Appointments Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd call the order of the meeting of the operational strategy and administrative committee of 05/08/2026. Kirk, please call the roll.

Chair Erickson. Here. Committee member Bushnell.

Present.

Committee member Scott.

Here.

Here. Committee member Walker. Here.

Alright. Thank you

for joining us today. Our last meeting, we discussed the city manager work plan. The meeting minutes summarize the conversation and the associated action items that were concluded in your meeting packet. Today, we'll be discussing the City Council Action Memorandum Findings Report in alignment with strategic priorities. But first, we gotta approve the minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of 03/13/2026. All those in favor, is there a motion?

Move to approve minutes.

Second. Any corrections? Seeing all those in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye. Aye. We'll say no. Minutes are approved. I'll entertain a similar motion to approve the minutes of the 03/20/2026 Ozac meeting. So moved. Second. Moved a second. Any corrections? Seeing none, all in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Minutes are approved. One final meeting minutes to approve. All in saying a motion similar to approve the minutes of the 03/27/2026 Ozac meeting.

So moved. Second.

Second. In favor? Or and, are there any corrections? Seeing that, all those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed nay. The third minutes are approved.

Are we able to approve all those? For

future records. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Moving on. Our first agenda item or only agenda item is the city council action item.

Thank you, mayor, members of OSAC. I'm excited to be able to

bring the report of findings related

to council action memorandum to you today. As OSAC members may recall a few months ago, you discussed what changes might be worthwhile to improve or update the CAM and the CCR in particular. And as a reminder, at that meeting, we talked about was going through a more rigorous process of talking to all of the stakeholders, including you as the end user, the staff in terms of their portion of development of these, as well as other, parties such as department directors.

So

I'll take you through the reported findings today. There are 12 recommendations. Those really are, the action items by which I'll be asking you to direct me, on by the end of this presentation. And, as a fast forward, the question before you today is does the sorry. Do the findings that I'm presenting to you today reflect what you understand or what your, perspective is?

And if so, is are the next steps that are outlined the appropriate next steps, or is there additional or different direction that you would like to provide? So with that, we'll start with our next slide, which is a description of what actually is a council action memorandum. And so it is a document for introducing a topic, for council action, and that generally takes the form of a resolution or an ordinance or a motion. Those memos are broken up into several different types. For the four main ones, you see here on the slide, they are the staff generated council action memorandum, the staff generated council committee memo, and that would be a similar memo but going to a a committee such as this as opposed to full council, a council contingency request, which is a finance a financial request coming from a council member, and a council consideration request, which is a policy action proposal from a council member.

As you can see, there there are two different memos that have the same acronym. So, hopefully, that's one of the things that we can potentially clean up in this process because that is confusing to some. Next slide. We will be talking about why we are actually doing this report right now. So I already mentioned the first reason, which was that, you know, you as a committee talked about what the opportunities were, and we ran with that.

But there are some other reasons as well. The first of which is that this has not been updated in six years. And so just in the spirit of continuous improvement and making sure that all of our processes work as effectively as possible, we we're taking a look at it. The second is, as you know, we've updated our ten year strategic plan to now be Tacoma 2035. Our current version still reflects Tacoma 2025, so that an obvious opportunity for an update.

And then as part of that, we also have sort of the choice in front of us of what additional changes might we make to increase the effectiveness of the process itself, but also how can we potentially improve the effectiveness of the product for you as the end user in terms of the value of this as a whole. So, on the next slide, I will talk about our process, for presenting these findings, this report of findings. The first step was, initiated by you as a committee, earlier in 2026. Since that point, interviews have been conducted with all eight council members, excluding the mayor. Then post those interviews, we also conducted workshops with, key, departmental staff, council policy analysts, as well as city directors.

And then today is the culmination of that process with the presentation of these reported findings to you, subsequent to which, additional action will be taken based on, your comments at the end of this presentation. Next slide. So I'm gonna jump into the findings and recommendations. I've split each recommendation into a different slide. There was a PDF attached to your council materials that also was the full report of findings if, you prefer to go through it that way.

These slides reflect that document, so there are no differences in case, anybody is following both places. So the first finding is that there's actually, a number of different perspectives on what the actual purpose of the CAM is to begin with. I've heard, descriptions of it as a policy development tool, a policy analysis tool, a transparency and accountability tool, and also a records and archiving tool. And so each of those perspectives offers us insight into how different parties may be using the CAM as a process, but also how you as a council may be ultimately looking at the different purposes of the document as the end user as well. So the first recommendation is to clarify the purpose, or I should say purposes, of the council action memorandum, the council consideration contingency request of the council committee memo to both council and staff to ensure that we are on the same page with regards to what information you are requesting from staff and what information you're able to at the decision.

And, Mara, I defer to you in terms

of whether you would like to do pause and make recommendations

or if you'd like me to run the.

Topic. We could wait until the end and then the pilot thoughts as we go, or we could just go one by one. Yeah. Alright. Why don't we just take notes, and we'll just talk about that.

Perfect. Thank you. So moving on to our second recommendation, the finding is that there are many different types of camps, and not all sections feel as applicable to each type of camp as to all of the others. The diversity of things coming to council include, this broad list that you see represented here, grant approvals, purchase resolution, and and so on and so forth. So the that diversity of issues coming before you, if you look at the recommendation, requires investigating whether there is a way to allow for that to indicate what the ultimate date of CAM is and then have a filter whereby the most appropriate information is still included.

The information that's less applicable is automatically filtered out so that you don't have to, spend your time sort of dipping your information in the applicable situation. For those of you that can't see the slides but maybe listening in, in addition to the board appointments, there's also both CCRs, setting a hearing, such as the street vacation, a multifamily tax exemption approval, collective bargaining agreement approval, proclamations, recognitions, and ceremonials, and potentially others. Alright. Moving on to our third finding. It's not always clear what problem the recommendation in the CAMRCPR is getting to solve.

So, what we heard was that for some of the issues that are coming before council,

it would help eventually not

just know what the recommendation is, what actually is the problem that this recommendation solved. So the recommendation for you is to include a component of our questions within the CAMP that determine what problem statement that recommendation is. Alright. Moving on to our next board recommendations. One of the things that I found was that it was unclear to council members, especially newer council members, how the current CPM or CCR coming before them was related to path of action.

And so, what I found was that from the staff perspective, the background provided was really based on the staff's interpretation of what was important to include. So there were some times where the information provided to you would include, you know, past council action, this or this, but there were others that did not. And that would require questions or follow-up from different council members, to provide the appropriate context. So the recommendation would be in some of those sections, such as the background section, find an opportunity to, clearly identify what the past council action or touch point might be. And I just wanna note that, the importance of interviewing you as the end user and staff as the developer of a lot of these was key in this because what we heard from staff was there are actual capacity limitations to how far back that research can go.

That if we make every CAM or CCR require, you know, every past council action, that that would actually be, more work that would actually be helpful to you as the end user. So And figuring out what the appropriate balance is is one of my recommended next steps, which may include having some guardrails around that, such as the last council touch point so that you can have kind of a stepping stone in each previous census when camp CCR. Alright. Next recommendation is number five. Currently, what I found is that the background and summary sections are are rather inconsistent.

Different people, use them interchangeably, and different, authors also use a different level of detail and a different perspective in providing that summary. And so what that ends up doing is creating less of a consistent view for you as the end user for what you would expect to see in terms of information presented across a number of different issues and policies coming before you. So the recommendation to address that is to edit the titles and descriptions of those sections. Mhmm. More clearly, them for the following functions, which I identified for Okay.

Basically, what was getting, mixed into both of those sections depending on who the author was. What is the purpose and problem statement? What is the sponsor recommendation? What was the related governance or past council action? And then what is the key background or context that the decision maker should be aware of in having this decision or recommendation?

Alright. Moving on to recommendation six. We also found that the engagement section had very different responses depending on the author. So what we what we saw was that, based on who was filling it out, it would sometimes talk about who was engaged, or it might talk about how that engagement was conducted. Perhaps it would talk about what was learned from the engagement, but not all the time.

And it might also refer back to CBC engagement, but again, not in every case. So the current format does not indicate how that engagement was used, or it does not have a clear prompt. So again, if a current CAM or CCR says how that engagement was used, that's generally at the discretion of the author as opposed to because of a prompt within our process. It also does not require a, I shouldn't say required. It does not prompt a summary of inputs or perspectives.

So, that was another thing that that seems to come up in multiple interviews around what actually did we learn from all of the engagement that we did around this issue. And then in the in terms of things like, use types like board appointments, as I mentioned on a previous slide, you know, the engagement done for a board appointment is obviously not at the same level as the engagement that you would be looking for, for an initiative coming before you for a major decision. So thinking about community engagement as one of those sections that may not be applicable in each of these use types and might be an opportunity to streamline the process. So our recommendation is to include those clear prompts in that section to encourage the author to share what was learned and how that engagement ultimately is one of the recommendation with the caveat of where appropriate. Next recommendation is number seven.

The finding is that the equity analysis section often doesn't accomplish e and 10 and could be improved by broadening the analysis to include all of the components of the decision making that was done in the development of that policy. The current equity analysis section is really based on the equity index and asks users to talk about what the equity index score is for the issue that they are addressing. One of the limitations of that is that the equity index is a tool that focuses on how opportunity is distributed geographically, and not all of the work that comes before you has a geographic variable to it. So for citywide actions that might actually focus on a particularly vulnerable population or a, a population that has not received the same level investment historically as others, the current CAM process doesn't fully account for that. And, in addition to that, because of the bell curve nature of the equity index, anything that's citywide right now gets marked as moderate, because that is how bell curves work.

And that obviously does not achieve the intent of this section. So the recommendation here would be to change this section of the the camp that currently asks for that specific equity index analysis to a broader question that allows for the author to fully reflect how their proposal is advancing access, opportunity, and belonging in the city. Next recommendation is number eight. We found that the fiscal analysis section contains more detailed information than is often needed while also, at the same time, not always including all of the necessary information to make, an informed fiscal analysis. And what I mean by that is there are sections of the fiscal note section right now that include details such as the general ledger code.

I would, you know, ask for your pushback, but my assumption based on my interviews is that nobody is actually using the general ledger code as part of their decision making process.

Mhmm.

And so while that information is necessary for our financial information, there are other ways that we can account for that in our process without it having to come through the council action memo part of the process. So, again, if the intent is for you to know what the financial implications of the decision coming before you are, perhaps there are some ways that we can streamline that and make it more focused. So that's the recommendation to simplify this section to just the relevant information and and find a way to incorporate the physical trade offs that are not currently captured in the process. And just to know what some of those, hidden trade offs right now might include is that if there is an initiative happening or a decision that's coming before you and it requires staff to do additional work or a different kind of work, the city of Tacoma is, you know, very skilled at finding ways to make things happen despite the odds. But what we often do is we say there's no fiscal impact because what we're gonna do is we're gonna take existing resources, and we're gonna divert them for a period of time to do this thing, which will have an impact, but but it's not actually, you know, ending or or fundamentally changing how we're delivering our services.

The nuance here is that there is a fiscal trade off. It's an opportunity cost in the area that we are moving resources away from, even if it's

a a time limited thing.

And so right now, that's not always reflected. And so as a decision maker, that may not ultimately change your decision, but it may be something that you would want to know in terms of what are the opportunity costs or trade offs or long term impacts that are not currently captured as part of the analysis. Alright. Moving on to recommendation nine. And there are 12 of these, so I'm coming up on the end here. One of the reasons I asked if you wanted me to stop is I'm, you know, hearing my own voice quite a bit. Alright. The finding for recommendation nine is that the alt Can I Yes?

Sorry. To that note, I feel like I'm gonna forget. Could we pause sort of halfway through here? And Alright. Is that okay? Because Sure. Yeah. I definitely thought that was a good idea to go through all of them, and then they're gonna take some money. But

I didn't realize.

I think I I think I took good notes. But Okay. Sure. If that's okay.

Yeah. Which quick one would you like to overdo real quick?

I have a couple, I think, brief questions on many of them. Overarching, is there a proposal so sorry. I'm on recommendation two. It lists out every single one of them. I think it's great recommendation. Two of them, we call them the same thing. We call them CCRs, and I get confused every time. Are we talking about the council consideration request or the council contingency request? Is there another naming convention we could use?

Yes. Absolutely. If that's council's direction, that's an easy change

that

we could make as part of the process.

On recommendation four, I think that you addressed this by the end of it, but it feels like we get in I've we recently had an IPS committee meeting where we have newer council members and older council member members, and the newer council members weren't looped in. And they wouldn't have liked a lot more past actions, touch points. But once we started talking about it, it was, like, fifteen years, and I think we could really overdo that section. So I think that you said the last council touch point or something like that. Mhmm.

So just agreeing with that point that, like, that would be enough. And outside of the documentation, I think it would be for committee things, committee discussions, really useful for staff to go, oh, hey. We have a new council member. Maybe a quick briefing before the meeting would solve that problem rather than, like, writing a book about the Right. The thing. So I just don't want to have to bend over backwards for, to fulfill a thing that we don't really need that much. So recommendation number five, the third bullet, their related government governance council action, that is the same as the previous rep recommendation. Right? This is just showing that this is the

That this is currently captured inconsistently and that if we are able to, you know, clearly articulate it,

that we won't necessarily have that

Okay. And then recommendation seven is my last one. Agree, I think with everything you've said and agree that this is like, there are different ways we're using it. I'm not exactly sure what the recommendation is or or what we're going to where we're we landed on this. So I might just need you to repeat what you said.

Sure. So the the recommendation would be to take the current question, which is how does your proposal impact, the city with regards to the equity index? And it gives you, which section of the equity index you're looking at, business score of the area that you were looking So what we're saying is that that's limiting in terms of what pension impacts of the post coming reporting may actually be. So if we broaden that question to essentially include, but not be limited to, the equity index, then we allow for people to tell the story of how it's impacting access, opportunity, and belonging more fully than just by geographic or by a quantitative score, which is very limiting when you look at the range of things that we're doing impacting communities in terms of all of the Mhmm. Does that make sense?

Yes. I think that's the right answer. I also worry about going too far the other direction where it just becomes anecdotal, like, looks great rather than having any use of the equity index. So I and and maybe, again, it feels like there's pieces of this that can live outside of the documentation, but in a real way. Yeah. And I don't know how we recognize that through this process, but it just makes me a little bit nervous that we go too far the other way, I guess.

Okay. So I'm I'm hearing that, you're supportive of broad things, but not at the cost of losing what's currently there. So it has to be additive as opposed to walking anything back away from what you're currently getting out of that condition?

Yes. Except that I I'm not opposed to I I don't wanna have that hard of a line, like, don't lose anything. I just think we there's some balance there.

Okay. Thank you.

But, otherwise, yes, what you said.

K. Thank you.

That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Sure.

So anything about no. Alright.

Yeah.

So we were on finding and recommendation nine, which is about the alternative section. And currently, what we saw was that the alternative section is often very primary. It's often presented as a, you know, pass this proposal or don't pass this proposal, just to plain talk it a little bit. And so in terms of the intent of the alternative section, we found that there's there's actually two intents that get addressed differently based on the situation. The first intent is related to, and I should say these these two different intents relate to that first recommendation about purpose, because one of them is a policy analysis purpose, and one of them is a policy development purpose.

So on the, analysis side, what you will often see is what are the alternatives that counsel can consider. But on the development side, there's also this issue of what alternatives have already been considered in the, you know, the all of the work that led up to this CAM or CCR coming before you. Because for a lot of cases that we were talking to folks about, what we found was, you know, the alternatives were met. Mhmm. And we looked and investigated at many, many different ways that this could be done.

And there's a reason why the recommendation that is coming before you is coming before you. Right? And so rather than propose recommendations or alternatives that staff in particular might know will not be effective, it would be better to say, here are all the are some of the alternatives that were considered, not as decision making alternatives, but as a descriptive policy development tool that were considered in terms of, you know, reducing costs or looking for different revenue streams or differentiated levels of service or whatever those alternatives were that were considered and ultimately were not recommended.

Yeah.

So you you can see that in the recommendation in terms of doing two things, allowing the author to both describe what alternatives might be considered by counsel in the decision making process, but also what alternatives should counsel be aware of were already considered in the development of this proposal or recommendation. I'm sorry, Mary. Did I cut you off?

No. Okay. I was about to yawn.

I was just I was listening. Alright. Thank you. Our next recommendation and finding is number 10. And this one's fairly straightforward.

It we found that even though the staff or council recommendation is is really, you know, what I would call the headline of this document, it is currently situated or formatted actually at the end of the document. So you, as the end user, have to go all the way through the document to get to the headline. And so, you the the icon here is a newspaper because the the recommendation is to follow suit and have the headline at the beginning of the document. It doesn't necessarily have to be the very first thing, but it should be close to the beginning so that you, as the end user, can see very clearly what is the problem that is being, that is seeking to be addressed and what is the recommendation for how to address it. Alright.

Recommendation number 11 is based on the finding that there's often no clear timeline associated with the CAMR CCR. And so we currently have a section that is called evaluation and follow-up, but our, the finding here is that that evaluation and follow-up section is also used inconsistently. Sometimes it's used as a follow-up in terms of when can counsel expect there to be a completion date, but other times it's used as when is the next time counsel can expect to see this come before them, which are different different ways of, approaching this. And so, being being cognizant of that would lead us to the recommendation, which is can we articulate as part of one of that, you know, perhaps that very question, being clearer about what is the proposed timeline or expectation of completion of this, recommendation coming before you? And in addition to that, is there a midpoint or checkpoint for counsel, that that you should be aware of in terms of when is the next time it's coming before you?

Alright. And that takes us to our final recommendation, and the finding is that it is not always clear what the potential impacts of the recommendation are. And at the core of the CAM and the CCR, this is really one of the fundamental purposes is do we fully understand what the potential impacts of this recommendation is? So the current CAMS and CCRs typically ask people, a couple of things. Which Tacoma twenty twenty five priority area is it contributing to and how?

And then, it also asks about positive and negative impacts of alternatives, but it doesn't necessarily talk about positive and negative impacts of the recommendation as clearly as that. So what the recommendation would be would be to update the documents to reflect Tacoma 2035 goals. And as part of that update, figure out how to ask for the contribution to that goal area in such a way that it actually articulates the potential impacts with more clarity to you as the decision maker.

So,

that takes us to our next steps as that completes the 12 recommendations of this report. So the first is, today's discussion here at OSAC. You've you've now received my report of findings, and I look forward to hearing more of your comments so that I can emphasize those for our next steps. That's the second bullet point here is that whatever comments you provide to me today, I will be taking and and further incorporating into into this body of work. That will include follow-up interviews based on these findings with, key stakeholders in the coming months, which I would then, end with the development of a a draft that reflects all of these findings.

My recommendation to you is that, I think that the correct timing for that to give you a quality product would be sort of end of quarter two, like, the late June, early July time frame to be able to do each of those things, synthesize, follow-up. And then, my my recommendation as part of that would be that, the four, OSAC committee members have had kind of the inside scoop on this, but we have interviewed all of the other council members as part of this process. And there was a desire for, kind of the next iteration of this to come to full council from a lot of those other council members. So that would be my recommendation, would be that the next update would be in a full council setting. With that, I look forward to hearing any, comments, recommendations, direction from you with council.

Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you, Jacques. Very comprehensive. Any initial thoughts on the latter part of our general

Yeah. No. I appreciate all the work on here. I think that it's a really good it's real it's always good to review things even if you think things are good. I think there's always room for improvement, and I think this is one of those continuous improvement that's definitely needed.

I appreciate all the opportunity to provide clarity, especially as we go through a policy making process, and I think this really hits that nail on the head. One thing I think is new and and recommendation 12, you know, it's something that we haven't really thought about and can process is how we tie this back to our strategic goals. And I think that's I think that's really important. And I I also wanna emphasize that not everything that we do has to necessarily be tied to that, and that's okay. But I do think that when possible, especially because this is, 2035 is, the goals that the council has set forth.

And it makes sense to me that in a lot of our policy work and recommendations that we're doing would be to advance these goals of the body. And so if there are ways to tie back individual, or resolution to whatever do the goals generally, I think, is is always a good thing, because they've talked about how how this is advancing, not just that particular subject area, that the council member is interested in, but how it advances the goals of the body generally and the goals of the city generally. And so I think I think that's just a a really good addition. I found that, in some other bodies I I I am a part of, Oftentimes, they're tiebacks to strategic plan and goals and how how different policy decisions will impact those, both a positive and negative way because everything that we do tie it back to what would hope hopefully be. You know?

But it is gonna be impactful in some way to something else. Right? So there's always some sort of domino effect, whether it's small or large. So thank you. That's my

May I ask a follow-up question? Yeah. So when you say not everything has to be tied to 2035, when when we look at that list of use types, are there are there specific ones that kind of are jumping out to you as being that, or is is your comment broader? I'm trying to figure out whether there are specific use types where we can remove that section, even if it

doesn't make as much sense, or

whether you're talking about really kind

of a more global look at things. More global look at things. Because I you don't know what you don't know. Things pop up. Right? Pandemic happened, and some of the things that we have to do in the immediate Pretty might not necessarily follow in line with all our 2035. Great example. And so I I think that there's just I always try to control for the unknown whenever possible. And so but when possible, you know, we should always have, like, a node that we're trying to head towards. Right? That's where the goals are. But you can't you can't control for every inevitability. Thank you for clarifying that.

And I should also mention, I I did not end that wealth recommendation. We do have a seventh area of operational, excellence. And so for all of the things that come before you that, you know, are related to IT or things that, are more internal facing, we do have that operational excellence section that we will incorporate as part of that section too. Yeah.

And I'll be honest. Like, the things that come up, it's very unlikely that we would find some way to be able to tie back to. So I I don't think it's it's it's for Yeah. I think that because the the the 2035 goals hit so many areas of interest, especially in. I mean, it is our goals for six. So, I I suspect that more times than not, that there would be some sort of time with 2035.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. The other thing I I shouldn't have mentioned before is that, in association with the actual CAM document, there is a guidance document that we have for staff in particular that goes into great detail in each of these sections in terms of what would be useful information. So we will be updating that as well to reflect all of these recommendations. I just want you to know that, it will not just be the document. It will also be the guidance and the change in the process behind the scenes.

Okay. Appreciate you. Anything else?

I have a couple other ones. I think in tracking that conversation about Tacoma 2035, I think I'm in agreement with deputy mayor. Let's keep it in there for everything. I think we should be thinking about, you know, proclamations and recognitions in terms of Tacoma 2035 as well. Like, of course, sometimes things come up, but I think we should always be asking ourselves that question.

K. So on the list of things on recommendation two, like, in all the categories Mhmm. And maybe this is something that's in the finding document that I haven't read yet. Did we have a breakdown of how many typically we have in each category? Because I

When you say how many do you

How many per week? Or or month or something. I don't know. Because I feel like I don't see most of these. Right? Like, I work on the CCRs. Those are right? So I feel like I'm making decisions for things that might be really useful to staff, but I don't under I don't have a sense of the volume.

Yeah. The short answer is no. I don't have Okay. Numbers for you. There you're absolutely right, though. There are some that are more common than others. You know, multifamily tax exemptions just as an example. Right? That's one that comes to you pretty consistently. Right? And so, that would be one that you would probably see or flag more often, whereas some of these might be attached to consent agendas or other ways of, having them maybe less visible. Mhmm. But if that's something you'd like us to follow-up on, certainly can.

No. I don't think we need to do again, not trying to steal staff time to just get a number of interest. But I I think my question is based in how much we're asking of staff. For example, setting a hearing. Almost all of those are required of us. Yes. So how much are we asking staff to, like, analyze, write, you know, connect it to all these things when it's just a state requirement?

Yeah. So that is exactly one of the, like, word for word, some of the statements from our staff, right, that, you know, they understand the intent of this, and they feel like being required to input the same information for something like that Doesn't meet your need as a decision maker, and it doesn't meet their need of that. But but we haven't differentiated that as part of the process currently. So you're you're right on you're right on point.

Great.

And then the recommend recommendation nine. Thank you. Love it. That really helps, I think, make that section more valuable because I think that often is our questions of each other. Like, well, where did this come from or what what work was done? And they're often

in a lot of fun. So I think

that's my only other comments. I think I'm excited to give it a try. Is there a, like, very short time window before we finalize it and put it on the shelf?

Yes. That's the recommendation from the council. This is your process, so we can do this however you like. My recommendation is to take whatever comments, like I said, create a first draft of an update for you as a council and bring that to you. But in terms of how we implement that with a a pilot period or, you know, what however you wanna do that, we're open to whatever council would like in terms of process.

Yeah. I think, if I were to look at a template right now, I'd probably be like, sounds good. Sounds good. And then I'll go upstairs and work through all with Christina and be like, ah. So maybe just even a short window at some point where our staff works with us on on one example or I don't if there's another way to do it. Work through one example in this committee.

Yeah. Sort of

Maybe there's out loud. I don't know.

Yeah. Maybe there's, a, like, a a fake cam that we can go through, like, fun Mhmm. To kind of, like, flesh out how it might actually work, but before getting into some tier policy work. I

could certainly incorporate that into, like, the very next meeting. If I have a draft, can incorporate that process into that presentation itself if that works for you.

Good. That'd helpful. K. Thank you. This is

sounded simple when we started. Of course, it's more complicated, so thank you for working through the complicated pieces.

And for all the work talking to people individually too. Jamika, do you have any thoughts?

Thank you, Mira. No. I there are the few thoughts that I have have already been, like, shared. So I just yeah. Reiterating what's been said, especially about the 2035 stuff and just yeah.

I think that there are a lot of things that even going through this process and and talking with you, Jacques, that even helped clarify some things for me going through it. So I think that was really helpful. And I so I think being able to take the time to look at this, figure out where we can, you know, shore things up, clarify things, streamline things is really helpful. I, yeah, I wanted to reiterate what's already been stated just around, like, just making sure that we're not adding a whole lot of extra work for staff, especially if it's not kind of helping to get us to what we're all looking for and making these documents work more effectively for each of us in the in the different ways that they play into our our process. So yeah.

No. I just I really appreciate the work, and I'm glad that you were able to get such good feedback from from everyone and and combine it here for to give us some good thoughts. So I'm looking forward to seeing kind of what the the next next things are that that come from it and how we kinda get things going as far as solidifying this. So thank you.

Appreciate it. Yeah. Overall, my broadly supportive of this. Few slides in particular that really stand out to me is is just good areas to to look more at. So just with the FERC recommendation, I mean, that that's a question for us. Right? It's it's defining what the purpose of these things are. I myself have ideas about what these things likely are, but, you know, did you folks have strong feelings about what the action memorandum, CCR, memo, like, what from committees, what the purposes of these things are, whether it's the bullets on

the left or if there's other things that

you think just would help staff understand the the clearer direction there.

Yeah. I think I think to your point earlier talking about the naming convention, counsel this, counsel that, counsel this, counsel that, it's like, it's a

little confusing what is what.

But I I think it'd be clear. Okay. This is a policy development recommendation, or this is this is an analysis, or I don't know. Like, just Mhmm. Something a little bit different.

Well, whatever that might look like.

Yeah. When I see these, just combined in my older experience with what we see now, the action memorandum is is like something has legs. That's that's what I interpret is it's it's an action memo, and and you can slice and dice with the word council or or whatever. You could just call it an action memo. And for that, especially as you flesh out more things, like talking about timelines, policies, equity, and so forth, You could say analysis or you could say accountability transparency, but basically just things that facilitate something happening is what I think of when I think of an action at random.

Consideration requests is three legs, may maybe like training wheels. You know? Like, this is something that has sufficient support from the council to at least be worthy of exploration. And and that maybe that's really what activates number 12 of, like, what are the pros and cons of this. I I think if you are gonna talk about pros and cons, because if something already has legs and it's moving, I and I'm kind of jumping ahead of my notes here.

The thing to be maybe wary is too strong. The thing to be aware of is I I can just see it being really awkward for staff to tell a member of the council or to tell a committee member of, like, a tell an entire study session, hey. This thing you're bringing forward is actually harmful to state policy. Like, I I could see that sort of being, the current alternatives approach, which which is basically, you know, you can do this or you you cannot do this. It's almost like you're just kinda checking a box.

I could I could see that being very performative and, like, not being a thing because staff is just scared to tell members of the council if their idea sucks or that it's it's counterproductive. So that being said, I I do think that we do need to hear pushback from from staff. I think it's a it's a very important component, but I think it's it's easier to have healthy exchanges like that earlier on before there's, like, the sunk cost fallacy before something's already moved on. And just like any other kind of policy formation, earlier is always stronger. So I'd I'd say that if you are going to have discussions about alignment with Tacoma 35 or other strategic plans, I I'd say earlier the better, and I'd I'd say marry that to the the consideration rather

than the action,

if it makes sense, earlier on. Contingency may ask us money. If we are doing contingency request, it it might help us to give context about what what is currently in the tank, which we don't necessarily do that. I mean, it it it just kinda comes across like free money. Like, oh, yeah. 10 k here, 15 k here. But if there's only, like, a 100,000 left or or I don't know. It it might help more more just as basic procedure to say, okay. This is currently what we've had or have, like, a list of what have the current proposals been. You know?

Just having broader context for what's happened in the year, that might be useful for contingency requests with fiscal asks. And then finally, for slide number one Many memos are not as familiar with the current procedures there, but I think that's more just another picture. But I think I think the biggest things for me for number one would be for my own personal take on the definitions would be the purpose of an action memo being something like it's it's beyond consideration. Like, we've more or less decided, and this is the direction we're going and, like, what what is going to facilitate this thing happening. Consideration, I think, is more just about honest exchanges and just expectation setting.

You know, I I think that's really the best place for staff, especially to have that creative control to be able to give honest feedback about alignment of policy. And I I would just say, like, having broader context for contingency request would be fairly helpful. Jamaica, Christina, any thoughts on on purpose? No.

I think that I'm I'm tracking with all of your suggestions, and I think being really clear about it is really important. Yeah. So I guess I'm just saying I agree with everything heard so far.

Alright. Cool. Mika?

Same. I I agree. I don't have anything to add to that. I think it's a good idea.

Alright. Nine is a very important slide. I think that's something I noticed even during my prior final council. It almost seemed like alternatives were just kind of a grudging thing staff did. Like, Alright, you clearly wanna do this thing. I guess you could do this, which is just, you know, clearly a kind of check the box mentality. So so having real alternatives, I've always thought was kinda cool. Or, like, what what wasn't considered. I I think these are both differently good strategies. They both seem really labor intensive.

I think, definitely, number one is more labor intensive than two. So how do people feel about this? I I have a thought that's developing, but I wanna open up the floor first. Preferences for one or two or other thoughts here?

I mean, I already commented on this one. I think also think it's very important. I was reading it as as both.

Okay. Both. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's certainly different levels. Like, a proclamation doesn't meet this section

right or Sure.

But I guess for me, it really comes down to how far down the rabbit hole

you wanna go. Mhmm.

Because you could you could come up with all kinds of alternatives for anything. You know? I I'm I'm trying to think of an example. You know? You wanna fund, you know, specific organizations that's doing great work in a particular topic area. Well, there's there's, like, 10 other 10 other great organizations that also do it. So are we gonna list out every single other organization that, right, maybe could do it better or not. And I I don't know. That that's just kind of like I don't know. I'm just trying to think of, like, it's I I get where you're coming from because it's like, okay.

We'll just put the the the alternative is to do nothing. Right? Because there's that. That's the simple answer for a lot of things. But it's like how much time and and, you know, how far down the rabbit hole do go with alternative? Because we could reestablish a whole new department that you know, an alternative is to establish, you know, a new department that deals with these things typically.

Yeah. I I think that in the spirit of less labor intensity, I think one is better suited for consideration request. I think number two is better suited for for action methods because you want us you want to on the side of bread when you're beginning a policy conversation. Like, what what else can we be considering to just put spaghetti on the wall and see what makes the most sense, what has the most support, what's the most financially feasible. And then once you've found what makes the most sense to proceed, then it it's not like considering alternatives is is brought, but it it's less effective to the the current course.

And then it's then it's more just about postmortem, like, what did we consider? And and just for record keeping purposes, like, why did we rule these things out? And and then and then also helps with other newer people who are onboarding or even newer staff, for example. I think to the best extent we can, there might also be ways of respecting staff time for the first one by finding a way to put the onus as much on the sponsors, so the council members and their support staff in developing these things to do as much identification of what is the most succinct universe. So, like, if I want to do something about litter pickup, or if I want to do something about code enforcement, for example, and I want to look at a very specific thing, to Joe's point.

Like, we don't wanna look at every single alternative but the sun. But, like, you know, broadly speaking, what what is my end game? You know? And maybe that's where problem statements can come in. It's it's just start with the problem statement as as part of that council formation. And then what what really gets me there? What would I be satisfied with? And then, like, put as much of the honest on the problem and the end state and and, like, a few things. And also reiterating that alternatives are not needed. May maybe we can we can just be clear that we don't need to form people to just have an alternative for the sake of having one.

I mean, maybe there really is only one clear solution for example. Just just being really clear that it's about what actually works in practice versus just checking the box. But doing so very early in the consideration stage, like, I I think that's the best place for meaningful alternative discussions to come up. And then that way, also involve more cast members because the more open something is, then it then it's not just simply the sponsors, but you can really get feedback from other people outside of the committee or outside of OSAC or just broadly speaking. I think it's more inclusive that way.

And then, yeah, like, what alternatives were considered, and then that kind of alternative postmortem, I I think that's more just that can also be CRISPR, and that can that can take less time if you've already done the brunt of alternative discussions on the front end. And then that can just be more that can be a little bit more in the box checking direction, but but thoughtfully so on the action that I saw. It it makes sense.

No. That distinction is helpful. That does make sense.

How do folks feel about that distinction?

Yeah. And

then I'll I will add that we we have also thought about how can we help lead staff towards giving you those those answers and thinking about whether we could actually have some set alternative types. Like, is there a no cost way of addressing this problem statement in some other way? Is there a first step that we could take now if we don't have the funding to do the whole thing? Is there a a half measure? Is there a partnership opportunity?

I

was thinking if there's a way to prompt, but, to my point about the guidance document, I think we'll we'll probably try to include some of that in the guidance for so that we don't lengthen the actual CAM or CCR.

Yeah. And then I I jumped ahead to 12, but just to reiterate, if there are discussions about alignment with strategic priorities and and also things that might set back strategic priorities, which I I think is a very healthy point of discussion, I I say the earlier, the better. And I say that again because, one, that that's just the best place for those discussions. And for two, it is just gonna be less uncomfortable for staff. Can you say more about what you mean by that?

What I mean is that if something already has legs, like it's clear that this, you know, five plus members of the council want to do something Yeah. Then, I mean, just putting yourself in the position of a council assistant or a committee staff, yourself or a city manager or whoever, it's probably not gonna be very fun to tell a council majority or even a very dedicated council plurality, hey. This thing is actually shit. You know, like, this thing is actually gonna backtrack us on a few things. Right?

Versus, if you're in that kind of healthy, like, spaghetti on the wall kind of kind of controlled chaos, early policy formation process. Then the pushback can be kind of the really healthy counterpoint to the alternative discussion. You could say, you know, I want to do code enforcement by x y z. Well, council member, have you considered the fiscal implications or what this means for the community safety action strategy or the this this, that, and the other? Might you consider instead something that gets to your and then that way, it's not just simply staff pushing back and saying it's counterproductive. It is just more a part of that healthy alternative discussion. Hang on for that clarification. And and then, again, earlier as part of the reiteration request.

Mhmm.

So that'd be my input there. Then that way, staff staff can feel greater creative control and, you know, less less pressure, and we actually share the perspective to begin with. Because because otherwise, there there's a real risk of self censorship. Just fall in line with

what the council wants. Understood. Regina?

So I agree with what you're saying. I feel like and we have talked about this over the last few years. Like, we'd love to have some of that back and forth counsel and staff and subject matter experts are often gonna give us good feedback. I'm not understanding where you see that living in this document, and I also am not sure it needs to. I think that's more of a cultural

Yeah.

Shift and say, hey. Please push back. So I'm I'm curious if you have a vision of that or if that's maybe something, Jack, you can think through as and and in writing Yeah. That feels interesting.

Very agnostic. And that that's a great point to bring up. I think something in writing just just to set the tone and the expectation might be useful because if we assume, you know, then you you might move more on that just check the box thing. Like, if if you are to say, for example, that we're taking a look at part of the consideration request process, you know, what what a meaningful problem statement is, you know, what alignment is with counsel to be requested. And then, like, as part of the process or or even just in the document or or just something in writing, there's a built in expectation that it's gonna be kinda Socratic, you know, that that, you know, I I'm starting with this hypothesis, you know, just like a really healthy scientific debate almost.

Like, generally speaking, I really care about this. This is this is a problem. This is my overall approach I'm interested in doing. Here's a couple other people who are interested in this also. This and and then, again, setting the expectation. What does this relate to? What what strategic plans? And then if we set the expectation, whether it's in writing or some other way that, okay. Defend your work, like like a little mini dissertation. You know?

And then if we're setting the expectation that that there will be healthy pushback from not just colleagues but staff, then it's no longer really pushback. It's just kind of a healthy, frank discussion, and then that then staff or the subject matter experts, other council members can then propose alternatives, and then we could just have more of a healthy little mishmash. You know? So my answer is very ambiguous. I think that setting the expectation in some way is important.

Something in writing, whether it's specifically fleshing out the alternatives or even just setting the expectation that alternatives are to be expected or welcomed or encouraged and and then but just making sure they're very detailed alternatives, not not just box checking.

And at minimum, what I'm hearing is even if we can't incorporate that concept fully into the document, we can at least try to create where you are able to have that discussion and culture, build that culture Yeah. And the conditions are there

for that within the document.

Provided the alternatives are actually meaningful. Right. And flushed out. Any thoughts on these?

One additional nuance to this call out is that we also use these, as the basis for developing the language for resolutions and ordinance. So when the Canvas forward, that is the the document that has the wording that then leads to the resolution or ordinance. And so there is an element of trying to reduce this, but I do wanna mention that because as we as I meet with legal in the coming weeks, etcetera, I do wanna just set, that reminder in front of you so that, the expectation isn't that we have complete free reign. Mhmm. There will have to be some guardrails.

And so if I do come back with, pushback on any of the direction given, I just wanted to set that context beforehand so you understood what I'm balancing. Yep. Sure. Balance everything. Keep it balanced. So

with that, are you looking for recommendation,

or is this just discussion? If my recommendations line up with your expectations in terms of taking this input, creating a first draft that's reflective of it, bringing it back to full council, potentially, based on what I heard, having that draft have an example to run through Yeah. To see how it works, and bringing that back sometime in the late q two stage. If that reflects what your expectations are, a simple thumbs up will suffice. If you would like anything to be different than that, please just let me know. Alright. Cool. And if this thing you're taking and doing further interviews incorporates the feedback that we've said. You don't have to laboriously,

you know, notate every single one. But you guys get the point as well. Got it. Alright. Cool. Thumbs up all around. Jamika, any any thoughts from our virtual friends?

No. Nothing more to add. Just, again, appreciate all all the work.

Very good. Okay. Do you need the motion, or is it just broadly understood? Broadly understood.

Thank you so much, Mary. Cool.

Okay. Seeing no further questions or comments on this topic, thank you very much, Jacques. This is actually a really fun topic. This is secret thoughts, good policy making. Alright. With that, Claire, we are going to open up public comment.

To request to speak during public comments or items on the agenda, please sign up in the front of the room if you have not done so already. If you are speaking virtually, please press the raise hand button near the bottom of your Zoom window or star nine on your phone. Your name or the last four digits of your phone number will be called out for the future.

Thank you. First, anyone signed up to speak virtually or in person?

No individuals signed up in person. No individuals signed up in line to speak. Okay.

Seeing none, we're gonna close public comments. And with that, it looks like there's nothing else out of the order. That is our motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. I'll I'll think first. Yeah. Running through those action items, of course, director Colon will bring back an updated draft with all this incorporated and further research to a study section. But for the consideration of the chairing committee, in order to allow for greater staff preparation and improved timing with the budget development process and also to avoid any potential conflicts Memorial Day weekend, I would suggest that we might cancel the meeting of May 22 and reschedule those pending agenda items to the June 12 o stack. Council on the committee and chair willing to

take that.

Books available? Yes.

Sounds good to me.

Alright. Cool. So we need a motion for, cancellation, and can about go ahead

and do it, and then we'll be safe. So motion to cancel the five twenty two OSAC meeting and move those agenda items to the June 12 meeting. Moved.

Second. Second, Elizabeth. Say

aye. Aye.

Those say nay? Alright. Very good. How was your motion to adjourn? I'll adjourn.

Second.

Moving to second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Say nay. We are adjourned.