City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone. It's, 06:00 on 03/03/2026, and I'm called this regular city council meeting, to order. All council members are are present this evening. And if you're able, please rise for 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.

I also want to acknowledge that we, the city of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Treaty of Medicine Creek, including the Esqualeonian tribe and the Squaxinian tribe. Can I get a motion to approve this evening's agenda and consent agenda?

Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda as published.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries. So first up on our approved agenda is public recognitions and presentations. We actually have two people we are recognizing for their service on our library board. Scott Robinson, who's been served for ten years from 2016 till 2026 and previously served on our our planning commission from 2000 to 2005.

He's being recognized today. And also Amy Bonden who has been serving on our library board since 2018. I see the chair of our library board is here. Charlotte, if you would like, can you come up and say a few words about each one of them?

Mister mayor, board members, fellow citizens, I am the current chair of the Lacey Library Board, and I've worked with Amy and Scott for a long time. I know worth recognizing Scott first. I have never known the library board without Scott. He was there when I arrived. He was the chair immediately before my first stint as chair, and I very much appreciate his leadership and his generosity with his time and support and help when I had questions as a new chair. So we will miss you, Scott.

Amy joined

the board after I did. And Amy has also been a very active member of our library board, and I appreciate all her hard work, and I appreciate Amy's good sense of humor and the brightness that she has brought to the board, and we'll miss her, too.

Great. So, we actually If we can bring them both up, Scott and Amy. I have a couple little distinguished public service awards versus to, obviously, Scott for your service on the library board between 2016 and 2026, and Amy from your service from the Library Board from 2018 to 2026. And so we'll maybe have you guys both come up here and show your things, and we'll do a quick picture right here. Hey, go ahead and get in here on the other side.

Okay. Do you have anything you guys would like to say for your for your time? Go ahead. And then you can take your go ahead.

First up,

thank you very much. I appreciate this. And I've always appreciated the council support for maintenance and enhancement dollars, and, you know, that that library staff pumps out about 60 to 7,000 things a month.

And so they do a wonderful job over there, and

the library is a great asset for this community. And I I urge you to continue to support it moving forward. And also great city staff here to support these boards, just top notch. So I've had a wonderful time. So thank you very much.

Thank you. You. Amy?

I I would echo all of that. The Lacey Library was just kind of a lifesaver for my husband and me when our kids were little. It was a place to go on a rainy Saturday and spend a

few hours. So we are just big, big

fans of our local library. In my day job, I work for the school district, and the library and the city are both wonderful partners. So thank you for everything that you do in our community.

Thank you. We'd love to shake your hand as you come by here.

I'm sure you had great insurance to cover that. Great.

And then, our next agenda item is under, proclamations. We have a proclamation for American Red Cross month.

City Of Lacey official proclamation. Whereas for more than a century, the American Red Cross has served at the forefront of helping Americans prevent, prepare for, and respond to small and large disasters and

Whereas families and communities rely on the American Red Cross in times of crisis and disaster, and in turn, the Red Cross relies on the continued support, trust, and generosity of those same communities to sustain its its vital humanitarian mission and

Whereas we recognize and honor the compassion and dedication of the Red Cross volunteers who join millions of individuals across The United States in volunteering their time, donating blood, contributing financial support, and learning essential life saving skills through the American Red Cross. And?

Whereas in Lacey, the contributions of local Red Cross volunteers give hope to the most vulnerable in their darkest hours, whether it's providing emergency shelter, food, and comfort for families devastated by local disasters like home fires and

Whereas donating essential blood for accident and burn victims, heart surgery, and organ transplant patients, and those receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer, or sickle cell disease, and

Whereas the Red Cross plays a vital role in making the city of Lacey safer and stronger, and we thank the Red Cross for its essential compassionate service and honor the South Puget Sound and Olympics chapters for their meaningful contributions to the well-being of our community. And Now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, mayor of

the city of Lacey, on behalf of the Lacey City Council, to hereby proclaim March 2026 as American Red Cross month in the city of Lacey and encourage all community members to reach out and support its humanitarian mission. Signed by myself, mayor Andy Reiter, on this date. And Vic, you can come up and say, where's this?

Okay.

Great. Let's do a quick photo op here.

Thank

you, mayor Ryder and the city council. On behalf of the South Puget Sound Olympics chapter of the Red Cross, we wanna thank you for this proclamation. As many of of you know, the Red Cross is a humanitarian organization. And really what our function is is to be out there in an emergency and a disaster, and we really are the first people individuals see other than the first responders. Our function is very simple, to be able to give some comfort and help these people in a time of need.

Because for so many of these people, this is the worst day of their life, And what we try to do is provide that comfort. So whether it's a cup of coffee, a sandwich, a blanket, or even giving a stuffed animal to a child, just to see that little smile for ten seconds makes it all worthwhile. But our biggest thing is to give these people a hug and let them know it's gonna be alright. There's people out there now and in the future that are gonna be able to help them. Now how can you help the Red Cross?

Blood donations. We're always in desperate need for blood. Monetary donations. 90¢ of every dollar goes to those emergency funds that you see. Very important, volunteering.

90% of the people you see out there are volunteers, like myself. So what I would encourage you to do is look at that possibility. There's over 200 different ways you can volunteer at the Red Cross, and many of them, you never have to leave your home. One of our most important volunteers is what we call a duty officer for disaster action team. So all those people that go out to a disaster, somebody is sitting in a building with a computer or a mobile phone.

So it's a great opportunity for seniors or people who don't wanna be woken up at two in the morning and have to go out to a home or something of that nature. But we're always looking for great people like yourself. And with that, I wanna thank the city council and mayor Ryder once again for this great proclamation. Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Before

you go, I just wanted to say something real quick about the Red Cross. When I was deployed to Afghanistan, my father had a stroke and that nearly took his life. But it's because of the Red Cross and his care facility being able to get ahold of my command that I was able to talk to him. And I'm really grateful for what you guys do.

So I

just wanna say thank you for that.

Yeah. Thank you. There's a there's such a a critical part of our community, and wouldn't wouldn't know what we do without you. And obviously, we just received some news about the United Way and and them closing in in our region, which is really heartbreaking. But I imagine that team put even more pressure on on the Red Cross in in some ways to pick up some of the, know, things that they also helped within our community.

So please support the Red Cross. We we need volunteers. We need the voluntary support, and we desperately need them in our community. So, thank you so much for what you do. So, next up on our agenda is public comment. We have a couple people who signed up. First one is, Dalton. Please come up to the podium, introduce yourself, tell us where you're from, and you'll have three minutes for public comment.

Hello. My name is Dalton Ko. I've lived in Lacey for the past seven years, and I wanted to talk about some recent ICE detentions and automatic license plates readers in our community. Just this morning, we had two confirmed kidnappings of our neighbors and community members by ICE. I don't think it's a coincidence.

I'm so sorry. I don't think it's a coincidence that these incidents occurred in and around the areas where flock cameras and other automatic license plate readers are installed. ICE sightings in Lacey have increased dramatically over the past month or so, and we have seen exactly what happens when ice is left to its own devices in Minneapolis and across the country. And sorry. And to all of the well documented horrific sorry.

Add to all of that, the well documented horrific conditions of the Northwest Detention Center, I urge this council to protect our neighbors and the most vulnerable in our community by passing citywide legislation restricting flock camera usage and ending all cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we had, Chris Lewis.

I'd like to thank the council and the and the members, the opportunity to speak up here. My name is Chris Lewis. I'm the vice president of a local outreach program, Ground Zero Outreach. Some of you may have seen our faces and our stuff in the in the community. My daughter, Sandra, is our president, and she'd been working out of her house doing this for the last couple of years.

We've been involved with some of the homeless encampment cleanups. We have a food program where we got donations from Albertsons and put box foods together, deliver them to houses. We take donations. It's all it's all from donations right now. My daughter is a nurse, and she's looking to put this program into place where she can be out in the field, helping folks, helping residents.

One of her big pushes is we're trying to get, case management, and there's some organizations locally that we're working with that we're trying to get established and be involved with. So please keep an eye out for us. If you we have some I don't know if this is okay to say we have some business cards that have little q q q cues q codes to scan for donations. We have been involved with the holiday with lights that city puts on. And last year, we took, I guess, second place for best in show.

But, also, one of the things that I'm really proud of my daughter, and my son actually does this out of Oregon. We're actually joint communications with Oregon down in Newport in Lincoln City, and she he has a program called, sack lunch boy, and he goes around and puts lunches together. And this is all out of his home as well. So we're always looking for donations, always looking for volunteers. Ground0outreach.com is our website, and, I do look forward to being at more of the meetings. My daughter will be here hopefully next month. And, again, thank you for your time, and I know you guys put in a lot of gals put in a lot of hours, far more than we know and see. So I wanna thank you all for doing what you do, and God bless America.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We have one other person who signed up. It's Craig Stevenson.

Craig

Stevenson, longtime Lacey resident. I live in Brookfield at the end of Ruttle Road at 54th. I got two topics. I don't know if that buys me six minutes. But in all honesty, I don't think I can stand up here and talk for six minutes anyhow.

The first one is the streets. We were the honored guests or honored recipients of the slurry one of the slurry projects. I understand the slurry project out there around going around Camachan and Tyler Court knows was a matter of a cost saving thing and to extend the life of the current Black Topper McAdam surface that we had. In talking to one of the department heads, I can't remember who it was, it's my understanding that that slurry was supposed to get smoothed out. And I addressed this right and I think that happened in 'twenty one.

So in late 'twenty one, early 'twenty two, I called here and they said, yes, it will smooth itself out over time, all right? I'm not a road guy, I have no idea, all right? We're pushing four years now and our road still sounds like a logging road. And I called and followed up just about, I don't know, six, seven months ago. And I was told that the surface requires fairly heavy traffic and also some heavy equipment, garbage trucks, tractor trailers, stuff like that, which makes sense to me, right, because I don't think a passenger vehicle is going to mow it down or flatten it out.

Well, point is, if that's the case, why would we put a slurry surface on a street that gets very little traffic and certainly gets no heavy traffic. The heaviest traffic we have is from the second project I'm going to talk about and that's the street and trade project that we're going through right now. So I understand why they used the slurry project on a low impact neighborhood. That slurry project could have been used in Mullen Road, the Mullen Road roundabout, could have been used on any number of other well traveled places that have taken asphalt. And I just want to convey that if that's a consideration if slurry is a consideration of other home developments, it should not be.

All right. That takes me into my first one. Okay. So do I get another three minutes? You don't. I don't. Okay. The second one is more important. It's the Trigon and sidewalk project in the same neighborhood in Brookfield. And I've talked to Mr.

Iggers, and I've had some of my questions answered by the construction manager out there, the young fella that's out there. He's doing a pretty good job. But one of the big things that people are worried about is the in the demolition process, tore up roots and brought roots to surface that were subterranean before the project. And the best we can tell, the contractor has no intention of cleaning those up, which is going to leave that to the homeowners. And we signed off.

We'll maintain your tree. We'll maintain your green belt. I mean, that's part of that's I mean, little give and take But I spent twelve hours digging those roots to repair my on a little patch on my side of the street and just to repair a sprinkler head that the root structure had grown through and broke.

It took

me twelve hours.

Okay. You are over on time. You're more than happy to follow-up with Scott, and we can get a follow-up from him about what your conversation you had with him, and we'll check-in with him and see

what Because I think our buy off was that we would that you would restore the greenbelt back to original condition, right? And although they say that there'll be a punch list, I know a little bit about project management, And you don't lay seed before you return the ground to its original. And if you've got roots growing up now that weren't grown up before, you darn sure don't throw seed

on it. We'll we'll check-in with Scott and see what the resolution is. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else wishing to address the council this evening? Seeing none, then we'll go on to our next agenda item, which is under ordinance. It's first ordinance is sixteen ninety six, the ULED number 25 bond, Troy.

Okay. Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, and council. My name is Chelsea Knight, and I'm currently serving as the acting financial services manager. For your consideration this evening is the ULED 25 bond ordinance. This was discussed in detail on February 24 at the work session last week.

To summarize that discussion, the amount to be financed is $224,060.45. This is at a rate of 4.4% over fifteen years. The bond will be sold to the LID debt fund, to reimburse the wastewater capital fund for the Tolme Estates sewer project. Staff worked with bond counsel and a placement agent to make sure all legal requirements were satisfied for the internal financing, and a market review was conducted most recently on February 27 to confirm that the 4.4% was still a valid, market rate. And so staff recommends the adoption of ordinance sixteen ninety six authorizing the issuance of Eulid Monde and sale to the LID debt fund.

Can I get a motion, please?

I would move that we authorize ordinance one six nine six.

Adopt ordinance.

Adopt ordinance one six nine six for the Tomey State ULED project.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt this ordinance six nine six, which is authorizing the insurance and and sale of water and sewer revenue bonds and fixing the form of the terms of the bonds and providing the sale to the city LID debt fund. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of that motion signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next ordinance is sixteen ninety seven, the co living housing amendment. Jennifer.

Good evening, mister mayor and council. Nice to see everybody. So before you tonight is ordinance, sixteen ninety seven, adopting regulations for coliving housing. As you'll recall, council received a full briefing on this item during the February 10 work session. This evening's request is for adoption of the ordinance to ensure compliance with state law and to formally incorporate coliving housing regulations into the Lacey Municipal Code.

Assuming this is my clicker. Perfect. So as a brief reminder, coliving housing consists of private lockable sleeping, units combined with shared kitchens and common areas. It functions as multifamily housing but with shared facilities rather than fully self contained dwelling units. By way of brief statutory overview, in 2023, the legislature adopted engrossed substitute house bill 1998, now codified in RCW thirty six seventy a five thirty five.

The law applies to jurisdictions planning under the growth management act and requires cities to allow co living housing in zones where multifamily housing is permitted. Local code updates were required by 12/31/2025. And as of 01/01/2026, state preemption applies until local regulations are adopted. So in addition to requiring co living to be allowed in multifamily zones, the statute established several guardrails for local regulation. Coliving must be permitted in zones allowing six or more units per acre, and sleeping units are calculated at one quarter of a dwelling unit for density purposes.

The city may not regulate coliving more restrictively than other multifamily housing in the same zone. Parking is capped at one quarter space per unit, and we may not require additional uses within a co living building. Co living developments must also be eligible to participate in affordable housing programs. So based on the statutory requirements and prior council briefing, staff recommends adoption of ordinance number sixteen ninety seven to comply with state law and formally reestablish local regulatory authority over co coliving housing. And for the record, the planning commission, held a duly noticed, public hearing on 12/10/2025.

No public comments were received, and the commission did unanimously vote, to forward the proposed amendments to city council for consideration. So at this time, staff respectfully, recommends a motion to adopt ordinance number sixteen ninety seven.

Motion, please. Move to adopt ordinance one six nine seven as presented, amending the Lacey Municipal Code to establish regulations for co living housing as required by RCW36Dot708Dot535.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion?

So we did go over this one in-depth a couple times, and the information you presented was really good. And I guess I don't know if in terms of how many people will take advantage of this or even know about this by the end of this meeting or this month or this year. But last time we did something that was beneficial for housing, kind of had an open house about it. We did the ADU program and had an open house and said, hey. Here's here's the plans. Here's the specs. Here's, you know, your lot size. You can do this, and you can do that. What's our messaging gonna be like on it this time?

Does counsel mind if I invite Vanessa to speak on this? Sure.

Okay.

Thank thank you, Jennifer, and thank you for the question, deputy mayor. We have not put together a formal plan as of this time to advertise this code amendment. However, we do update our city website regularly. One of the things that Jennifer and I have worked on in ensuring that we bring to any of the events that we go to is kind of the little one pager housing incentive document. And so we can definitely add that to this document when we share out at our events that we partner with the EDC or within the development community. So we're happy to add that to that informational flyer so that there is awareness in the community.

Thank you. I think, deputy mayor, you bring up a good point. Obviously, this is little interesting circumstance where that we're being mandated by the state to go in and accommodate this. But I still think it is, at the end of the day, a policy I agree with where we should have flexibility to allow this type of housing. And it's always kind of surprising to me that, like, we didn't.

Like, you you know, ability to rent out a room in your house should be the ability to rent out a room in your house. And, you know, the the one thing, though, that I'm I'm curious about this do the HOA if an HOA has a restriction that doesn't allow this, does this what what do you do in that circumstances? Because it it it we have a lot of HOAs in the city of Lacey, and it seems like all their covenants considerably a lot stricter than what, you know, what we look at and what state law allows. And so what do you do in that sort of a circumstance?

I'll answer this. If others want to jump in, they can. I'm looking over there at Dave. But we don't regulate the CC and Rs and the HOA, so we would follow the Lacey Municipal Code and any rules. It would be up to that local HOA to enforce those rules. So ultimately, would kind of be dependent upon the strength of that HOA and how they enforce their rules.

Okay. So it's still up to the HOA to be able to allow this or not. Okay. Well, I do think it's, you know, good information to have at least have readily available and for people who may be calling and and ask, you know, what what are the rules and can I can I have this in my you know, and what does that look like? It'd be nice to have some information ready to go for for those to know. Is there any any other questions? And then that I would ask Go ahead.

Our attorney if state law would override the covenants and restrictions of of an HOA?

Well, HOAs are authorized to have they can have more restrictive, conditions. I mean, the private property can have more restrict more restrictive conditions than, is authorized by state law. And so here I mean, Vanessa is absolutely right. I mean, the city is not gonna prohibit this sort of activity, but that doesn't mean that everybody has to do it to include an HOA.

Thank you.

Is any other discussion? Then it's been moved and seconded to adopt ordinance the 1697, the co living housing amendment. All in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries. Thanks.

Thank you for your time.

Yeah. Next up is the mayor's report, and I I I don't have anything. I'll go to the city manager.

Thank you, mayor and city council. I have a few items on the my report tonight. The first one, I think the council is well aware of our twenty twenty five Lacey Community Academy. That was our inaugural run of the community academy with the first I think it was 15 individuals that participated along with a curriculum that talked about all the various aspects of city responsibilities and, of course, all of our respective participated. I wanna invite Ginny Boursfield up who coordinated and led that effort last year, and she's here to talk about what's plans for this year and announcing the application openings. That, Jenny, why don't take that?

Thank you, mayor

and deputy mayor and council for just a few minutes to go over our community academy that we have. We're excited that the second annual community academy is coming up. Planning has started and schedules have been set, so applications are gonna be opening up soon. So we wanted to just brief you all and let you know what is coming. So for a couple just a quick overview of the program goals for this.

This is a way that we really wanted to engage with community members for a behind the scenes look at how the city operates and what's involved in delivering and maintaining services to our Lacey community. We wanna create an environment of informed community members, who can serve as ambassadors or champions for the city when they're with their families and friends and provide, informed feedback. If hot topics come up and there's, those discussions happening, then they'll be well informed and and have, more faith and trust in the city. This is also just a great initial step for those who might be interested in serving on a border commission or even Lacey Council. You know, in future years, we had a couple of members from our last community academy that applied for boards and commissions and are currently serving now.

So it's a great way for them to become more informed. So the program overview for this year, we extended it one week. So we have a seven week program planned. We're still going to keep it at the same size, so 15 to 18 participants. We thought that was a really nice sized group. It worked well for small group activities. We have fun tours involved as well, that can be kind of smaller spaces a couple of times, so we don't want those groups to get too bad too large. We're going to keep it open to Lacey and UGA residents. It's going to be Thursdays starting April 16. It'll run from six to 8PM.

And again, each session is just going to be highlighted with some interactive presentations and tours. These I just wanted to share a few photos. This is a photo from each of the weeks last year. So the top left corner is our week one, Lacey 101. So Rick and Shannon and some of our, great city manager employees gave a wonderful presentation, and had some fun engaging activities.

This photo, you can't see too well, but we had a, city council experience for them. So they were given a scenario and they we appointed mayor and deputy mayor and they all had to kinda work through this issue as a city council. The second one, that was our public works night, and we took a tour of the water treatment facility out on, Carpenter Road. And the next one, community and economic development night was wonderful. We had a presentation here and then they took a tour of the maker space, which I would say the majority of them had not even heard of it and they were all blown away.

There were some creative people in the group, so they were excited to go back and be active members there. The next one down in the lower left corner was a tour of Woodland Creek Park. We got to see the old bridge that has now been replaced and just kinda talk through some of the projects and just see one of our great parks and facilities we held that night out at the community center. So just a chance to view different facilities at the city and some of our beautiful parks. That was a really rainy day, and you'll see that picture.

It was the sun just, like, shined through for that little thirty minute walk that we took. The next night, this was a favorite. Of course, the police, they always provide a great presentation and information. It just really encourages our community members to see how well our city is led by our police department. We had great interactive this is somebody one of our participants was a a great volunteer and got the wrap system put on him.

They demonstrated with the taser, not on people, but they just got to see how some of those tools are used. And then our last night, we wrapped up with finance, and had a great interactive they got to see how the budget is created and they had to work through a budgeting problem where there wasn't enough money to fund all the programs. So they worked through that. It was a really, really great experience. We received a lot of really positive feedback from it through a survey that I sent out, just sharing how valuable it was.

So we're really excited for this year. This is what our schedule looks like this year. We've added you'll notice on May 28, our last one, get to know your city council members. So we're really excited to invite you all to join us, here in the chambers. I believe Nicole has sent us save the date for your calendars, so you should all have that date saved.

But we would love to invite you here, and we'll have a really fun interactive night planned, for the group. And our timeline, applications are gonna be opening next or on Monday. So, we have a a website there, cityoflacy.org, /lca, where we'll direct everybody to do that. We got some great, interviews last time of a few of the participants, and so we'll be creating a couple short videos to put out on social media that just highlights their experience and what they got, value from. We'll review the applications March 23 through the twenty seventh, application review, and then selection and notification.

We try hard to get a good diverse group of applicants. So we had we we felt like we really nailed that last time. We had some younger, some older, all sorts of people from different areas of Lacey, so we kind of pinpoint where everyone's located to make sure that we're we're getting a diverse group throughout the entire city and not just a concentrated area. So, yeah, we look forward to spaces filled up within a week last time. So we really anticipate people to be excited and to get a good response this year. Are there any questions?

Comment? Yes. I think I came out to this last year.

Yes. Yeah. You

did. We met some of the and I I think the first of all, thank you for putting this together. This is a really good program, and I I was surprised at the outcome. Okay? I'll say that. And Okay. I but I I was surprised. The thing that the other thing that surprised me was how many people that were there that were fairly new to the community. I mean, like, seven years or less. You know, in some cases, five years or less. And what they told me was this gave them an opportunity that a lot of cities that they've lived didn't. It gave them an opportunity to engage. It gave them an opportunity to volunteer and become like feel like they belong to the community. So I guess all I'm really saying is good job and thank you for putting this together.

Great. Thank you.

Honestly, successful last year. I'm sure it's going be really just as more successful this year. So thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jenny. And again, you know, Jenny has done a fantastic job of of coordinating an event and look forward to the added week with the interaction with the council. So next on the my my report tonight is the economic development strategic plan and two year work program. Of course, it's come before council in a couple of work sessions up to this point. So we have Sarah Schelling, our current planning and economic development manager to kind of provide the overview of the updated plan and entertain any questions.

Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, and council. Again, I'm Sarah Schelling. I'm with community and economic development department here tonight to discuss the economic development strategic plan and two year economic development work program. As you're aware, the strategic plan is intended to be a five year economic development framework that outlines how the city will strengthen and diversify the local economy, enhance quality of life, and position Lacey as a regional center for innovation and opportunity. The work program, which is a separate document in your packet tonight, is proposed as proposed, is intended to directly implement the actions identified in the strategic plan.

So they're intended to work together. And then the work program is intended to guide economic development over the course of the next two years. So just as a brief recap about how we arrived here tonight, council was first briefed on the strategic plan in May 2025, when staff and the consultant team from Eco Northwest, briefed council on the planning process that they would go through, to develop the strategic plan as well as provide a background presentation on demographic and economic data that they would use to help inform the actions in the plan. In December, we came back to council again after an extensive outreach effort and focus group work with the business and community leaders with a final draft plan, and council had the opportunity to review and provide feedback through a Mentimeter poll, which helped to identify economic development priorities that would inform our work program. And then, finally, on February 17, just a few weeks ago, we returned to a work session, revisited the strategic plan, and introduced the draft work program to counsel for feedback.

Based on the feedback received at the work session, we're back tonight with some additional refinements to the work program to address really equity across demographics, cultures, and economic segments of the city. And to do that, to that end, the staffs recommended elevating one additional item from the work program that we didn't talk about last time. Really, in regard action item one b, which addresses the city economic development vision statement and elevating that to year one that work program or that work item to year one of the work program. Action one b I'll bring up all the the priorities. Action one b establishes or will establish a formal economic development visioning process that's intended to engage counsel and as well as department leaders in refining and ultimately adopting an economic development vision statement that's unique to our community.

Importantly, in the strategic plan, the vision statement is identified intentionally as a draft vision statement, and we did that to allow for modification by the council to ensure that it's inclusive of all segments of Lacey's community, including all age demographics, cultures, economic backgrounds, industries, and neighborhoods, and then also to create a vision that will help to align with the city's broader values of equity access and opportunity. This can become a guiding vision statement that we can use to inform other items within our work program as well as to be included in marketing materials on public facing economic development resources as well, and something that we can use to drive our work over the next few years. With the exception of the addition of action item 1B, the remaining six action items are the same as what we presented to you on February 17. Though two work items associated with Action Item 2C have been moved down in the priority list from taking place in 2026 to 2027, and we did that in order to be able to accommodate action item one b, that vision statement, work. So this draft action list, and the work program takes into account staff capacity associated with each of the action items, on the list, and you'll see the action items, they are the same as what we brought in, February.

The work program is intended to serve as a practical road map for implementation of the strategic plan that supports focused measurable economic development efforts and establishes a timeline, a realistic timeline based on staff capabilities. And, as a reminder, we did develop the work program with our existing economic development activities in mind. We want to make sure that we preserve staff capacity to continue all the other important work we do, including our support for local businesses or on the ground, our boots on the ground presence within the community, support for business in preparation for the twenty twenty six World Cup that's coming up in just a few months here, support for Makerspace, as well as updating our economic development web page as well and other public facing materials and ongoing tracking of economic development trends. So tonight, staff is respectfully recommending that council adopt the economic development strategic plan and the 2026 work program. There's a couple different options you could take.

One, regarding the economic development strategic plan, approve the strategic plan as it is tonight, or two, provide additional direction for staff on the work program, and then we can bring it back again to review with counsel at a later date. Similarly, with the work program, approve the work program that we've provided here tonight or provide, again, provide direction for staff on work program adjustments that we can come back and revisit with counsel again at a later date. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.

Move to approve the economic development strategic plan and two year work plan.

I have a question.

Second.

I don't know. Question.

I appreciate that you all are addressing my concern about making sure knowing it's left behind. Just looking at the age bands, it looks like the 20 to 64 and then 65 is really too broad because a 20 year old and a 64 year old are quite different usually as is a 65 year old and an 85 year old. So I'm still concerned about the age bands, but it sounds like we're looking at having a draft vision statement so that we can ensure that the language that's included in our strategic plan demonstrates that we have an understanding of the different demographics in our city and that nobody's gonna be left behind. But I'm still concerned about those age bands.

Yes. And I we did the age bands on I can't remember what page, maybe page 11 of the strategic plan really was an effort to identify highlight the the do you wanna

we did look at if you looked

at appendix b, and I know that you did in the economic development strategic plan, the consultant did look at age demographics along a ten year age band age band. So we did look from zero to 10 and then 11 to 19, and we looked at those age demographics as they are as they impact or are in the city of Lacey. The page on on Page 11, it was intended to be a summary of what those age categories were that was looked at just to kind of highlight the demographics of the city at a certain point in time. So there was background data that looked into the larger that did break it down into a more refined age category. The economic development vision statement, yes, I think what coming back to council would do is allow the council to say these are what our priorities are.

One of those is to make sure that we're including all age categories and focusing our economic development efforts across the spectrum that live in our community Right. Across all age spectrums. So that's what that's intended to do. And then that can be that's something that we can advertise, put on our website, and make sure that that's what Lacey is known for in terms of our business community and our economic development services.

Any other questions? Seeing none, it's been, moved and seconded to, adopt this economic strategic plan and two year work program as presented. All in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries.

Thank you.

Thank you. All

right. Next item I have on my report tonight is an interlocal agreement, request the council to authorize a signature of and it relates to the opioid settlement. And I'll turn it over to our city attorney, Dave Schneider, to provide an overview.

Thanks, Rick, and good evening, mayor, council members. Council in July 2023 entered an interlocal agreement with our neighboring jurisdictions to create, the Opioid Abatement Council's independent subcommittee. Now this is a subcommittee that council member Greenstein serves on, and the purpose of this, OAC subcommittee is to monitor and provide oversight regarding distribution of opioid funds that have been coming in from the various settlements throughout the country. What this original interlocal agreement did not provide for was a mechanism by which the the four jurisdictions could pool these funds and use them, you know, jointly. And so what this amendment and restatement clarifies is that how, some of these funds would be pooled for the greater benefit of the parties.

Each jurisdiction is gonna be able to determine how much of its funds it chooses to pool. The lead agency, which is, Thurston County, would then hold all the funds. The independent subcommittee would make recommendations on how those funds were to be spent, and then those recommendations would go to the board of county commissioners who would then determine and approve and authorize the funding. The interlocal agreement, the amendment language indicates that were the board of county commissioners to not approve entirely the recommendation, they would not be able to modify it at all. It would go back to the the committee to maybe massage it a little bit, whatever.

If it went back to the board of county commissioners and if ultimately it was it's either passed or it's not passed. If it failed the second time, then those funds would revert back to the independent jurisdictions for their own, determination on how to use those funds. That's essentially it. Again, I mean, the this is an amendment and a restatement. It's a restatement because there's a couple sections that were being amended, so it's just cleaner to just restate the whole thing. But, yeah, the the the pooling itself is the major change here. So this is an interlocal agreement for the city manager's signature, so we are looking for council authorization for him to enter into that agreement.

So before we get started, I do have just quick legal questions that so this is gonna allow all the money to be pulled, and Thurston County is gonna hold that money. Does this allow Thurston County to hold that money and invest that money within their regular investment portfolio and earn interest off of it, so on and so forth? Because for example, if this was coming to City of Lacey, we're pulling all these funds, like, we may you know, it's not a lot of funds, but we know we may consider putting some of those funds in short term investments and making interest off it. Is it is it gonna allow the county to do the same? And if so, is there any safeguards on on that as well?

Well, I can't answer, mister mayor, the question as to how the county's gonna hold the funds. And I don't know if Troy has any opinions on that or not. I'm not trying to put you on the spot either. But certainly, the county's gonna be responsible for safeguarding them and would ultimately be responsible for the management of those funds while they are holding them to the to the other jurisdictions.

You'd see my question. Like, we're now we're allowing to pull these funds. The county is gonna have them in an account. They are allowing them then to maybe make money off of those funds doesn't I'm not sure

if we have any In a good context, Troy, it's really kind of answer how those funds will be held is also the intention that this would be on an annual cycle. And so those funds wouldn't be held for more than a year as they would get reviewed and and distributed out. But the choice if I ask how those counts are hold. Yeah.

I can't really speak to what the county is going to

do either, but I can tell

you what we would do with

the funds. We would keep them in a separate fund and all the interests go back right back into the program to benefit that function. But again, I can't really speak for Thurston County either.

That's that's why I'm I was wondering, you know, because this does it's a unique circumstance is where we're you know, these funds would be going to us where we would do just like what you said, and it would benefit the fund. I'm just curious what there's some counties again doing now that we're pulling all of our dollars together. If they're going do the same thing where are they going to be allowed to pull that money but then keep the interest for other things or

I can't answer the question obviously before the county would do, but I will tell you that the intent of the Opioid Abatement Council is that that money wouldn't be held very long. That money the intention is as soon as this interlocal agreement is done and approved by all the jurisdictions is to get our go to RFP and get this money out in on the street as quickly as possible. So the intention would be that they wouldn't hold it very long.

Yes. Well, I hope that's the case, but here we are after all this time and I'm just

I have a question. So are we bound to disperse those funds upon receipt or can we disperse those funds upon a project approval or how would I mean how long can we hold them without handing them over before something is kind of agreed upon?

With the ILA, it's the specified that we would dedicate our funds and pool them with the county for the process of the year. So we wouldn't we would provide those funds to the county. They would safe hold them. Then the opioid abatement council would go through, review projects and how to and make recognition how to spend those. We wouldn't hold those funds until a decision was made to spend those dollars.

No, we'd give them right away, which is why I brought up the question. If we're going to immediately give those dollars and they're going to pull them into a fund, you know, is it going allow them to do anything else with those funds in the meantime before they get immediately distributed? And you're right. I think ideally, they would immediately get that would happen. But what happens if they do hold them up? You know? I'm just I I was just curious. It's not if that if this agreement specifically addressed that issue. But I guess that's something we can maybe follow-up on.

I do think we should get a motion on the floor on this. I would move to approve the First Amendment interlocal agreement for opioid abatement council independent committee and authorize the city manager to sign the amended agreement.

I'll second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any other other discussion? I just I think it's worth bringing that question up as you know.

Yeah. It's a good question.

Yeah. Anything else? Seeing nothing that's been moved and second for us to approve this Aaron local agreement for the opioid settlement. All in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion unanimously carries.

I have one last item on my report out. I wanted to let counsel be aware in the community that was great pleasure last week. I was able to on behalf of the city and along with our partners Michael Cade of the Thurston Economic Development Council, Doctor. Bill Brunsberger with the St. Martin's University and Michelle Pope who is our Executive or Operator of the Lacey Makerspace.

We were able to accept and receive a award by the Washington Economic Development Association for the 2026 Innovation and Economic Development Award for the Lacey Makerspace. And I think it's a great testament to the commitment of the workings of partnerships in this community. It was the Makerspace was recognized for the one, the uniqueness the facility, but also all the different elements that it serves. It has grown up to host four fifty members that come from all five or six counties away and I think some of the membership does come as far away as Portland, Oregon as well as up North Of Seattle. So it has a broad, broad capture.

It also supports about 100 businesses annually and it also continue to develop more partnerships and workforce development with the Port Of Olympia, Timberland Regional Library, the Sensory Toolhouse, Simpson Door Company, Ajac and Anu as an example. So then they'll and also provide a space for entrepreneurism to foster and do prototyping as well as place for hobbyists to be able to go and learn new skills or be able to tinker around. So again, this facility has been grown from its infancy, it's hard to believe that when it first opened in the 2019 and going into that first January in the pandemic of COVID pandemic, it was able to survive and pivot and whether through that period to come out of it with renewed vigor and grown to where it is today. So again, I do want to recognize the partners out in our community that help make this happen, but especially our economic development team with Vanessa and Sarah and Wesley who were here earlier tonight, but also want to recognize the mayor and the city council for all the support over the years and willingness to provide that not only champion the maker space and what it can do in our community, but also that financial support to help it grow and realize what it is, what we're seeing today as well as what keeping it to grow and be even a more sustainable program going forward in our community supporting business.

So with that, just want to recognize the award that we received on in the community. And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to respond.

Questions? Seeing none. That's a big testament to how successful the makerspace has been to see, you know, the awards that keep kind of coming in due to it. And so I think it's a great testament to, you know, this council's commitment, obviously, and to obviously how successful the makerspace has been.

One thing I forgot to mention, I apologize. One of the members of representing I forgot one key partner, and that was Graham Sackerson in the volunteer community because this would not have happened without his steadfast support, drive in energy as well as bringing volunteers into that space as well. So I apologize I neglected to mention Graham.

Absolutely. Okay. Now we'll go on to council reports. I'm up first, but I do not have a report. Deputy mayor?

I have have one quick report. Thurston County EDC met last Wednesday. We welcomed a new board member to fill a position that was vacated. So we have welcomed Rusa Cassette. Cassell, sorry.

She and she is one of the she's the principal at the Artisans Group. She was elected to the board and her term will conclude twelvethirty one. She if you guys you guys might remember Rusa and her partner, they did our ADU program and they did the design work for the ADUs and got it approved at the county level along with Rick and his team. So she is now a member of the board. We did have a guest this week and our guest was Christina Waldron and she is the VP for Corporate Affairs at ECOs.

If you guys remember, ECOs is the environmentally friendly company up in Lacey. And so they operate out of the Meridian Campus. They manufacture earth friendly plant based cleaning products. And, know, they have a brand new product that is only made at Ecos. All the other ones are made out in China, but it's it's laundry soap, but it's sheet form. Yeah. It's a looks like a little piece of paper.

Yeah. I use it all the time when I travel.

Yeah. And so Ecos makes that product here in Lacey and they distribute that product throughout The United States so far. And so our the Lacey facility here for Ecos will be expanding soon. So they're going to be adding square footage to that location. Let's see.

The company operates LEED, which the certified building and operations with zero waste products. So their operations don't produce any waste in the city. And I know I've said this before, but I did go take a tour of their facility when I was giving them the EPA award. And I did talk to some of the scientists who create their product, And they told me that the water in Lacey is so good and it's so clean that they had to alter their chemical formula to fit our water source. So I thought that was pretty cool because I love drinking the water.

I'm a water drinker. The they have four operations in The United States. And besides the Lacey facilities, they have California, Illinois, and New Jersey. They were berthed in in in Illinois. Let's see. The Port Of Olympia came and did a presentation. They provide an overview of the response that they got to an RFP that they had published to seek investment into the Swan Town area of the Port Of Olympia. They had several responses to the RFP. One that is being focused on is a proposal development for a hotel with several retail spots attached to it. So I think it was like 120 rooms.

So far, it's getting pretty good traction. The Doubletree downtown, I think it's still called the Doubletree, that investment group who's already here in the community, understands the community, does business in the community, they have said, we would love to build this establishment. And just so you guys understand how these things work, developer builds and then a hotel chain moves in. So the hotel doesn't actually build the building, but they do assume once constructed. So the Port Of Olympia has full support of the EDC for this endeavor.

We the Tumwater Brewery and redevelopment, the board had a discussion on the long term process of being supportive of the city of Tumwater and its efforts to seek redevelopment of the brewery project. I've been to several of those meetings. One of the key things that that really needs to happen in that situation is we really need to be able to use the existing footprint of the building for of the all the buildings there for it to be a really viable project. And part of the reason why is because, you know, since that building was developed and I think it was the sixties, you know, codes have changed. And and so zoning has changed.

And so without the use of current footprints, it wouldn't really pencil for anybody. And so I honestly think with Tumwater EIS project development project that direction that they're going, the goal is to have that entire region, that entire section redeveloped. So one of the things that is important is that we get some really good revenue generating businesses in that section because Tumwater has some other plans that would require they want to do some community asset programs and structures and buildings and things like that. But first kind of need a revenue source. So EDC is really behind that.

Sean Moore, who's the Director of the CB and I reported that the EDC is going to contract with Washington State Department of Commerce to operate the scale up training program. So this is a contract that provides resources for two cohorts, one in English and one in Spanish. And the curriculum is based on three concepts operations, finance and business development. So with the scale up program, it really provides a lot of businesses the opportunity like your micro businesses kind of teach them how to scale up your small businesses, teach them how to scale up since one of those economic development tools that we use to continue to grow the businesses in the community to their next level. The CB and I will be hosting along with Yelm and Lacey and Olympia and Tumwater a business supportive program on the upcoming FIFA Soccer World Cup.

It will be held on the March 18. It's designed to provide technical assistance and licensing parameters issues and requirements for private businesses to operate their businesses and build up their business. This is separated from FIFA and World Cup fan zone, but it is designed to work in conjunction with the World Cup and the fan zone. So all the businesses in the area will be able to take advantage of the influx of people that will be coming to the region for this event. And the next EDC directors board meeting will be March 25 at the SPS CC Lacey Campus And Conference Center. And that is my report.

Thank you. Councilwoman Grainstein.

I do have a couple of reports today. First, Thurston nine eleven communications, I'm going to combine the January and February meetings into one report since I did not report out on the January meeting. We had a vacancy in our vice chair position because of Liada Delhoff becoming the mayor of Tumwater. She gave up her seat on this on this board. So Tracy Wood from Yeom has been elected to serve as the vice chair.

I'm continuing on as the chair. We have completed the work at the DuPont site, which was the last work needed to be done for the radio system. We've also gone live on the new phone system and gone through our first round of updates to all of the radios across the system and everything is working extremely well. We also did the annual review of our Executive Director and you know, every one of the board members who responded to the survey gave her the highest of ratings. But even more importantly, we heard back from our police chiefs across the county and fire chiefs across the county, including our own chief Almada.

And all of the commentary about her was just excellent. So she's doing a really good job. So we were quite happy to be able to take care of her on that and have her continue on hopefully for a long term. Also wanted to share some of the statistics from 2025. So 22 new employees hired, which is the most the organization's ever hired in a single year, has us almost a full to be fully staffed.

We actually have every seat filled. There's actually far less overtime, which is actually now creating some different problems with people wanting overtime and it not being available, which is a good problem to have. We received one hundred and fifty thousand nine eleven calls last year. That's up about 6,000 from the previous year and 510 texts to 911. So the operators at our 911 center are busy.

They're taking a lot of important calls, and, you know, many of these are from people that are in, you know, maybe the worst day of their life, right, or, I mean, the worst situation they could possibly be facing. So they do a really great job. And that is my report on 09:11. Also have a quick report on Thurston Medic One Emergency Medical Services. We met on February 26.

I was reelected as chair of that organization. And Tom Carroll, who many of you probably know, he serves as a citizen rep from Lacey, was elected as vice chair. We've started a very large project that will be going on for this entire year, and that is a community needs analysis. And we've hired chief retired Chief Brooks to actually facilitate that endeavor. So that is you'll be hearing more about that as the year goes on, but we've started some of the initial meetings.

We have a big meeting on it next month that will last a few hours, and then there'll be a lot of work with the public, surveys and meet and greets and all kinds of things to kinda get a better idea of what people expect from their emergency medical services. Right? Are we providing the services you want? Are there things that you think should be provided? All of that kind. And we wanna get a good analysis of what the public wants so we can make sure that we're providing the service appropriately. And that is my report.

Thank you. Councilmember Cox.

No report. Intercity Transit meets tomorrow night in lot the following week.

About council member Dunning?

Yeah. I already briefed on RHC meeting kind of structure, but I wanted to just go over what the main topics were at the meeting on the twenty fifth of this month. And and we've been talking about it as a council on Citi for a few months now. One of them being the incumbent resolution program and funding for Queen Street Village. So Olympia is requesting funding for that to keep that project going, 120 bed shelter, that chance of it shutting down without that funding.

So those conversations are actively going on with the cities, with the mayors, the staff, and that's something that they're looking to have some sort of idea of where we stand with that by the end of the month. And I think that's enough time for us to have a better picture of that. But it requires more of a comprehensive discussion of how we're the next five years and how we what our priorities are. But that will be coming I will try to update over the next few weeks how that goes. And then the second one, Ray and Andrews gave a great briefing to the RHC kind of where we stand as a city with the Franz Anderson project and kind of on the details that I don't know on a day to day basis, was able to kind of describe the questions and concerns that we have and the information that we're going to need, as a city to be able to move forward, with that project.

So again, another project that is a big one coming down, and we obviously, as a council and as a city, need a lot more clarity on that. So just, you know, I will update as as soon as I have any updates as I'm sure the mayor will too as those discussions and the city happens on the day to day basis. That's it. Councilmember Turner.

Yeah. No report. I did meet with Nisqually River Council very briefly. And as soon as I get the minutes, then I'll have a report. Looking forward to meeting with TRPC and law and justice.

Councilman McPhee.

Yeah. Just a couple quick things. I met with ORCA for an orientation last week on Wednesday, and that was it was just great to sit down with them and to learn more about the organization, their funding process, and how they allocate money for the region. And so that was just that was good information to have, and I'm feeling more confident in moving forward with being a representative there. Solid Waste Advisory Council will be meeting Thursday, and the Thirst and Climate Mitigation Collaborative met on the twenty third.

Just a couple of cool things I thought happened in that meeting is the citizen advisory work group, mentioned that they had a chance to go and talk with, I think it was, like, like, Olympia Solar about, community solar and, battery storage. So that way, they can actually work with, different HOAs to be able to build little solar plants and battery storage. So that way, there are different ways to electrify and to, power their neighborhoods. And I thought that was just something really cool to kind of keep an eye on, especially as we're starting to look over more zoning for battery storage and other sorts of, things in that regard. One of the updates from Lindsay at, at the city of Lacey was that there is a the city of Lacey received a grant for the city employees to get electric bikes, which was pretty fun.

So that way they can as a way to kind of decrease the amount of commuter miles, like driven or bus. So that way, I thought that was just a really interesting an interesting program to help decrease the amount of cars that we have on our streets. And that's about it.

Great. Thank you. Well, with that, it is 07:14. And without objection, I will call this council meeting adjourned. And as always, you keep it classy, Lacey.