike and Megan, just thank you for taking the time to come give us that presentation, give us an update on everything you guys have been doing. It doesn't go unnoticed, the work that you guys are doing for the seniors and the aging population. I soon will be part of that demographic that you announced earlier before the presentation. Yeah, it's much appreciated, and also for recognizing Sharon, who here in Battleground has a tremendous impact for our local seniors and the work that she has done. So I just want to thank you guys again for your presentation. Thank you. Yeah, we'll see you next time. All right, that concludes presentations. We will move on to agenda approval. Does any council member wish to amend the agenda this evening?

I'll move to approve the meeting as presented. Second.

All right, we have a motion by council member Ferrer, second by Deputy Mayor Vail.

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. And on to citizen communications. So I'll now open the meeting up for citizen communications. As authorized under the council's adopted rules, the mayor may adjust both the individual speaking time and the overall length of the constituent comments period to ensure the orderly and efficient conduct of the meeting. Due to the number of individuals wishing to speak this evening, which I have on record, not counting any online, we have 26. Each speaker will have two minutes and we will go for the total public comment period of 60 minutes. This portion of the meeting is a limited public forum to receive input from the public. It is not intended for dialogue with the council. To help maintain an orderly and efficient meeting, please avoid conduct that disrupts the proceedings. This includes speaking out of turn, exceeding the time limit, creating loud or coordinated demonstrations, such as applause, cheering, jazz hands, or other visible or audible interruptions, calling out from the audience or otherwise preventing others from being heard. While all viewpoints are protected under the First Amendment, obscene language, derogatory remarks, personal attacks, or campaign speeches can create disturbances that interfere with the orderly conduct of the meeting Speakers are therefore asked to present their comments in a manner that allows the meeting to proceed efficiently and respectfully. Threatening behavior, intimidation, or any conduct that substantially interrupts, delays, or interferes with the meeting may result in removal from the chambers to protect the safety and order of the proceedings. If your remarks relate to an item scheduled for a public hearing, please wait to provide your comments during that designated hearing period. All comments should be directed to the mayor. The council may not be able to respond to individual comments and may refer citizens to a staff member for assistance. If due to time constraints, you are unable to provide verbal comment this evening, please submit written comments to the city clerk's office with the title of public comment or disbursement to council. The city manager has placed her cards at the podium. Feel free to take one if you would like to contact her with any questions. If you have printed material to submit for the record, please hand them to the city clerk seated directly to the right of the podium. Thank you for your cooperation and participation in the city council meeting this evening. Clerk, are there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to provide comment? I'll give you a sec. Go ahead, Liz. Any members on Zoom?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. We have two. Let me confirm. Yes. We have two members of the public on Zoom.

Okay. Let's go ahead and start with them. And that two-minute clock is ready to go.

Okay.

The clock or the...

And Jessica Cole, you are up first for public comment. Could you, I'm going to unmute you now and I'm going to start the clock. You have two minutes to speak this evening.

Thank you. Hi, I'm Jessica Cole. I'm asking you to vote no on invocations. The council needs to refocus on the business of the city. Residents want you addressing issues like RV parking, protecting residents at the mobile home park, and other local priorities, not spending time on divisive topics at the meetings. I've spoken with many Christians and clergy who do not want invocations at these meetings. They, like most residents, want peace, safety, and a government that brings us together instead of creating more conflict. We are tired of paying the consequences for unnecessary controversy. I'm also disappointed this discussion was scheduled right before National Night Out was planned, an event meant to bring our neighbors together. Instead, the mayor chose to take up another issue that has drawn outside attention and increased tensions in our community. Postponing it would have cost nothing and shown respect for residents. Put the focus back on serving Battleground and vote no on invocations. P.S. Due to the smoke, I do have masks for people if needed. Thank you.

Thank you, Jessica.

Next, we have Simon. Simon, I'm going to unmute you, and then you will have two minutes to speak. And you are now unmuted, and you may begin.

This is Simon. I do not appreciate the unnecessary stress and drama that your actions are causing the entire community. I want my city government to go back to being boring. Your choices are giving Battleground a bad reputation. This doesn't improve anyone's daily life, and so much time and money is being wasted from council meetings being consumed by issues that divide our community instead of focusing on the work you volunteered to do. On top of that, certain council member are not even prepared for the meetings that they signed up for. And enough of you are still moving forward with adding invocations. This doesn't accomplish anything besides giving people something else to argue about. You need to be making the community that you and I share better. It's never too late to pivot and change your approach. I would encourage you to rethink and maybe start listening to all of your constituents. Get back to doing the actual work of running our city. That's what I expect from my local government, and I think a lot of other residents do too. That is all.

Thank you, Simon. Ms. Clerk, are there any other Zoom participants for the public comment?

There are not.

Thank you, ma'am. We will go to in-house public comment. I will just start by the first one signed up and work my way down to the last. First up, we have Janine. And then I will go ahead and put somebody else on deck so we can keep it rolling. That is Stephanie K. Go ahead.

Good evening, council members. I oppose the resolution to open city council meetings with an invocation. My objection is not to faith itself, but to the government's role in endorsing religious expression. As a devoted Irish pagan, my tradition teaches that sovereignty and leadership is not granted by force or claiming divine favor. It is earned through justice, truth, and service to the people. The Morrigan, a goddess associated with sovereignty, truth, and the consequences of leadership, reminds us that a leader's legitimacy depends on how faithfully they serve their community. Old Irish tradition speaks of fair flaha, the ruler's truth. When leaders govern with honesty, humility, and fairness, the community flourishes. When power is used to elevate one voice above others, everyone is diminished. Whatever your beliefs, every resident stands equal before this council, which serves all faiths and those with none. No one should have to participate in or appear to reject a government-sponsored prayer before public business begins. I'll close with a peace prophecy attributed also to the Morrigan. Peace to sky, sky to earth, a cup over full, strength in each one, be it so lasting. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeannie. Next up, Stephanie Kaye, followed by Kate Lohr.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. I'd like to address the resolution for invocation. It's true that legislative prayer is commonly practiced and currently legal, but just because an action is legal and has precedent does not automatically mean it's a good idea or that we shouldn't question it. We already have the difficult task of agreeing about how to handle civic matters here. Religious differences are notoriously difficult to navigate. You don't have to look very far into history to find confirmation for this. Even groups of people who agree that Jesus Christ is their Savior have brutalized and killed one another over disagreements about how to practice their faith. And I'm talking within our lifetime. This is not that long ago. The United States Constitution does not mention God because the framers understood the wisdom of leaving religious beliefs out of governing. They were determined to prevent the conflicts and wars based on religion that were so common in Europe. This council would be wise to follow their example. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie. Kate, Laura, you are up, followed by Liz S.,

Good evening. My name is Reverend Kate Lohr, and I am a Battleground resident, and I rise in opposition to the prayer resolution. This is not because I oppose prayer. Prayer has a sacred place in my life and in the life of many of the people here. But a city council meeting is not a church service. It's a public space. But moreover, one of my greatest concerns is that this proposal is just one more piece of a Trojan horse you've been building bit by bit ever since you got elected, easing us all towards the goal of turning Battleground into a distinctly Christian town. where public policy is shaped by one religious worldview, yours. Battleground belongs to all of us. Let this chamber remain a place where every person who enters, enters as an equal citizen without the government elevating one faith over the other. Thank you.

Thank you, Kate. Liz, you are up, followed by Mrs. Clark.

Hello. Be honest, is anybody up there on one of these? This is probably, oops, sorry. My 11th coffee, because I... probably since 2006, when I went to get my master's program, I started carrying one of these around. And it also, because you'd open it up, page 22, exactly, the First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof and abridging the freedom of speech or press or the right for the people to peacefully assemble and to petition the government for readdress of grievances. Those first 45 words have protected freedom of conscious in America for more than two centuries. They begin by limiting the power of government, not the liberty of the people. And I'll leave you with the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson. There is no greater education than one that is self-driven. Thank you. Peace. And may your printer be forever out of cyan. Have a night.

Thank you, Liz. After Mrs. Clark is Gary Obermeyer.

Instead of invocations, I would like the city council to choose a moment of silence and reflection to begin their meetings. One minute to clear your minds and reflect on why you serve your community and how you can serve in a way that reflects your values. Everyone could choose how they achieve this goal personally. The goal should not be to perform your religion, to have alignment with local Christian nationalist leaders, or to make anyone feel included or excluded at their city council meeting. I appreciated that at the last council meeting, the mayor apologized for threatening violence against his coworkers. He later said something that I think he should now apologize for. After asking about the reported cost of citizen reactions to his proclamations, he commented, it's a tactic used to bog down our system and cost the city money so they can turn around and say, you're costing the city this money. In all reality, the narrative is skewed and I believe it's slightly twisted. Servant leading requires humility and maturity. The mayor's remarks at the last meeting displayed the opposite. Blaming your citizens, who your sole purpose here is to represent fairly, for holding you accountable was an attempt to silence those that see you playing favorites. A lot of us want to know why. Why are you approving divisive proclamations from Vancouver residents? Is it because you and your employers are working with them behind the scenes? Are you co-belligerents in the grasp for dominion? Battleground belongs to all of us and we will continue to hold you accountable. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Clark. After Gary Obermeyer is Jay Ale, A-L-L-E.

Thank you. My name's Gary Obermeyer. I'm a Battleground resident. And I'm rising in opposition to the invocation resolution. Given recent actions related to proclamations, I rather doubt that a majority of the council will seriously consider what I'm about to ask. However, it's my hope that you will at least recognize the divisiveness of your leadership as evidenced by a large turnout at council meetings, including this one. You seem more interested in fueling a culture war than in addressing actual needs of our diverse community. Several members of this council have publicly stated they felt called by God. That's all well and good. That's between you and your higher power. But I remind you that as representatives of the public, your oath is to the US Constitution and that battleground belongs to all of us. Thank you. Thank you, Gary.

Jay, you are up, followed by Wyn Gersuch. You're up next.

JAY ALLEN JR.: My name is Jay Allen. I'm a taxpayer and resident of Battleground. I've been for about two decades. We live in a constitutional republic John Adams said of this, our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. George Washington said, The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude toward the great author of the universe, whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. It is appropriate, therefore, that the city open each of its deliberative sessions by acknowledging the Lord in prayer. Thank you.

Thank you, Jay, and my apologies for getting your name wrong there. When you are up, followed by April Hull.

Hi, my name is Wynne Gursich and I am giving you, the mayor, to hang in his office, and hopefully he can do something about this. The sodium fluoride, this is a bag and it's got a skull and crossbone on it. I know your former mayor is a chemical engineer and he would know what a skull and crossbone is. And I actually showed this to one of the dentists that said, this is medicine. If you see this, you can overthrow this and change it to stop it. Because what this fluoride does, it mixes with the aluminum in the shots, the aluminum in the air. It makes floral aluminum, which is toxic to the brain. It's poison to the kids. And it causes Down syndrome. I'd like to know, does your city council pay a lot of money to... to the special ed, you know, the Special Olympics, considering I'd like to know how many Down syndrome children have been born since you passed that thing to put the poison in our drinking water. And I hope that your council could overthrow this because it can be stopped. This is another thing too. I brought a book tonight. It's called Wars on the Anunnaki. And this is Nuclear Self-Destruction in Ancient Sumner by Chris H. Hardy, PhD. This book is extremely important because it kind of blows away everything that we think we know. And this, they were talking about when this earth was formed, these aliens came down and this was in This was in 9,000 BCE. And they said the hills on, this is Gobekli Tepe. Well, I gave the papers to people. They said that when they checked this out, and they had built this underground bunker, and it was covered in dirt, and they're still excavating it. They haven't gone all the way through yet. But right now, Turkey was underwater.

That is your time. Thank you.

But do check out what I'm putting on public record and hang it in your office.

April Hull, you are up, followed by Judy Blevins.

Good morning, or good evening, sir. It's what happens when you work a long day. I would like to just express my concern the utmost care and respect that I can this evening. I am a pastor as well, and I understand this proclamation may be well-intentioned, but I worry that beginning council meeting with prayer risks making some members of our community feel included while others feel excluded. I also ask for you to consider what is driving the proposal in the first place. Why now? I know that the past cannot be changed, but we can choose not to create new divisions where there do not need to be any. If prayers are part of our meetings, who will be invited to offer them? Will participation be limited to Christian prayers or will people of all faiths and those with no religious beliefs be equally welcomed and represented? My hope is that we can make decisions that bring our community together rather than unintentionally creating barriers. We can honor people's deeply held beliefs while ensuring everyone feels respected, valued, and that they belong in this shared space of a beautiful battleground community. Thank you.

Thank you, April. Judy, you are up, followed by Troy Rasband.

Good evening, I'm Judy Blevins. In 1993, we moved to Battleground so my daughter could be a freshman in a school system in this new state. And Bob joined the American Legion post here. and we came the first time over to the event center to be planning this veteran's commemoration that he didn't get to see because he died June 9th of 2015, but I've gotten to enjoy it, so thank you. Now, with the constant flyers filled with hate for the candidates for the various positions, I say this for you and all of us. I read the Christ in Our Home, the devotional for Lutherans, and all spring and into the summer, I keep running across the same one. From Matthew 20 to 25 to 28, it's when the 10 male disciples were so upset that John and James had asked to be on the right hand of Jesus, in his right and left hand of Jesus. And Jesus responds, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. just as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Thank you, Judy. That's your time. Troy Rasbin, followed by Grace Jewett.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Troy Rasband, and I'm here tonight to speak out against the religious invocations that are being introduced. This is only going to promote disunity within battleground. It selectively represents only some of your constituents, and that goes against your duty. Let me remind this council that the very first sentence of the First Amendment makes this statement. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Allowing this invocation is the first step of many to promoting a single religion within battleground, and betrays the spirit of the Constitution. So let me say it plainly, we're here tonight to say we reject your hate, we reject your attempts at welcoming in Christian nationalism, and we proudly say battleground is for everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, Troy. Grace, you are up, followed by Bern Jeremiah.

Well, I want to thank you for allowing me to address you in the council. I am a Battleground resident. I've lived here for 23 years. I cried when the trees were coming down for growth. I enjoy celebrations of old cars in the streets and the thoroughfare. I love Battleground. I grew up in Aloha, Oregon, which was rural. And I have a father who was a staunch Republican. And to his dismay, he raised a daughter who's a Democrat. I come to you today because I love Battleground. And I want each of you to do your best, your best to hear us, your best to listen to what we ask. I'm not going to quote George Washington or Adams. I'm not going to read to you the First Amendment. I'm just going to simply say, I want all people in Battleground, including myself, to have the same freedom as each and every one of you. I do not have wealth. I have more wealth than people who do not have a house. I do have faith, and it is my faith, and I share my faith with others, but I do not want my politicians to be in charge of my faith. I want to leave that to God. And I ask you, Set your moral compass to be representatives, that you may listen to us and help guide Battleground to a very lovely, flush future, so that our children may be sitting where you are someday and listening to an old lady like me in their term.

Thank you, Grace. Vern Jeremiah, followed by Robert Dear Armando.

Dear Armando. Well, I've heard a lot of information here tonight. I want to read from the Founder's Bible. The entire history of the separation doctrine had been to prevent the state from meddling with, interfering against, or controlling the church's beliefs and religious expressions. Consequently, the separation doctrine was never used to secularize the public square, but quite the contrary. It existed to protect rather than remove voluntary public religious practices, as affirmed by the Quaker leader, Will Wood. The separation of church and state does not mean the exclusion of God, righteousness, morality, from the state. And that is why I am for the proclamation. Everybody in this room who has been talking about the proclamation hasn't read some of the ideas behind it. It doesn't say it has to be Christian. It could be other things also, even though I would like it to be Christian. The opposition to this resolution does not represent the God of light. If you have God first in your life, what comes next? If God's first in your life, then, well, how do you do that? You do that with prayer. The first thing Congress does when they open the chambers is to start with an invocation. If it's good enough for Congress, why isn't it good enough for the Battleground City Council? Let's see here. Let's put God first, which you and I know God expects. The invocation prayer at the beginning of each council meeting will be a blessing. I know because the Bible tells us so. I stand humbly before God on his throne here today, proclaiming that the success of the city council, the continued improvement, the fruitfulness of Battleground will flourish when Christian believers make invocations. All that is needed is an action of this resolution. Thank you. May God bless the city council. Make truth and God great again.

Thank you, Vern. Next up, Robert D'Armond, followed by Callie Cecilia.

Cecilia. Hi. I'm Robert DeArmond. I live in Battleground Mobile Parks. And I'm here to ask the city council to make either a referendum or some kind of law that keeps the park as a park and not have it, what's the word I'm looking for, re, what is it? Yeah, repurposed. Right. I don't want it to be repurposed, even though the... People that have it right now have it up for sale, and the new people, they're saying the new people are saying, oh, we want to keep it as a park, but they are investors, and I think we need to hold them to keeping it as a park. Not just this park, but we got three mobile parks in this town, and I think it should be done for all of them. Also, Clark County passed this so that they couldn't do that. And then I thought we're covered in Clark County, but we have to go from city to city to make a referendum and get you guys to pass laws or something to keep it from being, you know, taken down. This park has been here for 52 years and we have probably 400 people living in this park and they're all good citizens and, you know, I'm one of them and I'm here speaking for everybody, you know. So I hope you take this in hand and block from taking these parks out of here one by one, you know. Thank you. Thank you, Robert.

Kelly. And you can use the Yep. And we just need to switch on that mic. Are we good? It's on.

It's on.

Okay, thank you. Followed by Gabriel Silliman.

Should be here. Yeah, the other one down.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you, Alicia. Thank you, Liz. All right, Kelly.

I'm going to kind of same thing what my partner just said, but I want to put it into more sentimental. We have a lot of people in our mobile park and They have lived there and we've made it really nice. And these people want to be able to retire into these mobile parks and not have a big company coming in and tearing it down and make it into some fancy dancey stuff. All we're asking is please save our parks and let it become our senior parks. Because if you take these senior parks, what are we going to do? Where are we going to live? Where are we going to go? Because we all are on fixed income. I have about six, eight, seven people sitting behind me that live in our park. And All we want to do is save it and not have these big companies tear it down. And then we become homeless because we're on fixed income. Nowadays, you have to have three times the income. Majority of these people that live in this park do not make three times the income. So all we're asking is and begging is please. passed this thing that he had asked for. I can't remember it. I'm sorry, I'm nervous. Again, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Callie. Gabriel, you are up, followed by Debbie Gorslin. And I'll apologize now. I'm not the best with all the names. Go ahead, Gabriel.

Thank you, Mayor. I've come to support the invocations. I think it is pretty fantastic. I find that you are just modeling it after what has been a common practice in the House of Representatives for hundreds of years now. Prayer, in my humble opinion, has been a sacred tradition in this nation. And I think it's great that you're incorporating that locally. I think it's just fantastic. I am not really impressed by the protests outside. I understand it is their right, and some people have genuine concerns, but I do not view it as a way of forcing Christianity on the community. I believe prayer is voluntary on every individual. You can participate it if you want. No one is forcing you to do anything. Now with the protests outside, I said nothing, but some of them are Christians, and I can understand their thoughts. No attacks. And then others are, besides the Christians, there are godless people who Dress like nuns and talk like dogs.

Careful.

Sorry, sorry. I received various attacks saying F you and F your mother. It was awful. And I think they're wasting their time. I don't know why people are so concerned about this. Let them pray. After all, Battleground is for all of us, right?

Thank you, Gabriel. Debbie Gorslin, you are up, followed by Jim Mundy. Good evening.

My name is Debbie Gorslein, and I've been a resident of Battleground for 11 years now. And we've lived in the same home. And what brings me here today is to discuss the T-Mobile Metro net fiber optic installation in our neighborhood Windgate Crossing. We felt relief when you guys put a stop to it, because it just seemed to be chaos and an unprofessional way that they were installing the fiber optics. They weren't following what was approved according to Washington state law, RCW 43330532, It does not authorize mandatory fiber installation on private property without the owner's written consent. I had to do some research for this approved battleground authority approval over fiber installations on private property. It stated that back in November, 2025, the city council approved non-exclusive telecommunications to be installed only to the public right of way. It specifically stated the strip of land along the streets. Under RCW35.99, it does not automatically give the city the right to install fiber on private land that you own without written consent. So after multiple requests, T-Mobile and Metronet finally provided a permit that had expired 30 days prior. They never showed our sign utility easement plat map. And according to the Windgate crossing phase one plat map that was given to us at closing 11 years ago, the easements were not drawn through the middle of our yards. So Metronet and Fibernet, I mean, Metronet and T-Mobile, they actually damaged a lot of the sprinkler systems. And they're not going back and fixing the damage that they've done in the property.

That is your time. Thank you. I know that you can send an email in and our staff can respond to you on that.

Jim, you are up, followed by Colleen Eubanks. Hi, I'm Jim Mundy. I've lived in Battleground for eight and a half years now. I have the same complaint that Debbie had. And it's partly a city problem and partly a contractor problem, as I see it. The city, we did get a notice from the city a couple of months ago, actually, that said that they were going to come around and do installations. and that they encouraged us to mark our places in our yard and stuff where the pipes were and all that stuff. And then nothing heard. They said at the time that we were supposed to hear from the city before they started the actual installation. Well, unfortunately, the note from the city saying that they were about to install the stuff came two days after the installation started. So something went haywire in there. Secondly, the people from the contractor apparently didn't know where the easement was because they were just building stuff all over the place and carrying up people's yards. And some people had had their yards landscaped and everything. I just receded mine, my lawn. Fortunately, on our street, they didn't get around to it because people stopped them. But the problem is that nobody, there's a lot of miscommunication here. They didn't know where to install the stuff. The city never monitored it very well. In fact, I never saw anybody from the city there. And You know, the communication was just off. So something needs to get done. Thank you. Thank you, Jim.

Colleen, followed by Rena.

Hi, thank you, Mr. Mayor and honorable council members for this time and for your service. My name is Colleen Eubanks. I am a resident at the 55 plus mobile home park, manufactured home, excuse me, community here in Battleground on 7th Avenue. I am here to represent the recently formed tenant group within this community since receiving notice that the park was for sale. Our basic goal in this group is to preserve affordability and stability concerning our homes and community without displacement. Our options are limited. I may not have to tell you that MHC homes, the communities, are the largest source of unsubsidized, I'm sorry, unsubsidized affordable housing nationally, and that they offer affordable home, homeownership, housing, I'm sorry, I'm losing my place. They offer affordable home ownership for low and moderate income residents, especially seniors on fixed incomes and limited incomes. However, With all that, rising land values, lot rents, and the increase in the investor trends threatens our community stability and threatens affordable housing. High acquisition costs and competition from investors limits preservation options and timelines to reasonably find partners funding and sources and other resources as well. These things.

Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. Darn it. Thank you. Feel free to, you can send all that information into the city council. Very good. Through our clerk. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Rena, you are up followed by Stephanie Adams.

Hi, good evening. My name is Reena. I'm here because the contractors from the T-Mobile MetroNet fiber optic damaged our private sewer lateral with their bore machine while excavating our front yard on July 21st. Our home was left without functioning plumbing for several days. We could not use our toilets, showers, sinks, washing machine. Sewage backed up into our front yard, creating significant sanitation and health concerns. Sewer repair was completed by Henco Plumbing that Metro hired. Henco Plumbing was operating without permits, inspections, and proper supervision. Approximately seven feet of excavation beneath our driveway was filled, not compacted, and covered before any inspection could verify that the repair complied with applicable plumbing requirements. um johnny the building inspector looked into our photos and advised that a different type of coupling should have been used for the sewer repair because of this information we have a real concern that the repair may not comply with applicable code no one is responding to our emails or calls and as homeowners we now have severe a sewer repair permanently buried beneath our driveway a substantial portion of our driveway had to be removed to access the damage to the sewer line if that work was not completed correctly we could face future settlement cracked concrete, additional sewer failures, or even damage affecting the structure of our home. Those risks we should not have to carry because of the damages caused during a utility construction project that the city of Battleground allowed without any notice or supervision. Homeowners should not have to become construction inspectors simply to protect their own property. I respectfully ask that city to strengthen and over its oversight of the utility construction and to resolve this issue and ensure that all work was and is to be permitted, inspected and in compliance with the code.

Thank you, Rena.

Thank you.

Stephanie Adams, you are up next, followed by Drew.

Thank you, council, and thank you for the two-minute allowance. Battleground belongs to all of us, not just those of us that look like you want us to look, believe like you want us to believe, or love like you love. I rise in opposition to a bunch of stuff. I'm not that concerned about prayer. White Christian nationalists like to say that the US has always been a Christian nation. It hasn't. It never has been. You can reread the First Amendment if you want to double check that. My basic concern is that instead of doing the jobs that we need you to do, that you're here to do, that we pay you to do, you've chosen instead to waste time and resources and talent on proclamations, these things that are rambling. They are self-important. They're profoundly divisive. And ultimately, I believe that they boil down to this sentiment. We don't like you, and we really don't like you. And we are more than happy to offer you disrespect. We're more than happy to marginalize you. very positively put you directly in harm's way. And that's because we just don't like you. Two final thoughts. One, please just do your jobs. And two, Battleground belongs to all of us. Thanks.

Thank you, Stephanie. Drew, you are up, followed by Betty Carfee. I think that's correct.

Go ahead, Drew.

This is not a place for prayer. The chapel planned by the mayor's boss will be, you can go pray there or literally anywhere else. This is a place for people, not gods. There's no higher authority to invoke in this place than the community that it serves. And if you do not believe in that, if your faith won't allow it, then you're not fit to serve this community. We are not a Christian nation, and this is not a Christian city, despite what the mayor's boss and the fascists downstairs might think. Do not pass resolutions 2604.

Thank you. Thank you, Drew. Betty, you are up, followed by Quinn Milionis.

This is regarding the prayer and invocation.

Ma'am, can you pull the mic down just a little bit? Thank you.

Restart. Restart my time? Thank you. Regarding the invocation, to whom will you be praying? Christian, Rastafarian, Muslim, Christian nationalists? My next question, will the speakers be restricted by the council as to what they can say? For example, can I draw a pentagram on the floor? OK, so if you need an invocation, I've got one for you. Treat one another with dignity and respect. Practice kindness in our daily lives. Extend compassion to those who are struggling. Seek understanding across differences. Support the well-being of our neighbors. Work together to strengthen them, the bonds that unite our community. And if that sounds familiar, those words are from a proclamation presented to you a few weeks ago, which you declined to use. And since I had time left, I got another one for you. Oh Lord, kindly forgive my wrong actions, done knowingly or unknowingly, either through my organs of actions, perceptions, or my mind. Glory unto thee, O Lord, who is the ocean of kindness. That's a Hindu prayer.

Thank you, Betty. Quinn, you are up, followed by Peter.

Good evening. My name is Quinn Miliones. I'm a father of two young children, and I live near Northeast 10th Street and Grace Avenue. Main Street is less than a mile from our neighborhood, but Grace is a busy two-lane road with no continuous sidewalk, almost no usable shoulder, and poor visibility. Walking or biking there, especially with young children, is prohibitively unsafe. The need has already been documented and the city's 2022 non-motorized transportation action plan identifies Grace Northeast First as a significant gap. Since then, the farmer's market, Allen Ernie's and new housing developments have added significant activity and traffic to this corridor. The park's master plan also envisions the Fairgrounds Park as a recreational hub with a new bike pump track and future trail connections. What makes this issue especially relevant and frustrating, frankly, is that Grace is undergoing significant reconstruction right now, but without a continuous sidewalk or bicycle lane. The city is rebuilding a road for decades of service while simultaneously planning a recreation hub beside it and encouraging growth in Old Town. I understand from city engineer Ryan Janes that funding is not currently available and I'm not asking the city to fund any construction tonight. But I would like to understand why this known safety need was not addressed when the recent project was scoped. I'm asking the council to direct staff to assess the feasibility and cost of a continuous pedestrian connection between Main Street and Northeast 10th. whether along Grace, Fairground Avenue, or the Railroad Corridor, and to report on how a future transportation program could be worked out there. The connection would make Battleground safer and more family-friendly, support local businesses and recreation, and reduce pressure on traffic and parking. Please consider funding that initial assessment. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Quinn. Peter, you are up, followed by Cindy Applin.

Thank you, counselors. I think you should get an award for encouraging public participation in county council processes. But I would just like to take a minute and give an example of one of the prayers you're talking about and just say, Lord, we just want to take a moment to acknowledge you and beg for your blessing upon us, our parents, our counselors, and our community. Who could possibly find a fence in such a prayer? Surely it's non-denominational. It would be non-offensive to anybody that is in the community and goes to one church and doesn't go to that church, doesn't want to acknowledge me as their pastor or even in their denomination. If somebody doesn't go to church at all and doesn't believe in God at all, what offense could they possibly incur? If there's no God, what offense is a prayer really? They can just pass on and let it go. Just like Christians do in something they don't agree with. You just let it go and acknowledge other people. You have the right to do it. So I actually got the privilege of coordinating invocations at the county council 12 to 10 years ago. And there wasn't a problem. We had a wide range of participation from many denominations, even from denominations that weren't Christians. It was completely voluntary. They were invocations that were given to bless and encourage the council. They were not proselytizing. They were not allowed to denigrate any other denominations. I believe it's a blessing to this council and a blessing to the community to take a moment to acknowledge God, whatever your denomination is, if you're in the community. And I encourage the council to proceed with some kind of indication. Thank you, sirs. Thank you, Peter.

Cindy, you are up, followed by Thea Marie.

Hi, my name is Cindy Applin. A lot of you have probably heard from me lately. I've written several emails.

Cindy Applin, Can you hear me okay.

Cindy Applin, Okay, my name is Cindy apple and a lot of you have probably heard from me lately i've written several emails about the metro net T fiber T mobile. Cindy Applin, And they did try to enter my property, I have had no notice they tried to install this. At this point, our neighborhood is all marked up. We have no next steps. I did finally receive a notice just the other day. I would like to know not only about this project, but about for future projects. So if they are able to enter and an easement is established, what kind of damage and liability are they going to be held for if they create damage on my property? And what about these gray areas? I hear about driveways. There's probably others. And so if this project moves forward, when can I expect the next project? You know, I expect that when I bought this home, that the easements, if they were on the plot mat, which I haven't seen that there is any easement drawn on the plot mat, what I've seen is a little space that said the contractor could install essential, you know, water, electricity, you know, cable. And I don't look at cable really being this fiber optics, but let's say that you umbrella under there. What's to stop the next company to come in and want to install another fiber optics? And so my understanding also is that they're tapping into CenturyLink. I have CenturyLink. I'm happy with CenturyLink. We've all been there since 2014, 15, right in there when the neighborhood was built. And we all have established utilities. No one's asking for this utility. No one wants the damage. No one wants the liability of the damage. What they have zoned for my house is coming up one street, coming over, coming into my yard, supposedly under my driveway, into someone else's yard. i worry that i'm going to be like those people back there that just talked about their driveway and having sewage run down my yard thank you thank you cindy last but certainly not least pia marie

We know you love it. Hi, I'm Sister Fia Marie, ordained nun in the Church of the Holy Molies. I come here tonight to pray for this council. O merciful Lord, we ask that you look down upon Mayor Eric and provide him with the oxygen and comfort he must need with his head so far up the Spiller brothers' buttholes. We would also ask you look over Victoria as she struggles suppressing her ever-growing urges for Eric and ask that you bless her with a litany of excuses to provide her husband and her children for why she spends so much time alone. We ask that you grant Amy the strength to finally come out of that closet she's been cowering in her entire life and live authentically as the butch chapstick lesbian you so intended for her to be. We ask you watch over our friend, Troy McCoy, as he charters his boat to and from Canada, smuggling fentanyl and undocumented migrants. Oh Lord, we asked that you watch over shame, but in a purely platonic sense, you know, not the way that once and looks over. Eric. We asked that you. You know. We just ask that you watch over our community more than anything else and protect it from the fascist, right-wing, fear-mongering bigots. We pray for marginalized peoples, for the undocumented, for brown and black families and voices. We pray for queer and trans people, for anti-fascists and anarchists fighting against systems of oppression. We pray for another flood, but one of rebellion and revolution led by the very people that this and our federal administration have placed under attack. God bless anti-fascism, God bless Antifa, and goddamn imperialism, colonialism, and fascism. I'm also your local fluoride representative. Good to see you, Wynn.

Thank you, Fiat. And that concludes our public comment. I'm sorry. We're beyond time. We're beyond time. But thank you. I believe we're in beyond time. Is that correct? We have two minutes.

We have two minutes.

We have two minutes. Please state your name when you come up to the mic and pull that mic. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kayla Boomhauer. I live here in Battleground. I am a small business owner here in Battleground. I'm heavily involved in a lot of different volunteer opportunities here in Battleground. And I had no intention to come up here and say anything today. I was actually here to support my dear friend receiving the award at the beginning of this meeting. Since I've been here... I received a text message from my husband that I just feel compelled to share quickly. He took our seven-year-old son to Chipotle this evening here in Battleground and shared with me that the trans employee behind the counter hooked up his burrito with lots of chicken and was extra nice to our son and him both. And they said to him, You guys are always so kind and nice when you come in and it makes me happy. And my husband replied, well, thank you. Thanks for the encouragement. Jesus tells us to love and show kindness to everyone. So we just keep trying to spread it. And the individual smiled and said, well, thank you. So it just breaks my heart to sit here and just watch this room be full of so much hate. Because that's not what Jesus represents. And if your understanding of Jesus is anything other than that, then you've got it wrong. Prayer is for everyone, no matter what your walk of faith is. I'm not a religious individual, but I am a follower of Jesus. And I just want you guys to, I just want to encourage you all to just love one another. There's people here with real issues that are dealing with sewage in their yards, and we're up here arguing about prayer.

Thank you, Kayla. All right, we are moving on to the consent agenda that will close our public comments. Does any council member believe any items need to be withdrawn from the consent agenda?

Move to approve the consent agenda in its entirety as presented.

Second. All right, we have a motion. Council Member Munson, second by Council Member Ferrer. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

We have, please state on the record, we have one no. Deputy Mayor Brown. All right, on to business. Let's get down to business. All right, Liz, are there any communications submitted regarding business items that have not yet been provided to council?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, ma'am. We'll move on to resolution number 26-04, invocation at city council meetings. We have a presentation. Deputy city manager, Rob Ferrier, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, mayors of council. At a prior meeting, the city council directed staff to place this matter of adding an invocation for future meetings on the agenda for further discussion. Staff has previously provided information to the city council curated by MRSC on the topic, as well as information provided by the city attorney. Opening a public meeting with prayer or invocation is legally permissible practice. The US Supreme Court most recently addressed the matter in 2014 in town of Greece, New York versus Galloway. Ruling that prayer doesn't violate the establishment clause of the United States Constitution. A draft resolution that was prepared by the city attorney's office with input from staff was attached to the staff report. That closely tracks the model that is employed by the county on the matter. Staff request the council provide its policy direction. I would also note that city attorney Harper is on the Zoom meeting and available to address questions regarding legal practices that the city council may have. That concludes our presentation.

All right, gang, please use your keypads as you would like to chime in. I am looking forward to that. All right, we have council member Ferrer.

I'll just ask if we can put that resolution up. Do you think that would be?

Can we get the resolution up, please? I'm looking at it on my. Yes, give me one second, please.

Before we get started. in case Council of Peer wants to direct. And that way the audience can see that it is open for all denominations. It's not just chosen Christianity. It's for even non-believers.

Megan beat me to the punch. Thank you, Megan. She's quick. Look at her.

All right. I hope everyone had a good chance to review this in their packet earlier and have their questions prepared. I have one. I'll go ahead and ask. And this could be for Rob or it could be for Ken. Section 2 may be offered prior to the City Council's regular business meetings on a rotating first-come, first-served basis and be provided for no more than one minute on the voluntary basis by people affiliated with local faith-based organizations and ministries. As an alternative, a group or individual having no religious affiliation may request the opportunity to offer a brief statement to reflect on the gravity of the moment, seek peace for the nation. wisdom for its lawmakers and justice for its people. And it goes on from there. Ken, in your opinion, does that show any bias to one group of faith or religion?

Well, Mr. Mayor and council members, it's certainly not intended to. It is written to be as broadly based as possible. The difficulty that we see in some of the cases is when a person espouses beliefs that may not be recognized as a traditional belief. denomination, if you will, but maybe sort of less clearly institutional religion, but nevertheless strongly held. The idea behind Section 2 is to make sure that there won't be a litmus test for whether or not a belief is established. But if a belief or even a, I guess, almost a non-religious viewpoint or a non-religious desire for wisdom, for harmony, for progress, if those sorts of things are motivating the speaker, then that should be allowed to be heard. So that's, I can't really express a personal opinion, Mayor, on whether it reflects bias or not, but it certainly isn't intended to. I guess that's the best way I can answer your question.

No, thank you, Ken. That does answer my question. Just to clarify, we're not trying to show any bias in the presentation of this invocation, but as a matter of fact, trying to show no bias in that. It's open to all. That is certainly correct. Thank you. One last point of clarification. It says at the beginning of the regular business meeting, would that be after roll? Before Pledge of Allegiance, where are we talking about in placement?

Yeah, you know, that's a good question. I don't know that I've got the answer for that. I think I would talk with the clerk and city management about where they think it would make the most sense. Certainly, if the council has views on that, you'd be welcome to share them tonight. But I don't think from the constitutional perspective, it really matters. And you're right, it probably could be made clearer what that phrase specifically means. I don't have a better answer for

Thank you, Ken. One last point I have on this. So I think it would be a good idea in Section 2 to put a little bit more clarification in the timing of the agenda or business meeting. And then the last thing I have is I think it would be a good idea to have three minutes on the timer on the voluntary basis, not one minute. One minute, as we see in public comment, one minute, two minutes can be fairly brief. I think two or three minutes would be a little bit more offering of people's time and being able to convey their encouragement of our proceedings. That's my input. Anybody else?

Yes. I have questions and comments.

Please take it away, Judy.

Okay. A few questions. You were making a suggestion or asking the question just now, Mayor, about kind of a, for lack of a better term, maybe a benign and what would that mean or look like? My question to Mr. Harper is, is that would such a maybe crafted statement and delivered on a regular basis be an acceptable form? I don't know that we've talked about Um, kind of a standard prescribed prescribed prayer or invocation as an alternative. It seems like we've talked about moment of silence. We talked about opening it up to prayer, but what is the opportunity around crafting a statement that is more conducive to all of our citizens involved?

Well, Council Member, I think that simply represents a policy choice. So as such, I really don't feel like I can have an opinion on that. It would presumably be acceptable if Council chooses to have sort of an opening invocation that it may agree upon. However, that's not really the concept behind legislative prayer policy. that's been sort of expressed through the cases. And the reason I say that is because there is an element of the First Amendment's free speech clause that suggests that the opportunity of individuals to actually come and petition and present their views is part of what legislative prayer means. So again, I'm not suggesting that you couldn't have a council invocation that is essentially, you know, established by the council. But I think we might really look carefully at that because the First Amendment has both a free speech clause and an anti-establishment clause. And we would want to be very careful that in adopting a sort of a rote or an agreed upon invocation, that that doesn't get closer to the anti-establishment clause. So again, back to the point, the principle being that there shall be no established prayer by the government, so to speak, So if that's the policy direction of Council, we would be happy to look into that further, but that is a little bit different from the sort of the traditionally received view of legislative prayer, which I think is pretty accurately reflected in the proposed resolution.

Okay, thank you. I guess I would wait to see if council has any other thoughts or interest around that. I have a couple other questions. So in the process, A requester puts in there, makes a request to give an invocation and we've given some guidelines. So someone, some staff member, or maybe it's mayor, or I'm not sure who the next person in line is to have to take that information and discern whether it really falls within the guidelines. And if it doesn't, then is it up to that staff member? Is it up to that council member to go back to that person who's submitting that and say, sorry, this doesn't work. And then have this back and forth conversation about what's appropriate according to our resolution and what isn't.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Well, you go ahead.

I'm sorry. I thought you'd finished. I apologize.

With that one, so go ahead.

Okay. Well, no, no, it typically would not be the role of staff to review and evaluate or sift acceptable requests to do an invocation from unacceptable requests. Coming back to the mayor's question, that's really partly why it's worded so broadly. The concept would be That if a person wishes to make an invocation, they make the request on a first come first serve basis those requests will be processed and Well, honestly, we're putting a degree of confidence in the responsibility of people who wish to make these invocations. It would be a concern if the staff were in the role of vetting the invocations, deciding which ones should proceed and which one should not. You will not see in our proposed resolution any prior review or approval process. If a person sincerely believes that they want to come before the city council and make an invocation, as long as it meets the very general criteria that we have in the resolution, then the policy expressed in this resolution is that it would be allowed.

And then what happens if the person that's presenting What if it doesn't, or what if we think it's going to, and it's, uh, you know, the person just steps out of line. What's what happens at that point? Are we interrupting them in the middle of a prayer?

Well, that, that, okay. That comes to a different issue of law that comes to whether or not a, uh, a person, uh, uh, uh, speaking to counsel. appearing before council creates an actual disruption uh the the test for actual disruption and uh and removing individuals from the dais or the lectern is is very different uh it it doesn't relate to the content of their ideas uh it certainly would not relate to the uh sort of the the denominational integrity of what they may say. It doesn't relate to the sincerity of their beliefs. So to a certain extent, in fact, really to a great extent, if the council wishes to allow invocations, the council is also accepting that individuals may use that invocation opportunity in ways that might be offensive to the public, might be offensive to individual council members. I don't think there's any way around accepting that we would need to permit individuals to come speak as they see fit. And as long as, again, council members, as long as they generally conform to these very broad criteria in the resolution that would be permitted.

Thank you. I appreciate the work that's been done on this. I think obviously it was given a lot of thought and there's a good writing in it. I'd like to go ahead and just give my thoughts on the whole thing since that's what we're here for. You know, there's nothing more that I would like to do than to stand together in unity and to share a time of prayer for our residents, our city and our council. And I also respect the differences of faith that are among us and within our city. Unfortunately, in the current environment, I'm more concerned about Invocation becoming a lightning rod for more controversy and for social media distractions, adding more distractions to the work that we're trying to do here. I believe we need a cool down period and we need to refocus the business of the city And so tonight, the way the resolution's written, I would be voting no for that. I am in favor of looking at an alternative of having a moment of silence. I feel like we have large contingents of people who have said that they are for and a large contingency of people who have said they're against. And again, we're not gonna make everyone happy. We've heard a good amount of input from both. And in my mind, that is maybe the only way that we can offer a solution that's workable to everyone and can help yet keep us focused and not have it become an administrative burden. Thank you.

I was gonna say, I'm waiting. All right, go ahead, Amy. Sorry, Deputy Mayor Vail.

Thank you, Mary. Um, so I would like to echo what you said earlier, which was in section two, it talks about, um, invocation. may be offered prior to the city council regular business meeting on a rotating first come first serve basis. So when I made the original motion asking staff to draft a resolution for this purpose, it was specifically to occur after the meeting was called to order and directly before the Pledge of Allegiance. And so I would like the resolution itself to reflect that language so that it is done in the meeting itself. Again, it's voluntary basis by people affiliated. There's alternates in here and there's also any group or individual may request a moment of silence and place an invocation if they so choose. I've also heard other people mention reading poetry and other things that they would like. It's not my goal to push my personal religious beliefs on any person in this gallery. Or do I believe that it's the intention of the rest of the council to do so? So I prefer the writing here in section two and section three. I agree also that I would like the invocation to be three minutes. I think that one minute is too brief, as I know we've all experienced when we do speak. Before I was on the dais and I spoke, it was very, very difficult to have time under three minutes to be able to even formulate an opinion and speak on it. So I think three minutes is acceptable as well. With those changes made, I would like to move to adopt this resolution.

Council Member Munson, the floor is yours.

Is there a second on that motion?

Oh, sorry. Pardon me, Vaughn. Second. Let's go back to discussion.

The floor is yours now, sir. All right. Thank you. After listening to Deputy Mayor Vail and the intent that she had versus what we see today, I would actually prefer to see the resolution as it's intended before we move on it. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. And the reason why is I don't want to vote on this if it wasn't written the way it was intended, and then we get it back and it's still incorrect. I just want to make sure it's 100% correct before we make a decision. I guess I should have clarified that.

Well, and I think the minutes will reflect the desired changes that are being proposed and motioned. So if it's not right, it needs to be, that would be a Scrivener error at that point, I believe.

The minutes, there is no consensus and the minutes will only reflect the fact that this council has had discussion other than the fact that the motion has been made and seconded. Consensus has not been displayed across the council.

Well, my point of that is her motion in that motion clearly stated the changes that she would want to make in the amendment to the current resolution. So I think that would be part of the motion, would it not?

No, Mr. Mayor. The motion that was made was to adopt this resolution.

With the changes that she had mentioned.

Oh, my apologies. I did not hear that.

Thank you, Liz.

I am happy to restate for clarity if that would be helpful.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Absolutely. The changes I would like to see made first are in Section 2. i believe that this needs to state uh i'll wait till we get there okay so um the invocation may be offered instead of saying prior to the city council's regular business meeting it needs to say uh shall be offered after the meeting is called to order and immediately prior to the pledge of allegiance The portion that states the city councilor's regular business meetings on a rotating first come first serve basis and so on is accepted. One minute needs to also be adjusted to three minutes. And that also is shown under section four, subsection four, in which it also repeats may not exceed one minute in length. So with those particular changes, changing the time to three minutes and also for the moment of silence, if one so chooses to do a moment of silence instead of an invocation, that should also be three minutes in length. That should be an equal time given. And again, should occur after the meeting is called to order immediately prior to the Pledge of Allegiance.

And just for further clarification, Deputy Mayor Vail, the option to move to the moment of silence, if so, choose, would you put that under section four, five? Where it lists the kind of criteria, or would you put that up in a different section? Just so we know where exactly staff would draft that, if so be.

Section four, as it states, invocations or statements. I would like to amend that language to also just say invocations, statements, or moments of silence.

I think that would- Staff understands the motion as made.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Rob. Council Member Frey. It is now your floor.

I won't take much time. I wish we would have had a little bit more time to ask more questions. I feel like it's worthless now because there's a motion on the floor. Um, cause I would have liked to talk to Kenneth about, um, Mr. Harper, some questions, but I guess it's no, it's fine. Um, I guess what I would then, um, If we could scroll up to, I think it's section three, please. Yes, thank you. It says one time per calendar year. I was just wondering if, and we've already got a motion on the floor, but I would have liked to have some kind of discussion on if council believes that maybe that could be changed to twice per calendar year, considering there's 24. 22 thank you Chris miss Swanson and I Okay, I'll just ask it. Can we scroll down to section four, subsection five? And I forget who I brought up it. I do apologize if it was you, council member Pipers. And the question, or maybe it was you, Deputy Mayor Vail. I can't remember, but One of the concerns was how do we, yeah, I think it was, if we had, and this is for you, Mr. Harper, a question that I'm looking at, subsection five, all invocations shall be positive and uplifting. During an invocation, the cleric or other individual shall not, la, la, la, la, la. Thank you. Then a great or other, any other faiths or beliefs, including non-believers, threaten, damnation, all of that, right? You can read that. Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful and read it. You know how to read. You're a grown man. Could we not be holding the individual to that standard, considering, like you said, we're, it's... when they come to sign up through the city manager's office, when they're making this request, would that not be something that we are, some of the guidelines requirements that if you are going to partake in our meeting and in this invocation period, these are the standards that we have. And if you do not meet those, well, then we could, you know, Hey, let's like how we do other, it is a little, I understand it's a little different than citizen comments, but even then we have guidelines for them on what they can and can't do to an extent.

Very good question, Council Member Ferrer. You're hitting on a point that is sort of every first-year lawyer's eye-opening experience in constitutional law, and that is that even things like the First Amendment are not absolute, and concepts that seem reasonable and realistic and can be taken to extremes. And when they are taken to extremes, the constitutional analysis sometimes changes. So to respond a little more directly to your question, if the city manager received a proposed invocation that had no purpose other than to isolate and denigrate a specific viewpoint, or just to be even more blunt, a particular religious perspective, denomination, a particular doctrine that would call for some kind of further analysis. I hate to say that the staff would play a role in gatekeeping these kinds of invocations, but History teaches us that some individuals will use the opportunity to express essentially pure hate. And if that's what is coming before the city in the guise of an invocation, that would not be appropriate. By the same token, really at the opposite extreme, I suppose, proselytizing is not the purpose of an invocation. So I said earlier that if the council wishes to get on this path, it's just unavoidable that you're placing a degree of confidence in the wisdom of individuals who want to use this opportunity. There may be people who wish to test that, and it's going to be a very fine line. There are cases around the country, including in the Ninth Circuit, where beliefs that I think most folks at the dais and probably in council chambers would find to be very hostile to their viewpoint have nevertheless been required to be allowed because those beliefs do not strictly denigrate and they do not proselytize. They just seem very, very foreign to a sort of a Western traditional religious viewpoint. So, Councilman Ferrer, I think the best I can say is that it is true that a religious invocation should not be allowed that solely is being offered to isolate, denigrate, and attack, if you will, a specific identifiable belief. But that's a slippery slope, and I would not really be advising counsel correctly if I said that I would expect very many opportunities to essentially restrict the use of this invocation opportunity. by far the majority of instances, even with very, very heterodox or unorthodox beliefs, is that they should be allowed because the non-sectarian principle behind allowing these invocations is just permanent. It is absolutely essential that folks from really any religious tradition or no religious tradition have an equal access to make these invocations.

Thank you for that, Mr. Harper. I, I think what I'm to conclude is that I would hate to see anybody coming up here and using this invocation period as a time to hate on any nonbeliever or believer of any, you know, standing. So I just want to make sure that if there is, like you said, this time is used for pure hatred to start condemning believers, nonbelievers, people of other faiths that we have an opportunity to, you know, say this was not what this purpose was for. It's clearly in our guidelines and you're working outside that guideline.

Well, let me just add though, because I think Council Member Kuyper's question raised this point as well. And I want to be careful about this because if If an individual comes to the dais and has gone through the invocation process according to the procedures that we've established in this draft resolution and then begins to veer in his or her three minutes, I get back to what I said earlier. It really then calls upon the council to tolerate that speech subject to the actual disruption concept. Because once that person begins speaking, it is not going to be the... the role of the mayor or the council to decide that the doctrinal purity of the speaker is now lacking or that it has verged from acceptable invocation to something that is denigrating or proselytizing. In other words, I think once that invocation begins, unless it is just truly disruptive, it would likely have to be allowed So, Council Member Ferrer, I think the point you're raising is could that be anticipated and stopped before the speaker begins, I think that is true. I mean, I think if the city manager is presented with an invocation that, just to be very specific, is just solely focused on denigrating a religious viewpoint, then I would expect that that person wouldn't be allowed to even approach the dais in the first place. But once that person begins speaking, it really is going to be very difficult, I think, for counsel to then say, well, well, you've gone too far. You need to stop because that's a different branch of first amendment law at that point.

Okay. The only other thing I see here, I'm I was just looking over Clark County Council's invocations, which it does, I see there an individual group can request the opportunity to schedule an invocation by calling the city manager's office by phone. There is a handy little tab on the Clark County Council, if you just search Clark County Council Washington invocations, where the presenter can sign up and request a date. And then I'm not sure how the process works because I've never signed up for an invocation with Clark County Council. But it does allow them to put their name, organization, if they so choose, the date they're requesting, their phone number and email address. And I would think that would allow people to, instead of us fielding calls on the one-off, to look at that and fill the schedule and say, hey, you've been approved for this date, or I'm sorry, that date's not approved. The next soonest date that we have is this date. And in the invocation tab, it has a phone number for information. It also has the invocation guidelines as a quick link on there as well. I kind of like the look of that just because it's a little bit easier and user-friendly than everyone just making a phone call if, you know, Uh, we want to look at that as well. I know we already have a motion on the floor, but, um, I'm not sure as a second of the motion I can offer an amendment, but, um, I'm not sure if our IT department could whip something up easily or, um, but I like the idea of that as well. Uh, that way it's not just a phone call to get on the schedule, but it's, uh, it looks like a much more user-friendly, um, thing. And they have a little capture here at the bottom to ensure you're an actual human being. Um, so we don't get inundated with Robo. So I'd like to offer an amendment to your motion, if you're open to that, that we add a link on our website with a small page dedicated to the invocations as part of this, and then it outlines and has a link in there for our guidelines to be easily looked upon, and it allows them to have a fill form. and put in their own requested date, and then we can respond back to them. Or maybe it'll even be put on a calendar that shows these dates are already full. It just makes it real easy.

I'll second that.

All right. I have Councilmember Munson.

Thank you, Mayor. So just to be clear, your amendment is to add the website and all of the previous information that Deputy Mayor Vale Correct. Has added.

Yes. I just want to make sure that we're clear to the clerk what the motion is. Yeah, I'm asking to amend the existing motion and just add this, leave all the other language the same. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. And I had a second, I believe. Okay. All right. So we have an amendment to vote on and we have a motion to vote on, but we're still open to discussion if anybody else wants to chime in. Deputy Mayor Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just want to ensure that that is also located in Section 4 under the following procedures and rules shall apply that people then under this amendment would be shown either there's a calendar sign up or they could call for information that that's reflected here as well, not just on the website.

Agreed. Agreed. I accept that. All right. Going once, going twice, hearing no more chimes on this. We'll go to a vote on the amendment of adding the page on the website and adding that to section four as part of the availability to sign up on a calendar. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

Got one nay. All right. Okay, so it looks like that passed. Let's go to the original motion of the resolution.

You want that?

Amended. Oh, okay.

Sorry.

As stated. I don't want to reread the whole motion. But it's basically adopting this resolution and then adding into various sections of the changes of before the Pledge of Allegiance, but after the beginning of the meeting, a moment of silence as an option, three minutes in length, and the website being added on there as a scheduler. And we'll move to vote on that. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nay.

All right. I hear one no.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, We have as did you abstain I didn't hear.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Okay, all right motion passes. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, All right, there we go. And I would hope to have that resolution redrafted, have us look it over for approval, and then have it presented to the governance manual committee for addition. Or is that it? Is it in the governance manual?

That's it.

OK.

Very good. Just making sure.

Dot the i's and cross the t's on that. All right. Moving on. to ordinance number 2026-02, Southwest Eaton Boulevard improvements, right of way, final action. Mottoy, presentation and a motion. Mark Herseg, the floor is yours, sir.

Good evening, council. Give me a second and I will share. All right, tonight, Ken and I are gonna talk about the final action on Eaton Boulevard for the Matoi properties. The agenda will be talking about the project, our right-of-way needs, the right-of-way specific to the Matois, a little bit about state law, and then we'll give a time for questions. So you're all are familiar with the project. Eaton Boulevard will extend from SR 503 to Southwest 20th Avenue. It will add a signal at 20th, expand the corridor to our typical minor arterial section, which includes a through lane in each direction, a center turn lane or medians, bike lane, sidewalks, planter strip. There'll be additional improvements at the signal at 503 and 20th. Eaton is our highest accident, one of our highest accident corridors. There's been several fatal accidents and serious injury accidents in this corridor. The project has several million dollars in design and right away funds from state and federal. And right now it's about 3 million in state and federal grants for construction. There's an additional grant request for about seven or eight million from the Safe Streets for All grant program to complete the construction funding for that, which we should hear about later in the year. From a right-of-way perspective, there's essentially three items we're looking at. There's generally some strip takes right along the existing right-of-way, which you can see on the south side of that parcel. The existing right-of-way is not wide enough to fit our standard section, so you'll see that. There's a few locations where we need area for a storm pond, so you'll see that on a couple of the properties. And then there's what's called a temporary construction easement. And that's essentially an area while we're while we're doing the project, we'll need to do some work. But essentially, the homeowner retains ownership of that piece after the project is done. Uh, I've talked to you before about this, but we essentially needed 21, uh, or part or property from 21, uh, property owners. Uh, we've been successful in getting 19 of them. Uh, there are two that are at an impasse, one being the Matois and one being the Peru's. So specific to the one we're talking about with this ordinance is the Mottoy property. Essentially, it is just a strip take, like I mentioned, and then the associated temporary construction easement. So there's a couple of state laws that are kind of driving this process. So RCW 812, which talks about an eminent domain, streets are an authorized use under this state law. So we're okay there. And then RCW 825 has additional provisions. It essentially says final action is required to move forward. And that's what this process is. Um, so I I'll turn it over to Ken and see if he has anything to add. And then the two of us would be happy to answer any questions.

Well, thanks, Mark. Again, Mayor and Councilmembers, I'll just comment that this is a pretty ordinary situation when negotiations have reached impasse. The purpose of tonight's action is for Council to have an opportunity to understand why this condemnation is being proposed, what the project is for. Really, this is to make sure As a safeguard that the condemnation authority of the city is used for a public purpose, rather than to further any kind of private goals. That's one of the safeguards. The other is to demonstrate that the acquisition area is needed or is necessary for the public purpose. So those are two main focal points, that is the public purpose and the necessity of the acquisition. I said that this often comes about when the negotiations have reached impasse, but I also point out that if you do accept that this final action should be passed, That will certainly not be the end of the negotiations. Any eminent domain or condemnation action is an ongoing effort to negotiate successfully so that we do not have to actually go to court. The goal here is to make sure that a property owner gets paid just compensation But there's differences of opinion on what just compensation is, and that's fair. It's okay. If we can't resolve those differences of opinion, then that's what this process is for. And ultimately, any property owner is assured of a right to a jury to decide what fair market value and just compensation should be. So I just want to give a little bit of the framework behind why you're hearing this tonight and what's before the council, but I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Okay, prior to discussion, I would like to open this up to the public. We're now going to open this item up for discussion. If anyone in the audience or on Zoom have any information they would like us to consider while making this decision, now's the time. And this is not a Q&A. This is just an informational time from anyone from the public to speak to council for informational purposes. Is there anyone on Zoom?

No, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thank you, Liz. Not seeing anyone come up. We will open this to discussion. Council Member Munson.

Thank you, Mayor. Mark, how... I take it we're far apart in numbers with the property owner. But if this ends up going to court, what's that cost going to look like for us?

Ken's done this before, so I'll refer back to him.

Yeah. Council Member Bunsen, it's very difficult to give an estimate because at pre-litigation, you just really have no idea what the dispute is. will be about. Specifically, I mean, we have discovery processes that help us bring into focus why there's a difference of opinion. Then there can become all kinds of questions about the methodology that's being used behind the different values. There can be very complicated site-specific issues that factor into this. Alternatively, sometimes these cases, after they get filed, and there's a renewed opportunity to negotiate, they can settle very quickly. So to give an estimate is, it's a bit like asking how long is a rope? I mean, I just don't know. I've had condemnation cases that are significantly more complicated than this one that have gone on for years. And those cases can become quite expensive. Sometimes condemnation cases, as I said earlier, settle before the lawsuit's even filed. So there's no way to call it in advance like this, unfortunately.

So based off of what you're saying there, that just draws another question. If this ends up going to some kind of litigation, and there is a judgment in favor of the property owner, can they then come back to the city for cost recovery?

I'm not sure I totally get the question. If there's a judgment for the property owner, then that becomes the amount that stands for fair market value or just compensation for the land acquired. So the idea behind the law is that they would then be made whole for what the city has acquired. So I don't know that there would be any further cost. Sometimes there's a procedure where the municipality will pay its estimate of fair market value in exchange for getting early possession of the land. And then that does not preclude the property owner from accepting the tendered amount and saying, I'm going to take the $85,000 that you offered, but I think I'm entitled to another $300,000 and then go to court and ask for that. But that's getting into, I think, a more detailed procedural question than what you're asking here. So the short version is that they would be paid whatever they show that their just compensation is the city wouldn't then have additional liability once it makes that payment.

Okay. So I, I guess my question wasn't clear. So I'm, all I'm getting at is, is if the judgment is in favor of the property owner and they then come after the city for litigation costs.

That is a different question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. In that situation, we're dealing with a different part of the statute. Uh, The city is required to make a pretrial good faith offer to the property owner. The way the statute works, if the property owner is willing to stipulate to possession and use, and the city makes that pretrial offer, and the property owner then beats the city's offer with an ultimate jury verdict by 10% or more, then yes, they can recover their attorney's fees and court costs. So it tends to drive the parties to a more realistic assessment. There's a carrot and stick. The property owner has an incentive to give that early possession that I referred to earlier to And the city has an interest in trying to be really sure that it's paying as high a figure as it thinks is justified because it would not want to be exposed to that 10% difference and then triggering the attorney's fees in favor of the property owner. But this is, again, part of the process that works out in litigation. And good eminent domain lawyers are very well aware of how this affects negotiations. And what it tends to do is it tends to drive the parties closer together as the litigation advances.

Thank you, Mr. Harper. Any additional questions? Deputy Mayor Bell?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And just for the interest of the public watching, it's my understanding, Mark, that the city of Battle Round is not the one that's negotiating necessarily that we came up with these numbers on our own. It's my understanding that we retained a third party that is doing this and coming up with an amount and the city's simply trying to get this project move forward. And so it's not the city that's proposing these numbers.

Correct, staff doesn't have expertise to be right-of-way agents. So as part of our engineering process, we've hired a consultant that includes appraisers, right-of-way agents, those sorts of things. There's an extensive process that's in the URA, it's the Uniform Relocation Act. And it essentially spells out all the rules for how you do all of this kind of stuff. So our consultants have gone through, essentially established a fair market value, and that's legally what we can offer the property owner for the property.

Thank you.

All right. Hearing no further comments, I will entertain a motion.

Actually, the clerk should read the ordinance.

Oh yeah, you know what I wrote that down and I missed it. Liz, could you please read the ordinance title?

Ordinance number 26-02, an ordinance authorizing and providing for the condemnation of land and real property interests required for the construction and implementation of the Southwest Eaton Boulevard, SR 503 to Southwest 20th Avenue project, within the city of Battleground, directing the initiation of appropriate proceedings in the manner provided by law for said condemnation, providing for severability, establishing an effective date, and other matters relating thereto.

Thank you, Ms. Halili. All right, now I would entertain a motion.

So I'd like to actually table this until the next meeting. I'm used to more than one touch. And to me, this is a big thing that you've laid on us tonight with my first viewing. I have more questions. And because we're in the middle of all of this stuff, I don't know what I can and can't say. And I would hate to get the city or anybody in trouble So I would like to table this till the next meeting or, I mean, whichever one, Ms. Swanson, you're the one after that. You're the one that sets the agenda. So you know what the time length of your staff and what they can and can't do.

So we have a motion.

Is that a motion to table? Yes.

Second.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion? I just have one question. Council Member Ferrer, did you attend your bi-weeklies?

I missed the last one, yes.

Yeah. I have a question. Thank you for that, Council Member McCoy. Council Member Guthrie, go ahead.

What does the delay mean to your processes?

Um, or this project, it's not detrimental at this point. Um, but I would have the question is what additional information would you like to, for me to bring?

I don't need additional information. All right.

We have a motion on the floor. We have a second, all those in favor to table, uh,

Should I answer his question? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. So then you guys can decide whether that's reasonable for my request? Sure. Okay. So I had asked you for some information and I got a summary. I was kind of hoping for a little bit more in-depth, more than just a summary of the email I got today.

I feel like you got what you need, Martin.

He knows what I'm talking about. I do.

I'm concerned about being in a public forum with some of that information. Exactly.

So that's why I was wondering if it would be rather than doing it on an email, because that's paper trail, that's open to the public, if that would be something that we could have a meeting and I could get all those questions answered. Because I want to help.

I understand that this is waiting on these, but this is... Well, in lieu of any potential issues arising from this further discussion from the dais, let's go ahead and move to the motion on the floor.

Okay. Well, I'd like to ask a clarifying question of our legal, and that is, will council getting in to the details and weeds of this process potentially cause issues?

It's a very generally phrased question. I don't know that I've got a great answer to that. The point I think that we would be concerned about is whether we would be having an open business meeting discussion of the amount of money that the city would be willing to pay, that's a well-recognized grounds to go into executive session. On the other hand, if council wishes to learn more about the basis of the project, the the condemnation process, the procedures that exist to safeguard the interests of the owner. I think those are fair topics that can be discussed in an open session.

And again, I would just say if council has these questions, attending biweeklies or getting another appointment to do so would have afforded the council member answers to all those questions.

Council member Munson, I see you chimed in here.

Yeah. So to me, what I'm hearing up here is we have one council member who just wants a little clarity. And I think we got to respect that. And as far as attending the bi-weeklies, I mean, I attend bi-weeklies with her regularly. So, you know, sometimes things happen. Sounds like she's ready to have a discussion with you and the city manager probably next week to get whatever she needs to understand. So, yeah. I don't see that as a public meeting issue. That's just one council member needing to pick your brain about something.

OK. Not seeing anyone else chiming in for discussion, we will move to the motion to table and go to a vote. All those in favor to table this ordinance uh until you know i don't know if you gave a deadline to the next meeting to whatever we'll say the next meeting yeah yeah postpone yeah is it okay generally tabling for a motion takes it to the next meeting okay that is correct so a proposal would be whenever you feel

It would fit in a council meeting comfortably or what would be the.

It is the next meeting it'll go on to the next business. Items on the next meeting all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed nay.

Did you go.

You said that okay motion to table passes. We will talk about this next time. All right, moving on to ordinance number 2026-14, Southwest Eaton Boulevard improvements right of way, final action, Peru. Mark Herseg, you are up again. And yeah, we're going to go ahead and go through this one too.

Yeah, I guess that's my question. And maybe as for Ken, if we tabled one, what is the point of the other?

You're directing that to me. I would tend to agree, Mr. Hersey. I think council's desires have been made clear.

Yeah.

So do I need to make a motion to table it or do you need to read it first or we just... All in agreement.

The clerk does not need to read the ordinance. However, for clarity in the minutes, it would be good to have a motion made.

I'll just request to table it with the other one as well.

Second.

All right. We have a motion on the floor to table this ordinance and move it to the next meeting. We have a second. Hearing no discussion, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Nay. Motion passes. And we are tabling the second ordinance.

Councilmember McCoy, how did you vote, sir? This is the clerk. Sorry, nay.

Didn't have my mic on.

All right. Close that. All right. On to our final motion. Ordinance for tonight, 2026-15 light curve franchise agreement presentation. Mark Hersig, the floor is yours. I don't think we're going to table this one, but I could be wrong.

Um, so I don't have much to add. I wasn't at the last meeting, but it didn't sound like there were any questions. So, uh, what's in front of you is the same as was presented last time. So I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Uh, before we get into motions and discussion, I would like to ask the clerk to read the ordinance.

Ordinance number 2025, or I'm sorry, 2026-15. My glasses are fogged up. An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Battleground, Clark County, Washington, granting a non-exclusive franchise to Machel Telecom Inc., DBA light curve to construct, maintain, operate, replace, and repair a telecommunications system in, across, over, along, under, through, and below certain designated public rights of way of the city of Battleground, Washington for a five-year term. Thank you, clerk.

All right. I will entertain some discussion or a motion, if anybody would like. Council Member for.

Thank you, Mayor. So I've heard the concerns of the citizens tonight and how you've had some issues. I'll just say it that way. And I have brought this up before when we were allowing so many different companies to come in and put. And so this is concerning to have another one come in. But at the same time, my question is, what can we really do as a city, you know? I believe I was told we can't just, I mean, we want to be bringing business in here. We want to be bringing this opportunity for, you know, fiber optics and all these things. But this is like, but then the other thing is they're going to keep cutting in, you know? And it's like, how much, it just, it seems a little crazy to me. And yeah. Is there anything that we can be doing to, and I meant, I remember saying this before asking is there any protection that we can provide to our citizens, you know, because I did have a reservation on one looking into ratings and the BBB and, but, you know, there was other. So I don't know if there's any protections that we can provide for them that we can address at this time.

Yeah, I can let Ken chime in a little bit too if he's comfortable, but I will point out the franchise agreement is specific to the city's right of way and the city's permitting process. A lot of the issues you've heard tonight are specific to private property and the PUE on the private property, which the franchise agreement does not address. So, Ken, I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that.

There's not much I can really say to that. The challenge is that every resident's property may be utilized or developed in a different way. And so the way the franchisee and the franchise rights interact with that resident's expectations and what may or may not be on the resident's title is really a case-by-case situation. I was very sorry to hear about some of the situations that have developed for residents tonight, but I'm not sure that I can offer any sort of uniform guidance on how that can be resolved other than just bringing attention to it and giving a closer focus to these as they come up.

when we when we get these that come before us are we looking at their their permits and all that stuff do we look into that as the city or we just we're except we're under the understanding that they are all up to date with their code their licensing and

Yeah. So when we initially get the franchise agreement application, they have to provide their licensing, which includes info from UTC, various things like that. When they actually go to do construction, they have to get a right away from it. And again, you get your insurance and application and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah.

And I would be, Oh, sorry.

Are you Oh yeah my gut my questions answered. yeah. No.

Okay, my my only point to this is for us as counselors to. have free market to any business that wants to have a franchise in battleground to allow them to operate, I think is, is important. And so if we're going to say yes to one, we kind of should, I feel led to say yes to all of them, unless there's some kind of limiting factor and that would preclude them from the franchise anyways, if they don't have their license, if they are operating in bad faith. And so to limit one over another, I think is, not a territory that I think I would want to venture into personally. Council Member Munson.

Thank you, Mayor. Move to adopt Ordinance 2026-15, granting Michelle Telecom Incorporated DBA Light Curve a franchise as presented.

Second. All right, we have a motion on the floor and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Nay. We have one nay. All right. All right. Mark, the hits just keep on coming. But Public Works Operations Center expansion procurement methods. The floor is yours, sir.

I'm excited to say I get to pass this one off to our consultants. So I'll invite Sean up to introduce his team and go through the presentation. Sean, the clicker should be up there.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Thank you for having us tonight. My name is Sean Klinkner. I'm the business unit leader for OTAC CPM. We're an owner representation firm. and a multidisciplinary firm that's been providing services in the Pacific Northwest for over 40 years. And we're excited to talk to you about the feasibility analysis and recommendation for alternative project delivery for the Battleground Operations Center campus expansion.

All right.

So tonight, our agenda includes just a brief introduction to our firm, our credentials, an overview of our session goals, a project delivery model overview, and an introduction to Washington state process for alternative project delivery, and a recommendation and a time for Q&A to answer your questions. As I mentioned, we're a multidisciplinary design and owner representation firm with offices here in Clark County, and we are the owner representation part of OTAC. I'd like to take this moment to introduce my team members. Mike.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and counselors. My name is Mike J. I'm a senior advisor at OTAC, also the founder of our PMCM group and have been working in alternative project delivery for over three decades.

And Kevin. Good evening. Kevin Moyson. I'm a client services manager with OTAC. I've been in the industry for about 28, 29 years. So a pleasure to be here and present to everybody.

All right. So just to overview our goals for this session this evening, we want to do an overview of project delivery models and their relationship to cost, schedule, and risk. We'd like to talk to you about the role of the owner advisor and representative in project delivery specifically for GCCM in Washington State. And we would also like to review with you our assessment of the Battleground Operations Center expansion as a case study for GCCM project delivery and make a recommendation to you this evening. I'm gonna hand it off to my team member, Kevin.

There's a few what we're going to kind of target two of the project delivery models. Tonight, one is the traditional project delivery, which makes sense when projects are straightforward, limited in scope. Design drawings are complete. Specifications are available, clear, and enforceable. Um, risks are known in advance for our minimal owner usually carries a risk for that. The second one is the alternative project delivery has a higher value proposition. Typically, when projects are phased and occupied by staff, Schedule is material to owner. Multiple scopes of work are necessary. Cost assurance is needed by the owner. Design can be informed by trade partnership and we would get field constructability reviews. Risk can be mutually shared between owner and contractor.

Just given where we're at tonight with time, and you do have your handouts with you, I think we'll just dive right into the comparison of the design-bid-build process, which is the traditional process, and then do that comparison of the GCCM process, which is, in Washington, the alternative project delivery methodology.

So first, The delivery method we're going to talk about is the design-bid-build. This is a traditional method. This is often called the hard bid or low bid. You have owner then hires the designer, which is contracted directly, contracts directly with the general contractor. So you have three separate contracts. And if desired, then owner's representatives is also hired. Responsibilities. Sorry, we'll jump ahead there. Responsibilities, if we look at that in the hard bid scenario, owner provides the program or the needs of the project. financing for the finance part, management. Designer has the plan specifications. No normal services. Contractor then hires its subcontractors for construction. Looking at some of the... You contract separately for the design and the construction. Contractor selection based on lowest responsible bid with no requirements on those contractor qualifications beyond financial bonding. You don't get any input from the contractor during the design phase. So we don't get any constructability reviews, mistakes if they're in the drawings. We often don't realize those until we're already under construction. This is the most successful scenario if the project is very linear, non-complex project. The construction cost is established after completion of design. Implies perfection of design documents. We see a lot of documents that everybody has a time frame. Often those documents aren't the best that they can be and that costs the owner money. There's a possibility of claims, delays, and litigation. have resulted in adversarial relationships between parties. It kind of lends itself to a us versus them type scenario. Owners carries the risk of performance and budget and manages all of those disputes. You know, hard bids don't always guarantee the lowest overall cost.

Moving on to this next slide. I think you really covered it well, Kevin. There we go. Ah, yes. You know, I think we've already covered really well, Kevin, just that kind of painting the picture of the design-build process. It's all a familiar process to what public agencies are familiar with. So let's now... kind of draw a comparison to the GCCM requirements within the state of Washington and how that works. And we'll talk a little bit more about how that contrasts and how that's a differentiator from the traditional design build process. So here you have a slightly different organizational structure with your owner, your owner representative, which really is the extension of the owner acting on behalf of the owner. and then a relationship where you have that dotted line partnership where you're procuring and bringing in your general contractor for pre-construction services early on in the process. So different from the design bid build process, you're through a qualifications-based process of procuring the services of a general contractor in that pre-construction phase. The advantages that come with that are those pre-construction services, cost certainty, a schedule, phasing, logistics, The operations center is an occupied operating facility, and there are significant challenges and constraints that come with working on occupied campuses. So as we look at this project and the delivery model, it really makes sense as you unpack and look at the layers of the complexity of the operations center. With that, there is a process with the state of Washington. There's a capital projects advisory review board. There's a project review committee process. And we'll go into a little bit more detail as to what that process looks like. But that is part of the process in the state of Washington in terms of governance at the state level for the approval of bringing in your general contractor, construction manager, partner earlier in the process. Now let's just keep moving here. I want to respect time this evening. Sean, did you want to touch on this?

So I think just to summarize the benefits of the GCCM model delivery, the application for alternate delivery is required before procurement of a general contractor can take place. That's a key differentiation from hard bid models. Additionally, In the GCCM model, the contractor actually removes some of the risk in the construction process from the owner because it's based on a guaranteed maximum price. This is where they use design contingency to cover unforeseen errors, maybe emissions or things that do not show up in perfect design documents, and that protects the owner. Additionally, there are processes that we use in GCCM project delivery that allow for greater cost certainty. So instead of going through an entire design process and discovering that your project costs too much, we use tools like target value design, working early with the contractor to do milestone budget reviews and designing to your target budget. This protects the owner from paying a lot of money in design fees. It also allows us to establish lists and options to add back value as savings are garnered in the construction process. Another important distinction with this model is that because the contractor is engaged early, key material items can be procured early. And what this does is it allows the shortening of the project schedule. If you are waiting to bid project documents until design is 100% complete, many times long lead items then unnecessarily lengthen a project schedule. So having your contractor engaged early allows for there to be mitigation of schedule delays related to material procurement. Lastly, There's a great value in having the project team aligned early on the priorities of the owner. And so collaborative project delivery produces exceptional outcomes. The design process is also overseen by the owner representative and allows us to continue to hold the team accountable and focus them on original owner priorities, ensuring integrity throughout the process.

All right. I think you've covered that really well, Sean. Yes. And I think you touched on really the role of the owner representative is that we are an extension of the city. We are that terrifying agent for the owner, providing that overall leadership in partnership with the owner to support the delivery of the project. hold our contractor partners and design partners accountable, but really form the nucleus of this highly collaborative delivery process, again, with the focus and the goals of everyone pulling in the same direction, that alignment of values, the governance, setting up a project charter early on so that there's a clear understanding as to roles, responsibilities, and accountability for the project. And the quality assurance also that comes with this collaborative delivery. You have that constructability review engagement with your contractor partner through the design process and the ability through the GCCM process to bring in trade partners early. So that trade partner engagement in terms of constructability, And now we have 3D modeling that's available to us. It's very commonplace in our industry that allows us to do what we call virtual design and construction. So there's a lot of work that's done in that partnership setting with the contractor and trade partners to work out all the details so that we don't have those latent defects, design omissions, errors and omissions, and those things that oftentimes in the traditional design process can lead to contentious situations on the project.

So some key graphics that may be helpful to you in understanding the difference between traditional versus GCCM project delivery are in the first diagram on the left. You'll notice with traditional design bid build that the investment is actually a slow ramp up and you'll notice that the involvement of the general contractor doesn't come until the very end of the design process when they are bidding on documents they have no prior knowledge of any of the details to ensure an even playing field when it comes to bidding the project on the other hand on the document on the right with gccm project delivery And after securing PRC approval with the state of Washington, contractors are measured on their qualifications and ability to deliver the project successfully. There is still competition involved in this. That's one thing that I want to assure you, that there is competition to ensure that there is appropriate fees and competitiveness for the general contractor. But that ramp up in investment with early involvement of the trades is exactly what Mike described. It is an investment in constructability review to ensure that the rest of the project moves seamlessly.

Before you move off that slide, this is a slide that I've used for quite a while and in sharing and explaining and providing context on really the value proposition with GCCM here in Washington and CMGC in Oregon. But to your point, that engagement with the contractor early through the PRC approval process that value optimization in terms of the cost certainty, schedule certainty, the ability to work through and work with key stakeholders and work through the very complex phasing and logistics issues is really where we get that value. It's not just estimating services from our contractor, but it's that partnership that we form. And that really leads to this next slide here that that really speaks to that quality, cost, risk, all those ingredients that lead to this highly collaborative process where everybody's communicating, where there's a transparency in terms of the fiscal stewardship, which is very important. with the public dollars and the ongoing dynamic cost modeling process where we have cost certainty and the ability to do real time cost analysis and updates and the value engineering that is not true value engineering is value optimization. So you're not cutting scope, but you're really optimizing the value and looking at life cycle costs and how do we get the best value and stretch the public dollar as far as we can.

so to again uh highlight some of the things that we do as owner representatives in the process to ensure the value of bccm process delivery is actually setting the tone for the function of the team unlike traditional project management which may relate more to box checking an owner advisor actually sets the collaborative tone for the team incurring encouraging engagement between all the parties in the owner's interests and holding those goals throughout the life cycle of the project. Part of that is clearly defining what value is for every owner. It's helping onboard the team into that process. It's creating an incubator of innovation around the owner's challenges and inviting the team to function as a brain trust to jointly solve those problems early before they ever arrive on the field. Additionally, there's options to reduce waste in the schedule, creating efficiency of approach and to socialize those approaches. Lastly, in addition to some of the cost optimization that we've mentioned, there is proactive design and cost management that not only happens during design, but throughout the construction phase as well as risks come up and are successfully mitigated. The goal here is to have someone representing your interests and helping the team stay true to the design intent and the goals for the project throughout the process.

I think Kevin's going to really touch on and dig into the weeds a little bit on the specifics for the operations center. Next slide.

So when we first started looking at the operations center, we looked at what we would split into two phases, phase one, phase two, for the graph there. Owner requirements were temporary facilities for all staff and secure police storage during phase one or two of the project. Meet goals for phase one budget thresholds. Equip campus with emergency power. Meet goals of operations and maintenance, sustainability, and fiscal stewardship. Prepare the site for integration with City of Battleground Plans for access control and site security and site lighting. Set up site for modular furniture and FF&E. If there's support, consider ways to set up project for phase two. John Potter, When we started looking at the feasibility and and risk. John Potter, We did find a few things that we had to consider. John Potter, Complex phasing requirements between phases. John Potter, undocumented fill on site and wetland mitigation that is present. We needed to also keep the operations running, maintain operations, and also maintain site circulation, make sure that there's circulation in and out. Business can go on as usual. The site stormwater needs probably needed to be reassessed. We did look at that. Site would be changing quite a bit. There was a need for that. Relocated building condition remediation, long lead items in forecasted program for work and feature proofing the investment to last.

This is just a quick snapshot slide. And we don't need to go into the details in this. But this really just illustrates for you that roadmap of the PRC application process to get the exemption to move forward with the alternative project delivery methodology in the state of Washington. So you can kind of see what that workflow looks like and the time frame that's involved with that.

Issues to consider when we looked at the project and to see if it would warrant a alternative delivery. Project phasing and complexity is always a large one, and that's usually the first question we ask, and we were able to check that box. Level of stakeholder engagement in design and construction. That would be very important for City of Battleground. We want to make sure that the end stakeholders know what they're getting and we're providing what works for them.

I would also add that during the process of construction, their involvement remains very high because there's models for interim operations. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, there's regular communication around an impact, so that day to day operations and service vehicles moving to the site and do so with as little.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Need for owner control and design. Land use and entitlement process. Schedule savings opportunity. Long lead item procurement. That's always a very large factor in any project today. Opportunity for value engineering, or as Mike said, value optimization. Cost and construction management. Quality assurance. Change management. Owner risk tolerance and cost assurance.

So some of the pressures which drive a need for collaborative model on this project include the opportunity to reduce waste in the construction value stream. That is fundamentally benefit to the city. There's also a demand from the city for a real value proposition and cost certainty because construction is expensive and in a design-build model, your risk increases. And this model would actually decrease your risk through a shared model with the contractor. Additionally, is important in this model to have a strong stakeholder engagement so that the buildings that are put in place, the material selections that are selected for these facilities are able to be maintained and are a value investment for the city long-term. There is undoubtedly schedule compression with this project and strong goals to keep the city operational while construction's occurring. John Kane- And there's a need for proactive budget design alignment, as well as. John Kane- A strong transition and training or the owner as facilities are handed off based on new technologies facility finishes long term operations and maintenance, so that you're equipped to actually maintain the facilities that have been constructed. So following our review of the documents that have been provided to us by your facilities team, our team at OTAC-CPM would like to recommend to you that the City of Battleground Operations Center expansion be considered for TCM project delivery. And with that, we'd like to open it up for some questions.

Councilmember McCoy. Yeah, just really quickly, Mark, have we made a final decision on phasing this project other than the phasing that is required for temporary facilities to house those that are being displaced?

No, we have not made any final decisions.

So with phasing not completely decided, would that change your recommendation?

Actually, the move from a two-phase project to a singular-phase project would actually enhance the potential for GCCM to deliver positive results for you. A two-phase model would likely increase costs because you're mobilizing twice to address the needs of the facilities. Any other things you'd add to that? No, I think you covered it.

Mayor Mrakas, Council member munson.

Mayor Mrakas, Miss wants and i'm developing some just very low level questions for mark on this, do you have any objections to me calling him director, would you prefer me to do this and bi weekly.

Mayor Mrakas, i'm happy to I don't have any objections.

Mayor Mrakas, What excuse me. Mayor Mrakas, No, no. Mayor Mrakas, Mark will be giving you calling this couple days.

So I have a question. With the GCCM model, it does look like it's a little easier on the owner, easier on operations. It's not a heavy lift for us as much, but more of a, not a transfer of ownership, but an owner representative to carry out the wishes and ensure the project stays on timeline. Obviously, I'm assuming, even though we can help lower material costs by upfront purchase and buy-in from the general contractor early, overall, if you were to apples-to-apples a project that was done one way versus the other cost-wise, what are we looking at? Not this project, but overall percentages.

You mean a comparison of traditional versus GCCM delivery? Yeah, I think there's really good data at both state and national level on GCCM, CMGC, CM at risk. They're all basically the same delivery model where you're bringing in the contractor for those early pre-construction services. So our experience has been, as an owner rep, as a construction management firm, has been that we have seen very positive outcomes of overall cost savings on projects. Also, when you think about the traditional design, bid, build, delivery works well in sites, greenfield sites, where you're building something and you don't have this kind of occupied environment. So the challenge with the traditional delivery model here is that you do have this occupied campus. And so there are a lot of constraints in terms of schedule, logistics, moving, just maintaining ongoing operations, communications. Design, bid, build, that model is a very successful model. It's used throughout the United States. We deliver projects for our clients using design, bid, build. But we've seen better outcomes in terms of overall success, both in terms of cost and schedule. To give you percentages, it's difficult to assess. I will share one example of a project in the Portland area where we use a similar delivery model, although it was called Progressive Design Build, which is also used in Washington. University of Washington uses it extensively. We delivered that project. with about two years of overall savings because we were able to problem solve some major phasing logistics challenges on that project and about $10 million of cost savings overall on that project. So that collaboration, the partnership, the transparency, and that early cost certainty, when you compare that to the uncertainty that comes with design, bid, build, and also what happens potentially at the end of what can be a much more contentious process with design, bid, build. Design, bid, build can also be very successful, but you just don't have that assurance because you don't know who your partner is going to be until you open the bids. And so that's that risk and uncertainty piece, which we believe for this project the GCCM delivery, alternative delivery, which is allowable in the state of Washington, is probably a better method for delivering this project successfully.

Thank you. For context for the city, you mentioned that there was about $10 million in savings. What was the original projected budget for their context?

Yeah, it was a 5% savings overall. It was a $200 million project. So it was a larger project. So apples and oranges, different context. But again, the savings and the overall schedule also was one of the drivers of why we were able to save significant dollars on that project and deliver that back to that public agent.

No, I just heard you guys say you can save us $10 million.

I would also add that it's not just public agencies that use the project delivery method. One of my first projects after joining OTAC nine years ago was delivering three greenfield expansion sites for the Vancouver Clinic here in Clark County, and all of those projects were very successful.

Thank you, gentlemen. Any further questions from the dais?

I just thank you. My experience in private sector using the proposals, this other alternative model, always very positive. And I just like the idea of having a broader team at the table when things happen, because things happen. And they happen on a daily basis. So you've always got that. broader influence of good thinking coming to resolve the issues and get to the best results. And I'm a big fan. So I'm going to be a thumbs up on that one.

Yeah, it just seems like a much more highly collaborative effort on the project as a whole and having the stakeholders at the table just makes sense. So we don't have anything else. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate your time.

Thank you for your time.

All right, we'll move on to administrative reports. Are there any administrative reports from staff this evening?

Yes, Mayor, real quick. At the June 15th council meeting, there was a motion that directed staff to provide alternatives for setbacks and maximum allowances regarding storage of recreational vehicles and trailers in residential areas. And I reached out to all of you to try to glean some further feedback so that we could draft an ordinance and staff can prepare a presentation which is scheduled for the August 17th council meeting. I know that I said I would like to have that feedback by Friday, but the sooner the better so that staff can get to work on that. So if you've not responded to my email, it would be greatly appreciated if you did the next day or two. And then also there's been quite a bit of communication regarding mobile or manufactured home parks and the fear of displacement by its residents. You've received numerous emails. and constituents I'm sure approaching you in person and then here at the council meeting. The Battleground mobile home over here on Seventh Avenue was served notice on June 25th. The law changed in 2023 that added further protections to manufactured home communities specifically on the process for selling enclosure of these communities and noticing to them in advance is one of those pieces. So if council's interested on staff bringing further information, please let me know.

Yeah, Troy and I are probably going to say something. Go ahead, Troy.

Yeah, I would ask council to give consensus to staff to bring something back to us similar to what Clark County has done. And I would ask, I know that I had conversations with Chair Marshall to get some information. I believe the mayor was copied. Maybe we could get those emails distributed to all the councils so that they're up to speed. But this has been something that I know it's been kind of talked about quite a bit. I know there's a lot more people that wanted to be here tonight to talk to this. I know I've had probably 10 people at least contact me concerned about this. I do want to be very clear. that anything we do can't touch the lease fee or the rent fee of the land. That's completely separate. But the Clark County overlay essentially stops redevelopment for the amount of time that we could consider. uh then i think we would probably have to get sam involved and look at reopening up the comp plan at some point but i think directing staff to give us some time to work through that and think about that and if council so desires change it or not change it but i think we need to give ourselves time to consider it and that's what i'm asking council to give consensus on is direction uh to bring back an overlay or other recommended path to stop redevelopment of all the manufactured home parks in Battleground. And I would just remind the council, as you're well aware, part of the GMA is AMI housing. And if that park got redeveloped, we would be quickly out of compliance.

Yeah, I would agree with Councilmember McCoy. Tom Preston- overlay or. Tom Preston- mhp district or something like that, where we can set that aside and make sure that it's going to stay that way for a period of time, can we get consensus thumbs up everyone agree we like it everyone likes it all right.

And one last note, you probably saw it posted before you arrived tonight, but National Night Out that was scheduled for tomorrow night to be held at Chief Tumtuk Middle School has been canceled due to the poor air quality. Our neighboring cities have done the same thing, but we would like to extend our thanks to our sponsors. um and our donors who are very gracious and of course all the volunteers that were going to step up for that event but it's really unfortunate but for the health and safety of our citizens that's been canceled that's the end of my report mayor a question for staff is that canceled or is that postponed i know national night out is universally on a night but i also know the amount of work

that staff and and pd is probably put into that is there another event that we can do i think it'd be something that'd be worth exploring because i can argue both sides and argue that it was certainly designated to be on this date um but i also think that there would be an opportunity that we can do something even if we don't call a national night out if we do to uh We can certainly visit and I can speak with the city manager and we can come up with some ideas of what we can do. Riding in the park or something, you know.

It's a really cool event that we, I think, as a community look forward to every year. And it's a shame that the air quality had to... Do us in on that, but I, for one, fully understand when you're talking about youth and at-risk people. Out in that air quality, it's just no good.

And I was monitoring it every two hours, and it's the prediction for morals even worse. Understood.

Well, thank you, staff. Thank you, Chris and Dennis. Moving on to council communications. Are there any council communications this evening? I see... Mr. Munson, Council Member Munson, you are first.

Okay, I've got three, but I'll just start with one and rotate through. Chris, do we have somebody in maintenance to take a look at that vent? Sounds like a bearing's wearing out, and my only clue to hear it's really just like right there.

It is whistling.

I thought it was a rattlesnake.

I thought he was wheezing, but it's... Anybody else before I move to give a second to Councilmember Munson? Amy, I see you reaching. Deputy Mayor Vail, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to say also how much I appreciate the choice from the PD and the city to cancel the national night out. I thought that that was a really, really difficult decision. I was super bummed when I saw the email come in, but I was also really thankful because I think that that would have excluded a large amount of our community that deserves to be able to attend as well. So I just, I think that it was a tough decision, but it was the right decision. So thank you.

All right. One more time through anybody Councilmember Munson.

Thank you. Miss Lily did those pictures from the citizen arena that she leave those with you.

Yes, Councilmember Munson.

Okay, Mister her say. New construction utilities have a certain depth 1824 inches something something like that.

It varies depending on what it is. So water is typically at the 18 and then sewer can be six, seven feet, depending on the situation.

So that's for new construction. But when we have projects like that that come through here and it's a communications implementation, what's the depth requirement on that? Communications and other private utilities like that are usually about three feet deep. Ms. Halevy, is it possible for you to show Mr. Herseg the pictures of the fiber net network and how shallow that was? And so where I'm gonna go with this is, I know Ms. Swanson, you've sent us some information in the email about the stop work, but looking at the damage caused to this person's property and how shallow that is in the future for more damage to happen, I guess this leads me down the road of a couple things. How is this homeowner going to be remedied? Are they doing the work as she suggested that they're doing repair work without permitting? Mark, have you gotten any feedback from your staff about that?

So I know specific to the sewer line, I believe building staff went out and they did not have a permit if I heard that correctly.

Correct. Our inspector Johnny went out on Friday and went ahead and posted the stop work order for that site specifically for plumbing work without a permit communicated with the contractor. So we're waiting for them to remedy that situation. But until that's in place, there is a stop work on the site to not continue.

Have we had other complaints from other property owners with something very similar?

So at the permit counter, this is the first one I'm aware of that my staff was tasked with. It's going to depend on the scenario. So again, some of the work is in the public right-of-way. This was on private property, which is what would put it over into the realm of needing a permit from community development.

So Ms. Swanson, what's the plan moving forward? Because if they're coming through the city and just meatball surgery in their product, the potential outfall for the citizens here for future. If they're landscaping, they're redoing their landscape and they just happen to go three and a half inches down instead of three inches. And then what happens if they sever the network? Are they going to be held liable for it? Or where does this leave us? Because this just looks like a very, this is crude.

Well, I do know in this case, I think, I believe it's this homeowner where we took pictures of the severed sewer line. We reached out to MetroNet, the government affairs representative, and they said that they had been in contact with that person and offered a hotel and instructed them on how to proceed, sent out the contractor, who I think claimed because it was an emergency, But we did recognize it was a travesty. We're trying to help it again on private property with a contractor. We're kind of limited in what we can do. But when you have a contractor come onto your private property to do work, it is required for a permit.

Property owners have the right when it's in the right of way, because some people consider the right There's a conception that the right-of-way is actually their property, even though it's an easement. Do property owners have a right to stop the contractor from doing work with what we're... Sorry, guys, I'm so tired. It's been a long day and a half. I want to help the public understand what their right is to prevent companies like this from doing what they've done. What rights do property owners have right now if they feel that the work is questionable?

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. This work that was done is not in the right of way. It's on their private property.

But whether it's the right of way or private property, that's my question for you is what rights do they have if they feel the work is questionable to stop the contractor?

I mean, I think that's a private property issue that they would have to contact an attorney. That would be my response to it.

Yeah. My point to that is we give them a franchise agreement to operate in the right of way. So they violated somebody else's property rights by going on there and doing the work, right? And that's where your recommendation to consult an attorney.

I think you guys are talking about two different things. I think Council Member Munson is talking about the fiber going in and you're talking about the contractor working on the sewer. And that's the way I understand is if the fiber is doing something that you don't want them to do, even though they're in the right of way, what rights do you have to stop them? Is that your question or is it?

Yeah, so let's go back to what we talked about earlier in our budget meeting about the electrolysis, right? So that's a right-of-way. That's not private property. They're running their utilities through that area, and they're not meeting the conditions of depth, which we just discussed. And somebody's landscaping their yard, and this contractor did a very shady job. I don't want to call it shady because I'm not trying to smear anybody's uh, reputation if they did less than what's required and the homeowner then does something and it damages, are they going to be on the hook to repair it? So what I'm, what I'm trying to get at here is these people come home every day and they just want to live their life. They want to do their thing. And we've got a contractor out here doing what they want to do. And they're going to leave a legacy for the homeowner to have to deal with. What are our protections for the citizens? we gave these guys a franchise agreement. Is this agreement not being adhered to? I mean, they submitted plans for their work and these pictures clearly show that's a shallow job.

Yeah, so again, the disconnect is that the franchise agreement is for work in the right of way. The work in these pictures is in the PUE, which is on private property and a separate issue. So there's a... it's a very gray area about what the city can do, you know, related to private property. So that, that's kind of why there's a struggle to provide you with an answer. Just it's, there's only so much we can do when it's not within our right-of-way. In our right-of-way, we have full power. There's a lot we can do. The franchise agreement addresses it. The right-of-way permit addresses it. It's all covered. But once it gets back to that PUE, it goes outside of what's covered in that franchise agreement.

I guess if I'm going to say anything to councils, if we see more of this, I would not be opposed to having Metrolink give us a presentation so they can answer some questions. Because this is unfair to our citizens to have to deal with this, whether it's on private property or on right of way.

Yeah, and I will say, you know, Chris mentioned it as well, but we've been in contact with the government affairs, any of the issues that we've heard, we've passed it their way. We've made sure that the citizens have numbers and things like that. So we're doing, I think, what we can do. But again, it's just a struggle because we, you know, other outside than the permit issues, which we can, you know, ensure they get plumbing permits and that sort of thing. It just comes this gray area that it's hard for us to step in and touch.

Just so I have some clarity on this, what led them to be in the PUE in the first place? Did they break a line while working in our- No, so I think- Or is it just separate things altogether?

Generally speaking, this is where this kind of utilities go. So in that PUE is where you'll find your gas, your Comcast, your CenturyLink, your electric, so Clark Public Utilities, all of that stuff is located in there. So it's pretty typical for this kind of construction to happen in that PUE. That's the purpose of the PUE.

Deputy Mayor Vail.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also wanted just to call attention to, we had an email today from a constituent who lives in the area which this MetroNet cable is being placed, and they provided pictures that I have not seen yet, but talking about how residents, there has been a home, and the address is in the email, so I had brought it to you, Chris, and some other people as well, And I did receive it late this afternoon, so you may not have seen it yet, but mentions that they've been without water for six days as this company hit lines. And so I am very interested in finding out maybe with legal, are we able to pull franchise agreements? Because I think that at this point, we are potentially... in a really difficult spot. I want to make sure that we are protecting our citizens as best as we can. But I also understand that the contract that we have given is just for the right of way. And this company is overstepping that. So this is not something that they are abiding by. So I don't know what recourse we have. But I would love to look into that a little bit more to find out what we do just to stop of what's going on. I don't know if we need to come back to the table about some things or talk to this company a bit and ensure that this damage does not continue. If this is what is happening, again, I have not been to these properties and seen this myself. I'm only repeating what I've heard from the audience today and then what I've seen in my email. So I'd love to kind of verify this and make sure that this is factually correct and then see what we can do legally to protect these homeowners.

Is it the email that you forwarded from Representative Lay? Yes. That woman was here tonight and spoke. I don't think I'm not sure if she had damage to her property. I don't think there was a water line cut. I think she was referring to her neighbors, including the property that we just discussed with the sewer line that was severed.

Well, she had made the comment that her sprinkler system had been severed. There were two irrigation systems. Irrigation lines are way shallower.

But just to know, I have spoken on the phone with Cindy as well and chatted with her on Friday about the matter. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Yeah, just to reiterate the same concerns. And I'm just wondering, unfortunately, we are in that spot where there's this line of responsibility, but there is an assumption by residents that we've said, This is an okay company. They know what they're doing. They're doing it right. They just automatically tie us to that. And we may not have real responsibility in what happens in those situations, at this point, but is there something that could be an expectation, this is probably a Ken question, Mr. Harper, but in the agreement, should there be something that outlines what the company's responsibilities are when it, even if it's beyond the scope of what the city property is? Like, is there some way to put some extra teeth into how citizens can be protected?

I just really don't have a basis to offer an opinion on that. We'd have to go back to the documents and look at them in this light. It could be a comprehensive review of the city's templates. It could be a case-by-case analysis of any given situation. property owners' title with respect to the PUE. There's just a myriad of issues that relate to how interests in land do or do not allow things like these these contractors to make use of what a homeowner may believe to be his or her private property. So I understand the thrust of the question, but it would really have to be looked at in a comprehensive way. I can't tell you that any document is particularly lacking in language or what the remedies are. We've talked about a lot of different parcels. We've talked about the right-of-way, the PUE. There's just a lot of nuance to this, I'm afraid.

Take all the time you need.

Thank you, Ken. Council Member Freer.

I would just say I agree with every councilor up here that this is concerning. You mentioned Mr. Harper maybe taking a look at reviewing our template and seeing if there is something that we could be doing in regards to the issues that we're having. I would like to see if that's something that we could direct staff to do with Mr. Harper and

Yeah, Councilmember, I think it's a very fair question. I have not looked at that. So there may be opportunities there to, well, certainly there are opportunities there to follow up with Councilmember Kuyper's question, whether the documents themselves are inadequate in some way or could be improved in a different way. I just don't know, but we can certainly take a look at that.

yeah i would say definitely i don't know that's inadequate but definitely looking to improve it anything can be improved right especially when new things come before us that were never there before so thank you again ken all right carrying no further communications

The next regular city council meeting will be held on Monday, August 17th, 2026 at 7 PM. A study session will be held at 6 PM before the regular meeting. This meeting is adjourned.