City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, it is Tuesday, September 1st, 6 o'clock, and I will call this city council regular meeting to order. It looks like we have all council with the exception of the mayor tonight. And so for all those who are able, 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, indivisible, with liberty and justice. and I will read our land acknowledgement. We, the city of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Treaty of Medicine Creek, including the Nisqually Indian Tribe and the Squaxin Island Tribe. We acknowledge and remember those tribal people not recognized today who were absorbed or relocated into other tribes for survival. And with that, can I get an agenda, I mean, a motion to approve our agenda and consent agenda items.

Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda as published.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Seeing none, we have an agenda. And the first item on our agenda tonight is a proclamation for Emergency Preparedness Month.

City of Lacey, official proclamation. Whereas in the Pacific Northwest, we face the threat of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, weather events, floods, and human tragedies with unpredictable consequences, which can disrupt power, communications, and travel infrastructure, and

Whereas first responders may not always be able to quickly reach community members in an emergency or disaster, and whereas the Lacey community can take action to prepare, respond, and recover from any natural or human disaster, the more who prepare, the safer we stay and the faster our community will recover. And...

Whereas we encourage community members to learn more about preparedness by attending local events and visiting the ready.gov website to make a family preparedness plan, create an emergency kit and evacuation plan, prepare for local hazards, and teach youth about emergency education and

Whereas we encourage the community to visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency's website, FEMA.gov, to learn more about this year's theme, Americans Stand Ready, end.

Whereas Lacey community members who are prepared to meet any emergency or disaster can be a positive influence on their neighbors by sharing their preparedness story and encouraging the participation of friends, family, and coworkers. And now, therefore, I, Malcolm Miller, Deputy Mayor of the City of Lacey, on behalf of the Lacey City Council, do hereby recognize this month of September 26, 2026, as Emergency Preparedness Month in Lacey, and encourage all community members to prepare themselves, their families, and their neighbors for the consequences of an emergency. And with that, I'd like to invite John Rubel to come up and receive this proclamation.

Let's see, does this work? Good. My voice is not the best for carrying. Well, good evening, Deputy Mayor and council members, city staff, and members of the community. My name is John Rubel. I'm here on behalf of the Thurston County Aries Organization. We are honored to stand with you and to, tonight, as the city proclaims this September as Emergency Preparedness Month. First, I wanted to express our sincere appreciation to the city for recognizing the importance of emergency preparedness. This proclamation is more than symbolic. It's a reminder that the resilience is built long before an event happens, and all we can do to prepare for it, the planning, the training, and community partnerships are essential, and we're proud to be one of those partners. I'd like to take a short time to describe what TCRS is, since some of you probably don't know us at all, and what our relationship is to the city. TCRS is an acronym. It stands for Thurston County Amateur Radio Emergency Services. It's a local group of trained volunteers that trained amateur radio operators that volunteer their time and train frequently in emergency communication have a strong desire to serve the community. They want to give back as best we can. TCR Ares is a member of a larger group, Ares is a national organization, which has approximately 3,000 local groups like ours and over 27,000 members. So it's a pretty large organization. Whether it's a severe storm, a wildfire, smoke, or earthquake, or volcano, Local infrastructure, our mission is simple as this. We provide reliable, resilient communications that support emergency responders and response organizations that protects our community. We're kind of the communications hub behind what happens when everything else fails. One of the strengths of amateur radio is that it does not rely on commercial power, the cellular service, or any internet infrastructure. When those systems go down, we are still operational, fully operational. Our operators can relay messages between shelters, coordinate resources, support fire responders, first responders and help reunite families. There's several things that we're capable of doing and it's the things that aren't possible when your infrastructure goes down. Many of our volunteers live right here in Lacey, so we're proud to be serving a city that we call home. For the City of Lacey, we endeavor to provide radio support in times of emergency disasters. This is especially needed when normal communications infrastructure is down, but that's not the only time that would be of benefit. This can be support direct to the Thurston County Emergency Communications or Coordination Center, which we operate the radio room for Thurston County Emergency Management. We provide situational awareness using mobile operators. We transmit status resource requests from temporary shelters. We communicate with Washington State Department of Transportation and Washington State Department of Emergency Management. So we have pretty much direct connections with all those entities. In non-emergency communications, TC Ares has assisted LACI in communications equipment support at the LACI ECC radio room. We train volunteers to use GMRS. We support the Olympic, with the Olympic Amateur Radio Society organization. We support LACI Fun Fair, the LACI Fireworks Spectacular, and the LACI Holiday Lights. So we're pretty intimate with working with LACI on various levels, in conjunction with OARS often. Some other things that we do, we also support directly the communications for events like Capital City Marathon, Washington State Senior Games, where we do the bicycle races. And several of us actually support marathon endurance runs. One in particular in Washington here is called Bigfoot. It goes around Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams. And it's a 200-mile run. Personally, I think the people are crazy. But we're there to watch them go by. Preparedness, though, is not just about radios. I mean, we all like radios because that's our thing. But it's about people. It's about building a culture where every household, every business, every neighborhood understands the role that they're going to play in the case of a disaster. City of Lacey's proclamation helps amplify that message. I know I also work closely with a group in Jubilee and part of our Emphasis is to educate and we know how difficult a job that can be and And there's a lot of people that we like and it was mentioned in the proclamation. It's it's really everybody's responsibility to be prepared and Anyway, on behalf of Thurston County Ares, I want to thank you, the city, for recognizing September as Emergency Preparation Month. We look forward to our partnership with LACI and with other organizations as well, and to ensure that LACI remains resilient, one of the most resilient communities in Washington. That's our goal. Anyway, we appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight, and we appreciate your commitment to preparedness. And thank you, appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the different things that you guys do to keep communication going in all different types of circumstances and situations. Much appreciated.

You're welcome, and it's our pleasure.

Next on our agenda is public comment. We didn't have anybody sign up here. in the chamber. We do have one person online. We have zero written public comments, so we will go with the one person online.

Good evening. Council Deputy Mayor, my name is Christine Rampa, Puget Sound Energy's local government affairs representative. I'm here this evening in response to comments made at last City Council meeting regarding current and future gas and electricity costs for the city and rate payers across PSE service territory. We understand higher energy costs are difficult for households, businesses, and local governments. In two weeks, I look forward to meeting with city leadership and scheduling a future city council work session to have a constructive conversation about what is impacting customer bills and provide information on programs that help customers manage bills and reduce their energy use. The factors driving higher electric bills for residential and municipal customers are broadly similar. Rising costs of providing energy, the investments needed to maintain reliability, meeting growing demand, and compliance with Washington State's ambitious clean energy requirements. Many of the same things affect both residential and city electric bill, but a city's costs will not always match what a typical household sees. Cities are billed under commercial rate schedules and often use electricity differently because they operate facilities such as offices, community centers, street lights, and other energy intensive infrastructure. That means a city's increase can differ from what residential customers experience. PST is undertaking the most significant transition in our history as we strive to meet Washington State's clean energy laws and our customers' growing energy needs. The City of Lacey and its residents are already participating in the clean energy transition. The City of Lacey is part of PSE's Green Direct program. Many Lacey residents choose to support renewable energy through PSE's Green Power program. We've worked together to expand access to public EV charging as well. PSE has already partnered with the City of Lacey on energy efficiency upgrades, including improvements to commercial lighting systems. As I mentioned, we know higher energy costs are difficult. Our website psc.com has a robust portfolio of programs to assist customers who may be struggling with their bills and to provide them opportunities to participate in the clean energy transition. We've communicated with our customers about these programs and encourage the city to share that information with its residents. PSE remains focused on managing costs carefully while continuing to provide safe, reliable service and helping customers find practical ways to use energy more efficiently. I look forward to our continued conversation and collaboration. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Christine. We appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to seeing and meeting with you when we can.

Thank you.

Next on our agenda, we have an update. Oh, yeah, you're right. Before we move on, is there anyone in this chamber wishing to address this council? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to our next agenda item. Lacey Makerspace. Vanessa.

All right. Well, good evening, Deputy Mayor, members of the City Council, Vanessa Dolby, Community Economic Development Director for the record. This evening, I would like to introduce Ashley Whitley, the Director for Center of Business and Innovation with the Thurston EDC. You can go ahead and walk up there. Ashley is new to this role. You may remember Sean Moore, who's been here multiple times before presenting on this same topic. He's enjoying life in Hawaii now, so we wish him the best. And also here this evening is Michelle Pope, the director of the Makerspace as well, to answer questions sitting in the audience. And with that, I'll hand it over to Ashley.

Hello, good evening. Thank you for having us. Again, I'm Ashley, and I'm here with Michelle, the director of Lacey Makerspace. My daughter also is coming to see what this is all about. Tonight, I want to talk to you where LMS stands today, our growth, our finances, our partnerships, and where we are headed. Lacey Makerspace is over 6,000 square feet, shop space right here in Lacey, if you did not know. What dedicated areas for woodworking, industrial metals, a digital lab, and textiles and classroom space. It's a place where community comes to learn, build, and start businesses. Before we dive into numbers, I have the ecosystem. I want you to just see the bigger picture of where the Lacey Makerspace falls. We are definitely not in isolation, and we are a part of the much larger economic development ecosystem under the Thurston ADC, from scale-up training to Women's Business Center regional economic forecast to business accelerators. So LMS is one of the hands-on physical touchpoints where all these supports become tangible, and someone graduates from business training programs, LMS is often where they will build their first product. Here's a look at our floor plan and the space in action. We've got a full wood shop, industrial metals bay, digital lab for laser cutting, 3D printing, dedicated textiles and classroom area. This is a working shop. Members are here every week building real things. I wanna start us with the membership. Our slides pack a lot, so I'm going to just kind of quickly go over it. Top left, our active memberships grew from 317 in all of 2025 to already 450 year to date as of June this year. That's a 42% growth with 133 new members added. Our average monthly sign-up rate also grew. About 16% of our current members have told us LMS directly supports their businesses in some way. To the right is a map of where our members live, and as you can see, it's heavily concentrated here in Lacey and Greater Thurston County. Below that, facility engagement, Average monthly check-ins are up 49%. Members logged 3,659 total visits in just the first half of this year. 383 unique members engaged with the space at least once. That's 85% of our active membership actually walking through the door and using what we offer. And on the right, a quick summary, pulling all of that information together. Numbers alone don't tell the whole story, obviously. Our members reflect a full range of community. We have military members, tribal members, residents from ages 12 to 90, and seeing more small businesses join, not just for hobby projects, but to prototype and fabricate real products. So next I want to discuss class development. In 2025, we held 412 classes for the entire year. As of August, we are already at 365 classes, and based on our current pace, we are projected to hit around 577 classes. That's 40% growth in a single year. This next part is specifically for you. 244 Lacey residents and businesses have been served. In partnership with St. Martin's University, 155 students have also been served. This is a program directly impacting our community. To give you a sense of what the classes look like, We run three tiers. Basic classes are safety and certification courses required before members can operate equipment like our laser cutter or welding stations. Workshops build on those basics with more and advanced technique training and make classes project-based. Members walk out with finished pieces, whether that's stained glass, suncatcher, or a custom engraved gift. Across all of that, we teach eight-plus disciplines. the woodworking, metalworking and welding, 3D printing, glazier cutting, textiles, jewelry and glass art, CNC fabrication, and other community events. And to bring to life, this is one of the members programming a robot arm project in the digital lab. Our classes build real skill and proficiency across a wide range of disciplines, and people are traveling to get here. Last spring, we had folks from outside of Thurston County, Bremerton, Puyallup, and Seattle, all because they found illuminated globe class that was listed on Eventbrite. What I'm excited to talk to you about is our volunteer program. Some of our volunteers in action in this next slide are Fix-It Fair Repair Event and Out in the Community at waste reduction education events. So the numbers back up what you're seeing. Volunteer shifts grew 62%, 419 shifts in the first half of 2025, because I'm comparing the first half of the year to this first half of the year, we are at 679 in the same period of the year. So logged volunteer hours are 76% up, totaling over 1,800 hours in just six months, and volunteers are staying longer per shifts too. Those numbers underestimate what our volunteers really mean to us. Our volunteers are the backbone of daily life at LMS. They keep the space running. They teach classes, help with fabrication, and mentor other makers. That spirit of showing up for each other is running through everything that we do here. So again, about the Fix It Fair, a flagship volunteer powered event. We ran the second year in a row in partnership with Thurston County Solid Waste. Together we diverted over 1,300 pounds of material from the landfill, and that partnership helped Thurston County earn a national award. We partnered with Thurston Conservation District at the Harvest Fest Fixing Station, Our volunteers repaired garments, jewelry, buckles, zippers for the public, and inner city transit's walk-in roll program donated bike repair services and hands-on training at our events, keeping more bikes on the road and out of the waste stream. An important partnership we also want to mention is the Timberland Regional Library. The Lacey branch offers eight one-month trial members for TRL cardholders, giving people a low-barrier way to experience LMS firsthand. A number of them have gone on to become regular members and even volunteers. I also want to highlight a new partnership we're proud of, Army Major Ian Sandel, who's actually already an LMS member. He's proficient in the laser cutter, reached out to us about hosting him through the Army's Career Skills Program. So starting September 16th through November 1st, he'll be joining us as zero cost LMS through Department of Defense program, placing transitioning soldiers with civilian organization before separation. This time it could not be better because that is the most busy time of the year for us. So let's get into the financial picture. This chart is the heart of tonight's presentation. This is just non-grant revenue, meaning membership income, event activity, retail sales, and other LMS services, with grants and contracts completely excluded. In 2023, that was over 97,000, 2024, 166,000, 2025, 272,000. So it has grown 180% in just two years. This year, through the end of June, we've brought in 155,000. And based on that pace, we're projecting roughly 312,000 by the end of the year, with 2027 projected at 360. Why does this matter? Because grants and contracts will always be part of our funding picture, but they rise and fall with availability and obviously the broader economy. So we do not control that. This chart is revenue LMS earns and controls directly. Here's that same 2026 picture broken down by category based on our current revenue trajectory for this year. Grant income, membership and investor income, event activity, retail sales, projected fall fundraiser contribution. All told, we're projecting about $566,000 against a projected expense of $534,000 for a projected net income of just under $32,000. And to be clear, this does not include any other LMS funding that may come in through other grants by the end of this year. So why this matters is this slide kind of ties it together. The Navy line is our operating expenses, and the Orange line is the non-grant revenue from a few slides ago. In 2023, we spent $701,000 to run this facility. A lot of that was one-time startup costs, equipment, and build-out. By this year, we have brought that down to about $538,000, so reducing our costs while revenue has climbed in the other direction. The result in 2023 non-grant revenue covered just 14% of our operating expenses, while this year we are covering around 58% of our operating expenses. As that gap continues to close, grants and contracts can shift from keeping lights on in funding for real growth, new hires, equipment, expanding programming. I want to put that into context because makerspaces as a category are generally very hard to sustain. Industry research shows about a third of makerspaces are profitable in any given year. Some close their first two years. Even large, well-established makerspaces run at a deficit for a decade or more. So one example would be a 10-year makerspace, $963,000 in revenue and $1.24 million in expenses. Against that backdrop, LMS is going from 14% to 58% self-funded in three years and being on pace to reach full self-sufficiency by year seven. Isn't just good, it's ahead of where most organizations are in this space. Beyond that core revenue, here's a look at additional funding sources we brought in from the Port of Olympia, donations, membership, and class income. the Lacey's Lodging Tax Fund, rental income and more. Altogether, that's 173,000 year to date across these sources. And then we have upcoming funding sources as well. Many of them are to be determined, but these are typical funding sources that we have regularly been in contact with. Then I want to go into tribal relations. LMS fabricated the interactive sensory wall now installed in Nisqually REACH Nature Center, working in collaboration with Sensory Toolhouse. Building on that relationship, we've applied for about a $17,000 grant through the Nisqually Indian Tribe in supporting that continued programming. We are also partnering closely with Salish Works and Zinsser Canoe on multiple large-scale art installations for the Squaxin Island Tribe. One piece is complete and will be featured at Seattle's New Thunderbird Treatment Center. The team is now building a scale model of a 25-foot arch for Kennedy Creek Salmon Center, along with smaller works. And specifically with Squaxin Island Tribe, we ran two-day youth camp in partnership with Salish Works, Zinsser Canoe and Tribe Stepping Stones Program, a pre-employment career training program for tribal youth ages 13 to 15. We also fabricated the awards for the 25th annual Salish Cliffs Golf Tournament, which benefited the Squaxin Island Museum, continuing a relationship that goes beyond our shop floor. I want to mention a new partnership. As you may know, we have an AJAC office, and we are in partnership with them. We are now creating a Future Rhetor Makers pilot program. And this is ultimately a groundbreaking pilot built through collaboration with the partners you see here. We're hopeful to expand this to more schools and help establish LMS as a real destination for youth workforce exploration. Just a quick overview of this because it's a little bit more complex. is this is 14 sessions that youth get to come and basically try and learn as apprentices in our space. And it will show them what they're interested in, whether that be manufacturing or something else. We want to make sure that we stay with our partners and grow this and potentially produce more income in the future, more funding avenues. The Future Readymakers is a semester-long simulation designed to increase access and awareness to employment opportunities, 14 total sessions, 10th to 11th graders, two hours per session, building toward one final showcase. And this goal is threefold, manufacturing careers, visible and real, building technical skills and creative confidence, connect students directly to people who can open doors for them once they graduate. Lastly, I'm just gonna go through our LMS partners currently. We have many partners, as you can see, all over the place. And we want to make sure to just recognize them as partners and as people who have done things with us and supported us in various ways. And then I also want to make sure that I bring in that Ben B. Cheney has been an instrumental piece in our growth this last year by including a recent gift that funded HVAC improvements, bringing better ventilation and climate control to several workplaces at LMS. And then I also want to recognize our sponsors. As you've noticed, there's a lot of small businesses that are part of what we do. From Puget Sound Energy, local business like Humble Kai Ice Cream and Ravens Brew Coffee. You heard about Sensory Toolhouse earlier. Finally, we're here, Day to Day Business Network, seven local businesses, seven local businesses offer discounts to our members and nine organizations rely LMS regularly for fabrication work so everything from st. Martin's University to the city of Lacey itself I Want to make sure to Lastly put in our fundraiser that is coming up Saturday October 10th 1 to 7. It's free and open to the entire community This is our chance to open the space up showcase our role connecting businesses to resources across Thurston County We'll have local artisans, small business, food, beer garden pending, permitting, live music, games, and the silent auction. This will have plenty of vendors, including the WCWB. Before I wrap up, I just want to mention the last few successes of 2025. LMS received a 2026 Innovation of Economic Development Award from the Washington Economic Development Association, recognizing the role in regional economic development and success of the founding partners who built LMS. We also fielded our first-ever team for an inner-city transit bicycle community challenge. Ten members rode a combined 800-plus miles. And third, Boy Scout Troop 222 held a welding event with us in collaboration with Dan Shepard of Elite Welding and Design to complete an Eagle Scout project for local park. I want to also add that with support from the Inspire Olympia funding, we hosted several new youth programs along the YWCA of Olympia, Capital City Pride, and Squaxin Island Tribe Stepping Stones program. Before I close, I want to direct you to why we are here. The city of Lacey has definitely invested plenty in annual amounts to Lacey Makerspace since our founding in 2019. We are respectfully asking the council to continue that investment for 2026. And I want to be clear that what that investment has brought so far, a self-funded ratio that's gone from 14 to 58% in three years, non-grant revenue up 180%, 244 Lacey residents and businesses served, and facility on pace to reach full financial sufficiency in year six or seven, faster than most makerspaces get. The investment doesn't just sustain LMS, it bridges LMS to the point where it sustains itself. So we are asking city to continue to bridge again What we need and keep reducing our reliance on outside funding year-over-year Thank you so much Thank you for your presentation do we have any comments or questions council I

Um, we, me and my family were able to visit during the South sound studio tour and my son who's nine just absolutely loved that space. He's so excited to get his own membership one day and go 3d print things forever. So thank you so much for just having this space. It's such an amazing community resource.

Thank you. And with the 3D printer, we also help fix other people's 3D printers. So yes, it happens a lot where they need the support.

So. Well, I really appreciate that you put the numbers to the screen here that truly tell the story of the success of the Lacey Makerspace. When you consider how far we've come in just three short years, it's staggering. And what a gift to the community. So thank you both very much. Thank you.

Congratulations on your new position. Thank you. I think this is really kind of a testament to what public-private partnerships can really do. You know, as we get to our budget every year and we see Lacey Makerspace as a line item, I think we're all really proud of the work that comes out of there and the expansion that's happened in there. You know, the St. Martins, you know, being a part of this and and us being on their campus really able to help their students out and and uh you know while sean did a great job i'm excited for you and what you're going to be able to do in this role overseeing the makerspace and so thank you so much for your presentation tonight thank you uh the next on our agenda um is our construction project update uh looks like we have vince mcgowan and or? Yep. Deandra Buchanan, our construction manager will be giving the presentation. Okay.

Well, evening council members. I am Deandra Buchanan. I am the construction manager for the city of Lacey. And along with Vince, I will be giving you the fall construction update. All right, starting off with recently completed construction. In the past six months since I presented, the construction division is proud to have completed nine city projects. All of the projects have either reached the physical completion phase or are in the punch list phase, meaning that there are only a few items that need to be cleaned up before the project can go into physical completion. Due to time constraints, I won't go into all of these projects, but I will give you an overview. The Long Lake property demolition project provided for demolition of a residence that was targeted and vandalized as well as demolition of an unsafe dock on the property. A total of six PSE provided chargers were installed at the city's maintenance shop for the city's growing electric fleet. I will show you before and after photos of the 2025 sidewalk project improvements. Lift station 11 had an upgrade to the aging vaults and wet well mounted waste water lift station. The Lakes Elementary School fire flow project was completed during the summer to improve the amount of water flowing into the school. I will show you some photos of the Chatham looping project work. The source six well has been established and will be monitored. All of the city's existing lift stations now have awnings. And finally, several stormwater ponds in the Jubilee community have been retrofitted to function properly. This photo that you see on the screen shows the contractor placing the gravel material lift over a geocomposite liner at one of the ponds. So last time I presented in March of this year, the contractor was about 50% complete for the 2025 sidewalk improvements project. The process to perform this work involves cutting down the tree and stumping it as shown in one of these photos, the one off to the left. The contractor then removes the tree stump in pieces by hand and removes the sidewalk curb and gutter if needed, replaces the sidewalk and completes the landscaping. The sidewalks identified in this project were located in six general area sites throughout the city of Lacey. Many of the sites were specifically in the Comachin, Ruttle Road loop, and Brookfield neighborhoods. You can see the photos up on the screen show before and after photos of the walking surface on the sidewalk in the Camacho neighborhood is the two off to the left. You can see the before and after as well as the side profile of the two off to the right of the before and after of showing the grade change in the sidewalk and when we were complete. 252 trees were replanted, 10 ADA compliant curb ramps were installed, and 7,875 linear feet of sidewalk was replaced. The photos above show some of those locations that no longer have tripping hazards for the pedestrians and non-motorized public. These two photos show a really good example of a tree that was originally planted too close to an irrigation box. The box's foundation was broken up. We replaced the broken concrete sidewalk, the curb line, and the foundation of the irrigation box. The tree is now planted 10 feet away from the box to help future upheaval. The next project that's been recently completed is Lakes Elementary School. It was being served by a dead end eight inch asbestos concrete water main and it did not have sufficient fire flow. As part of the project, the system was looped by connecting the dead end to the water main in Mullen Road Southeast. Most of the new pipe was installed on the backside of the play yard at the school. The project was limited to construction during summer break and was completed before the teachers went back to the classrooms. So the photo on the left is of the area where the trench line is, where the pipe was placed, and the contractor is actually compacting the ground in that photo. And then the right photo shows the new sod placed in the play yard. The Chatham Looping Project is a wastewater project designed to maintain and improve the city's wastewater system. Connections were made in the intersection of Silicon Road and Chatham Avenue. Photos, the first one off to the left shows a vac truck potholing for utility crossings. A trench line in the middle of Nepeam Drive southeast looking at Chatham is that middle photo. And finally the rolling portion of the paving operation on Chatham and Steilacoom intersection. This next project shows photos of the source six water rights graze production well. This recently completed well is located near Ruttle Road along 21st Avenue Southeast. To retain the full authorized quantity of domestic and fire flow supply of water, the water right must be perfected. So photos of the project show from left to right. You can see that first photo on the left shows the actual drilling operation. The photo in the middle shows what we call well development, and that's when you take the screen and you put the screen inside the well and you have to pull out the casing and place sand all at the same time. And then that last photo is what the site looks like right now post-construction. Further design will be coming up in the next several years to install a pump house and pumps to access the water. So projects under construction, there are 11 projects that are currently under construction and listed into this slide. And due to time, I will only be going over a few of them. Two well projects in the north part of Lacey are nearing completion. Several lift station improvements and replacement projects are in the construction phase. Lift station projects have significantly long timeframes due to material procurement and detailed work such as installation of electrical components and erecting buildings. There is a demo project occurring to prepare for future work along the College Street Southeast corridor. A water line replacement project is starting construction soon to replace an aging water main for the Madrona Park, Freestone Station, and other neighborhoods in and off of Pacific Avenue and 510 in the UGA. We call that project the Madrona Connection to the 337. I will talk about the reservoir rehabilitation project and work being performed at the Veterans Hub. And a small project will begin soon in Wonderwood Park to repair a trail and create a new ADA trail. So this existing lift station we call Lift Station 3. It's near the corner of Golf Club Road southeast and 26th Avenue southeast. This lift station, like so many others in the city, is at the end of its useful life. The original lift station was close to the corner of the intersection, creating safety issues for operations staff and members of the public. The new building, generator, and wet well will be within a fenced area to keep both city staff and the public safe from vehicles using the roadways. This first photo shows the paving operation where the roads were resurfaced as part of the project. Much needed storm drainage was installed in the area to address storm water issues. The middle photo is of the concrete truck being prepared to dump concrete for a collar around a manhole. And the last photo off to the right is the new pump station building. You can see it with the brand new asphalt that's curving around it. This project is on schedule and is anticipated to be completed by December of 2026. The City of Lacey's potable water system includes seven welded steel above ground storage tanks. The Hawkes Prairie reservoir is an existing four million gallon welded steel tank built in 1995. The tank is 90 feet in diameter and 88 feet tall. The interior coating system is reported to be original. After an analysis of the existing condition of the tank, it has been determined that the tank needs to be rehabilitated with new coatings and correction of deteriorated parts. Although some minor work such as tree removal and creation of gravel pads for the vehicles has begun, the rehabilitation of the tank is not anticipated to start any earlier than September 30th, 2026. Providing the City of Lacey with water is the number one priority and the tank cannot be taken offline until the peak summer usage is accounted for. The project has a 225 working day contract, but with weather delays and a suspension for potentially next year's peak usage, the project is not anticipated to be complete until December of 2027. So left side photo is of the tank itself. The middle photo is of a bearing plate that's inside the tank that needs to be replaced. And the right side photo is of the walkway into the tank looking down from the top. And yes, I did take picture myself. I got up there because I'm not afraid of heights. The Veterans Hub improvements projects provide for ADA accessibility into the existing building and improvements inside the existing building. Photos above show the progression of demolition, the placement of the concrete to create the ADA compliant ramp and sidewalk, and then the final photo shows the asphalt and new striping in place in the parking lot closest to Golf Club Road. Similar improvements were made to the adjacent parking lot on the other side of the building. This project includes the installation of a vertical platform lift and upgrades to doors and plumbing. The lift itself is on order and has a 16 week delivery turnaround, so work inside the building is not anticipated to begin until November. The project is on schedule and it is anticipated to be completed around April of 2027. So the upcoming construction for the next six months, these five projects are anticipated to be under construction starting sometime between September 2026 and February 2027. I will be giving highlights of the 2026 Sidewalk Repair Project, the Sleater-Kinney Road and 14th Avenue Intersection Improvements Project, and the Stikes and Wellington Water and Wastewater Improvements Project. Other projects coming out in the next few months are the Regularly Scheduled Manhole and Valve Adjustments Project and the Well Source 7 Fire Tower Demolition Project. In order to provide a long-term solution that restores safe pedestrian access and reduces ongoing maintenance costs, the City implemented a sidewalk repair program that involves a full sidewalk replacement with root barrier and planting tree species better suited for the available planting space. This 2026 sidewalk improvement project provides for the removal of existing trees, including their stumps and root systems and the installation of approximately 171 city approved replacement street trees and 5200 feet of root barrier. It further includes the restoration of topsoil to grade and irrigation systems, as well as the removal and reconstruction of approximately 21,000 square feet of sidewalk, curb and gutter, curb ramps and driveway entrances. The contractor has been awarded this project and is anticipated to begin to mid to late September. The project has a 90 day working contract time. So it is expected to be complete around March, 2027, depending on the weather. Uh, these photos that you see here just show the existing gray changes and lifted sidewalks in and around, uh, come on a loop drive in the Jubilee neighborhood. Another project that's upcoming is the Sleater-Kinney Road and 14th Avenue intersection improvement. The current flashing stop sign in the intersection of 14th Avenue and Sleater-Kinney Road is connected to power poles and suspended by cables. The signal is currently sagging and will be replaced by flashing stop signs at each leg of the intersection. Curb ramps that do not meet ADA requirements will also be replaced. This project has taken years to get constructed, as utility relocations are out of our control. We can coordinate with the power company, but various utilities have to move lines off of poles, and in this case, one specific pole that's actually shown in the leftmost picture needs to be removed. So that left side photo does show the sagging signal in the middle of the intersection. The photo to the right side is looking at the intersection into eastbound 14th Avenue and this last photo shows the existing sidewalk and its surrounding condition near the northwest corner of the intersection. This project improves those sidewalks and that path for the pedestrians as well as all the four corner ramps.

Can I ask a quick question? Yes. Okay, so the wire will be gone, all right, and then you said one of those poles is coming down as well, so that electrical will be undergrounded?

No.

How does that work?

There's actually a different pole that's been put up further away from that intersection.

Okay.

But the wires to the signal will be gone. That'll be gone? Yes. Okay. So this upcoming project is anticipated to upsize an old water main from two inches to eight inches in the Stikes Drive Southeast and Wellington Loop Southeast neighborhood. It's off of 45th Avenue Southeast. So also part of this project is to correct an old sewer line that has excessive routine maintenance. The city's maintenance crews have to regularly flush out the debris that gets stuck in the old undersized waste water line in this area. So the photos above show you the vicinity map of the project and I took the photo of Wellington Road southeast looking west to spare you the photos of the debris that was stuck in the manholes. So just to finish up here, every single day the city's construction division team works hard along with the engineers, the maintenance and operations and public's work staff to ensure that the city of Lacey has some of the best utility facilities, sidewalks and roads and that all aligns with the city's values of providing the safe, healthy and enjoyable community for its residents. I want to thank you very much for your time.

Sure. Comments from council? Anything?

Just thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

I definitely appreciate these construction updates and project updates because we always get questions about what's happening here, what's happening there. And without your guys' presentations, we would have to go to the permit office to get the information and or go and make Rick pull it or whatever the case may be. So thank you so much for your presentation. It really does help us out.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay. Moving along in our agenda. It looks like we are going to be looking at ordinance one seven zero five, our final 2026 budget amendment. And I see Chelsea on her way.

Hello, good evening, Deputy Mayor and Council. I'm Chelsea Knight, Deputy Finance Director, and for your consideration this evening is the ordinance for the 2026 budget amendment. We intend for this to be the last budget amendment of the year, so fingers crossed that's the case. The amendment is $5.9 million across all the impacted city funds as well as joint animal services. As noted during the work session last week, a handful of those amendments are moving budget authority from one fund or department to another. An example of that is the fact that the annexation study budget is intended to be moved from the CED department to city manager's department. The intention behind all of the ones that are just shifting from one place to another is to better align the cost with the department managing the program. And the reason I bring that up is that the deputy mayor had a great clarifying question last week that I wanted to share with the full council. And that was how much of this budget amendment is truly new money rather than just moving money. And so for everyone's reference, out of the $5,903,963 amendment, $4,971,152 is associated with new items that were not previously authorized. The full details of the amendment are in that exhibit A that's in your packet, and we reviewed all the major highlights at the August 25th meeting. Staff's recommendation is to adopt Ordinance 1705, authorizing the 2026 budget amendment. And with that, I can answer any questions anyone may have.

Can I get a motion? I would move to approve Ordinance 1705, the final 2026 budget amendment. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Okay, seeing none. So in the past, we've had these in April, maybe once or twice a year, and it looks like we've really kind of got it down to once.

So actually, we typically have the carryover, which is kind of an every year thing from the prior fiscal year. And then we try to just have the one in September. But the last two years, we have had two at least on top of the carryover.

Okay. So we're getting better.

Sure.

I think we took a pretty deep dive last week, and I appreciate you bringing all those numbers forward and the clarifying information about the difference between the two pots of money. So thank you so much for doing that. Unless there's something more from the council, it has been moved and seconded to adopt Ordinance 1705, amending the 2026 fiscal year budget by ordinance. All in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Is there any opposed? Seeing none that motion passes unanimously and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay next on our agenda is our interlocal agreement for Franz Anderson. It looks like we have Vanessa and Ryan.

Yes, good evening again, Deputy Mayor, Council, for the record, Vanessa Dolby, Community Economic Development Director, and I get to have next to me this evening Ryan Andrews, Community Planning Manager, to co-present this topic for discussion, which is the Fran Anderson ILA proposed Second Amendment. And by way of background and the purpose of being here this evening is really to start a conversation or have a conversation. There's no action item requested of the council this evening, but it's just an informal briefing of the discussions we've had with the other jurisdictions around this. And if you all may remember, we had a couple of briefings with council and work sessions previously this year. And so this second amendment would support the development of the Fran Anderson, excuse me, permanent supportive housing in Olympia, the development project there. And there was a couple of partners included in this agreement. Oh, I got to click this button. Hold up. Maybe. Oh, I went too far. Hang on. Okay, super smooth here. So the partners are Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, and Thurston County in this agreement. And Lacey has contributed in the ILA that exists today $3 million from our general fund dollars for this project. There was previously an amendment which is called the First Amendment to the ILA, which is also in your packet, that... was changes to really the funding sources only coming from Tumwater and Thurston County. So that first amendment didn't do much more than change the sources of the dollars for those other agencies. It retained most of the integrity of the original ILA. So with that, I will hand it over to Ryan. He might be better at working the buttons than I am.

All right. Thank you. Good evening, Council. So tonight I'm going to go through why the amendment is needed, some of the conditions in the proposed amendment, talk a little bit about what's currently happening with some of the funding and construction at Maple Court, because it is related to this project in some fashion. and then turn it over to you to ask any questions or provide any feedback to us so that we can take that back to our partner jurisdictions. So why is the amendment needed? So first of all, the Low Income Housing Institute, also known as Lehigh, has made a request to the projects unit mix to allow residents with an income up to 50% of the area median income. You might remember from your council work sessions back at the very beginning of this year in January and February that that is needed due to a reduction in the available number of project-based housing choice vouchers. And essentially what that does then, the need for more operational funds from the residents are needed based on the lower amount of housing choice vouchers associated with the project. At those work sessions, you directed the staff to support the unit mix change with additional conditions. And I will go through what those conditions are now. And those are within the draft that you have in front of you. So the draft second amendment to the ILA. So the first of those directed conditions were around supporting conversion to permit support of housing at Maple Court. Right now it's operated as and enhanced shelter. So that's number one. Number two, additional monitoring and compliance requirements for Lehigh's operation of the Franz Anderson project. And then finally, a construction deadline. So ensuring that this project is under construction by a certain date, March 30th of 2027. Addressing this because previous whereas statements in the ILA had project completion by the end of this year. Right now, as we stand, the project is still currently in the permitting phase at the City of Olympia. It sounds like it's nearing completion of the permitting phase and logistical things that need to happen, but certainly construction will not be complete by the end of this year. So I wanna go into those draft proposed changes to the draft ILA around each one of those three different items. First of all, starting with Maple Court. So item G, proposed item G to the amended ILA would read that the parties agree and confirm that the conversion of Maple Court to permanent supportive housing is a regional priority project. and that the priorities hereby agree and confirm that they will work collectively to support the conversion of Maple Court to permanent supportive housing at both the regional and state level. And so this is really a directive to kind of all of the partners to work together to make Maple Court a priority. Second, the monitoring and compliance part. This has to do with making sure that Lehigh produces quarterly activity reports that they meet performance expectations and incorporate best practices for facility management services for positive outcomes for the residents of the Franz Anderson Permanent Supportive Housing project. Ensuring that Lehigh will use its best efforts to have CMAR community health centers provide behavioral health services for tenants in the multifamily housing units to be constructed on the property and ensure that Lehigh provides two case managers who will have offices on site at the project to be constructed on the property and that Lehigh will operate with a low barrier model, offer consistent and accessible supportive services to eligible tenants, but will not require tenants to participate in services as a condition of receiving housing. And then finally, the construction deadline. So as I mentioned, this had to do with a warehouse statement that had a construction deadline by the end of this year that is proposed to be changed to instead of under construction, it is to close on financing by December 31st of this year. and be under construction by March 30th of 2027. If that's not the case, then any party to this agreement may withdraw. So if any one of those conditions are not met, then the city in this case can withdraw. Further, if Lehigh is unable to construct the Franz Anderson project after financial closing occurs, any party to this agreement may withdraw. And then in doing that, there's some language in here talking about how the city of Olympia will return that money to any one of the parties pursuant to the agreement. So as I mentioned, there are now two time deadlines in addition to the construction deadline of March of 2027. There's also this close on all financing by December 31st of 2026 deadline. There is a rather lengthy financial capital stack that affordable housing projects need to provide in order to move forward that financing stack is then they have to meet those requirements with the state according to their low income housing tax credit program. Those things are required to be done in this case by December 31st of 2026 and is essentially as far as what we've been told and what we're aware of kind of a hard and fast deadline. to demonstrate that the project will move forward. So with both deadlines, a financing and construction deadline hopefully that will provide additional assurance that the project will be moving forward in a timely manner. So with that, that's what we have to share tonight around proposed changes, draft amendments to the second amendment to the ILA. But I did want to provide, because we have talked about Maple Court in this context as well, a little bit of additional information as where we stand with Maple Court, because some of the ILA does touch some of the Maple Court requirements to transition to permanent supportive housing as well. So as you're all aware, Maple Court is currently operating as an enhanced shelter, operating 100 rooms that are occupied per a contract between the State Department of Commerce and Thurston County. Currently, that is being funded through the Washington State Encampment Resolution Program, which funds operations at just under $3 million. I think you all are aware, too, that the long-term plans for Maple Court are to transition it to permanent supportive housing in that model. We have been successful in obtaining some funds for transition of that project to permanent supportive housing in the way of $4.25 million that were authorized in the last capital budget appropriation. Since that is the city's money, we have requested a change to that appropriation from the Apple Health and Home Program to the Housing Trust Fund back in April. That has to do with some changes to some of the conditions associated with that money. At this point, no response has been received to date from the state on transitioning those funds. The project has also received $1.1 million from the Regional Housing Council for conversion, leaving at this point a Lehigh estimated amount of about $1.5 million that's needed to fund the full transition to permanent supportive housing. And so at this point, there is a $1.5 million funding gap that needs to be filled in order for that to move forward in the project. So as Vanessa mentioned at the outset, the proposed Second Amendment is now being reviewed by partner jurisdictions, including yourselves tonight. That feedback that you do provide to staff will be shared with our regional partners. And then at this point, we are anticipating being back in two weeks on September 15th for formal council consideration and in terms of having that final review back with council for formal action. at the September 15th meeting. So with that, Vanessa and I are happy to answer any questions you might have and take any feedback at this point. So thank you.

Council Member Greenstein.

Sure.

Thank you. So I think it's pretty well known that I've been opposed to this project since the beginning, and I think the $3 million would more than cover the $1.5 million needed to make the conversion at Maple Court, which would make a lot more sense to use Lacey's monies for, in my opinion. But I'm forgetting that for the moment. On 1G, on Maple Court, is there anything we can do to make that language stronger? I mean, that's pretty vague language that we're going to get support from the other communities. Is there anything we can do to strengthen that language to basically guarantee the $1.5 million, whether it be from regional housing or from wherever? But I mean, if we can't guarantee that we're going to get Maple Court done, then we've spent an enormous amount of time, energy, and money on a complete failure.

I think I can talk about that. So the language itself has, and I'd have to pull the slide back up so that we can look at it specifically. I don't know if you want to click over to that one, Ryan. It does include kind of more, I would say a little bit softer language. We could make some amendments to that to say that the partners will support funding to that particular language, maybe through the RHC efforts. I don't have specific text in front of me, but if that's the council's preference as a whole, we can look at putting some amendments together to that section G that talks about that.

I don't know where the rest of the council is. That's something I would definitely like to see is more firm language on that.

It's interesting that you brought that up because that's exactly what's in my notes, which is that language, it is a little vague for our goal. And the word funding, I really strongly feel that it should be in there somewhere because we do need their support. Participation in their backing for funding very specifically, especially since we're handing over $3 million now, I am in favor of building an ecosystem for shelter to 30% to 50% to positive outcome. Right. That is the ideology. And we've all agreed that we will work on this as as as a collective body, as opposed to everybody being siloed. Right. And so I understand our goal. And I'm glad that Nisqually is part of our goal, which is to build an ecosystem where we can get people off the street into shelter, into 30 percent, into 50 percent with a positive outcome. I'm very happy about all those things, but it doesn't say that they will support us as we go after dollars to make all these things happen. So in that case, you know, as we're putting $3 million into Franz Anderson to support a bigger vision, a bigger ecosystem, if you want to call it that, I would like to see funding in there somewhere. And then in addition, you know, We could also use their backing on the transition of the Apple Health funding portion of it. Us going in and making this recommendation and suggesting to transition these funds for our benefit is one thing, but us doing it with our partners is a whole nother thing. So I would really like to see that we're getting their support on that part as well so that we can continue to build the ecosystem and not just kind of silo each of these places. That would be my suggestion or recommendation. Am I, was that a lot? I'm sorry. Oh, is that, am I smacking gum?

Okay.

So those two would be my recommendation. I'd like to see their backing on our effort to gain the funding, transition the funding, and get new funding whenever we go out and apply for that. Because saying that, hey, us going by ourselves and them saying we are in agreement doesn't mean that they will back our funding recommendations and or asks. That is all.

Deputy Mayor.

Oh, sorry. Council Member Cox.

As a veteran of the Housing Council, and I'm really glad to see two successors here, one of the things I think we've never done terribly well as jurisdictions is hold each other accountable on this. So my thread is following kind of what Malcolm has just said, is that we find a way in this language, without being too ham-fisted, And to agree as a body that we're going to hold each other accountable to make these things work together as an ecosystem.

Councilmember Turner.

So when it comes to the quarterly reports that we're asking for, I am glad that we have some measures in place to demand more accountability. And I've come to understand why we don't want to be too prescriptive right now in terms of what is going to be included in that report. But I do want to make sure that we have that flexibility to add to what we need to see in the report if we don't get it the first time or the second time, or we feel that it's needed. The second thing, and this is more of a question, I recall that when we were talking about this building earlier this year, we were talking about 30% AMI. But because of funding problems, we said we would go up to 50%. But did I recall that we were going to look at a specific um mix like 30 30 of the units would be 30 percent of ami and then 50 percent Can you remind me of what that was?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for the question. So the request from Lehigh is to have 35 of the units at 30% AMI and 35 at 50% AMI. If you're doing the math, there's still one unit remaining there. And that unit is the manager's unit. So it's kind of on its own.

Thank you.

Can I add an additional thing here too? Not to confuse things with all these agreements, but there is an additional agreement between, it's a purchase and sale agreement between the City of Olympia and Lehigh. City of Olympia currently owns the property and those income requirements are more directly specified in that purchase and sale agreement. So ours is a little high level in that 50% threshold, but there is more specific income requirements in that purchase and sale agreement with the City of Olympia.

Thank you. I'm mostly concerned about holding them accountable and monitoring the work that they do.

There's one last thing that I wanted to bring up, which is capacity for Maple Court. I know we're not at capacity, and part of that is because we don't have enough case management there. Is that still true? Correct. I don't know if we've tried to find a solution for that. I know that we... We would like to see the building at capacity. And I think that would help the region as a whole. I'm not sure how we're going to get there. So have you guys had any thoughts, ideas, goals, plans for getting that location to capacity?

So the current status is the contract with Thurston County and Department of Commerce or in Lehigh, excuse me, indicates those hundred rooms filled. And that's to balance that case management workload. But the other component to that is also the ability to shift those folks that live in that building around as they go through this transition to permanent supportive housing, because there's physical construction that will have to happen. And so at this point, the reason the spaces are The few that are available are retained that way is so that construction can happen as soon as that funding is available once that permanent supportive housing construction project finishes then we can move into that next phase of Looking at the room so because we won't need that backup space so that people aren't displaced to the construction project Okay, and then we'll probably get a some kind of a timeline in the future project timeline so that we can kind of gauge it and see if Yes, and we do have a regular reoccurring meeting with the construction manager over at Maple Court just to check in on where they're at at funding and whether they're going to be able to move forward with permits to make that transition.

Okay, yeah.

I think this is a little bit off topic, but on Maple Court, where are we on Lehigh management over there? I understand there's another new manager there now again? for like the eighth one or something that we've had?

There's been a lot of turnover there. Um, and so I, I couldn't tell you who the existing manager is. Um, that, yeah, that communication has been, uh, inconsistent at best.

This is who's going to be running the new facility, and this is who we're putting all of our faith in. Not your call, I know, but the fact that Olympia is moving forward with this project, with Lehigh as the entity, is baffling to me. They have an absolute, miserably bad record of success, so why we would put all this money into a project that's going to be theirs is beyond me.

Which is why I'm so concerned about accountability.

They've done none. They have no accountability.

Is that enough direction for you?

I actually have a... Oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Hsu. You're all good. So, yeah, about the quarterly reports, excited to see them. Underneath this Section C of this agreement, it says Olympia shall perform the following. Do we have any way for us at this point to build in if they are not sharing those reports or if they're not meeting standards? Like, how do we have any sort of recourse once this is... Is that something that's even possible?

We're like looking at the contract right now, the language, to see if there's a way we could put some language in there about ensuring the report sharing among the jurisdictions at that are party to the agreement. trying to keep it high level enough that they retain that flexibility to manage and adjust at Olympia, but ensuring we receive those reports. We could look at some sort of language to that effect if the council agreed to that.

And we can always enforce the contract. I mean, having strong language in here that we can point to in the future if somebody is not doing what they have agreed to do.

But with what? I mean, the money will already have been spent, right? So there's not a whole lot you can do at that point. The money's gone. It's a bad deal.

Well, you know, go ahead, Council Member Hsu.

I was just going to say, as we're talking about stronger language, I think it's like the seventh or eighth bullet point, they're not numbered during Section C, is use its best efforts to have CMAR, Community Health Service. I was wondering if we had a definition of what best efforts is. How do we... Like that's the language portion that we're, that we're trying to look at and try to figure out like, what can we point to, to see, um, like, I really just want to make sure, like, I want this pro this thing to go through, but I also want to make sure that we are also protected on that backside.

And that is always hard, like best efforts, it's more passive in the sense of something could happen. Could be some language in there too that could say, shall use CMAR or equivalent service provider to provide those type of things. And if that's something that council would like to see proposed to the partners, we can look at that.

Yeah, that was my next question. I was like, is CMAR the only other option or do we have other folks to go with?

That I don't know, but I think CMAR is just identified as a service provider in the area that would be natural, but there could be others. That's why if you say shall use CMAR, that gets specific, so we'll have whether there's a problem, but if you use equivalent service provider, it gives flexibility to change those contracts if they need to. CMAR or equivalent provider.

Okay. So, you know, in our... Our agreement that we had with the county and our interjurisdictional agreement originally said that we would have, in five years, turn this into a permanent supportive housing. And it started kind of getting off the track, if you guys remember. And it was almost looking like we were just going to be the shelter and everybody else was going to get the permanent supportive housing, making us the warehouse that everybody kind of pulled from. So once that... language in that contract was reviewed you know we the mayor myself we talked to city manager and said hey you know if they're not going to stand by what is in this we had to push it back and so it we didn't want to end up being the county shelter while everybody else gets you know shelter plus 30 plus 50 plus you know the positive outcome so I guess what I'm saying is you know If the time comes, when the time comes that we have to push back against any of this, we will do that. We'll do it as a council. We'll do it as a body to make sure that all the things that we need for our sanity, for our community to be safe and secure in what is happening at Maple Court, then those are the things that we're going to do. um we've done it before we may have to do it again i hope that we build strength strong enough language uh to where it's you know there there isn't going to be a whole lot of movement and mobility uh within the structure uh but um as you guys have seen before you know we almost ended up being the shelter of the of the of the county uh until we push back and you know in on the language that was in the agreement that said you know in five years maple court will be converted to, it didn't say maybe, it said will be converted to some permanent supportive housing. We had to stand on that hill and make sure that all of our partners knew and understood that we will not be moved from this. And if that day comes again, then it comes again.

That sounds great, but the money will be gone.

Before we end this discussion, I think it's important to point out that just a few years ago, You know, we had a mess with encampments along the freeway. We had the governor having to step in and create this funding that got us here in the first place where we are now. And so I think, you know, it's tempting to say nothing good has happened, but that's not true. I think we've made a lot of progress and we need to keep that in mind. I mean, I'm not saying that... Maple Court can't be improved and I'm certainly supportive of converting it to permanent supportive housing. But I just think to be totally negative about it is wrong because we have done good.

It's really changed things. We don't have the encampments along the freeway anymore. I can't remember the name of the hill over here. Hamburger Hill is gone. And it looks like the jungle is probably one of the last remaining ones that it looks like maybe not there by the end of 2027. So you're right. We have made progress. But in this moment, I just want to make sure that Maple Court becomes what it is supposed to be. And that is my big goal in this. So that's why I'm glad we've given our direction, stronger language. Let's make it a little more ironclad. And we'll have those discussions with our partner jurisdictions in the next three cities meeting or wherever it is that we meet and talk about this the next time we have this discussion.

I just want to check in and make sure that Vanessa or Ryan don't have any other questions or clarifications.

I was hoping to run through the three I have written down to make sure that I've got this exactly the direction that the council is wishing that we go. So one is under Section G regarding Maple Court and adding the terminology funding for within that. And then I've also, just quick draft up right here, included calling out our regional partner funding at RHC and then the state level being the housing trust fund transition of the dollars. And then the second would, or two items underneath Section C, talking about accountability. And one would be ensuring that reports are provided to the partner jurisdictions, so us among others. And then the third would be adding or an equivalent service provider under the section about CMAR.

And I heard one more thing, sorry to add to the list, but is to support regionally the transition of Apple Health and Home dollars at the state level.

Absolutely.

All right.

Can I just add, you know, this has been a long haul, and I really want to thank staff, particularly Ryan and Vanessa and Rick for all the work they've put into it. It's been frustrating having to serve as the tech team and go through all the iterations that have happened, and so gold stars. Thanks.

Thank you. And for just for next steps, so Vanessa and Ryan, I will kind of huddle them on and communicate out to our partners this week, looking at get the requested changes to them. And if everything works out and the conversation goes well, we'll be back on the 15th with the final draft for consideration. And as a side note related to the comments and direction related to commerce and the whole MOU to convert Maple Court, we are constantly and consistently working with commerce. We've got a meeting set up in the next two weeks to have more of the conversation about how we keep moving that forward and get on the same page with the commerce staff. Okay.

All right, and I also don't want to fail to mention that in addition to our team here, the county and the city of Olympia were instrumental in getting some of the Maple Court changes happening, the reporting happening, because they were at the table as well demanding that, hey, we need to have reports on how it's going, and they were instrumental in helping us get that done as well. So it really has been a group effort. With that, we will move on to our next agenda item, which is the city manager's report. Do you have anything for us? No report tonight. Okay. Next, we have the mayor's report. He is absent, so we will go right into council reports. I am first. I do not have a report, however. LTAC is scheduled for every Thursday in September. And so good times are on the way. And we'll move on to Councilmember Greenstein.

Just one report tonight. Medic 1 EMS met on August 27th. Just a couple of things from that meeting. The Opioid Abatement Council granted $311,000 to Medic 1 for the project, and I've discussed this project previously with Council, but this is a project where they're going out with Suboxone for overdose situations and also bringing directly into offering treatment and offering counseling services with transportation and some of those other things. So that is one of the things that was funded with the opioid abatement money that the county dispersed. And then the only other thing I wanted to mention about that meeting was the EMS will be holding some town hall meetings and listening sessions as we're working on a long-term plan. Those are gonna be throughout the county, so there will be at least one that will be held in the city of Lacey. They will get us times and dates and invitations for that. but they would very much like to have elected officials and city staff people to show up at those meetings because they do want to hear from everyone. They want the input, and they want the electeds to hear what the people have to say about what they want from EMS services. So once that schedule is available, they will be sending that out to everyone. That's it for that. And just one other thing I just wanted to mention. Many of you probably know David Chaffert. So David Chaffert, who has been the CEO of the Thurston County Chamber for the last 20, I believe 26 years, announced today his retirement. So David will be retiring at the end of this year. And I just wanted to wish him well and congratulate him on an incredible run at the Thurston County Chamber of Commerce.

Councilmember Cox.

Okay. This is a report of the August 19th meeting of the inner city transit authority. And I'm pleased to announce that once again, the inner city bus operator and maintenance teams are the state. Rodeo, R-O-A-D-E-O, champions. And while it's fun, there is an important element to this, and that is to have highly skilled and trained bus drivers and the crews that are necessary to keep... the buses functioning at a high level so inner city transit has won more than their share of these and so it's it's really great to see them come home with it again recruitment is underway for citizens who want to serve on the community advisory committee for the inner city transit authority The application period is open until October 2nd, and we're seeking a crosscut of the community, and I mean the greater community, to reflect the many interests and the populations of Thurston County. Interviews will tentatively take place on November 6th. There's been ongoing problems with air quality because the inner city transit facilities are so close to the jungle encampment, and particularly during the early mornings of the swing and graveyard shifts, the burning of trash nearby has really started impacting the health and well-being of inner city transit staff. Management is creating a non-wildfire smoke plan and working with the Olympia Clean, Region Clean Air Agency to monitor air quality at the headquarters there. And speaking of that site, the new maintenance facility is expected to be granted to occupancy by October 1st. This will pretty much complete the transition of that whole Pattison site. Transit Authority members are going to get to tour the facility and as well there and as well as the Olympia Transit Center where they have new real-time signs there. So that will take place during a special meeting to hear an update on labor contract negotiations on October 7th. Emily Bergkamp, who's the general manager of Intercity Transit, has been invited to participate in a paratransit work source by the American Paratransit Association. This group is made up of transit leaders, mobility providers, researchers, technology partners, and policy makers, and they're Essentially going to try to work to improve look at the challenges that are there and improve Paratransit programs You may have noticed the plastic bags covering the bus stop signs throughout the city. And I know there's been a lot of talk about that. And what has happened is that signs were ordered well before the big transition that happened in May with the new routes. Unfortunately, the company that manufactured those signs There was a mistake and they were the wrong size and they wouldn't fit. And so we've had to go back and order new signs and that takes time. So we're down to about 100 now. So we should be seeing the rest of those come along pretty quickly. And that's my report.

Council Member Turner.

Yes, I have a brief report. I attended the RHC meeting last week as an alternate. Also, I attended the River Council meeting. We got quite a briefing on events to remove invasive species, sometimes they're plants, sometimes they're animals. But as far as plants are concerned, we're working with other organizations like the Nisqually Land Trust to remove plants such as scotch broom and Himalaya blackberry. I was not familiar with any of these, but apparently they are squeezing out some of our native plants, which means some of the animals are not able to get the food that they need. It's also a problem because the native vegetation has to be protected in order to provide the shade that's needed to keep the water at a certain temperature for fish. So I found all of that interesting. But what we really had an in-depth presentation on was bullfrogs. And so when I heard the frog over there, I thought about bullfrogs because bullfrogs are on the list of the 100 most invasive animals. species across America. So we learned all about how they are removing bullfrogs and some of the damage that bullfrogs can do to our ecosystem. So we also learned that apparently they are very tasty. I don't know. All right. And then also, we always learn about some of the programs that different organizations have on educating kids and teachers about the ecosystem and how to protect it. And they all sound very, they just sound so cool. So that's a highlight from Nisqually River Council. Also, I'm looking forward to going to the TRPC retreat next week. We didn't have a meeting in August.

Thank you. Council Member Hsu.

I guess we're getting to fall because everyone has a lot of reports. I think I have like three, so bear with me here. So on August 24th, the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative, TCMC, met. We meet quarterly, so. There's a lot to talk about there. To start, we got a report about the gap analysis for the vehicle miles traveled goals that we have. The long and short of it is that we're going to be short. We're not going to make our goal. We're going to miss it by about 26%. There's a lot that we need to work on, according to the report. And just for a little background, the reason why we look at vehicle miles traveled over greenhouse gas emissions is because it's a better indicator of land use, and it helps us better plan out our infrastructure. So by being able to decrease vehicle miles traveled, we can work on making a more walkable, accessible city. And so that's one of the reasons for looking at this. Some of the things that we talked about is actually doing more Not just looking at our land use policies, but also working together on when we do regional Initiatives like the Martin Way corridor about how we can build in better infrastructure for transit biking etc along these regional things so that way we can Just decrease the amount of vehicle miles that that are traveled along those corridors and to better improve promote the use of public transit or active transportation between those locations. The other thing we went through is the work plan and budget for the next year. And it's not gonna be too much, it's gonna, for every single jurisdiction, I think we're looking at just about 77,000 for Lacey's input for the TCMC. So that doesn't seem too high at all. considering some of the other budget amendments we've made today. And so some of that is gonna be admin working on the website. Some of that's marketing and stuff for Energize Thurston, which is also open now. You can register for workshops to learn more about the program. And also the grants will be opening in October to help transition away from wood burning stoves in your home. And then some of the last little bit of it was that the home energy score contracts to work with a service provider on developing and implementing that plan on training new home energy, uh, uh, I guess score technicians. Yeah, sir. Like assessors, that's the word assessors. Um, and as well as making sure that we have a database for my, for holding all that information. So that way it's, uh, the, the M N W M what is it? The mortgage, uh, the real estate, uh, Yes, MLS, thank you. I kept thinking of MLB and I'm like, this is not baseball. The MLS, that way all of the scores are available. And so that is something to keep an eye on because we're gonna start seeing more information for the other jurisdictions about how that is being implemented as that is coming up on our work plan for 2027. And then I think I think Tumwater was announcing that the first home energy score was going to be completed last week for a home there. And then the announcements from Lacey regarding the TCMC is our portable heat pump program is going strong. We will install about 45 to 48 portable heat pumps nationwide. In the housing for seniors to help them shelter in place during excess heat events As and then the other one is the e-bike lease to ownership program for the city there was there were 35 e-bikes that were purchased by the city for the employees to participate in the pilot eBay e-bike lease program and They have seen a lot of success as 54 employees applied for the program and of the 35 e-bikes that we had the people are still leasing those e-bikes and they're following up with all of the reporting requirements on how often they're riding their bike to work, decreasing our vehicle miles traveled, which was approximately, the rough estimate is about 420 single car, single occupancy vehicle commutes have been decreased because of this program. So that's always, that's good news for us there. And then on the 26th, was the RHC, it was a very busy week last week, where it was mostly an informational meeting. The only thing that we really did at that time was we looked over the public comment guidelines. So the RHC developed public comment guidelines for the first time. And so we read over those and approved those last week. We are looking at reviewing the opportunity fund policy and revising it a bit to put a cap at 3.5 million and so that way the rest of any overflow money going into that fund will become available for gap funding issues. So that way we can better meet the needs of everyone in Thurston County and then I think The last one that we talked about was the homeless response system set-aside funding. So we just talked about different tiering systems when it comes to looking at the needs and trying to figure out how we're going to be assessing people, some of those uh, grant applications because we're going to be starting a new grant process, uh, for the biennium, I believe, uh, pretty soon. Um, I'm not 100% sure on when those grants open, but we're reviewing those, um, uh, priorities. Okay. And let's see here. There's one other thing I was going to mention. and that is because it was emergency preparedness month for September, there's gonna actually be at the Lacey Community Center an emergency preparedness expo on September 26th from 10 to 1 p.m. And it's gonna be free for the community, and there's gonna be activities for everyone, so please come on by. Is that the end of your report? Yes, I'm actually done speaking now.

Okay. With that, We have reached the end of our agenda. It is currently 7.39 p.m. I did want to just take a moment to talk about the loss that Nisqually had a couple weeks ago. They lost their chairman, Ken Choke. We've had a longstanding relationship With the tribe we have an accord with them that dates back to 2012 We have a totem pole in our lobby. So we are very sorry for their loss and We sent a card out To the tribe. I hope you guys all got to sign it but it's it's always tragic when when a an organization loses their leadership. They have gone through their process of replacing their leader through this past weekend. So we'll bring you more information as we get it. And so without any objection, we'll call this meeting adjourned. And as always, you keep it classy, Lacey.