City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you very much. I'd like to call the Lakewood City Council meeting of Monday, June 15th, 2026 to order. Ms. Schumacher, could you please call the roll?

Council Member Branstetter? Here. Council Member Lauricella?

Here.

Council Member Lindholm?

Here.

Council Member Pearson?

Here.

Councilmember Talbot is not yet in attendance. Deputy Mayor Bell. Here. And Mayor Boeke.

Here.

You have a room.

Thank you very much. Please stand 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.

Thank you very much. Next is proclamations and presentations. The proclamation recognizing June, 2026 as LGBTQ plus pride month. I'd like to council member Laura Sella is going to read it in. And I would like to call on members of the Oasis youth council to receive the proclamation and allow time for a photo afterwards. So come on down. Welcome.

Perfect.

All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am honored to be able to present this. I brought it up two weeks ago to make sure that it was on our agenda and it's really important to myself and my family and others we're affiliated with. So without further ado, Whereas the city of Lakewood supports the rights of every resident to experience equality and freedom from discrimination. And whereas all people have the right to be treated fairly on the basis of their value as human beings, regardless of age, gender identity, race, skin color, religion, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability. And whereas the city of Lakewood accepts and welcomes people of all backgrounds and believes a diverse population leads to a more vibrant community. And whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer LGBTQ plus communities contribute to the cultural, civic and economic successes of the city. And whereas, as our society learns to embrace evolving definitions of sexuality and gender, we acknowledge how the need for education and awareness remains vital to end discrimination and prejudice. And whereas pride is a time to recall the trials the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities have endured and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought and continue to fight for full equality. And whereas pride is both a jubilant communal celebration of visibility and a personal celebration of self-worth and dignity. Now, therefore be it resolved that the Lakewood City Council does hereby designate the month of June, 2026 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Plus Pride Month and encourages all residents to recognize the valuable contributions and achievements of the LGBTQ plus community to reflect on the ongoing struggle for equality members of this community face and to reaffirm our commitment against discrimination and injustice. proclaimed this 15th day of June, 2026, signed by our mayor, deputy mayor, and all members of council. Any of you like to speak? Yes.

I'm so happy to speak on behalf of Oasis Youth Center. We're Pierce County's only queer youth center. This proclamation means so much to us. Right now, our community is facing a lot of hardship. And so the recognition of who we are, our worth as people and our worth as members of this community means so much to us. Thank you for speaking out, for recognizing us and for making Pierce County our home. Thank you.

Yeah, we'll add your picture too. Photos? Or any who want. Let's go. Come on up. You don't have to.

Next is the business showcase for June, 2026. It would be touch tone TMS. I'm going to come down and read it. And Dr. Chris Peterson, you could meet me at the podium. for comment. Touchtone TMS is recognized as the June 2026 Business Showcase because of their community impact both in and out of Lakewood and for providing specialized innovative health care and supporting military families and advocating for quality regional delivery of mental health care services. Signed this day, Paul Boeke, Mayor,

Congratulations. Thank you very much. You have a few words and then we're going to run a video. Absolutely. If you could run it one second ahead, that's the most unflattering. It's fine. I'm just joking. Actually, it's just an honor to be here and having Touchstone TMS recognized. We've been in the community since 2019. We opened up our clinic, but I've been doing mental health in the area since 1998 with the military. It was the chief of psychiatry over at Madigan. And grew up here, mom and dad. My mom's here. We lost my dad in April, so it's been tough. And he was a pillar of the community, Lakes High School teacher. And I wish he was here because I know he'd be proud. And it's nice to have my mom, my wife, and my daughter here. But we're really dedicated and passionate about mental health and defeating depression, anxiety, PTSD in every person that we meet. And it is a little bit of a military kind of event. I had 26 years in the military. And we have 90 patients coming in a day. It's not just here. It's in Olympia, Gig Harbor, and Puyallup as well. But the majority are here right down the street, and we have an impact. And I think the video will show that, but I'm just passionate about it, and it's just a privilege to represent Touchstone here today. Thank you. Hello, I'm Dr. Chris Peterson. I'm a psychiatrist. and I am the founder of Touchstone. Working in Lakewood. Hello, I'm Dr. Chris Peterson.

I'm a psychiatrist.

So we're in Lakewood. We opened in 2019. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a procedure that treats PTSD has a significant impact, 70% response rate, which is a 50% reduction in symptoms. And this is in people who've carried depression on for years. And it's about 30, 40% remission rate. I'm all better. And the majority of those people go a year or more feeling very well. And so it's not a cure, but in my experience with 30 years of doing mental health and psychiatry, it's probably the most impactful intervention that I've run across. We also do S-ketamine or it's a ketamine derivative that is done in a very responsible fashion, meaning it's not take home. It is you're in the clinic for two hours. All of these procedures are procedures that take the course of several months to have the impact that I'm talking about. So it's not one and done. People come on in for 30 to 40 visits. And at the end of that, they have that 70% remission response rate. And it's very safe. It doesn't hurt. And the risks are very low. There are some. And so we screen people. We talk to them, make sure they don't have contraindications, giving magnetic pulses in areas of the brain. And those magnetic pulses causes the brain to fire, the neurons to fire together, and hence wire together. And it's a neuromodulatory intervention that's very holistic and naturalistic. It doesn't take medications. But we're targeting an area of the brain that's involved with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It's a number of networks that we're manipulating in a positive way by exercising these neurons and creating connections. And the connections occur over those 30 to 40 visits. And then they hold for most of the people. And we've seen this is not brand new. It's been around for 20 years now. And during the course of the 20 years, it's had greater and greater an impact with diversity of different techniques to deliver it. What we see is that this is expanding. There's different devices that we use, these machines that are delivering the magnetic pulses. And what's very nice is that there is no long-term negative harm that really can be done. It's thought to be pro-cognitive. And so research is now going on for things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's. So it's FDA approved for depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder and migraines for all things. And it has off-label impact for PTSD, fibromyalgia, Parkinson's, tremor, tinnitus, and these other things are also positively impacted by this procedure. I've done it to myself. It doesn't hurt. And I wouldn't deliver it if it did hurt. We just make sure. So people don't stop when they're doing it because of side effects. They continue. And the side effects are mild, usually like a mild headache, maybe some fatigue. The biggest risk to this is either one compared to extreme procedure, pedal above the shoulders and other things that might, you know, be a contraindication. And with the Spravato, it's different contraindication. So it's nice because you can use it in other, if people aren't qualified because of contraindications, they can do the Spravato instead. So I think that this would, this is what this would have told you as well as just my presence in the community. Growing up here, Idyllwild, Hotloff, Lakes High School, and then going to the United States Military Academy. I ended up being indentured because I owed 19 years, actually, because I went to West Point in the medical school, the military medical school in Bethesda, Maryland. My lovely wife. I tell people we met on a psych ward. We did.

But I was a resident, or an intern.

She was a medical student. And now she's a cardiologist in the community and does amazing work with Kaiser.

Mom's a vitamin teacher here.

with young students at Pratt School of Art and Design in Brooklyn and hoping to get her back as a filler of Lakewood. So that's all I'll say. Just do it extemporaneously there. Any questions?

We're going to come down and take a picture together.

Thank you very much for all your wonderful work.

And we really do appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the video to work. For those. So next is public comment. Public comments are accepted by mail, email, or by live, virtual, or in-person comment. Send comments in advance by mail or email to Brianna Schumacher, city clerk at 6000 Main Street Southwest, Lakewood, Washington, 98499 or bschumacher at cityoflakewood.us. Comments received up to one hour before the meeting have been provided to the city council electronically. Ms. Schumacher, can you read the names of the people who have submitted comments in advance?

Mayor, we received written comments in advance of the meeting from Doreen Emholt, Jennifer Emholt, Polly McLean, Brian Parsons, and Tricia Parsons.

We have received those. Thank you very much. Members of the audience may comment on items relating to any matter related to city business under the public comments period. Comments are limited to three minutes per person. Virtual comments. If you'd like to provide virtual public comments, you will need to join the Zoom meeting as an attendee by calling by telephone. Dial 1-253-215-8782 and enter meeting ID 868-7263-2373 or visit zoom.us and enter meeting ID 868-7263-2373. upon entering the meeting, please enter your name use the raise hand feature to be called upon for those participating by calling in by telephone to use the raise hand feature press star nine on your phone. When you are unmuted please provide your name and city of residence each speaker will be allowed three minutes to speak. Outside of public comments, all attendees on Zoom will continue to have the ability to virtually raise your hand for the duration of the meeting. You will not be acknowledged and your microphone will remain muted except for when you are called upon. I'd like to first call on those who are on Zoom or phone and who have raised their hand virtually. Ms. Schumacher, it looks like we've got a couple of names there.

Mayor, first we have Judith.

Thank you. Judith, you've got three minutes. Please introduce yourself.

Hi, it's Anderson. I couldn't find where to put my name. Okay. It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. That's from Upton Sinclair. And if anyone's offended by what I have to say, it's on the person who's offended. None of this is directed at any particular person. It's how I see the situation here. I'm shocked at your selfish disregard for the future, especially after you're fawning over the kids on your junior council two weeks ago. You say all the right things, but your actions reveal that you care nothing for their future. Cutting down Gary Oaks is against federal and state law. Your embrace of dominator culture that might makes right is despicable, and it shows that you've drunk the Kool-Aid of the fascists, that you think it's OK to lie regarding heat over the loss of the trees, especially if you'll make something from it. This is directly in alignment with the fascist regime running the country now. Do you think the regime is going to notice your cruelty and advance your career? You have a choice. You can protect the trees and the streams for the children that you expect to love and respect you, or you can lie and say it was out of your hands and go for the money because there's always money involved. When they learn about what you did and what you could have done, your grandchildren will despise you no matter how much blood money you leave them. Get over yourselves. You are here to serve the people who elected you, not rule.

over them thank you ms anderson it looks like we have to come here dunlop three minutes thank you hello hello my name is t homier dunlop and i'd like to make a comment about the oak tree and development project in woodbrook by emerson lake Last week, the city issued a mitigated determination of non-significance, in which it said that the semi-truck parking lot that a developer wants to put there will be allowed. But the 60-inch Gary Oak, possibly even 900 years old, according to the WDFW rule of thumb for age estimation, would remain standing, and they could pave all the way up to its drip line. You're not supposed to pave within that drip line according to Lakewood regulations. But in this MD&S, it says that if they really need to, they'll be allowed to pave up to 25% of the area within that big old Gary Oaks drip line. That tree, which is extremely valuable for habitat, is going to be fried from the vast expanse of concrete. It's right by a wetland. I was there. I heard the frogs right by the road and could almost see them in the blackberries. I saw a bit of movement, but I didn't actually manage to see the frog, but it was croaking pretty much right in front of me. And the wetland will be damaged by the extra heat and runoff. If you look at the satellite maps of heat islands and stuff, obviously if you have concrete, that's going to make the temperature higher. And yeah, so even if you don't pave right up to the tree, if you pave up 25% of the drip line, not only is it going to have some of its drip line paved over, but you're going to have that concrete emanating heat right next to it. And that's just not good. Like, if we had a 900-year-old building in Lakewood, I would hope that that would be, you know, protected because it's historical. But when it's a 900-year-old tree, which is arguably kind of even more incredible than if it was a 900-year-old historic building, it seems like people don't really care about it. At the very least, you would think it would be a local attraction, but, you know, nobody seems to really care. So yeah, I just wanted to comment about that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dunlop. That looks like that's all the virtual calls we've got. They're not virtual calls. They're all the calls that came in by zoom or telephone. Um, next would be in person. I don't have anybody on the public signup list, so you can just line up at the podium and you've got, please introduce yourself and you have three minutes.

Hello, my name is James Dunlop, and I'm a resident of Lakewood. I would like to thank Judith for her Zoom comment, and she quoted from Upton Sinclair. That's interesting. I have a piece of paper here. I only have one thing written on this piece of paper, which is the Upton Sinclair quote, which I'm going to give you again, because I think you really need to think about it. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Get it. You know, I believe, that oak trees are unique in terms of the city's ecosystem, the Lakewood ecosystem. They are drought resistant. They can actually deal with fires. That has been their role for centuries. And they are being cut down. And think about it. Ask yourself this question with oak trees. How many oak trees can you cut down if you want to sustain and maintain Lakewood's Gary oak population? So how many oak trees can you actually cut down every year? Remembering you've got some oak trees which are on private land. You've got other oak trees on land controlled by the city. You've got utilities. So what is the actual answer? And that is a mathematical question. It's not a rhetorical question. And mathematically, the answer is zero. It really is zero. You cannot cut down any oak trees if you want to maintain the current population. And so every single oak tree is precious. You might think about a couple of oak trees on the Dower property. Yes, you take those. They are irreplaceable. You know they're irreplaceable. But it's kind of in your interest to be ignorant. You know, the city council, they're there to protect Lakewood. They're not there to protect the city. The city, you know, building sidewalks. The sidewalks, you know, I know that you have this myth that it's, you know, that everyone wants sidewalks. Do really people use sidewalks? Have you ever walked on a sidewalk? It is really unpleasant walking on a sidewalk in Lakewood. I mean, I do it a lot, particularly in the summer. It is hot. There are no trees. And who benefits from a sidewalk? The city. I mean, it's all about budget maximization, getting as many dollars of grant money as possible. You know what you're doing. You know what damage you're doing, but you choose to look away. And I'm afraid that is the definition of evil. Evil is not just actively doing something bad. It's actually ignoring it, looking away. And you are part of a problem. I'm sorry to use the second person, but you really are. You are there to protect the environment. You're there to protect Lakewood. And the city council is doing the opposite.

Thank you, Mr. Dunlop. Is there anybody else who'd like to speak tonight?

Hello, everybody. Oops. Got to say when people can't hear. Christina Lakewood. I don't have any Upton Sinclair quotation for you. I'm sorry to disappoint you. So mainly tonight, I'd like to call your attention to an anniversary. We'll wait until.

Yeah, sorry.

Okay. Thanks. Okay, thanks. Okay, so let's try again. So Christine and a liquid. First, I'd like to call your attention to an anniversary last week about it marked five. Five years of my and our public comments. The first was on, I don't know why it's so quiet today. Usually it's really loud. The first was on June 7th. Oh, that worked better, 2021. Since then I've made, oh my, I've made about 120 comments on behalf of myself and the nonprofit. Often it seems pointless.

Yes, it does.

Why do I do it? I ask myself this a lot, as you can imagine. Maybe you don't. I mean, you waste enough time with me already. But the first reason is I feel compelled to stand up for the beings that can't defend themselves, the oaks and the other trees, the animals and the other organisms that we share this planet with. Plenty of people stand up for the downtrodden humans, the human trafficking and the homelessness and all the rest, but far fewer people, virtually nobody, basically, I mean, very few, seem to empathize with the natural world of which humans are just one little part. But without the rest, we can't survive, of course, and we can't survive in a dead world. Even if we could, it would be a horrible place. The second reason is I want to provide you with facts that you might not hear otherwise. And the third reason is I want to make sure that you hear things that you might not otherwise hear that aren't necessarily facts. But, you know, I try to tell you about things I've observed in the town and in city announcements like the 60-inch Gary Oak in Woodbrook that you might not have known about otherwise. I also try to tell you about things that aren't the usual happy announcements about how great things are and how it's super, that they're groundbreaking on another warehouse or knocking down a family's house for another boat trailer parking lot. Not another one, but for a boat trailer parking lot. I'm definitely not going to tell you that isn't it great we are improving Lakewood. You need to hear that certain things are objectively terrible. The state of this planet is horrific. And you're playing a role in that. It's terrible that you've all played a role in such needless environmental destruction. This is objectively evil. And somehow you have entangled yourselves in this evil on a smaller scale. It's like the bureaucratic evil that led to millions of people being killed. in Europe in World War II. Through the city's machine, you have participated in the perpetration of this evil. Remember, the science that is supposed to guide you clearly says that Gary Oaks are not supposed to be cut down west of the Cascades except for stand enhancement. Are you more clever than recognized science? Are you guys scientists? I think one of you sent out a letter that sounded like there were scientific pronouncements. Are you more clever than recognized science? Science is one thing, but Lakewood knows better. Science says Gary Oaks must not be destroyed, and Lakewood says we must destroy them. I'm here after five years because you still need to be reminded that what you are allowing to happen is unforgivable, and I will continue to remind you as long as it is necessary and as long as I'm able.

Thank you, Ms. Minetti.

The second comment is from Gary Okolushin. Christina Minetti. The Gary Oak Coalition is profoundly troubled, both scientifically and civically, by recent actions and statements regarding Gary Oak protection in Lakewood. First, we are very disturbed that the city would have approved paving within the critical root zone of the enormous 60-inch Gary Oak in Woodbrook for a semi-truck parking lot. That tree should be a monument. It should be protected. It's a champion tree, probably, in the state of Washington. You know what a champion tree is? It's the biggest one. But no, Lakewood allowed for a parking lot to be made next to it. And city regulations state that paving over critical root zones of Gary Oaks is prohibited. Yet apparently this protection disappears when the project is industrial. How is this acceptable? What president is this setting? What about the wetland? Where is the science that is supposed to back the city's decision making? Instead of facilitating industrial expansion into sensitive habitat like this, the city should be exploring options such as the conservation futures funding as Mayor Bocchi suggested so reasonably to permanently protect this wetland and one of the largest Gary Oaks in Lakewood and the entire state probably. We are also deeply disturbed by a council member's response to residents who submitted comments about the Dower Elementary Oaks. The letter dismissed the trees as insignificant, dispensable because they are on the periphery. That was the word that was used. What does that mean? Like next time you can cut the next ones because those are going to be on the periphery. That's nonsense. That is complete nonsense. They were also, this council member also said that there were larger and older oaks that are in that grove next to it. He said that there would be negligible or zero environmental impact. How can he make such a statement? I don't understand. Is this a scientist? There is no basis for this. Who is this council member to make such scientific pronouncements? The people who received that letter deserve a clarification and an apology because the author was not someone who was qualified to make such statements. This reflects on all of you because he is a member of your body. These statements demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of Gary Oak ecology and conservation. Every mature Gary Oak west of the Cascades is ecologically important. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's best available science recommendations clearly state, I'm going to say it again, that no Gary Oaks west of the Cascades should be removed except for stand enhancement. Sidewalk convenience is not stand enhancement. Equally troubling was his dismissal of residents public comments because they use an action network template. Citizens should not be belittled for participating in democracy through organized civic engagement such as that template. Public participation should be encouraged, not demeaned. Such template letters are used by organizations like Greenpeace, you know them probably, right? Audubon, you know them. And as a matter of course, As a way for busy people to register their opposition, this month marks five years since our organization began advocating against the destruction of 114 Gary Oaks in Springbrook. You might remember this shirt. Unfortunately, despite years of testimony, conditions in many ways have worsened.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Gary Oaks Coalition. Anybody else? Marjolee Lee. Welcome. You have three minutes.

Hello and good evening to all of you. My name is Abraham from the city of Lakewood. Well, One thing that it seemed like we just experienced is maybe you could do something about this noise if you already don't have something on your book because I don't know how such a thing could not wireless somebody else's peace while not benefiting the person who is causing it. That's one. Two, I understood that The city is working on rezoning the Edgewater Park and also our property from the Edgewater Park from Open Space Recreation 1 to Open Space Recreation 2 and also the R3, our used to be resident but demolished and wasted, to Open Space 2. This case, as you know, is still going through the court system. I really urge you to hold on to it first. But two, really with their new legislation that mandates the cities not to remove anybody who is homeless and may go and have a place over there because they don't have nowhere else to go, to be housed within the city or cannot be removed from wherever they choose to be on the city right away. So considering that, that's going to undermine, as we know, because not everybody is a good citizen, undermine the safety and security of the people in that neighborhood, which they used to be my neighbor, and I still deeply care about them. I hope you would be very considerate to that effect and hold off to act on that. It goes back to what Christina mentioned. You know, trees, when we prune them, if we are too aggressive, they give up. They die. When we cut trees, we don't just cut trees. We also cause erosion of the land that grows on it. We just don't remove the tree. We remove the habitat that the species leave and needed to live on it. Please be conscientious about that. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dr. Marjolele. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak? We have three minutes. Hi.

Thank you guys again. I'm Haley Ivy, resident of Lakewood, music teacher here in Lakewood and Tacoma of Children who are increasingly aware of the environmental issues that we have. And I do want to speak on the dour oaks that were considered dispensable because of them being on the periphery of where the lot is. The only reason it's on the periphery is because of all the manmade structures around it. And I know the importance of accessibility, such as sidewalks, but I will say as somebody that still does not have a car and has to walk on sidewalks, and has to hear noises like that all the time, the motors, the heat because of the lack of the canopy. I was on the corner of South Tacoma Way and 74th Street. I was waiting to board the 202. I could not stand near the sidewalk. because the cars were going so fast and so I went down in this little ditch where the garbage was. The reason why I couldn't stand by the bus bench is because there was a limb about 20 feet long hanging over the bus bench and I had somebody tell me do not stand under that because that is about to come down. I called the emergency services to come take care of this because how is somebody supposed to know that? Where am I supposed to stand if the sidewalk does not feel safe? I would just like us to think about different ways to be able to build the anemones we need without thinking strictly of design. I would like us to think about our natural areas. So I will refer to, again, Woodbrooks Oak, 60 inches in diameter. The semi-truck parking lot there was given a pass to pave 25% of the area within the drip line, despite regulations saying that you cannot. This is next to a wetland. Again, I'm gonna bring up Seeley Lake, who unfortunately I haven't visited in a while, but I did visit Edgewater Park today. There were a lot of swimmers in the water and I took photos and footage of all of the stinky garbage on the water's edge, all of the noxious invasive ivy taking over all of the trees, the garbage piles, the coal, the people leaving their stuff behind. It breaks my heart. I have an attachment to this piece of land. I don't know if people have seen this before. They send people to cut down the trees that didn't need to be cut down, the native plants that were already there beautifying it. And now there are weeds up to two and a half feet tall all over this lot. And I shouldn't have to go down the street every three days to cry about the way the green spaces are treated here in a place called Lakewood. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else who would like to speak at public comment? Is there anyone else who would like to speak at public comment? Okay, I'm gonna declare public comment closed. Ms. Schumacher will go on to the consent agenda.

Consent agenda, A, approval of the minutes of the City Council meeting of June 1st, 2026. B, motion number 2026-44, authorizing replacement of the Lakewood Municipal Court X-ray machine and accepting a grant from the Foundation for Washington State Courts. in the amount of $19,370.92 for the Lakewood Municipal Court safety and security enhancements. C, motion number 2026-45, authorizing the execution of an agreement with TKE Elevator in the amount of $50,545 for repair and replacement the Sound Transit Station Elevator Emergency Brake System. D, motion number 2026-46, amending the 2026 Lakewoods Promise Advisory Board Work Plan. E, items filed in the Office of the City Clerk. One, American Lake Lake Management District Number One Advisory Committee meeting minutes of December 10th, 2025. Two, Lakewood's Promise Advisory Board meeting minutes of February 5th, 2026. Three, American Lake Lake Management District Number One Advisory Committee meeting minutes of February 19th, 2026. Four, Lakewood's Promise Advisory Board meeting minutes of April 2nd, 2026. And five, Lakewood's Promise Advisory Board meeting minutes of May 7th, 2026.

Thank you, Ms. Schumacher. Are there any items that council member wishes to remove from the consent agenda? No second is required. Any items? Okay, seeing that I'll ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

So moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. The ayes have it, the consent agenda is approved. I'd like to announce that we'll now consider ordinance number 852. Ms. Schumacher, could you please read the title into the ordinance?

Ordinance number 852, adopting the 2026 City of Lakewood Shoreline Master Program.

Thank you, Ms. Speier, Planning Manager, to provide an overview.

Thank you and good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. This item is beginning on page 40 of your packet. And as was described to you last week during your study session, this does not require a public hearing because of the way Shoreline Master Programs are updated in state law in Washington State. So you have before you tonight an ordinance that reflects the change brought to you last week in that study session. On page 40 and 41, there's a little bit of background explaining the need for this change. It is a very simple change to the SMP. It is the redesignation of parcel at 9132 Edgewater Drive Southwest. from shoreline residential to urban parks, excuse me, in order to be able to include it within the Edgewater Park itself. On page 41, there's a little bit more information responding to some of the questions that were asked last week by council regarding the zoning versus the shoreline designations And just very quickly, this does not really affect the action before you tonight, but just to explain, there is one method of mapping and tracking shoreline designations in the city, and that is separate and apart from land use zones. So both of those are depicted there on page 41 for you. Ordinance 852 starts on page 42 and it includes the language required for an ordinance action by the council. And then starting on page 44 of your packet is the actual updated shoreline master program for the city. And the amendment is to figure one, which is on pages 18 and 19 of the document or pages 68 and 69 of your packet. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions for Ms. Speer? Council Member Branstadter.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ms. Speer, and I understand that the process that was followed this year with respect to a single parcel, and so that's what's in the ordinance before us to do that, to go on. But In the discussions when after that study session, there was the issue of the upland properties that are still within the 200 foot buffer, but that are not intended to be a part of the park. And that We didn't, this action didn't go through a process to redesignate them. I guess the question was, do all the properties in all the areas in any buffer in the Shoreline Master Program have to have the same environmental designation or could the more upland further from the water ones have a different designation based on geography or use so that the next time we do that, is it possible to Mayor Mrakas, allow those property owners who have partials that have that are designated urban park. Mayor Mrakas, To be residential be re designated, so that they are faced with the same requirements or restrictions is other residential property owners, but who actually have like front.

Mr. Brancitor, Council Member Brancitor, if you look on page 69 of your packet, that is the updated map. And you'll see that in the legend below, there are five different shoreline designations under our Shoreline Master Program. It is concurrency, natural environment, shoreline residential, urban park, and then urban stream protection. And what we're talking about in relation to Edgewater Park is the redesignation from shoreline residential to urban park for that single parcel. But as you see here, there are multiple different designations that can be assigned to those parcels that are subject to our shoreline master program. And they are all within the 200 foot ordinary high water mark. The designation of these parcels is completely separate from the land use zoning. What this is telling you under our SMP is that based on the designation, there are specific development regulations that waterfront property or within that 200 foot management area have to follow. And so they look at the shoreline designation, the applicable regulations, and then also our regular development regulations in the municipal code. If there are parcels here that are within the 200 foot management area that are right now designated urban park, when they could be shoreline residential and they're not part of a park or plan to be, That is something that we can be looking at as a separate process to update our SMP for. But the way it sits right now, what you've got on page 41 of your packet is that demonstration that OSR1 is assigned to the current Edgewater Park parcel 9102, and it would be expanded to that one immediately to the south, 9132 Edgewater Drive.

Okay. So I'm just looking to the future and for... I guess I'm just saying that it would be possible in a future action to designate some parcels that are within a 200 foot buffer, but not actually on the shoreline to a different designation. It's just that we didn't do that in the process this year.

And he's stating that you don't have to answer that question. I mean, that's something we need to look at going forward. Are there any more questions for Ms. Speer?

No, Mr. Mayor.

So I have it. So moving it to urban park from shoreline residential, I get getting out of shoreline residential because it's no longer a residence urban park. What does that allow us to do there?

That allows for additional use along the shoreline for the pier and the parking and open space in addition to the current Edgewater Park. So it's consistent with the master plan that the council adopted in 2024. And the intention here is to set this park up able to expand onto that parcel.

Okay. And then that includes, excuse me, then the boat launch too? Yes. Is that the plan under the, okay. Thank you very much. Are there any other questions for Ms. Speer? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Would anybody like to move ordinance number 852?

Mayor, I move ordinance number 852. Second.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance number 852. Are there any additional council member comments? Council Member Talbot. Oh, okay. Sorry. Oops. Any Council Member comments? All those in favor of ordinance number 852 signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The ayes have it. Ordinance number 852 has passed. Ms. Krause, is there any unfinished business or new business? Is there any new business? Thank you. Now we move into the study session portion of our evening, a review of the facility use agreement with West Coast Baseball League. Is Ms. Miles here? And that begins on page 170.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. Happy to be with you here tonight. I also have some guests with me that will be happy to answer any questions that you might have. You did receive a memo in your packet. And if you recall, representatives of West Coast Baseball League, particularly the South Washington Baseball Group, have a franchise that they are potentially looking at locating here. So they did a prior study session and talked to you about what that looks like. So the city manager and I have been active in talking to them about what the terms of that agreement might look like. We were able to evaluate their prior or their current agreement that they have with Ridgefield, which is another franchise that they operate, as well as have discussions around Longview, which was one of their last locations where they had a club located for 17 years. And so they're looking to establish their second club back here in Lakewood. So there's some of the information that you've asked for in that memo in packet. and terms it really is a summer season collegiate league that is run the same way a professional program would be this is groups of individuals who are associated with collegiate programs who are playing over the summer and are positioning themselves uh potentially to be drafted into the major leagues so we're looking at 35 to 40 events throughout the summer that would happen between memorial day and basically labor day or the end of august generally would like to improve the field up to be able to accommodate 1200 to 1300 attendees for that particular game Also, as we've worked through this, we've looked at what it looks like in terms of capital investment in order to accommodate that many guests coming to those home games. So you have in your packet what comes to $3.2 million. We're looking at that in two different phases. The first phase really gets the initial seating and concessions and some of the basic operating requirements into place for the opening season that would potentially be next summer. And then a second phase that really gets more into more permanent restroom and permanent facilities that would support not only their program, but Pierce College's program. And really these become our city assets. We're just expanding the site. to be able to accommodate this. And the user would be responsible for paying rents, would be responsible for some added services, dumpsters, temporary restrooms until we have permanent restrooms into play, and also would be bringing forward an upfront payment. And the thought is that upfront payment is available then for replacement repair, things that we would need over the first term of the agreement in terms of field turf updates. There's an obligation that we have as the city to do a share of those improvements to that home field complex based on our agreement with Pierce College. So we've had a number of conversations with them as well about what the terms of this agreement might look like. So it summarizes for you in the memo what rights that they would have as part of this. So they look to advertising concessions, ticket sales, which allow them to operate because they fund the team, they fund the team's travel, they fund all the staff. who do all the activities it takes to run their league. There is a rent that would be due to us. This is a reduced rate rent because we have no turf maintenance responsibilities or stadium during the day when they have an event, they take care of all those activities. So our rate really is about covering the utilities, the supplies. those things that are direct impacts on us to be able to host this activity. And then we'd be able to schedule and work in partnership with them in Pierce College in order to have this be effective. There are some elements we're still talking, but I'd say we're probably about 90% around having the base agreement. talked about. We're still looking at what should potentially be a term or a rate of incremental increases to the base rent. But we've worked through a lot of the elements about how to really even approach the field, co-brand the field, understanding that this would be a Lakewood Ball Club playing at the field that is also the Pierce College Raider Field in Fort Silicon Park. So get all that together in one sentence overall. I'm really here tonight to answer questions that you have. As I mentioned, both Wade and Tony from the franchise are here, and they can entertain questions and answer questions that you have. And Duncan Stevenson with Ferris College is also here. So I'm happy to take questions. If you'd like to direct it to them, they're happy to answer. But the next step in all of this would be actually bringing forward the facility use agreement for your consideration and adoption. The timeline is fairly tight because if a team is coming into the league, they need to submit that team August 1, and then the league schedule comes out the end of August. So the goal would be to have an agreement in place. That agreement would be contingent on us funding the capital investment that it takes to do that. There has been notification to the Lodging Tax Committee about convening in order to entertain an application for that capital. And that is scheduled for July 27th. So if there's interest in the agreement, that can be scheduled and if approved, then it goes to the lodging tax. They would approve the capital funding. If you then ratify the capital funding that the lodging tax group wants to appropriate, then we have a club coming to Lakewood. So any questions that you have, I'd be happy to answer. There is a map here that if it's helpful, it kind of represents some of the improvements that we've talked about in terms of site placements, if you're less familiar. So I'll bring those over.

Thank you, Ms. Miles. Are there any questions for Director Miles? Council Member Branstadter.

Yes, miles up in our thing under the terms, there is an area and what the city would provide and it says shall provide a location for storage during the off season and secure storage for user assets during the season. In the capital improvements. I guess I don't see anything that would be invested in creating storage locations. What is the thinking there that how the city would meet that obligation if it's included in the agreement?

Absolutely. There is some existing storage on site. There's a hitting facility and there is some secure locations, some that are used during the college season by Pierce College, but also the bleacher units that we're looking at underneath has the capacity to include that onsite during season storage that would be needed for the program. They have a container. So in terms of locating during the off season, that container, it can be placed. within the park property boundaries and not have to be at the site itself. So we don't need to build anything new for that piece of it.

And is that container a city asset or a Pierce College asset?

That container would be a baseball franchise asset. That's their own asset. So they're just placing it on our property.

So we wouldn't be having the cost of the container. We'd be providing a place for the container to reside in season and off season.

In the off season, we'd be finding a place for their container to reside. During the end season, they would be storing things in the current facilities that are there. Plus when we install the bleachers, the intent is to have underneath those bleachers, additional storage. And the bleachers and the storage underneath would be our city asset that is installed there. And we're just really allowing them to store things during the season. there on the site so that they can do the field preparation and manage their program.

And currently in our arrangement with Pierce College, they have a season and they have the priority of the use of the facility during that season. And it pretty much minimizes public use during that window of time. Now this agreement would add how many weeks or months to the period of time of when public use would be similarly restricted.

So currently, between September and May, Pierce College has the priority. We have them scheduled in, and then we can do additional community and city programs in that window. From June to August, we as the city have priority. So this group would be the number one placement that the city is putting onto the field during the city's June to August priority time. The one caveat that we've talked through quite a bit is that this program starts the Tuesday after Memorial Day. So that is something we've already talked about with Pierce College to make sure if it starts that week sooner than our agreement currently allows for, that that can be accommodated without undue hardship. And within the agreement, we're actually looking at that should Pierce College be able to host a playoff game or the city pursue a bid and be able to host something that final week of May, that then we would be able to preemptively kind of present that and kind of take back that week. And that's the only time where we would kind of return back to us having priority usage after Memorial Day.

Okay. With respect to advertising, that was something that was discussed quite a bit when we were working out an agreement with Pierce College and we got to the point of where they could use to Pierce College branding of the field, but that they wouldn't be able to really do advertising, put advertising things up in the field, being able to go and do that. And this agreement seems to open that door to allow for advertising of commercial nature to be displayed in the park at the field to do that. What kind of constraints does the draft agreement envisioned being able to put around the advertising? I mean, would it only be during games, or would it be advertising be able to be displayed for the season?

Yes, currently it provides that right for advertising during the use period, which is that Tuesday after Memorial Day through the end of August, so throughout their season. But it is inward focused generally, right? You have to be inside the field in the fence line that is being talked about to be exposed to that particular advertising. The fence line that would have advertising really towards the park is one that's being precluded from being able to have signage. If there are bleachers that are added along the third base side, that would also really kind of close in what people are experiencing in terms of the advertising. I think a piece of discussion and concession is whether the backside of those bleachers have a wrap that represents the Lakewood team or potentially represents advertising. But it's not park wide and it is during their particular use season. that that advertising would be available as advertising ticket sales and concessions is the primary way that they fund the operations of the team.

Okay. And then Pierce College is a college, a state institution of higher learning that's located here in Lakewood is SWBG LLC, are they a for-profit or a non-profit organization?

They're limited liability for-profit.

Thank you. Council Member Lindholm.

I just want to say thank you for all your hard work on this. This isn't easy. We've never done this before. Thank you for showing the interest. I'm a strong supporter of this. I know there's an upfront ask, and I think that ask is more than we anticipated. I also think the positive benefits of this will be more than we've anticipated. This is a long-term play and Lakewood needs more of those. And I thank you for your work on this.

Thank you. Council member, Laura Sella.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Miss Miles. A couple of or a few questions. First, has the Parks Department in the city reached out to other West Coast League cities, especially Longview, who this team is coming from, to understand the positives and negatives that their communities have had from having teams in their communities and then sort of what to look out for as we come to an agreement?

So we have done some reaching out. And actually, I'm happy to have Tony speak to Longview. But part of this is actually me going through the list. There's a whole mixture between school district properties. Longview was a community college property. So I really think the Bellingham with the city is probably the most representative in order to understand the terms and benefit. I have requested their agreement or feedback and I haven't gotten a name back yet. So, I mean, that is one of the hazards of our compressed timeline in this, but they did very much participate in their own economic development study, which is why it was available to provide to you. within the packet in terms of how they were seeing the benefit, right? There is a capital investment that comes into this, but I think the view, and it really becomes a policy decision, right? The view about the community benefit the economic benefit that comes back from hosting such a program and having it in the community. And I know the partners have talked about from Little League to the high school teams and just kind of a resurgence of interest in that experience and making sure that those younger age programs getting stronger with the ability to have both the college and this type of program in the local community. It was a 17-year relationship and it came to the point of just the college deciding what its next level of investments would be. But if you'd like him to speak to Longview, he can. And I know he also said he'll provide the context if there's still interest in this council moving forward. to have a further conversation with them. But both the Ridgefield and the Longview agreements themselves have been provided. And if they haven't been forwarded to you, we can make them available.

Yeah, I would love to see those for sure. In terms of usage of the fields that we currently share with Pierce College, it sounds like Pierce College has it reserved from September to May, you said. Outside of that window, not including this agreement, is that open to the general public to reserve and play games at, or how does that work?

So the city still, and similar to this, it's our asset, so we schedule it. It's just a matter of what we put in the system first. And so the school program, and for them, they love playing on that field. And I have to acknowledge, right, this partnership with Pierce College, they brought a significant capital investment in order to make it collegiate level, which is probably why we're having the conversation here today because the lights and the turf and everything that is in position is why what most people view this request is an incremental increase to make that happen. So the ability to run community camps and programs, and that's actually both something that Pierce College as well as the West Coast League franchise does, is hosting those youth camps. So scheduling in those activities is still there. The city, again, it's our priority time, June through August. So outside of scheduled home teams when they're away, we manage that schedule and we manage who we would allow in to use it, which we have the ability to do. We actually employ some folks who are very, that are associated with Pierce College's program to do the field maintenance because they understand the care that it takes. So it's not something we necessarily have, you know, Little League or T-ball go in because of that field. But when they're on there, they feel like they're playing big leagues and they get treated that way as well.

Gotcha. So as part of this agreement, that would still be available for residents and folks to come in between the times that they're using this?

Right. Their agreement calls for the 35 to 40 events, right? So we're scheduling that in. And yes, in a three-month window, that's pretty. And we do have restricted dates, like not doing Summerfest. And so again, we're able to look at field two and the impacts on the rest of the complex.

Let's see. Outside of this agreement, do you foresee that we would have had similar demand to make these upgrades to our facility?

Probably not. And that kind of goes back and I'll use an analogy for you, right? In how aggressive we wanted to be to attract that type of event for the economic demand. You know, Chambers Bay Golf Course was designed to attract a US Open and had that singular event, right? So managing it and filling the space to even take good advantage of the level of investments there is something that's an ongoing operating need for that facility. Here, the level of investment that was put into the field was done by Pierce College. They really have been our paramount user, and I think everything else outside of this that we bring would be sufficient at the level that it's at. But by elevating this and opening up the site capacity, we then are more eligible to host more of those singular type tournaments that do have a larger economic impact, but you don't do it every day. So I think that's always the trade-off when you make a tourism related investment to host competitions that you normally have to bid for. In this case, we know there'll be 30 to 40 games.

That makes sense. What sort of attendance do we see for Pierce College games in our current facility?

Duncan, average attendance for your games? Average attendance at the Pierce College games? 100 to 150.

Sounds good. And this is more of a question for the folks representing the team. But are there other teams that are within a five mile radius of a minor league like AAA affiliate? Do we need to worry about competition with that sort of group with the Rainiers are pretty close?

Pretty popular. Great. So Tony or Wade, if you want to come and address both Longview and that change, and then also his question is how close to a single, double, or triple-A affiliate are any of the other programs, and how do you see those interacting?

Mr. Bonacci, for the record, could you introduce yourself? For the record, my name is Tony Bonacci with Southwest Washington Baseball Group, and thank you for inviting us back. And so the question regarding proximity to other affiliates.

Yeah, so we've got a AAA affiliate. No, we're fans. Right around the corner, right?

Yeah. So the proximity in the league, there are not any that are that close that I am aware of. I would not, you know, I don't view ourselves as trying to compete with the Rainiers. They're at a different level on and off the field. We view ourselves as filling in the baseball infrastructure the Pierce County baseball infrastructure, along with Pierce College, that would exist underneath that.

Okay, great. Thank you. So you're hoping to hit 1,300 attendees per game in the six weeks?

Yes, I mean, that is something that we would likely build to. I mean, we were trying to get to a point where we thought we would be viable with improvements that were achievable within the timeframe that we were talking about and then build from there.

Sounds good. The Bellingham Bells proposal that you've got or the data from them had a number of 2,700, but that I think was over two days, right?

Probably, I'd have to, that might be, actually, I'm familiar with the piece, but I'm not familiar with the specific portion of it that you're referencing.

No problem. I was assuming because the capacity of that stadium is only 1,800, so to have 2,700 would probably be over two days. Right. And I saw the economic benefit to the city for that look like about... $1,977 for those two games. So we're looking at about 1,000 per game in terms of tax revenues back to the city.

In terms of tax revenues or in terms of revenues into the city? I thought the number was substantially.

Right. So the number in terms of tax revenues was about 1,700, I believe. But if you look at the business generated elsewhere, it was projected at 60 to 100,000, I think.

Okay. That sounds about right. That sounds about right.

Okay.

I think that's it for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Pearson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

On the site improvement map, I have just a few questions. So the The containers, are those, is the idea that the containers would be a temporary storage device until the full bleachers and stuff are built, and then that's where the remaining, that would be your primary storage, or would we always have like Connex boxes out there?

I think the container, do you have the, I just wanted to use the, I think there are probably a handful of different depictions of containers. Oh, so... The merchandise container would be, that would be something that would be, it's what a lot of teams use in our league, the retrofitted or customized concessions retainers that open up and use them as both storage. And then during the season, they open up and become a team store that we can secure in between games. That would likely be moved on and off site it would stay onsite during the season and then would be moved offsite or to another location on the property after the season. So during that September to May period. The concessions, the containers that we had envisioned on the concession side would likely remain there. They would be, they would again be outfitted and customized so they would have kitchens inside of them for, and they'd be able to be secured, but they would be facilities that we envision likely as remaining on the property.

Okay. And so with the concessions container, so concessions are something that I think would be amazing to have out at Fort Sillicum in general. And I think it would be really awesome if there was a way to align the concessions container where you could have concessions during your guys' games and have it be focused for those games. But then outside of the rest of the year, have it be up against the edge of the facility where the backside could then be opened up for literally games or whatever else is, you know, and for volunteers to work the concessions if they needed to or something. So I would be really interested in, in somehow kind of manipulating the site plan to better accommodate some other types of, you know, uses for, for concessions and things like that. So.

I'll tell you, I don't, we, that is, uh, the specifics about the portability of those containers would be something that we haven't yet, that we haven't yet, uh, worked on, frankly.

Yeah. And I assume if there's kitchens, like, you know, there's going to be some sort of permanent utilities in place.

Utility hookups for, yeah.

So they're going to be mobile, but not really mobile once you get the utility set up there.

Right.

Um, And then I don't have a good grasp of the fencing. So you have the blue line is temporary fencing. So can you walk me through what is the temporary fencing? Is that only during the games or is that just the first phase? And then, you know, does that come down after the games are over, you know, for the season? And then the people can kind of meander wherever in there? What's the control?

Yes, so part of this is, right, we still need to be able to functionally use field two. And so the ones that are listed as permanent, because we don't want to... make investments in phase one that we potentially are going to undo in phase two. We do have to determine the permanent restroom location. As you noticed in the concession discussion, utilities to that building is an important element. And so we're being very conscious about this. Currently sewer is the other side of the parking lot. So bringing sewer to the designated concession location is one level of investment. So we really want to make sure we know where we're siting the restrooms long-term and also if there's going to be co-location. But the budget before you doesn't craft a new concession building. in phase two or move it around. But to your point, if the concession is there, they have an away game. We have something on field two and we want to use the concession facility because again, it's gonna be a city owned element. We don't have to put up that temporary fence and we can take that temporary fencing down and then people who are on field two or field three and four for a tournament would be able to have access to that. That's why the location's not moving. We wanted to intentionally make sure we could take down that temporary fence generally at the end of their season. But we have the flexibility to take it down kind of event by event if we want to or need to as well. So it makes it a little bit more flexible. I would say the permanent fencing that is closer to the park entrance and where the overflow parking would be. We didn't want too much temporary fencing because somehow that just looks like there's a sign on it that says, please climb me, right? Or attempt to. So we thought designating that as permanent at this point, we're pretty comfortable with until we get into the phase two completely designed. But your point about access to concession is the reason why through the plaza that we want to be versatile in that. And we don't want to cut ourselves off from other park uses.

I appreciate that. Can you talk about the parking situation? So we have a really big parking lot there, but somehow it fills up very fast with multiple events on all those fields. Families like to come out and watch kids, I guess. I don't know. What about overflow parking? Would that be just opening up the grass area or would that be expanded paving or can you talk about what the kind of plans are there for phase one or phase two or whatever?

So they would first fill up the standard parking lot, but then shift to overflow. And that's the reason why there's the second admission that allows people to walk in from that in the entrance side and where the grass field is. We currently use that field for overflow for a number of events. Actually the share of cars given their capacity is probably 500 cars or less. So there's a very designated area close to the current crosswalk that we're envisioning and that already exists. So that's why the site improvements pick up once crossing people over the pathway into creating an actual entry corridor from the outfield side and being able to come in to get to the plaza.

Thank you. And then a couple more items on the capital improvement side of things. So is there, you know, you guys get up and running and you're up and running for five years. Is there, you know, would you guys anticipate yourselves doing any sort of improvements or, you know, you're getting a lot of fans that are showing out and it's going well, you know, what sort of things,

could we potentially expect from you guys as far as future improvements or if any at all, I guess that's kind of my, I do think that we have talked about a, a, a phase two that would be part of the part of the parks master plan that would add some additional, that would add additional seating in the existing back and behind the additional grandstand. That would probably be a capital improvement. That would be that we would have to, collaborate on how it was funded. We would likely fund things as we spend time in the park, there would be things that we might find that would be helpful, whether they would be within the hitting facility or additional seating areas, additional group areas that we might try to build. Frankly, they would all be things that would be to come items. I mean, they'd be things that we would, we would spend some time there to see what it, what it, what it needed.

Okay. And so I guess with those things in the future, would, would you guys be, would, would, should I expect to be having more of these types of meetings with capital improvement asks coming to council or would this be something more of a partnership where you guys are, Hey, you know, we've got, A HALF A MILLION DOLLAR PROJECT WE WANT AND WE'RE COMING TO THE TABLE WITH HALF OF IT OR WHATEVER TYPE OF THING.

I THINK WE UNDER THE ONLY THING THAT I THINK WE ANTICIPATE IS AND WE UNDERSTAND THAT IT WOULD THAT THAT AN ADDITIONAL THAT ANY ADDITIONAL SEATING WOULD REQUIRE WOULD REQUIRE ADDITIONAL FUNDING AND WE I DON'T HAVE AN EXPECTATION THAT THE COUNCIL WOULD PROVIDE THE ADDITIONAL FUNDING. we would have an expectation that we would work together on it, whether it was pursuing through state funding or avenues to raise funds. And those might include our participation as well.

Okay, thank you. Um, one question on on maintenance items. So is there I guess who determines when things need to be made maintenance is a somewhat expensive item and who kind of controls the level of The level of quality that things can degrade to before maintenance is needed, and so is that something that you guys would be coming to us that hey we have this agreement that says that. This field needs to be maintained at a 9.5 out of 10 all the time, or you know, is this the city's like well you know we like to maintain things at a seven or whatever the scale is or something but.

When we're there, when we're at the park, we take pride in the park and we're there all the time. So we would likely be in a position to see things just because of our activity level while we are there. Some things we would likely bring to attention, you know, bring attention to city staff, a broken chair, you know, things that might require, you know, an upgrade or not an upgrade, but a replacement. It really depends on the nature of the item that we're talking about. If we're talking about things like the turf, I think those are things that we would probably be aligned with Pierce on. There are some areas that we would be monitoring together with them

Okay, thank you.

So council member, the base agreement that we have with Pierce College actually governs that more and going back to their three quarters of the year and we're one quarter. So within that, that already calls out three, five, 10 year So one of the things is they're really, you have to think about, they're our tenant during our quarter of the year. We already split the costs around turf materials. So making sure that the turf is restored at the end of summer before it's turned over to Pierce College. Pierce College, the same, they do their grooming and turn back over. So there is that replacement cycle, which is why one of the strong recommendations is in the agreement and with the city manager is that the one-time capital that they are talking about bringing forward actually be put in for that wear and tear. Because through this, while most elements of the share of the field maintenance and improvements over time were articulated at 75% Pierce College, 25% city. There were some elements where the city had no obligation that through this agreement, we are going to have to come in at that 25% agreement minimally. If not a little bit more in order to replace those on the cycle, because now we do have a user that is fully utilizing kind of our share of it, plus those Community programs so having that. Money isolated for those needs as we come up on those benchmarks is an important part of how we expect to manage this agreement.

Thank you. And then one final question. Sorry, geez. One final question. So you kind of had touched upon youth opportunities and I really that's a near and dear to my heart. And I think there's not enough baseball clubs and things like that and youth programs or, you know, any kind of different For kids to be able to experience some kind of hands-on training with some college kids and things like that, can you guys talk about how your guys' program works in that regard and what we could probably expect, you know, whether it's... one summer camp a year or a couple?

Our current model is that we do two two-day camps during the course of our summer. They're with our players and with our team coaches. And we do softball camps as well to support both. And those are usually on the same day. Usually on the day of a game, it will just be part of what we do on the morning of a game, on the morning of a home game.

Are those, I mean, most campus folks have to pay for, I assume.

Yes, there is a charge. There would be a charge for that. Okay.

Thank you. That's all I have for questions. I really appreciate you guys coming back and chatting with us. And I'm holding on board with bringing some baseball to Lakewood. So thank you. Deputy Mayor Bell.

Thank you, Mayor. Great questions, Council Member Pearson. Love them. So this goes off of kind of the community-ness that Council Member Pearson was asking about of what do you do? We're so close to JBLM. It's like a full other city here. There's, you know, we just interact with the military constantly. I'm assuming that there's some special outreach or some sort of partnership or something that maybe you would do with them. And are any of your other clubs near any other military bases?

To tell you the truth, I don't know. I don't know whether any of the other clubs are proximate to military bases. I would assume that as part of the regional community, I assume that we would reach out to them as well. I mean, we would celebrate all the aspects of the community that we're in. We have... Among the nights that we do during in our current market, we have a first responder night and we have military appreciation night and we have things and we have nights that would that would highlight those groups. And then we would we would, of course, have have groups from we would love to have groups from the base come out, whether they be organized or not, to come out to spend time with us.

Great, I think that that's just really important and I just wanna, I love the thoughtfulness that's being put into the City of Lakewood's crown jewel and it's our asset and that everyone is showing so much love in and I love that. Thank you for Pierce College of all that you put into this. I agree, Ms. Mills, that I don't believe we would even be talked to if we're not at this point where our fields are at a collegiate level. So Duncan, you know I have a special place in my heart for Pierce College also so, I love this partnership. I love the potential that it could possibly bring to us. So I want to thank you for your presentation, your thoughtfulness, and also for our own staff here for coming and answering all of our questions, making sure that we as a council are doing our due diligence and what's right for the city of Lakewood. So thank you so much.

Thank you. And I would echo your appreciation for the work that Pierce did in creating an asset that makes something like this possible. And for city staff and for Roxanne in particular, who has helped keep us on a number of parallel paths that are all moving quickly.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, I have my last round of questions. I know that we're trying to get into discussion. Thank you. So I just need a little bit more clarification on the parking lot or in the parking overflow. We're not, I assume the parking overflow to be the grass that's located off of the map that requires spraying down if it gets too dusty. Is that the correct area? Yeah.

Sorry, because that map really highlighted kind of what we were looking at fencing in, but it is off the map and across the street. Okay. And not the full open field, but there's a designated area for it.

Thank you. And... I don't want to put Mr. Bonacci on the spot as far as insurance and liability. I appreciate the questions we have tonight, but it would be due diligence for us to ask. In your agreements with other cities or entities, as far as insurance liability, is it typical Are you a willing entity to hold harmless and defend and indemnify? Or alternatively, Ms. Walker, do we typically ask those types of questions? And I ask this because we haven't seen a full agreement yet, and we won't see our first draft until July. So I'd like to get just some sense of confidence that the those terms have been reviewed at some level.

Council Member Talbot and members of the council, we are part of an insurance pool, and what we will probably end up doing is running that part of the language by WCIA. They have model language that they prefer. Sometimes they'll make an exception here or there, not necessarily happily, but they'll explain to us exactly what level of risk we're assuming in changing our regular language, but it would be run by them.

Thank you. So would we know that outcome when we see the draft agreement in July?

take this in the spirit that it's offered. The day-to-day business of the boilerplate and contracts really is on the staff side of the equation. So that part of it will be reviewed and vetted as appropriate within staff. We'll run it by WCIA and so forth. As far as where the council is the meat of the agreement like do we actually want the baseball team here that sort of thing that is completely within the province of the city council, so if we're doing something wrong with our. indemnification in that type of language, where we're going to hear that and truly hear it is when we're talking to WCIA or if there's a reason that either your deputy city manager or the finance director or the city manager see a reason to change or not change that language. What we could do is brief you on that when we come forward and say, this is our standard indemnification, or we made an exception here, but it's been vetted by WCIA, something along those lines. But the actual back and forth about how much to tweak the indemnification language, typically what we're hearing from you is, make it happen or don't make it happen. And if we're not making something happen that you want to see happen, then it's on us to then explain why the risk was too much or something like that.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for explaining that. That gives me a better sense and, and confidence and, um, where it's coming from and why I'm asking has to do with that we are putting brand new assets in Fort Steilacoom Park that have never existed there before, and that will be susceptible to vandalism, like the other assets that are in Fort Steilacoom Park. But those assets,

aspects i just wanted to make sure that we cover that did trigger one other thought and i apologize for answering when you didn't actually ask a question but um when we acquire new assets we're required to put those on our list with wcia so regardless of whether it's part of a contract or something else If we are taking responsibility for a new swing set, for example, we have to put that into our list of assets. And in that way, we seek coverage from WCIA. If we build a bunch of stuff and don't put it on the list, we may or may not have a problem later when it's, for example, vandalized.

Okay, and then I think the only last point that I want to ask about is noise potential, the potential for future noise mitigation, either in the immediate or the long term. Presumably there are no permits that have been started because there is no agreement on anything to permit, but once and if, that phase when we get into that phase uh will we account for addressing the potential need for noise mitigation in the event that um you know in in the event that in the future the surrounding neighborhood feels heavily affected by the pa sound system and and games and etc

So first, council members, you know, we have provided the WCIA language. It is in the current agreement that they are reviewing and having vetted. So we've initiated that so that they could expedite their legal review because we didn't want concerns coming in later. And I can have Tony say 635. Is that your standard game time?

Our standard three days.

Right. So that's the game time start. Now, of course, so the game will start and finish generally within three hours. So that gives you some sense. And then, of course, they have staff, right? And they're doing the cleanup. They're doing the close down. They're doing those elements. So generally, we expect them to be exited by 11 o'clock. And generally, we expect noise to be reduced as of 10 o'clock. And yes, it is a public park in a public area, but there's also one of the elements of being at size and where it's located is not immediately in a neighborhood. But to your point, as the assets and the capital program is put together, we'll be vetting, you know, through the process, but in terms of the hours of operation, that's what's currently established is allowing those games and close out to go to 11 p.m. on again their home games that are during the week versus the weekend games understood thank you council member van stener yes thank you mr mayor um

In the agreement it's proposed, it says that the SYBJ should manage parking facility operations, turf care, stadium management, and all functions within the boundaries of the field. And it doesn't specifically say security, but is security intended to be provided? And how robustly do you think a security staff would be there to monitor behaviors and other things?

And yes.

Security during games. We would expect that that's our responsibility to provide. We generally now provide security based on the size of, you know, we can see what our crowd is going to be or certain nights we know are going to be larger that we would bring in outside security. We currently, on a routine night, we currently manage it with our existing staff.

And then with respect to alcohol, given that alcohol would be prohibited in the rest of the park outside of your facility, according to this agreement, what sort of controls do you normally have so that alcohol doesn't wander off?

So we do have to submit a use plan to the state as part of the license that we would be acquiring. That's one of the reasons for the fencing, frankly, and the limited areas of ingress and egress. And so we would monitor that for the wrong thing is going in the wrong direction.

And then the 40 event, our games. That's correct. So when and where do you practice?

We rarely practice and not because we're too good. Just because of the time, because the players are in college, they generally show up immediately prior, you know, a few days prior to the season. And then because the summer schedule is busy with games, when they are not here, they are on the road playing, probably six days out of seven. You know, they're playing six days out of seven. And so their practice usually consists of early work before games. They do arrive early on game days. And so they are there for an extended time on game days.

Thank you.

And Council Member Talbot, with regard to timing, our average game time, I don't have the exact number. I'm confident that it's under three hours. So with a 6.35 game time, it would put us somewhere in the 9 to 9.30 kind of timeframe for when we would expect most games would end. And then we have a cleanup and on a night where we're playing the next night, the cleanup is quicker because we're back at the park the next day. On a night when we would be leaving town, it would be a little bit more to it because we might be putting things away. I mean, putting things in a different place that we wouldn't leave out from night to night.

So.

Council member, Laura Sela.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Going back to a few things. So first off, I'd be said that I'm a big baseball fan. I go to Rainier's games, I go to Mariners games. I grew up playing baseball in Lakewood through elementary school and junior high and then I got to high school and it all went downhill, but I still enjoy the game and the sport and everything that it brings to our community. But the person, Treston, who loves the game, take that hat off, put the ball cap on for Councilmember Lauricella. And that hat is also a finance hat. And I have to look and see what that looks like to me. And I see we're going to invest, if we approve this, $3.2 million in capital into our facilities. and then carry all of the risk if things go south, if people don't show up to games, if the league folds, if some other craziness happens. That's scary to me because there's no guarantees there. Pierce College conceivably benefits from this because they get an update to their stadium that they play in. Is Pierce College an investor in this agreement at all?

No. You mean in the relationship with our team?

In this agreement, essentially, between your group and the city, and is Pierce College also a member of that contract?

To the extent that there's cooperation that would be required between us and Pierce, the facilities that Pierce has constructed would be part of, obviously, what we'd be what we would be using, and that would include the hitting facility. So not any additional, not any additional, I'm sorry.

They wouldn't have any additional financial obligations.

No, no additional financial obligations. They've made substantial already.

Back to Ms. Miles and potentially our LTAC folks. This $3.2 million investment would come out of our LTAC funds that we've been trying to direct towards whether it's the H barn or a community center or now a baseball facility. I don't know that we can necessarily afford to do all three. So we really have to weigh what that's gonna look like for the council and for the city and figure out which one to me benefits our residents the most. And I, again, love baseball, but I see this as 35 days a year. 2% of our population could go to it being 1300 of 65,000 versus a community center. Everyone can go to year round. The H barn is available essentially year round as well. So I'm struggling. I need, I need to be sold more on it because I want to say yes, but I'm not there yet. Financial and community benefit perspective. So thank you.

Council Member Lindholm.

Thank you. I think it's really important that we pay attention to numbers. I think we can all agree to that. I haven't seen any proposal for a community center at 3.2. I'd love to see that proposal. I haven't seen anything close. And so I think I want to be careful we're not doing apples and oranges.

Council Member Taubo.

I just have one more question. And along those lines to financial management and fiscal policy, how did we land on the number of 100,000 for the contribution? Is that based in anything that can be described and broken out further?

It's consistent with the contribution that we made in our prior relationships.

Okay, so understanding that, I think my only observation is that if it's based on the most recent contribution to Ridgefield in 2018, there has been quite some inflation since then. So I'm not sure that that is a... fairly accounts for the levels of maintenance and impacts and risk that we are on the hook to shoulder. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Taubo. Thank you, Mr. Minacci. I think this is for Roxanne. What has When Pierce college came to us and said hey we'd really like to use field one. We had, as I recall, some state money. For movable mounds or something but beyond that it how much investment to pierce college make into what is really our field.

So the project in my right knowledge, I've inherited some of this. Right, you did.

You walked into it. So we got Duncan here.

Getting some turfing on the infields of other ones. So the project itself was over 7 million, but Pierce's contribution was pretty exclusive to the full development of field one. in order to add everything it took to take them from what that field was to what it's able to play with on, which is part of the reason why really you can consider a lot of that capital came with an exchange of advanced rents, right, in order to have back some of the priority use that it takes for that to be their home field and to make sure that it is treated as their home field and they can call it their home field given that they brought that investment there. And as I mentioned, it didn't just stop there. Those are ongoing in terms of when that field needs regular reinvestment that there's, as long as the agreement's in place, they're a party to a level of that contribution. And I tie back to the breakout of the LTAC. I think folks wanted to not just have this ask for phase one and not be clear that we're making an investment to looking towards that permanent restroom as a minimum contribution to get done. But we also know our intent is to work over the next two years as we really look at that site and figure out what and when those phase two improvements would happen. And to that point, Pierce College does have some interest in looking at our field too and making sure that it would qualify for being able to do some of their women's games there and what they need for Title IX. We're not there and we want to use after this phase one investment is done to have the conversation, to know how operations go and to know what phase two and then to figure out what that funding, full funding profile is for field one, field two, shared restroom facility and how to make it operate within the park itself. But wanted to make sure this particular ask was answered. earmarking those funds for that minimally restroom development. And we'd be able to talk about utilization of that, but how and when that draw happens is part of this discussion, but part of the action upfront is acknowledging that need.

Thank you. But Pierce College's contribution to that field. Six million. Six million. And ours was very little. We owned the land. But beyond that, we didn't really have much in the deal. So now we're being asked to put in 3.2. And there was a team there a couple weeks ago. I rode my bike by there, and it was like high school age.

Right.

Yes, we do other rentals. And actually there was a program I think that played out of UPS, not quite the same caliber as this program that was going to look at potentially coming in there, but they didn't need to in the end. But it is a very attractive field, but it is designed first and foremost to recognize their investment in them as the home field. So yeah. This really brings forward a city use and a city partner that would continue to have it activated during the summer months.

Thank you, Ms. Miles. And I do want to address why we're talking about LTAC. And I've got Ms. Krause and Ms. Wachter here, too. LTAC funding is very prescriptive. The state legislature writes the rules. The rules change almost every legislative session at times. And the problem is that some cities get too expansive with the use of LTAC dollars and they get caught. And the legislature says, no, that's not, and the hoteliers don't like it. It's about heads and beds. And if you can show, you can do heads and beds. So it's my understanding we have to own the property. And so we have some odd agreement with Clover Park Technical College on the McGavock Center, which we made a $2 million commitment to in 20 something years ago. Yeah. And so this works because, and there's, well, first of all, let's just start. There's a lot of capital money sitting in that account because there's hardly any capital. I mean, when I spoke to a member of the committee, Ms. Smith, who's here tonight, she said, we have a hard time finding capital items to do because the city has to own the property. So we're just accumulating money We've committed 4 million to the barns, as I think, you know, there's nothing like this analysis for the barns. We're not getting 23 room nights a night out of the barns. Not gonna happen. We might, if we do a couple of weddings or something, might get that. So I just wanna make sure that we all understand that the LTAC thing is really prescriptive. We don't have a lot of wiggle room on what we can, what we can do, you end up doing a lot of promotion and various things like that, like you're aware of in your previous job, Ms. Miles. So we have to be very careful in how we spend it and how we go forward with it because we can run afoul of the law. So I just wanted to say that. So I do want to express Ms. Miles to you and to the city manager and to all the folks involved, because I know you had some meetings where there was four or five staff members, at least there. the work that you put in to get this to this point, because there are deadlines. So they need to know that there's a place available so that they can get their approvals and whatnot. And I just want to say, I want to thank you and your staff. And then I know other people were involved. I think Ms. Krause is involved. I imagine Ms. Wachter, there's just a lot of people involved in all this that have really helped to bring this to where we're at now. So I just want to express my thanks to you on that. And thank you, Mr. Minacci, and I'm forgetting your name. I'm sorry. Wade. What is it? Wade. Yes, thank you. And so thank you very much for being here again and explaining things, and thank you for being available. We really appreciate it. But with that, we'll go on to the next item. Thank you very much. And the plan right now, I want you to know, you said something about July 20th. We're short members on the 20th of July. So we're going to have to either do it earlier on the 6th or have a special meeting maybe on the 27th. The plan is for LTAC to meet on the 27th.

City Manager did mention that it might need to move to the six because of attendance and that is our target is to have the complete agreement to him by the week prior so they could be part of the the packet and I'm sure you also communicate any things I think the agreement has information that's responsive to all the questions that have come forward that you'd be able to see both from the legal side and the capital side. So I will leave that to your discretion about the agenda placement. But that is our internal target is to make sure by the end of next week that we have this draft in the city manager's hand so that he can schedule it if that's your will.

Excellent. Thank you. We'll work on that. I appreciate that. All right, thank you very much. The next is review of home funding for Tacoma Pierce County Habitat for Humanity American Lake Townhomes down payment, no? Oh no, review of the resolution establishing encroachment evaluation process for lake terminating rights of way. Yeah, Mr. Remax. We were just going to do that by acclimation and just because we have nothing but agreement on that. So I thought just begins on page one 73 of your packet.

Mayor, deputy mayor, city council, uh, today before you is on April 13th, we came before you and spoke about the encroachments and what we were looking at for the street and volunteer program, uh, about working in a framework as to how we would treat those encroachments and how we'd move forward. So at that time there was conversations about looking at other jurisdictions and we were directed to go back and look at some of the other jurisdictions and what programs and methodologies they have to restrict and kind of maintain the use of the street ends. So we're gonna go through that today. So when we went back and looked at it, there were a number of jurisdictions that were shared with us that had different programs, but there were three that stood out. And so I'm gonna kind of walk through those and what we're looking at. The first one was Sammamish. City of Sammamish has a pretty clear and structurally administrative framework in terms of how they deal with their street ends. They deal with it through right-of-way permits, and they have four different types of right-of-way permits that they deal with there. But the most relevant to what we're talking about today is the Type D lease permit, which governs long-term private encroachments in the public right-of-way. That's things like fences, landscaping, irrigation systems, and small structures. It applies to all your long-term encroachments, fully revocable at any time by the city that they're looking at. Removal is required at the permittees expense if there's something that's gotta be removed. Decisions are administrative and they're not appealable. And then they require insurance indemnification, bonding, and site restoration. So that's Sammamish and how they look at theirs and how they deal with it through the right-of-way process. City of Chelan gets a little more complicated. They deal with it both in right-of-way and then in substantial shoreline development permits and how they look at it. They have a really blended methodology that is unique in really what we look at. That simply includes the shoreline use and modification matrix. So any of that use that they're doing down at the water ends associated with the street works gets them into their substantial shoreline development permit. But reality, it's just the two permits that overlay or each other right away permit and a substantial shoreline development with the ability to go ahead and maintain the access to the right away or reclaim that if they need to.

Seattle has probably the most developed program in what you look at.

They passed their first resolution in 1996 that protected it. They did it again in 1999. And this designated 149 different shoreline street ends as to what they were protecting there. At that time, they came and said no new encroachments are going to be allowed. And at the same time, existing encroachments could continue, but only under an annual permit. So they kind of have a two track permitting system when we move through it. So any encroachments that are private use, they can apply only to preexisting conditions. So someone already had their house, they were there, there was a fence, they can apply for go ahead and maintain that as to what they had and what they're looking at. So renewable annually with 30 day notice and then requires indemnity agreements just like we spoke about before for protections for the city and is subject to an occupational and lease fee annually. So there's a permit fee with that that goes annually. The other side they have is the public amenities permits. So this is kind of stewardship. So allow the community-led improvements, kind of like we had talked about with our volunteer as to what we were looking at for down at the water. So seating, landscaping, things of that nature. So no fee shoreline and construction permit can still be required to go ahead and take care of any of the work that they're looking at that they're gonna do down there. Additional program elements, there's approximately 35 encroachments that are currently permitted when we look in their system. These are based on land value, area, and use factors. The construction requires a separate right-of-way permit to do that work in the right-of-way. The shoreline permits are required for in-water or shoreline adjacent work under the city's SMP and related codes. And then the building permits may be required depending on what they're doing and how they're moving through it. Notable feature, though, is the requirement for a recorded indemnity agreement again. So you'll see that repeated as the indemnity, indemnity, indemnity for the allowed uses that are being allowed. Okay. So when we're looking at it, some of the things that we're dealing with, there are previously authorized encroachments that we're dealing with. I think we've talked about 100th Street. Since then, we've had paperwork that was recorded by Pierce County prior to incorporation of the city. What we looked at that gave some rights and protections to what was being looked at there. So that's one type of thing that we could be looking at for encroachment. Any existing unauthorized encroachments, there are ones that are going to exist that we're not aware of. until we go to the site to take a look at it. I'm on page 175. Okay. All right. Existing and authorized evaluates on a case-by-case. This is kind of like the framework we spoke about before as to how we look at it as to what that encroachment is. The outcome, really, when you look at it, it comes down to what the council decides on for the framework and where we're at. It could be to allow it to remain under a temporary right-of-way permit. And encroachment permit or it could require modification or removal we're inconsistent with public access safety or policy new encroachments requires Council direction on whether to prohibit or allow on the limited short term basis. The summary when we look at it, the key themes that we pulled across the jurisdictions is the revocability is a critical factor in what they're all looking at, so the ability to have control still. Two-track system seems to be effective. That's both the shoreline and the right-of-way. So when we speak about that, even with our volunteer program, when we talked to it, it was a shoreline exemption permit for people to be able to do that handwork down there, as well as a right-of-way permit. So we're already kind of in track with that two-track permit. It's really more about the revocability portion that's been brought up in the conversation. Recorded agreements strengthen the enforcement. So tying the indemnity agreement to the property title ensures obligations persist through transfer of ownership when they look at it and that people are aware of it when they do buy the house. Fees can support program sustainability, occupation or lease fees. When you look at those at the same time, it's like any fee that you have, you can use it to support the program. And then administrative review is appropriate. Most jurisdictions are all relying on staff level decision-making with the exception of Seattle for new encroachments when they look at it. So some of the next steps when we look at it, it's really about an adoption of an encroachment evaluation resolution. That's kind of what we've spoken about previously and we've met as to how do we approach these and look at these and what is the framework that we're looking at to go ahead and assess encroachments when we're looking at it. And then once we get past that and we're deciding where we're going to go, there would need to be amendments. Depending on what council wants to do, there would likely be amendments and what we're looking at to the Lakewood Municipal Code. This would be associated with any permit changes or a new permit type that we're looking at, like we've spoken about. We developed some of the administrative tools. So finalized implementation materials, the handouts, the paperwork, the permit format, everything of that nature that we would need to do. And then we have the first four that we've looked at, obviously, but as we move forward and this moved on to other sites, there would have to be site evaluations that would occur every time we go to open up a new site to where we want to look at. So that was kind of holistically the overview of what we'd looked at and what we saw in the other jurisdictions. Open to any comments that we may have.

Feedback. Thank you for all your work on that. Any questions? Council Member Branstadter.

Thank you. Just in your discussion, there's one group of things that you talked about. It says encroachments permitted by the county prior to incorporation. And when you said that, were... How do I interpret what permitted meant? Did you mean in that that there were things that the county actually issued a permit for or is permitted by the county mean allowed? Allowed. It means allowed. So the county had no right of way permit process that actually

approved with a with an actual permit that we know of i'll be honest i can't speak to that that was in back in i think it was the late 60s when they did that when they looked at the allowance for what that easement um it's not even a term that we would normally lose today and how we would go ahead and give those rights or what we're looking at it was it's a unique scenario on what they did but they did record against the title and go ahead and give repetitive rights to utilize that area

PB John Gerstle, I would just say that we're contemplating moving to having permits associated with this if we. PB John Gerstle, Use allowed what we mean allowed. PB John Gerstle, When they went when they went some entity issued a permit certainly.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, Council Member talbo.

Thank you, Mr. Remack, like Mayor Boki. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you to you, Ms. Silva, and staff for your diligent work and researching and also just bringing us an approach that I think, while I respect and understand that there may be fatigue about this topic, I do respect that this is a, I think, better path to be on because it preserves the right of way in perpetuity without leaving room for, I think, the misperception that there is any favoritism on anyone's side. So I appreciate that, and I just wanted to say thank you.

Any other questions?

okay okay so that seemed way too easy so i'm going to ask a question if you don't mind we're looking for the department then to move forward with the permitting the permitting methodologies that we've seen in the other jurisdictions so i have clarity i know we had a study session we were asked to look at it but where do you where would the council let us go i think we're hearing that and i want to compliment councilmember talbot for bringing that i never knew that we even could do permitting i never crossed my mind

And I think for the reasons that she's stated, that it brings some consistency and a legal framework in my mind around this. So I think this is gonna, again, I could be very wrong, but I think it brings some, it's substituting a legal framework for what we had before, which was a, council framework right like come to council and see what you can get now we've got which puts us in in a rough position right and so now we have a i think a a much fairer system or this is proposed the devil's always in the details but but i think you did a very nice job and

Mayor Mrakas, Council member Pearson. Mayor Mrakas, Thank you, Mr Mayor um so with the permitting process. Mayor Mrakas, Would that. Mayor Mrakas, Without absolve the. Mayor Mrakas, The ability for folks to to go through and request the vacation.

We will not have removed the section for a vacation request. That exists in the code. Anyone that wants to ask for a vacation.

But as part of going through this, setting up the criteria for how you would deal with street ends, I guess that's my...

So that's a question for the council and really when we look at it, yes. I'm looking for direction on what we'll lay out. So I would go forward to propose a permitting scenario. Um, if the council is looking for us at the same time to look at removing the possibility for vacations and what we're looking at of street ends, we have no issues with that. We would have put it in as an option, right? For the next time we come before you, we're not coming with the formal framework that we're presenting. So we'll have another study session, but I'm hearing that maybe that needs to be an option.

So, so like I do, um, I have concerns with not doing a vacation in some scenarios because I think a vacation makes sense in some scenarios where someone's house has encroached in the right of way. And while maybe we don't, you know, we encompass that portion of the encroachment, that we retain the shoreline portion, but we're doing right by, you know, kind of getting someone into a conforming situation where they don't have title issues and and this kind of uncertainty that every year they have to go permit their you know dining room that's sitting out in the right away or something like that that's a weird situation and i think that if we can at least look at those and understand that okay you know we're not going to just make everything a permit but there's some some specific scenarios where someone's house or garage or something that's like significant to them having a house and accessing their site um you know it would be i think that it would be nice to be able to consider does this, does doing a vacation maintain our, you know, public access while also meeting kind of their needs as they bought a house, you know, that had just this weird access or whatever happened, you know, back in the, however long ago. I wouldn't want to say that the permitting is the only way forward. I kind of would want to keep, you know, both things as an evaluation, I guess.

I have no concerns with bringing forward the different options. I'm hearing what the council is sharing. In the end, I think that will be a councilmatic decision whether that remains or does not. But happy to work on the options and bring that forward as options for discussion when we come back for a study session.

Thanks. Councilmember Lorisella.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Remack. I appreciate you bringing this forward. The options as presented are all good. I certainly appreciate the Seattle program and the details that are included with that. And I think modeling after that as a majority of this makes sense to me. So I don't know if there's thoughts from other council members if they prefer one over the others, but I think that makes sense to me. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Do you have enough? I'm good.

Appreciate it.

You're going to keep working on stuff and I know where I'm going. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So next, Mr. Gum. Oh, he hasn't fallen asleep over there. uh review of home funding for tacoma pierce county habitat for humanity american lake townhomes down payment assistance at 15206 portland avenue southwest 15210 portland avenue southwest and 15211 88th avenue court southwest lakewood So, and then Mr. Gumm, when would you like action on this if we're all copacetic?

It is set for a consent agenda meeting minutes motion at the very next council. This is a request from Habitat for Humanity for $180,000. Additionally, there would be a $10,000 staff allocation for staff time for loan paperwork and documentation and IDIS reporting in the HUD system and so forth. So Habitat has been working on a property that we originally invested in a number of years ago. They were developing what was called Boat Street townhomes. So originally we put in $600,000 of home funds about five years ago, four and a half years ago. They completed the eight houses for us, all of those sold. This is the phase two. So they're completing four homes. They're only requesting $180,000 down payment assistance for three homes. One of the homeowners does not require down payment assistance. The other three are going to, based on their income levels and what the bank is providing for conventional financing. So again, proposed would be a $180,000 loan for three homeowners. These are... And a dictated by a few things habitat is trying to keep them affordable habitats goal is not to exceed 30% mortgage income expenses for their first mortgage payment. Our program policy specifically says 35% so they're both in agreement, they work together. HABITAT WOULD BE SELLING THESE HOMES AT $275,000. THE HOME BUYERS, AGAIN, THEY'RE GOING TO GET A CONVENTIONAL FIRST MORTGAGE. THE CITY OF LAKEWOOD WOULD ONLY APPLY DOWNPAYMENT ASSISTANCE AS NECESSARY TO GET THEM TO THAT 30% INCOME LEVEL. SO WE BRING THEM DOWN TO THAT PAYMENT. SO POTENTIALLY IT'S AN ALLOCATION OF $180,000 THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE $180,000. WE WON'T KNOW THAT UNTIL THE NUMBERS ARE RUN. BUT IT WILL NOT EXCEED $180,000 TO THE HOMEOWNERS IN THE END. The loans that we provide would be a forgivable 30-year loan. The reason for that is Habitat has switched to, a little while ago, they switched to a land lease program. So they're selling the house and the land is Habitat's in a trust. So a 99-year lease is given to the homeowners. We then provide them down payment assistance and secure it with a 30-year affordability covenant and secure it with a deed of trust. So this is consistent this allocation would be consistent with the city's most recent annual action plan, as well as our five year. consolidated plan. It would be used funding that we have set aside in what is called the Home Affordable Housing Fund. There's about $900,000 somewhere in that ballpark, a little in excess of that in that fund. And this would use those funds for affordable housing development. With that, I turn it back to council and see if there's any questions of myself.

City Council Chambers, Thank you so i'm going to because this predates me, but may not predate Council member brands that are you might be the only one that was really here. City Council Chambers, This partnership we've had with habitat, how many homes says habitat build in the telecom neighborhood under this basic program that we've been involved in. City Council Chambers, that's a good question I think it's 25 now.

somewhere, they've done about 42 homes for us, and I think that might be low, it might be 29. It's a significant number of homes.

So 29 homes, homeowners that weren't homeowners before, and we've improved some properties, and I wasn't around to get knocked down the one buildings, but I think, I know Council Member Moss got to, Deputy Mayor Moss got to back in the day. Did you get to do that? yeah. Oh, you do he see he got to knock stuff down and anyway. So with that I just wanted to set that baseline because, and I was interested in knowing kind of it's been an incredibly successful program does anybody have any questions surrounding what's being proposed Council Member brand standard.

Well, I certainly like the proposal. I think it's a good thing to try to get home ownership into an income level that It's really hard to do that. My only question is in your memorandum, in the introduction, you said that the funds would be used as down payment assistance to ensure that the homeowner's mortgage wouldn't exceed, I think it says 30% of their mortgage income. And then down in the use of funds paragraph, you made the same statement, but you said not to exceed 35%. Is there a difference between what I'm supposed to be reading in the two paragraphs?

No, you're getting it correct. So there's a couple of things that are at play here. When we get our home funds, we have to develop loan and mortgage procedures on how much mortgage to income can be so that we make them affordable. We also have to look at total debt to income and then It's like another one is like it's an adjusted household debt to income. So not only are you looking at like just their debts, you're looking at their household expenses. So you have a policy that says with food, child care and all these other expenses, you don't exceed, say, 80 percent of the household income. So you have to develop these policies and they're in place for home. So we have them and our policies are it can't exceed 35 percent. Mortgage to income household debt is 50% Then the total household debt and and other expenses is 80% Habitat as an internal policy that they can't exceed 30% So our agreement for our home agreement has to be written in terms that it meets our requirements for HUD and our requirements for our program say 35% and habitat will not be doing 35%. They'll be using their own internal program that says 30%. So it's kind of semantics that we have to write it that way for home because we have to adopt those policies. But then habitat is using their more restrictive 30% limit.

And does this mirror, given our linkage, any programs that Tacoma is doing with their home funds?

yeah they're they're very similar to home with Tacoma, because we have the same home consortium agreement we we tend to follow the same policies and procedures.

Thank you, customer rest Center any other questions from Members. Thank you, Mr. Gumm. Thank you and your staff and the long time relationship we've had with Habitat wouldn't be possible without you and the staff we've had involved. It's also, as you just talked about, competing different ideas about what is, and I'm asking about utilities. So as utility rates have gone up so much How does that factor in as I'm hearing debt to income, but are you trying to figure out how utilities are figuring out and how these folks, because utilities now go up high single digits every year, pretty much, which is way more than people on fixed incomes or even on lower income for anybody, basically nobody can keep up with high single digit utility increases. How's that factoring in?

So we use a number of things, so the when we look at the total household expenses hud has a calculator where you can go into the system, and you can input the. kilowatt per hour charges and so forth, and come up with a rate of what's called your utility allowances and we use those for multifamily rental sort of program so we have that that we can use. habitat does some surveying of their homeowners and so forth and kind of figures out what people are paying and we make them write that information to us when we're doing these applications. So we kind of have a ballpark idea. And then sometimes just to follow up, the nice thing is our utilities are fairly friendly and they're easy to deal with when we call. So we can ask them, hey, an average house in Lakewood, 1600 square feet, what's your average utility for gas, water and so forth, whichever. And they're pretty good at telling us those numbers.

Is that about the size of these houses, about 1,600 square feet?

They're actually a little smaller than that. They're a little smaller? I think they're about 1,460 or about 1,400 or 1,500 square feet. And Habitat now builds garages on their homes. They didn't used to do that, so they've added a few amenities over the years that are a little more conducive to kind of keeping order on the property. Oh, okay.

Are there any other questions for Mr. Gumm? Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, reports by the city manager, Ms. Grouse.

Okay, well, first off, I would like to confirm if there will be a quorum of the council for the July 20th meeting.

Two of us are gone. So you'll be here, the mayor and the deputy mayor. We'll have to sort that out. Someone can run the meeting. That's happened before, by the way, yeah.

And do you have a person?

We'll figure it out.

Okay. And then I just wanted to check with the city council on the next steps for the unified approach to homelessness. We currently have on the July 20th, the review of the resolution. So is the council okay with that?

Yeah, I think in general, everybody's, unless somebody has a real objection, we can discuss it tonight, I guess. But I didn't hear any issues. Let's see the resolution and that would be great. Thank you.

And then the last piece.

We need to see the resolution though. So we probably need to see that on the study session on the 13th.

Then the last piece I have is the upcoming events. On Tuesday, there's actually three activities. On June 16th, we have the Farmer's Market at 2 p.m. We have the summer nights at Fort Steilacoom Park at 6.30. And then we also have the Neighborhood Association between 6.30 and 7.30 that same night. And that would be the Fort Steilacoom at Fort Steilacoom Park Pavilion.

Is everyone going to make everything

So wait, hold on.

I'm looking it up.

Yeah. So yeah, we're double checking because yeah, I just called this from the camera. We'll confirm that. On June 18th, we have the 4.30 Springbrook Connections. And at 6.30 that same day, which is a Thursday, we have the desserts on the driveway at United Methodist Church. and 23rd same we have the farmers market starting at two o'clock at towards silicon park and then 630 the summer nights at fort silicon park uh pavilion concerts and then repeat on june 30th two o'clock farmers market on tuesday followed by the summer nights at the pavilion that's that's my update

Great, thank you very much.

So council member comments.

So let's start with council member Taubo.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We didn't have, I think we all had so many questions tonight for the baseball team. And that's reassuring to me to know that there is interest and diligence on our part. So we didn't get to have a discussion, but the only thing I, in response to tonight's presentation and what we heard is, I did bring up the noise question because I do have, maybe a little bit just about what we will potentially, I expect to hear from the neighborhood at some point, especially along Elwood. And so I think at some point it would be wise to plan for either additional vegetation or leave space for additional noise buffering should we need it. And so I just think that's something we should think about potentially. And then my other reaction was that because we don't charge park impact fees here at the city, we are on, you know, the cost to us to bear a lot, even though this is coming from LTAC fees for the short term, but over time, like if we would have collected impact fees, we would have these funds available at the ready to take care of a host of capital improvements, et cetera, et cetera. And so as a result, I do think that the $100,000 contribution is a bit low. I would like to see that we get something back that demonstrates how it's based so that it's adequately capturing, so that it can justify itself. Aside from that, I did attend the Downtown Neighborhood Association meeting last week, and thank you to Representative Leavitt for coming to that. Councilmember Branstadter and I were there. Not much to report from that meeting. There was a lot of Q&A on her part. I think I did hear some questions asked about access points to the new Alliance project, and I think people are wondering if the backside of the Alliance project We'll be open to through traffic, but it's my understanding that the main access points are off of Maine and next to the movie theater. So aside from that, all the report from that, I will be at, I think it's Journey tomorrow, right? At the Farmer's Market. So don't stop believing.

Oh, yeah, Journey.

And that is my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Taubo. Council Member Larcella.

All right, got my mic working. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thanks to all the folks who came and presented, really got into depth on the baseball stuff. And I appreciate my fellow council members' comments and insight. I recognize that $3.2 million won't build a community center, but it does feel like a step in the right direction to help us get there. with LTAC funds, which I recognize a community center would have to be structured such that it could be a community and event center to bring people in, to justify spending the lodging tax funds on it. I think we could get there. But at 3.2 million, that's three years worth of LTAC funds that we generate, because it's about 1.2 to 1.3 million a year. Also for perspective, that's three times the sales tax increase that we agreed to as a council. So just, I know apples to oranges to rocks, right? Not doing the same thing necessarily, but they're all dollars and I think they matter to our people. On that same subject, I'd be more open to the agreement if there was more skin in the game on the part of the owners, whether it was a shared ownership with the city or a larger investment on their part, as Councilmember Thabo mentioned, that would help me feel like the city is not carrying all the risk to give the benefit to everyone else. So I look forward to seeing what comes back in a few weeks. I recognize I'm only one vote out of seven, but I think I'm doing what I can to represent the best interests of our community. On the lakefront street ends, I did find an error in the packet that is not necessarily relevant to the the important content that was being provided or the topic at hand. But it did mention that the 2023 study had ranked Westlake, Holden, and Lake City Boulevard high and 100th Street medium, when in fact the matrix on that study ranked Wadsworth at the highest and Westlake and Lynwood as second and third tied. Those second two are sorry wadsworth and Linwood are not in our top four anymore, and I think we need to understand why that is and make sure that we're keeping. Same criteria that we had originally if they're still relevant like one of the big ones was whether or not this public access on a lake and if there isn't then that got some more priority and I don't think that's still being considered. My last thing is on the Dower Elementary Oaks that we talked about last time, as well as got lots of public comment on. I had brought up the possibility of using our city tree funds to help preserve them by looking at whether we can partner with the school district to run a pathway through there. I understand there's some concern about being over the drip line and the structure of existing trees. But I believe there's alternatives like pervious concrete or pervious asphalt allows air and water to go through and not damage those root systems. So I would still like to see what the city can consider along those lines. I understand I probably need more folks from council to be on board with that to have the city look into it. But that's my, that's my thoughts. So I look forward to the community services advisory board meeting this week I will be there, and I think we're going to talk about some release of opioid funds to help our community so looking forward to that and looking forward to awc next week with a bunch of you guys so thanks.

councilmember brandstetter.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this Wednesday, I'll be attending the Southside 911 board meeting that they're restarting the conversations about trying to create a new organization that would be a public utilities district for the purposes of communications to get at the issue of powers and having three different communications. But it's sort of in an embryonic stage of where they're doing that, where the, if you recall, the South Sound 911 rebated a good chunk of money back to all of the cities because the way that they were going to go to try to address that problem just wasn't going to be viable. And they put $5 million away towards it. I'm going to be going to AWC next week. I'll look to do that. I plan to attend the Juneteenth event tomorrow. here on Saturday. And I guess regarding the items that we discussed today, I appreciate the direction that Mr. Remack is moving with trying to bring a structured process to looking at street ends. I think... I like the idea of somebody who doesn't want the whole right of way, so that without getting a vacation they can get a permit for the two feet where their fence is or whatever. And I also believe that the option of a vacation should continue to be there in part because the option of vacations will continue to exist on all other streets in the city. So it's a process that's there that we have had businesses and we've done vacations other places to do that. And if an adjacent property owner wants to make that request, there is a process to do that. And I wouldn't want to eliminate that process because if it's something that a person really needs in perpetuity, then maybe a vacation is a better solution than a permit that's going on. I don't know. And regarding the baseball folks, I think I'm kind of like Mr. Lorisella. I'm waiting to hear some other things that are there. I am concerned about that we are setting up OSBT, Dave Kuntz, Another event that if we go forward and the next thing we do that we have this on an agreement to do this on a OSBT, Dave Kuntz, On an agenda after the 27th and he goes on, we are again going to hear about people in the neighborhood and park users who had no idea this was going on. Okay. And we will then be getting another after the fact earful. So, you know, I think that there is at least between now and when we're going to act on it, probably at least a Fort Steilacoom Neighborhood Association meeting. That's a place that it ought to go. And we might want to, you know, make sure that we sort of do some communications work saying that we're considering this so that we can get some feedback from the community a little bit up front. In the past, there have been concerns about commercializing Fort Silicon Park. I don't know if that would come up. The idea of noise and traffic and lights. And, you know, you get into things over there and games running until 9.30 and that were... Today, that wouldn't be a problem. But three months from now, that's well after dusk. And then are we going to close the rest of the park, but not this or what's going on? So I'm looking to see how some of those things that are still being discussed get refined so that we can make sure that in any agreement, we make sure that we put everything we need into it so that we're satisfied on due diligence.

Council Member Pearson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be out of town for the next couple weeks, so I won't be able to attend some of the deserts and the driveways and things like that. I do have a PRAB meeting that I'll be attending virtually, and if Pierce County can ever get quorum to the sewer situation, sewer, whatever it's called. Gosh, what is that? PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Do our general plan review committee. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, The first meeting. didn't happen because they didn't have enough people rsvp so it was supposed to be an in-person meeting i suggested that maybe they change that to hybrid so folks can attend virtually or in person either way they have to get this completed here in the next two months so they need to somehow manufacture these couple meetings to get this process done but i'll be attending that virtually next week and as well as PRAB. And then as far as the baseball field, I was glad that we had at least a site plan and kind of a bit more detail. There's still a lot of loose ends. You know, they mentioned over 90% of the way through, you know, coming up with the agreement. It's like anyone that's put together agreements or plans of any kind knows that the last, you know, 2% or 10% take 90% of the time. So... I appreciate that they're 90% of the way there, but there's still a lot of work and a lot of fine details to iron out. But I am encouraged on what I saw and heard today. I don't have as many concerns with the 1,300 people sounds like a lot of people. I guarantee you that there's at least more than 1,300 people on your run-of-the-mill Wednesday night during Little League baseball games there when all four fields are taken up. whole parking lot is jam-packed and there's people parking on the other side so as far as what it feels like and looks like it feels and looks like a lot of you know your normal recreational activities at a park this isn't like a a rainiers game where you know there's ten five ten thousand people or whatever there i don't know what the capacity is but you know and and it's they've got all kinds of lights and music you know the we have a sound system that is sufficient to have a little bit of music and announce who's batting. It's not like you're going to have a concert there. So I hear those concerns, but I'm more of the, this isn't outlandishly different than what's currently going on there in that area. So I'm excited to see what else comes with the agreement. would yeah i mean generally i i would like if they came to the the table with a bit more but um you know these agreements can always be maneuvered it doesn't matter how much money you bring to the front if you're you know they can finesse the the money on the back end to make it so you know they could bring half a million dollars but then in the long run they're paying us way less so i i get that um PB, Harmon Zuckerman, It does feel like there is more risk on the city which there is, you know, if we do the improvements. who's to say that they, you know, don't, don't go belly up or something, but at the end of the day, it's, it would be a great facility, um, to host a number of different things, whether it's this West coast league team or state baseball championships or other, you know, high profile sporting events and baseball events there. Um, I think that we're going to get a lot of utility out of it. And, um, i'm really really hopeful that we can do some forward thinking into how we can best incorporate some of the amenities um as part of this you know stadium improvement to accommodate other things like if kiwanis or someone wants to voluntarily operate the concession stand during a soccer tournament that they can come out there and do that and we can, you know, be able to have some utility with what we put out there. So. Yeah, overall, looking forward to how things move. Council member Lindholm.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I really appreciate the time in the Lake City Neighborhood Association. It's always such a well-run group, which I appreciate and looking forward to the CSAP here coming up with Council Member Lauricella. I won't say too much more about baseball, just to say that one thing I appreciate about this project We're not building up a building that will lay derelict if it doesn't work. We're making real capital improvements. And it's not a 10-year plan. So we're kind of guarding ourselves in some ways against inflation. This is not something that's going to double in price if we agree to it now. So I appreciate that. But I also appreciate, I wish they were bringing more money, for sure. That makes them a better partner. I don't know the financials on their side. So that's an important piece. I want to say one quick, well, maybe it's not quick, word about public comment. I'm generally really thankful for public comment. Public comment makes us better decision makers. And I appreciate the passion and time that people spend in coming here and taking part in the civic process. I'm, however, not thankful for many of the public comments that were made here tonight. In fact, I found them dangerous. Tonight it was suggested that this council is evil for building sidewalks. It was suggested that future generations like our grandchildren will despise us for building sidewalks. It was even analogized that our decisions are similar to the atrocities of World War II. We normally don't respond to such comments, thinking that we won't be heard or we'll inflame the commenter. But I care deeply about my character and I will defend it. And I will also defend the character of this body, who I know works tirelessly and thanklessly when they're unjustly attacked. So let me go on record to say there's nothing evil about sidewalks that show care for the safety and accessibility of our community. For many people in Lakewood, sidewalks are not a luxury. They're a necessity that allow our children and our seniors and the disabled to safely navigate their community without stepping into traffic or onto uneven ground. I live near Park Lodge Elementary, where it's unsafe for my children to walk to the school three blocks away because there are no sidewalks. When given the choice, I will choose a child over a tree every single time. Every time. And I would suggest that not doing that is an abject moral failure. So we heard tonight that as a body, we ignore science more than concrete through the infrastructure for community. So they should not be built everywhere, but they should be built somewhere. Trees should not be cut everywhere, but they should be cut somewhere. Governing requires us to weigh competing values and not pretend that only one value exists. So I believe that future generations will judge us not by whether we preserved every tree or built every sidewalk. They will judge us whether we balance competing interests honestly and thoughtfully. So reasonable people can disagree about where the balance should be struck, but unreasonable people are just uninterested in balance. So for those who would speak against this body, you're welcome to, but I would encourage you to do so in a way that respects all science and respects all of your neighbors, not just the adult, able-bodied ones that love shade. If we can do that together, our legacy for our grandchildren will be shared and beautiful. We also heard twice tonight the Epton Sinclair quote, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Now, anyone who's read The Jungle like I did in college knows he was a tremendous advocate for the downtrodden. I didn't hear any of our public commenters tonight really think or consider the downtrodden. What I heard was I heard myopic privilege. So allow me to offer a different quote, and I'll close with this. It's often attributed to Winston Churchill that, The problem with a fanatic is they will never change their mind and they will never change the subject. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Lindholm. Deputy Mayor Bell.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lindholm. I appreciate your comments as I do the rest of my fellow council members' comments tonight. I think we had great discussion we learned a lot about a lot of different things, so I appreciate that and I do love. Public comment like you said, but I agree very much with what you were saying, so thank you and thank you for speaking, I won't say for the whole Council, but I will. appreciate speaking for me because I do believe that you said a lot of things that are my thoughts. So thank you. As far as baseball, I will say something about baseball a little bit. My thought is that this is a city asset and that's where I'm so excited right there. Oh my gosh, this is a city asset that we will be putting, we own it. We're not putting money into something else. We already have Fort Steilacoom, which is thriving and doing wonderful things. And so I see it as a very good investment. Yes, there are risks. I totally understand that. And yes, I do think I would like them to put more money in too. I agree with that also. But I do, it's the city asset part. It's the part that it's ours. And so that's what stands out to me the most, that we have the control over that. So I appreciate that a lot. I also want to thank again staff for working so diligently and fast to get us this information and answer our questions and things that we need to hear and discover and our willingness as a council take in all that information. I think that is one of our strong points and we do it very well because we have a diversity of thoughts and diversity of questions that fills in the gaps. So thank you all so very much for that. One other thing is that I want to remind everybody, since it's so hot and our lakes are packed, So I'm seeing so evidently how much we need public access to our lakes. I spent a good amount of time yesterday at one of the lake and it was packed, it was great. There were so many people. I want to remind everybody too, Please be safe. Please be careful. You can't smoke cigarettes or anything else or vapes in public parks. Of course, open container. So there's some basic stuff like that. So just I hope that everybody remembers that but still has a very fun and wonderful time. Parking is tight also, which made me think of. And one of our patrols I talked to, and he was like, he wondered about, and paying for it for like, if you're a Lakewood resident, you wouldn't have to pay for parking, but other people would. And I've had other people, other council members also have brought that up too. So I don't know if that's something that we may wanna think at and look at in the future, but parking was horrible there too. It was people down the streets and it goes into residential spaces. but everybody wants to be at our gorgeous lake access. So I love that we have that. It was beautiful. It was picturesque. It was like a painting there. I just want to encourage everybody to just enjoy our lakes and remember that, and maybe we can think about that at a later date. And I'll be at the Farmer's Market tomorrow, and I'll be there listening to Journey, and I think that'll be so wonderful. I'll also be at Juneteenth event on Saturday and AWC next week.

Yep.

Thank you.

Council member Pearson. Thank you. I'd like to add on to Deputy Mayor's comments about the paid parking at the parks. I think that there could be, there's challenges with enforcement of that. But I think that if you approach it as like, show you're a resident, here's your annual parking pass that you can hang in your car. Then if you don't have it in there, You have to pay a fee right, and so you know, make it simple, but I think that it would be really effective. A really effective way to make sure that first and foremost our residents are you know prioritized in access to parks and parking at parks. And for those that come in from out of town, you know yeah you're going to pay a $20 you know, a day parking fee or whatever the parking fee is. Um, to be able to, you know, park and leave your boat there and, or stay at, um, stay at the park for the day. So I know like down it, um, and still look them at, uh, salt, uh, Sunnyside rather, um, you have to pay a parking fee and, and it makes sense. It's a beautiful waterfront park that. You know, is a, is a real gem. And so it's not outlandish to, to think that. So I would be supportive of, of looking into this in some way.

Thank you. So I'm going to address the, I just can't let it, let it go because I did let the comments go tonight because it's, it's just not worth arguing history and, and whatnot. And, and, you know, my sister was here tonight and, we don't agree politically on a lot of stuff, but I don't think she would call me a fascist, right? And somehow we end up into this deal 80 years after the end of World War II you know, if, if what side would you be on or what side would you be on? And it's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous, right? To, to take something from 80 years ago and say, well, you're just like them, which we were told tonight. We're just, this is the Holocaust. The cutting trees is, this is what leads to concentration camps, right? This is what we were told tonight. And it's, Maybe I should call it online, but it's just not worth the argument. But it is ridiculous. And it doesn't move the ball at all. And it's just a pejorative, or I don't even know the right wording for it, where you just throw it out and see, I win the argument. And I think they even call it Godwin's Law or something. that you've won the argument if the other person starts calling you a Nazi because you've now, okay. So it isn't helpful and it's destructive to public comment. And this is why bodies around the country, like even the Tacoma City Council now is changing how they're doing public comment because people are just taking advantage of it and saying, you know, goofy things. And so they're inappropriate comments and, You wouldn't say it to your friend. You wouldn't say it to, we're here to be criticized. Please criticize. I mean, the people who were making some of the comments tonight have been critical of us. You know, in some cases, rightly so. But over the top comments are a little ridiculous. I do want to talk about the baseball. I understand some of the heartburn over it. It is, it's a couple of things that didn't get discussed tonight. They're seasonal work, 50, 60 employees, seasonal work that we don't have now. And it'll be a lot of young people. We're told continually by our youth council, youth don't have anything to do in Lakewood. There's not enough activities for them. Youth late night now has kind of blowing up and I don't know if it's even available, it's canceled. I don't even know if it's available during the summer anyway. For the price of about a movie ticket, you could go to a game. You might even get a chance to work there. So this is really an opportunity for us from a quality of life standpoint. and we can make it work because it does, we'll put heads in beds. So I'm, there are things to work out though. And so we have to do on our side, I believe we have to do it on our side, get the lease in place, get the, LTAC money in place. And, you know, I have no idea what we're competing against. When they were here last time, they said, you know, there's other. So we'll see where it lands. But I think our staff's done a really nice job. So with that, I'm going to, we will be adjourned and we'll all, I guess a number of us will be at AWC next week hanging out. And we've got a scholarship person and I'm working on that with Ms. Schumacher. You've sent me something, please. Yeah.

Okay. And with that,