City Council - Regular Meeting

all right good evening everyone welcome thank you all so much for being here it is six o'clock on tuesday august 25th 2026 and i now call to order the 2189th regular meeting of the city of college play city council madam clerk will you please take roll call council member green present council member cleveland present council member stuckline present

Council Member Evans present Council Member Sherman present and we have excused absences for Council Member Lopez and Council Member Boyle and we do have a quorum excellent thank you will you all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. It's now time for public comment. I'm just trying to get a quick look. madam clerk did anyone submit a written comment in advance or request to speak via telephone or virtually i receive no comments all right thank you if anyone in virtual attendance has con contacted the clerk and requested to speak please raise your hand now but none okay thank you and if anyone in council chambers would like to speak during Public comment time, please raise your hand. Yes, sir. Okay. You can step up to the podium. You please state your name and your city or county that you reside in and then you have 3 minutes.

My name is Troy. Woody. I'm from Burbank 25 years in Walla Walla County. I'm running for district 3 county commissioner. I'm just going to give you my 32nd pitch. I'm not running against Gunner Fulmer. I'm running against the system. County government is a dysfunctional bad system. Doesn't matter who you put in there. I'm guessing most of you would not vote today to remove your top accountant, get rid of them, replace them with elected official that gets hired every four years based on a popularity contest. That's county government. That's literally, you've got five elected officials that shouldn't be RRDs, should be hired paid professionals. There's a way for the county to do that. If I get elected, we'll go through that process, take it to the voters, and the voters will decide whether they want to change the form of government. That's it. I would love to meet with anyone who wants to meet with me. I'll stay after and hand out cards, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Woody. Any other person in council chambers that would like to speak during public comment? All right, hearing none, we will move on to the consent agenda at this time, which consists of the agenda for today, August 25th, 2026. City Council minutes from August 11th, 2026. The April 2026 financials, the May 2026 financials, the salary ordinance update, and excusing the absences of Council Members Lopez and Boyle.

are there any items any member of the council would like removed from the consent agenda at this time if not is there a motion mayor yes can i make one comment yes um the salary ordinance uh does have one update from what was originally provided in the packet to you um it's basically just scrivener's errors it's related to um the the red line version is available for you um in front of you and it's related to the salaries and wages as set out here and shall be effective from and after september 1st 2026 instead of january And then the ordinance, repealing ordinance 26-001, it should be 26-004. So the very first line of the ordinance was changed to 26-004. And on page 3, section 14, the ordinance was changed from 26-001 to 26-004.

all right i see that everybody got that no questions all right thank you i'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented we have a motion is there a second i will second green great council member green second we have a first and a second all in favor say aye aye any opposed all right the eyes have it and the motion is passed thank you and then we have four action items on our agenda tonight i think that's the most we've had in a while The first Mr. Rickard is going to present the CLG grant for review and approval. Mr. Rickard.

Thank you, Mayor. Last year in May of 2025, we applied for a CLG grant through the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, and our proposal was to create a a historic district at Walla Walla University Historic District, and we worked with President Alex Bryan with the university. We first approached him about the idea and he's a big supporter of Of historic places and structures, and he asked us to bring it to their, their board for consideration. And and so we did, and they were fully supportive of our ask. And what this will do is it'll, it'll create an actual district while the university historic district, and it'll list off a number of their buildings on the properties that are eligible for. Meeting those requirements back in 2018, we did a reconnaissance level survey of properties within the university district and around town and it was determined at that time. There were enough buildings in the university district that would qualify to create a district. So. This would be, I believe, the second one in the state, and I wish I could remember what other university in the state of Washington has this designation, but I don't off the top of my head. So I apologize for that, but it's an exciting opportunity. It will be a great marketing tool as well as an opportunity to preserve Structures within the university, so it's a 18,000 dollar grant and those funds will go towards hiring a consultant to actually help us do the research and create the district. And then do the, you have to apply for the nomination. And so there's a process and that consultant would work through that process with. With the state agency and federal level. So, it's the reason why we're now coming to you. And we learned last year that the state wanted to award us this grant, but they didn't have the funds available and because they are federal pass through dollars. So they just the state just received those funds in June of this year. So. um there's some costs direct costs from the city um and we'll utilize staff time for those um for that direct cost hard costs so any questions eastern awesome thank you oh of all universities okay councilmember green

just to comment you know one of the things that came up a lot through the comprehensive plan updates and as we were looking through all of the data and public comments it seemed like preserving the the charm and feel of this community was a high priority for many people so i'm excited for this because it seems like this is a great step towards us doing that um allowing us to to develop and grow and progress or progress as we need to but also protecting the charm that makes this place special so good work councilmember cleveland

No questions. Thank you.

Council member stack line. No questions. Thanks. Sorry, I got your last name.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm just a little bit of an angle in the past. Some of them have the names on the back for me.

you know i know okay i know mine's the only one that doesn't have it in your defense though Well, moving past that, I'm definitely all about historic preservation, and it would be so neat to be one of two in Washington. Just a clarifying question, would this kind of historic certification affect anything other than the university buildings, like any effect on, when I think of district, I think of like a set space, but is it just kind of tied to university buildings, or would there be any effect to A neighboring residence, or, you know, just kind of the holistic impact.

Are we aware of any of that or so it would be limited to the universities properties buildings they own in their district. So, great question. We, there are opportunities to create other districts. You might have, like. An historic neighborhood, maybe a subdivision that was historic and the homes within it might, but we haven't identified any additional districts that would be eligible at this time.

Thank you council member Sherman. No questions. Thanks. I just have a quick question. As far as the consultant, would we be putting out an RFQ or is there a consultant that you already know that does this type of work since there's no others other than one?

It does trigger that we do have to reach out to We either have to do an RFQ or reach out to. 2 or 3 consultants that we know do the work we have. Used a consultant in the past and actually that's how we arrived at the dollar amount to request for. But we. Because of the amount we, we do, we do have to. You know, consult with some others and provide the best.

Okay. I just wasn't sure there was many consultants out there since no 1 else has done it.

There are there are quite a few. We had when we first started this, when we first became a certified local government. we had i think we had three proposals that came to do the original surveys and since then since the dollar amounts for the projects that we've um done have been below the requirement to trigger uh rfq we've used the same person okay um but this is a higher amount so makes sense okay thank you any other questions

All right, hearing none, do we have a motion for resolution 26013 regarding accepting the certified local government grant funding?

I'll motion to approve resolution number 26-013 accepting certified local government CLG grant funding in the amount of $18,000 and authorizing the mayor to execute the grant contract. The grant funding will be used to prepare a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Walla University Historic District.

Thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Council Member Stecklein second. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. It's unanimous. The ayes have it and the motion is passed. Thank you, John. Thank you. All right, next is Resolution 26012, appointing Robert McAndrews as City Administrator. Oh, this one's for me. Look at him all shy. Okay, so I do have the pleasure of presenting the resolution appointing Mr. McAndrews as City Administrator. and i'm gonna go through council members for any questions or comments you've had a few written down uh council member green any opposition i think she meant she's ready to vote let's get this yeah yeah i guess there you go i have nothing to nothing to add i'm excited all right council member cleveland

No questions, but, uh, looking forward to seeing the outcome of this vote.

No questions council member Evans. No questions council member Sherman.

Okay. So I did ask Robert when I got here, if he was still interested and he did say, yes, um, last Wednesday, we have spent the day together over in Tri cities for the good roads association legislative tour. Um, it was really cool to just, um. one we had to go around and say like who we were and like what our positions were and and he didn't know what to say right now but he listed both titles but it was it was really nice to be around other people who work in public works um who had very nice things to say about robert um very affirming for our decision so excellent yeah it was a good day i think that that robert you will do a great job thank you i appreciate that

So I hope hopefully all of you have seen the press release that was sent out as well as the UB article on Robert's appointment. I will say that while he officially doesn't start till September 1st, he has gotten no rest. So he has already begun many duties of being looped in and emails and things that are going to be impacting the city administrator come September 1st. Well, they're already fixed. So he will be more than prepared to begin the job on September 1st since he really, in all sense of the words, is already beginning to do the work. And I am very pleased and excited to be able to to present this resolution to you all and I think I think we're going to see great things come moving forward, especially since there does not need to be any ramping up time, any learning time. Robert's going to be able to jump right in. He already knows all our visions, all our goals, the mission. He has already been putting his own ideas. He's involved in many councils and advisory commissions. um so i don't i could go on and on but i'm going to ask if there's anyone who would like to make a motion to approve resolution 26012 appointing robert mcandrews a city administrator i would like to make a motion to approve to approve resolution i'm like so excited approve resolution 26-012 appointing robert robert mcandrews a city administrator

Thank you. Is there a second?

I really wanted to steal the motion just to take it from Heather because I could see her coming out of her skin, but I'll take the second.

He got the eyes. All right. Is there any other discussion? All right. Hearing none, let's vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. It's unanimous. The ayes have it and the motion is passed.

Thank you. I'm happy to be part of this and to continue with the city in this role. So I'm looking forward to it. Thank you very much.

All right. We're very quiet. We're quite excited about it. And again, congratulations. You are in the position. You earned it. All right. So next we're going to move on to a resolution. um let me see what is it approve or not a revision to the city ordinances 26-008 26-009 26-010 26-011 26-012 26-013 26-014 26-015 and 26-016

Chief tomorrow's yes, mayor council. Thank you. This seems simple enough to approve these revisions all we did lump them into one sum. I have to say, however, this has been a task that we've been dealing with for at least four years. We had two attorneys look at this. The mayor's been involved in a whole host of emails from the administrative office of the courts through Olympia. and through some collaboration with AOC, the administrative office of the courts, myself and Ron Nordman, we tackled this thing. We grabbed the bull by the horns and we figured it out. It seems very simple now, but there was a lot of work that went into this, a lot of reading, a lot of research. What has happened over the years Over the last 10 years, at least there has been a lot of ordinance updates, a lot of cut and paste, maybe some plagiarism from other communities. And but there's a theme of forgetting the enforcement piece on a lot of these ordinances. So we had to declare, are they infractions? Are they misdemeanors? What are the fines? So we had to go in and fine tune a lot of these ordinances and that meant researching which ordinances needed it, which ones didn't need it. Also behind the scenes, AOC and our district court had a lot of old ordinances that weren't even on the books anymore. So we had to go through and figure out what those were and get rid of those. But I'm so happy to get to this point. and uh we can finally present and i ask that you approve these revisions they have been vetted by our attorney and also by the office of office of the courts and by the way uh jen gwen down there aoc went above and beyond for our city to help us get this resolved so just have to give her a shout out um and i'm very grateful for her help so please pass those revisions so that we can actually go out and write some tickets if that is necessary and we haven't they'll do that in the last six months councilmember green questions or comments it seems like that sort of answers maybe what i was going to ask i'm just i'm curious what the practical impacts are for officers and for your your staff in making this change Yeah, so obviously we want to have the least amount of enforcement necessary to gain compliance. However, there are times we do have to use the enforcement piece to get cooperation from individuals on our community. So we needed that enforcement piece. And so now we have several pending cases and a lot of this really affects our code enforcement officer. So he will have the work share of this ability, but it also affected our parking tickets. it affected our ability to tow cars so we've which is a big impact to our community especially when we have construction projects and things that are going on so um but we're and we've had a lot of cooperation from our community so we've been able to really mitigate a lot of this um but we definitely needed that so it will make a huge huge improvement thank you for that certainly in my line of work there's an understanding of the balance between cooperation and accountability and it sounds like that's exactly what we're always here so appreciate that yeah

councilmember cleveland uh no questions but uh i imagine that updating city code probably isn't the sexiest of jobs but it's it is very much appreciated and getting everything up to date and uh you know just crossing the the t's and dot nines etc so thank you we had two city attorneys look at this and say yeah no thank you i was going to mention that i was going to mention it was very important work yeah

Council Member Stegline. No questions. Council Member Evans.

On behalf of all of the attorneys out there, I actually really like reading Municipal Code, but I realize that that's very few of us. So I do recognize that this is very tedious and compliance-driven work. So just thank you for taking this on and getting it done. So thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Council Member Sherman.

No questions. Thanks, Tori.

All right. And just did want to mention, you know, having two attorneys kind of take it, sit it on their desk and say, we're going to, we're getting to it. So I do want to recognize our newest city attorney, Mr. Ray, for taking it seriously, getting it done. But also Chief Tomaras, while this has been on hold for six months, he's been working on it for probably well over a year, going through all our ordinances and working with the office of the courts, making sure the languages were correct, making sure we were addressing the proper issues. So it took a lot of administrative time. So a lot of Chief Tomaras' administrative time. So I do want to thank you for making sure that we are in compliance, that we're all legal, and that we can hold people accountable for not being proactive or the good neighbors that they should be sometimes. So thank you so much for that. Yes, ma'am. Is there any other discussion? hearing on do we have a motion oops um let me see i lost myself here do we have a motion for this is it a ordinance to approve the ordinance changes multiple ordinance changes oh no brave soul come on i'll tackle it

All right, make a motion to approve revised ordinances 26-008, 26-009, 26-010, 26-011, 26-012, 26-013, 26-014, 26-015, and 26-016 as presented. Wonderful, thank you. Is there a second? I'll second. Councilmember Cleveland bravely

any additional discussion all right hearing that all in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed all right the ayes have it and the motion is passed thank you so much Chief DeMars and congratulations for getting this done all right next item financial policy update Mr. Carlton you are up uh thank you mayor we have not made uh

update to the financial policy since 2023 during the course of the 2024 audit that was completed in december the auditors came across sections of our federal purchasing policy that weren't included in the financial policy and they wanted those approved by council and put into the policy Also in this process, there's some changes to some of the funds, changes in terminology, changes in new funds, some are deleted. I'll go through those quickly. And then there's some slight writing errors or changes in words that we went through and made to reflect changes. Some of the major changes that took place under section C, 16, we added a section this relates to enter fund loans and transfers that are approved by council as part of the budgeting process. But we do on month to month basis have instances where. There's a negative fund balance, maybe due to the fact that we had a, a grant that we paid costs out that we haven't received the funds yet. So this authorizes us to make allowances for those by doing. transfers between funds of the same type. So that would be within the, there's three funds within the sewer program, there's three funds within the water program. So it would allow us to transfer funds without coming to council for approval. Any other transfers that aren't included in either the budget process or in that situation will have to come to council for approval. um in the further on in c section or in the d section um in the red line version i noticed it took out all the funds and re-added them because all the numbers changed but uh in effect what happened is uh d10 from the previous financial policy the l ltgo that if you don't know what that stands for that's uh limited tax general obligation bond fund that we had a number of years ago that's no longer used. We deleted that. The 11, the commercial drive bond fund, which was paid off 10 years ago was no longer required we created a lid fund 240 when we did the work for auto meadows but in effect that fund can only be used if we had taken a bond out to pay for the improvements so it's handled through the through the general fund and then we deleted 3 funds, uh, D 30 D 31 and D 32, which are 3 funds for the utilities. We've, um, those were added under different financing. I'm not sure why these additional funds were added, but what we did is we consolidated those funds in. So, within the utilities, we have a fund for operating. We have a fund for capital expenditures and we have a fund for debt service. so that's eliminating those three that are no longer required and those are rolled up into those other funds um and then we had two funds added within the last couple years we added d19 which is fund 350 which is for our tax improvement district which is funded by the 0.15 sales tax and that goes towards street projects we also added fund 360 which is our tax increment financing fund in order to track the projects and the money for the tiff projects Section J6, we added the audit exit recommendations on federal purchasing guidelines, which is a number of pages, a lot of federal requirements that we have to follow when we have federal grants. And then under Section K, we updated the references to invoice pay, which we no longer use. We rolled that into the Tyler system a couple years ago. So we just replaced the verbiage with invoice pay with our Tyler payments. And then we also added in the allocation section our IT allocation in which we started last year in which we allocate the IT costs according to an allocation method. And then a few other grammatical changes that were made. And that's the update.

Thank you. Council Member Green, questions or comments?

I don't have anything.

Council Member Cleveland?

No questions. Thank you.

Council Member Stecklein. I just wanted to thank you for putting it all in one place because I thought it was really helpful. I started reading the finance policy and then just like the way it was laid out and I feel like I learned from it. So thank you.

Council Member Evans. No further comment. Council Member Sherman.

I just want to say thank you for the red line. It's really helpful to see what was there and where everything fits in, in addition to the notes that you left. So thank you.

I know some people don't like red line documents.

Oh, some people will know the red line documents are important.

So thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none, is there a motion on ordinance number 26017?

I'll move to approve ordinance number 26-017 for an update to the finance policies.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councilmember Evans. Any additional discussion? Hearing none, let's vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, the ayes have it and the motion is passed. Thank you so much, Mr. Carlton. How many days left? 17 working days into that little quick thing yeah well maybe you might extend it maybe to you know 117 days all right so next um administrative reports there's one administrative report and it's a city events update by Ms. Holm madam clerk

So I had Kat create a visual for you guys so you can watch this while I talk. The video is of all of the city events that we've had thus far and some snaps from the events that we haven't had yet that occurred last year. That's where the images are from. So trunk or treat is coming up. It is August or October thirtieth from three to six here at the city municipal building parking lot where city staff have booths i guess if you will out of the back of the city vehicles and give candy to trick-or-treaters and then we also have additional people coming for that too i hear it's pretty well attended so that's pretty exciting cat is working on um getting that going right now And then Winterfest will occur December 3rd from 3 to 6 here at the City Municipal Building. Light Up the Avenue parade and tree lighting occurs during this event also. The lighted Christmas parade, it initially started to my knowledge I think in 2017 and it's just continued. Last year they had a gingerbread house contest, live entertainment and kids area called Santa's Workshop. and they had santa and grinch where you could take pictures with backdrop and balloon animals and face painting and you guys probably already know that because i know there's been several presentations but um i just wanted to recap that movies in the park coming up is in kanto it's saturday september 5th at sundown and then shrek is saturday september 19th at sundown This past Sunday, we had Greece in the park. There was approximately, I would say, 50 attendees there. We had the city provided popcorn from Hacienda Zaragoza, and we gave all of it out. I received a lot of thank yous. There were a lot of people that were very excited about watching Greece. Myself was one of them. And it went off without a hitch. I was really worried about setting the equipment up, but it all went well. The car show, which you're seeing pictures of right now, occurred this last Thursday alongside Farmer's Market. There was approximately 58 cars signed up, and there was an additional 10 to 15 more cars that showed up the day of the event. And then for the farmers market that occurred in tandem to that, we average about 20 vendors per market day depending on the weather and other events that are scheduled that could conflict. But there were 16 vendors at the market on this day and all of the vendors did really well. So that was very successful. the spring block party it's been reported that occurred in may may 17th there was approximately 300 attendees freedom festival was um sunday june 28th for um america's 250th and for um the fourth of july celebration we had a little bit more attendees for that there's uh 1500 to 2500 um actually i think i misspoke on spring block party there was about 3 000 plus i think um what i have in the agenda pocket is incorrect there should be another zero on that And then Market in the Park occurs Thursdays until the end of September. And we have been doing the little old-fashioned clickers between two people, and then we do an average. And there's approximately, I would say, looking at the numbers, 400 to 500 attendees. That includes vendors and people that are there with vendors. Yeah, so Kat's been very busy this year. I'm very thankful to have her. Anyways, that is all I have for you. Does anyone have questions?

Well, let's go for compliments. Council Member Green.

I just wanted to say that Thursday was especially fun. It was great to see so many cars show up to a 1st time event like it was, and it was very well managed and run and showing up with a car was very easy and smooth. So, great great job on with the whole staff getting that put together. And it's just, it's been a fun year of lively stuff. So well done.

Council member Cleveland, I think I say this every time, but as someone who remembers. when we didn't have any city events. This stuff really brings in some soul and identity to the city. It's super, super important. Thank you.

Yeah, the car show was so much fun. I flew in my dad so he can see it. Well, it was also my birthday, but he got to see the car show and that's like his favorite thing too. And I just want to compliment about the market in the park. So I sometimes go to chamber events and I meet with the vendors and they're always like, college place is our favorite place. one. They go to all the local farmers markets and they just love the communication. It's just so great. Their questions are answered. Just the sense of community and helping each other out is something I hear. I don't know if they know who I am, but I hear it and I think it's really great. Just, yeah, keep it up. I appreciate it.

Oh, that's wonderful. Council Member Evans.

Yeah, I had a great time at the car show despite the heat. I still had a wonderful time and I noticed the visual recap that was up on Facebook or social media accounts and it just looks really professional and has a great light into the type of community that we have here. So thank you for all of that.

All right, Council Member Sherman. I guess I didn't realize that it really was 2017 that a lot of this started because, I mean, it's kind of gone by in a blur, but it's really fun to think about how it's grown and changed over the years and really, really cool. The car show was amazing. We were in Prescott on Saturday and they wanted to start this new street dance. And so I was talking with their mayor and she's like, well, we haven't done it before. We wanted to try it. And so I was sharing with her, that was kind of ours, like have our own identity. And so to see how College Place has grown and people now, what I was sharing with her, people now feel like this is more than just a place that we live or that we sleep, right? So we can live here too and not just go and work somewhere else, but have that pride.

was really great to see people in in prescott but then also to see um everybody here on thursday having fun with all of it so thank you very much well congratulations on the uh car show i i missed it i was out of town wouldn't you know it um but i've heard nothing but great things about it and the pictures did look fun and i was very sad to have to sit in another city watching it But I, you know, please thank Cat for us and thank you for this.

Both of them. And Chris's kids were here. Yeah, they pulled it off. They both did. I helped minimally.

Next year we're going to have to top it. Now, actually, I want to know how did we handle the cars that just showed up?

Um, they, so, uh, They had Marianne and Andrea there with a separate till. And if they would fill out the information and the paperwork, they would go over to Marianne and then just pay to be the entrance. And then they added them in. It was a little confusing though. So I don't think we're going to do that next year. I think we're going to limit it to a drop dead date before, you know, where we're not going to accept vehicles after that time because it was a little confusing. Okay, so well now that now that they know it exists, right?

Hopefully they'll pay attention better attention to the timelines next time.

Yeah, I've I've noticed a couple cat has been knocking it out of the park with the social media and all of everything she's been working on. I'm super happy with her. But I have noticed on some of the posts, there were a couple of people that said, well, I wish I would have known about it. So when people ask you or say that to you, please ask them, well, how would you have known about it? I mean, we've done social media, we've done it on our website, we've provided advertising on radio. newsletters and newsletters yeah so um what's your preferred way to uh get announcements for this type of thing because we're always looking for that we always want to expand and and capture more people all right one last thing somebody's got to apologize to captain chris for me getting late to pick up my car our dinner ran late and we were there at 8 30 but everybody else was gone so he he stuck her waiting just for me so i i felt terrible

Thank you. That's awesome. All right. All right. Thank you, everybody. So now we have informational reports. There's three informational reports in your packet if you haven't reviewed them already. It includes a community development informational report. And if you have not looked at those, that includes all our permits, the cost of permanent kind of gives you an idea of what kind of um projects are going around or what kind of business we we do here at the city so it's helpful to look at those reports um and then yard of the month which the july recipients were bill and diane uribe who reside at 201 dones avenue um there's our picture chief tamaras thank you so much for keeping up with it um i think it's got to be a fun way um for them to be acknowledged right to acknowledge our community and then there's a police department informational report which is also very interesting which helps you understand what kind of um things are our officers run into and how many times and from what um what areas within our community it often comes from so if you have not read those please do We are now to go to the order since we have no new or unfinished business. Is there anything anyone has for good of the order? All right. Not seeing anyone raise their hand and not hearing any. Do we have a motion to conclude today's meeting?

I will motion to conclude today's meeting. Okay.

We have a motion council members check line. Is there a 2nd 2nd council member? Evans gives us a 2nd. Did you see I just kind of I took a beat. No, there's no objection or no more abuse to the mayor. The meeting is now concluded at 642 PM to that. Thank you everyone.