Appointments Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the August 28th, 2026 meeting of the Operational Strategy and Administrative Committee. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Why don't we take the roll?

Chair Ibsen?

Here.

Committee Member Bushnell?

Present.

Committee Member Scott? Here. Committee Member Walker? Here.

All right. Welcome, everyone. This will be a relatively succinct meeting. We're just agenda setting. Before we do that, why don't we approve the prior minutes. Is there a motion? Second. Second. Any corrections or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Minutes are approved. So our only briefing item today is the work plan and agenda forecast. We have had just a lot of questions about week-to-week, what are we talking about? So in between, in the last communication that I had with Ben and with my staff, we talked about soliciting feedback from staff all throughout the city just to see what's the most pertinent for study through OSAC. So Ben has had some conversations, and here's an update with some suggestions for a long-term community calendar. Ben?

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, OSAC, for having me here today. Thanks. So kind of two questions ahead of us are one is what work will OSAC want to take on throughout the remainder of the year? And then two, when do you need to meet? What should the games look like in order to accomplish that work? So looking back at the OSAC's work plan and initiatives, this started last year and just updated for this meeting. But the committee originally, again, was the City Manager Review Committee. So that's been a core part of the focus of this meeting. group and that began with the interim city manager work plan which was completed, the city manager recruitment which was completed, and then the ongoing city manager's work plan. The initial draft has been completed and now we're working on ongoing maintenance and review of the work plan with a first check-in coming up here later in September. Another key thing that this committee has taken on is council retreat planning. So we had our first experience with that last year, completed the 2025 retreat, and should this committee decide to take that on again, it would be a potential item for this year and the beginning of next year. You also did a lot of work on council staffing, and OSAC's work is kind of complete there, and it's now with the whole council and with the budget process. You also worked on an update of the council rules, which you have completed The council action memo and the council contingency request work was begun here, thought about, and then that work is kind of now completed and it's moved on to the full council and a pilot project. And then you've begun discussions on the role of deputy mayor with an action item from staff to come back on that one in the not distant future. In the original planning and conceptualizing of the work that this group might take on, You did discuss the charter review process and timeline. So by law, every 10 years we must, but that does not mean that it has to be every 10 years. And I believe a lot of the discussion there was around providing the support and structure to that review process so that it's predictable, effective, and it has the time that it needs to be successful when it does come around. Council project alignment. coordinating among the council members and the legislation sponsorship process, kind of how things move through from an idea to a resolution. And then communication with the council and staff. Those items are included in your packet. For the end, we had a work plan and it gives you a brief summary of what each of those initiatives meant to the committee at the time. But of course, up for discussion if that's still the intent or the direction that you would like those items to go or if those items are still relevant. And that's what this July 2025 handout of details for most of the initiatives. The one that isn't there is role of deputy mayor because that was added after the fact. So there are annually recurring OSAC agenda items, and that would include the city council retreat, which typically happens in January and February because the retreat typically happens in February and March. The annual city manager review, which should begin really closer to February so that that final annual review can be brought forward in end of May, beginning of June. And then the city manager annual work plan with those check-ins that we talked about being in May, September, and January. We had discussions when we did the council rules. If you would like to do a periodic review or if you prefer to have those changes be ad hoc, we discussed kind of two models. One could be, if you remember, we kind of grouped the council rules into four different groups. So you could contemplate taking one of those groups every quarter or perhaps just once a year taking a look at it. Or again, just letting that be an ad hoc thing as council members identify the need to look at a specific rule. Given all of that, I have before you the upcoming OSAC meetings that are scheduled with some of the blanks filled in based on those periodic items that were discussed and things that have come before OSAC. Some notable dates here. October 6th through November 17th is the biennial budget process, and that creates an extra demand on the city council for time and attention. A lot of community meetings and a lot of work for you to do as you process and review the budget. November 11th, City Hall is closed and there's a meeting scheduled for that Friday, November 13th. Similarly, on November 27th and December 25th, City Hall is closed on those actual days. So if you wanted to meet on those, we would need to move those meetings. or cancel them. The first council meeting of 2027 is on January 5th. Sometimes committee make up changes at the beginning of the year. And so that sometimes makes the January 8th date difficult. Again, that February difficult timing of the retreat and the May timeline for the city manager performance review period starting and needing to do that annual review. And so that makes the bulk of our discussion for today is given that those are some of the items that you had discussed a year ago now, talking about and working on. And then also in your packet, you will see our standing agenda forecast cell document. And at the bottom of that are a list of potential future topics. The ones that were not covered so far are the vacancy appointment process and the draft rules for the for and against committee, which was an idea coming for OSAC to look at coming out of the DPFs. But those are the potential items and the dates that we could plan for. All right, thank you.

Any other feedback from the staff that you spoke with, Ben?

No.

Okay. It looks like we have some future topics here. Ben, would it be okay if I ask some questions about scope? So there's some of the stuff that we've just queued up that we've needed to talk about but also the elephant to the room is that this is a baby committee and that we're kind of getting getting our feet wet with what we even discuss and plan and use this thing for right because we've had some in your words ad hoc uh really important ad hoc topics like city manager review and discussing things that are back for kind of up against the wall with because they're really important but have timelines uh but also like what are the recurring um areas of scope of this committee it's still maybe not quite chiseled and sewn, would be my new guy understanding. Would you say that's kind of how staff sees that?

We have an initial kind of charter of the group. I did not bring that with me today. I don't know if anybody could pull that up. Perhaps would have been in some of our... June, July meetings. Broad strokes is fine. But broad strokes is one, it's your relationship with each other as a council. So how do you want to interact with each other and what are your processes? And then two, your relationship with your employee, the city manager. So how you manage that relationship through performance review and hiring and those kind of things. So really looking at the council as a working body and how it works among itself and the city manager.

Well, this is where I come from on this. The word strategy is in here. And there's no lack of strategy that the city has. I mean, the work plan is just the central one among them. That's how we execute the council's annual priorities. But we also have Tacoma 2035, for example. We have the 40-some constituent subplans associated with it. And without opening up a gigantic rabbit hole of nuance, in some of those different policy committees already have jurisdiction over it. So, I mean, IPS, I imagine, looks at a lot of our plans, for example, about pertaining to forestry or the Transpo plan or One Tacoma, for example. But it makes me wonder that there could be a really good opportunity for just general accountability and periodically looking under the hood with some of the bigger picture strategies. So like if we've set some key goals, like what goals do you want to be key goals? There are a lot of different metrics and deliverables in our different plans. But, you know, with Tacoma 2035, for example, and all the other attendant goals, what should we be prioritizing? How are we doing with the fulfillment of those goals? How are we measuring them? The other thing too is that even though we do have a city manager work plan that the entire council reviews, us spearheading that every quarter, The city manager has said his vision is for greater departmental accountability starting with this budget as well. So perhaps daylighting how the different departments are going and fulfillment of Kim's mission, for example. So, I mean, that's a lot to keep us busy, but I think that could also be some really healthy discussion and some really interesting observation just about how we're doing in the performance of our own goals that we've set, these different strategic plans and with how the departments are performing. That's where my mind goes. What do you guys think?

So specific to what you just said, I think having some element of Tacoma 2035 as part of this committee's agenda sounds good. I hadn't thought about that. I appreciate that. And also to your point, once you get into the weeks, it gets too far in the week pretty quick for this committee.

Yeah, the policy committees are already doing a lot of the sub-plans.

Yeah, but I like the idea of having that... as part of our work plan at certain check-ins. Just in general, my reaction to Ben's presentation is we certainly don't need to be meeting as often as we are, or we have been, because I think you lifted off the topics that were top of my mind, and in fact, there's a couple of things that I feel like maybe don't need to be on there. So I love the add of Tacoma 2035, and I think slotting these in and maybe making it once a month, And I feel comfortable missing a couple of them with the holidays. But if we have these key check-ins throughout the year, I think that would be really valuable.

Yeah, and we're not here to meet just for the sake of meeting. I mean, there's a lot of half-hour, hour things that we could do a lot better with our time. My inclination is that it all comes down to the work. It all comes down in service to what it really would take. I mean, if we only needed once per quarter to review progress on 2035, or if that could be monthly, or if there were so many things that required more intensive, you know, ad hoc conversation, it could be more frequent. My inclination is just to talk to Jacques and, you know, his department or the city manager's office or both and just see what it would entail to check in and, you know, defer to their judgment on, you what that all means, I think would be a good starting point. And then from that, determine our cadence. That was a good one. You make a, do you have any thoughts?

Um, I, that was kind of my, like, I felt like probably what I'm working on strategy. And I think 23rd tribe was a good thing to look at. Um, but they're talking about that. It's like, it'd be good to have a conversation and talk about, How do we do that in a way where again, it's kind of like, we're keeping an eye on it. We're keeping a doubt on like, if something's coming up and maybe we need to like move into a higher priority or something that like has been a priority that maybe we're not making as much progress on or something like that. It's like something that gives us a cadence that allows us to check in on it. Particularly, I know that we get like an update at some point in the year to a study session. And so maybe it's timed with that. But yeah, just trying to figure out how do we keep an eye on it so that it doesn't get to the point where it's at a study session and people are like, oh, I have a lot of questions. It just maybe kind of allows us to flag anything or maybe for staff to flag something for us that we maybe should be thinking about. Then we would, if we were to do that,

Yeah, that makes sense. Joe, what we were just talking about in limbo was scope. And one of the things we talked about besides the ad hoc procedural stuff is speaking with the Office of Strategy and seeing what it would look like to get more regular updates on 2035. And also, Kian had talked about departmental measurements that are kind of the tactical measurements. service to the work plan as well. So, I mean, that's a lot to keep us busy, but at the same time, it might be a lower frequency, just depending on what staff's needs are. Allison, do you have anything to add?

I sure do, Mayor. Thank you for giving me just a moment. Jacques and I were just texting back and forth, and he and I were talking just yesterday, actually, about what the cadence for briefing council generally in 2035 would be. So, here's what I might propose to the committee, if it's acceptable to you, Mayor, is that Jacque and I were talking about having quarterly updates on the dashboard that 2035 has to the full Council at study session. So how about the month before that quarterly update coming in actually briefing OSAC talking a little more deeply. about what that dashboard looks like, questions you may have, anything that you may want to dive into on those particular measures and get him kind of prepped for that whole council conversation. Does that seem like a reasonable?

Yeah, at first glance. I mean, a lot of this is, I mean, it's just a young committee. A lot of this is we learn as we go. But I think at first glance, it sounds reasonable. okay i i think let's maybe for scheduling purposes plan on something like that and then if we try it out and we don't like it or we want to do something different to that point there we can make adjustments yeah this is probably under the 2035 umbrella uh maybe it's distinct but also like surveys and engagement i mean a lot of 2035 and our plans do rely on survey data but uh you know we've also seen Engagement strategies that might be different from that. So maybe it is we flesh out what that looks like, whether it's with MCO or departments of engagement. That might be interesting, too, because I can't think of anything that's more important strategy than knowing how the community feels about stuff that determines how we're doing and what we should prioritize.

Absolutely.

Put that in your back pocket.

Yeah, I think honestly, Mary, when you get a look at that dashboard, you can kind of help us maybe think about where are the measures that you want to see more of that kind of reflected, right? Yeah, yeah.

Maybe the three of us or maybe four can include Jock and talk offline. Really no rush. Maybe in the next few weeks or so we can discuss how that looks like and what works the best for you guys. Cool. Any other feedback on this?

Thank you. I appreciate Councillor Walker's comment earlier that we don't always necessarily, if there's things that we don't need to meet about, we don't need to meet about. Sure. We can certainly spread it out a little bit more. And then to the point of the strategic plan in 2035, you know, like Allison mentioned, we do get the update in the study session. And so I don't want to necessarily create more busy work unnecessarily. So my thinking is like if we do get a presentation what outcomes are we looking for from that presentation are we going to offer suggestions to the council to modify measures are we going to just be like oh that's we're just going to get the same presentation twice like what what are we going to do that's not necessarily going to happen that could benefit the council as a whole when it gets to study session so i'm kind of thinking about that just a little bit like

So we look at the updates and stuff. What are we going to do with it? Sure, sure. And I think as a former IPS member myself, I think of it like policy committees that have jurisdiction over something often say, They don't necessarily get the same presentation the council is going to get, but one of the advantages of committees and why the city council started committees even 30 years ago is that there is a benefit to some level of focus. And the time will tell how that best looks, and I'm very open to what that looks like. But I do think that there is some benefit of having people with that specialization in literally the name of the committee, the strategic aspect. we might make life a lot easier for the other five people on the council. We can ask some of those questions and smooth some things out prior to a study session. And there might be more nuanced components. We'll learn as we go, but time will tell. But that's certainly valid.

To Deputy Mayor's comment, I think it might be helpful to think about how we've worked as OSAC, right? And it's kind of a multi-stage process. And one is that when an idea or concept comes up, the first step is with OSAC to flesh out what does that mean, right? What is the work going to look like? What problem are we really trying to solve? And so you've typically had a meeting around that idea to figure out here's the issue. And then that goes to the full council to say, hey, is this something that we would like to work on and talk about? And then it comes back to OSAC to work through kind of the meeting details. But then it would go back to the council a second time to say, hey, we've refined it a bit. We have a proposal in front of us. Let's get comment and feedback on that. And then it stays with the council after that point for adoption and implementation because committees don't act on behalf of the whole council.

Also, the other thing, too, that makes committees different from a study session, besides the fact that you're competing against maybe one or two or more items and there's usually a really fast around expected and it's just a busy Tuesday is that committees by their nature are much more iterative and let's say that there is something that comes up, I'm just totally talking hypothetical, but something comes up with a 2035 briefing, and there's a metric around, say, homelessness that we really have questions about, or we would really like to dig further into the data, or maybe there's something that just seems amiss, or we want to bring in staff from a relevant department to really flesh out something. There's just a lot of things that we can do that a broader study set cannot. It's almost like a depth versus breadth question. But again, that's just a hypothetical, but we can always flesh these things out as far as we go. In terms of follow-up, we'll talk offline and we'll be eternally open-minded. Okay.

I just wanted to say out loud that I thought that managing the retreat planning in this committee was really helpful and effective, and I think having some of us on that and work through those details is helpful to the council, so I just want to make sure we keep

Okay, cool. So besides the cleanup and manager review and departmental reviews as they come up, 2035 reviews as they come up, any other things that committee members or majors have been exploring or even just seeing if it's feasible for us to include in these committee calendars?

Can't think of anything at the moment, I'm sure. We'll go through the day and be like, let's go to OSAC. Sure. So keep a running tab on us.

Yeah, and that is more than welcome, by the way, whether it's in our one-on-one check-ins or, like, a 10 a.m., like, staying awake at night thinking of OSAC tech moment. Please don't stay awake at night thinking of OSAC at night. Always welcome to four of those. Always happy to chat with staff or you guys about that, too. Ben, do you have any other questions or feedback for us?

So there were some items on the forecast here. The deputy mayor is the one that is in action that will be coming back to you that isn't currently scheduled out in the PowerPoint that I described. For these other items that are kind of on the back burner, council process alignment, charter review process, the appointment process, draft rules for the for or against committee, and the standing committee topic alignment. Although with the rule change that now belongs with the full council to talk about committee topic alignment. So kind of those middle four items, are there any of those that you would like to see come forward sooner than later? I'll say it out loud. I don't know if you would anticipate a hiatus during the budget time where you have that increased load, but just kind of wondering about those two ideas. Christiane?

I would just say I've been very thoughtful to think of our workload, but I know that the staff workload is crazy during the budget time, so I would absolutely support that. It doesn't look like we have anything burning. Yeah, sure. I don't think we need to. I would support that.

Yeah, we'll defer and have a start. And this isn't committee calendar, this is more just me getting up to speed. And again, I'm emphasizing, because I know staff really likes to be Johnny on the spot, but I'm really emphasizing the non-emergent nature of this. For my own education, I love to just get guidance for all of our various strategic plans and the stuff that feeds into Tacoma 2035. What if any policy committee of the city council or CBC or whatever, has jurisdiction over monitoring progress on those plans. That could be compiled, and it could just be like a dumb Excel spreadsheet. I really don't want you to carry over that, but more just for my own education. I'd appreciate learning where things have arrived in 2026 and those things. Okay. Any other requests on this? All right, cool. Well, that's our only briefing item. Public comment? We got one clerk?

To request a public comment for 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 right hand button near the bottom of your Zoom window, star nine on your phone. Your name or the last four digits of your phone number will be called out when it is your turn to speak.

Okay.

We have no individual person signed up to speak, and it looks like no individuals online signed up to speak either.

Okay, very good. So it looks like public comment has opened and closed. With that, closing up the meeting today, I want to thank you all for your contributions. We'll review action items and confirm consent with our next steps. Why don't you walk us through that then?

So I will get you that kind of initial plan from last year of what was the purpose of OSEC. And then you will be meeting with Jacques in the city manager's office to talk about Tacoma 2035, following up on that idea of and Caden with the quarterly check-in on the dashboard. We will keep retreat planning on the agenda. And then staff will look into who has the jurisdiction over the planning and where items are coming to CPC standing committees and checking in on those.

Cool. Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second, all in favor say aye. Aye. All those in favor say no. We are adjourned.