City Council - Regular Meeting

I call this hybrid regular council meeting of 04/28/2026 to order at 07:00PM. Tonight, leading our pledge of allegiance is one of Edgemont's best Ruby Upshaw. So I'm gonna have Ruby come up here, stand right in front of the dais, and I will hand her the microphone. You can come over here and hold the microphone. 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.

Nice. Nailed it. Now, Ruby, I've got a little certificate for you here. And then you're not required to stay for the church. So then you can leave whenever, so don't don't feel like you have to stay.

Okay. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mayor Olsen?

Here.

Deputy mayor Creeley?

Here.

Council member Pazaruski? Here. Council member Ramirez? Here. Council member Keith?

Here.

Council member Rasmus? Here. Council member Edwards? Here. Council member Suthard?

Here.

Rule is complete.

Okay. Thank you, Jill. Council, as you know, council rule 9.3 allows council members to add a rule or add an item to the agenda. Does anyone have an item to add to tonight's agenda? It rarely happens, but I ask the question every meeting anyway. Okay. Next up, audience comment. In council, as you know, for the last month or so, we've been suspending the council rules of procedure to allow for five minutes of audience comments. So I'll entertain a motion now to extend audience comment from three minutes to five minutes. I make a

motion to extend audience comment to five minutes.

Second. Creeley.

Okay. We got three seconds. I I I think I heard Rasmus first. So okay. It's been moved by council member Ramirez and seconded by council member Rasmus to suspend council rules of procedure. This requires a super majority, so we need five yeses. And any comment, council member Ramirez?

No comment.

And council member Asmus, any comment?

No comment.

Anybody have any comment, or are we good to go straight to the vote? I think so. Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Okay. So audience, you now have five minutes to speak instead of three if you should choose to speak. And did we have anybody sign up on the sign up sheet? Or I don't think so. So you don't have to have signed up. You you can still slip right up. So I see a hand raised, so go for it. You can step right to the podium, turn on that little from red to blue Okay. And just identify

yourself. Trying to make sure that I I could speak.

Yeah. Yep. Go right ahead. You got five minutes. Just identify your name and kinda where you're from or whatever

you're I probably won't need the full five minutes, but I'm Jack Williams. I'm the public affairs specialist for the US office administration. I'll be representing Pierce County to assist with the governor Ferguson presidential declaration for the floods that occurred in Washington back in December. So right now, I'm currently coordinating with the local officials and stakeholders. I actually just left from the city council over in Fife.

They have a city hall meeting as well. So just offering our federal funding assistance to homeowners, business owners, small businesses, nonprofits, renters to offer them federal support and recovery for the floods that occurred. Currently, we are working to do outreach events throughout the county, throughout the Pierce County area of the aforementioned cities. So we are looking forward to coordinating with the local officials and stakeholders to get this assistance up. Perfect.

And if you have any questions, I definitely can send it to the city clerk. The amounts for the business loans, they are a ceiling of $2,000,000. No interest accruals for the first twelve months as well as no payments. For homeowners, it's up to 500,000. Same results. For renters, it's 100,000 for personal property because, obviously, renters don't own the structure of their building, and those also have terms up to thirty years. So a lot of good federal funding assistance for residents that were affected by the floods.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much. Any other audience comment here tonight? Okay. That appears as if that and I don't see any hands raised in the virtual audience. So that concludes audience comment. Mayor's report, wrote down just kind of a bunch of things to go over. Just a a day in the life of the mayor, or I should say a day in the life of the last two weeks, being mayor. So just some things.

We opened up council chambers last night to welcome, our thirty first district senator, Phil Fortunato. So he held the town hall meeting here. Most of the people were from Edgewood, but there were some people outside of Edgewood attending here. So I had 30 or 35 people here in our council chambers. The last two weeks, just to give you a little idea of some of the meetings that I attend, I attended the PCRC general monthly meeting as well as a couple of subcommittee meetings for PCRC, attended the housing summit downtown Puyallup, sponsored by the Pierce County Master Builders Association, attended a couple of Forever Green Trails Committee, meetings, tended to breakfast with eight to 10 mayors and council members from throughout South King County.

That's kind of a monthly get together. I had coffee with a nearby mayor that reached out and just wanted to meet wanted to kinda pick our brain about what's going on in Edgewood. Also, I had lunch yesterday with two nearby mayors to kinda pick their brain about how they are handling things with fiber installation throughout their city. So got some interesting feedback, from them. So as we move forward, those two cities were just a little bit ahead of where we are.

So also attended the interstate four zero five state route one sixty seven executive advisory group meeting today, and also attended the AWC nominating committee, that I'm on kinda getting ready for the AWC annual conference in June. I've never attended the annual conference. This one's over in Spokane, so I'll be attending for a couple of days over there in June, and I'm on the AWC nominating committee. We also had our quarterly all staff meeting today, and I don't believe in jinx. So I'm gonna tell you something that that I noticed at the meeting today.

We we've had no new introductions of new employees here at an all staff meeting in over a year, which I think I think is great. I I think it's shown that we have a lot of stability here at City Hall. The fact that we've we're not having any turnover, and we we've got I'd say we have a great staff right now, and I think we're kinda firing on all cylinders. And it's just it's great to see, and that stability is is nice. And I think it says a lot, and I think it should not go unnoticed.

So I just wanted to mention that. Just a few other things. I've got the seeds of change dinner that I'm speaking at on Thursday night, and then I'm speaking to Kiwanis next week. So those are just some things that I have going on as the mayor of Edgewood. K. Next up, we have our consent agenda. Are there any items to be amended or pulled from tonight's consent agenda? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

And is there a second?

A second. Creeley?

Okay. Council member Ramirez beat you to that, deputy mayor Creeley. So it has been moved by council member Pazaruski and seconded by council member Ramirez to approve tonight's consent agenda as presented. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Motion carries. Okay. First item of council business, item a.

This is agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero two, an ordinance for the second reading adopting the NFC franchise agreement. And counsel, as you know, all franchise agreements require two readings in addition to we usually go over them at one study session. So this one's nearing the end, so the NFC franchise agreement. Mister Chuck Hendrickson online, our public works director. Chuck, would you please brief the council on this item?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, council, members of the public. This is a second reading of the NFC agreement. NFC is the same company as the already approved Ziply Fiber, which are all subsidiaries of Bell. We've talked about this and simply a lot, so happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Any questions for mister Hendrickson regarding the second reading for the NFC franchise agreement? Seeing no questions for mister Hendrickson, I'll entertain a motion to approve the second reading adopting the NFC franchise agreement, per agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero two. Do I have a motion? I move. Settle it. And do I have a second? Second.

Second. Erasmus.

Kent Keith.

Okay. Okay. It has been moved by council member Southard and seconded by council member Erasmus to approve the second reading. Council member Sothard, you have the floor.

Thank you, mister mayor. I appreciate everything that the public works director Chuck Hendrickson has sent to the council about the process of horizontal drilling. I appreciate the staff and then mister mayor communicating with other municipalities about their experiences with some of these providers. Thank you.

And now council member Rasmus. No comment. Moving along. Any further council comment on this motion before us? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. K. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on. Gen or item b. This is agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero five, an ordinance repealing Edgewood Municipal Code two point one zero point zero three zero and two point one zero point o four zero regarding mayor and council salaries.

Mister Hardeep Guraya, would you please brief the council on this item?

Thank you, mister mayor. Good evening, council, members of the public. We proposed in the last study session to repeal section two ten zero thirty and section two ten zero forty. There's no change as we discussed last week. We recommend to make a motion to adopt the changes. Thank you. Okay.

As Hardeep, our finance director said, we discussed this last week at the study session. Does anybody have any further questions for mister Guraya tonight? K. Seeing no further questions, I'll entertain a motion to approve agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero five.

So moved, Creeley.

Second, Pazaruski.

Okay. It has been moved by deputy mayor Creeley and seconded by council member Pazaruski to approve ordinance 26 dash o seven zero five. Deputy mayor Creeley, you have the floor.

No. It's a good idea not to have to in the EMC to have to change every time salaries change, and it's still available for the public to see. Just good housekeeping. Thank you.

K. Now council member Pazaruski, you have the floor.

Yes. It just seems pretty straightforward in anything similar to this that takes, off administrative burden, seems seems pretty legit.

Okay. Any further council comment on this item? K. Seeing no further council comment, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. K. Motion carries. Moving right along to item c. This is agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero six.

This is an ordinance amending Edgewood Municipal Code chapter two point one zero point zero five zero for the salary commission. Once again, our finance director, mister Hardeep Garaya, would you please brief the council on this item?

Well, as we discussed last week, this is again a second housekeeping item. We're recommending some changes for clarification and salary commissions, job duties, and giving them flexibility to meet in quarter three instead of just in August then adding a language for a special meeting. There's no change what we discussed last week, and we recommend to make a motion to adopt this change.

K. Thank you. Any questions on this or Hardeep? Not seeing any questions, so I'll entertain a motion on this item.

I'll make a motion to adopt a b 26 Dash706.

Second.

Okay. It has been moved by council member Ramirez and seconded by council member Edwards. Council member Ramirez, you have the floor.

No comment.

And now council member Edwards.

Nothing at this time.

Any further council comment on this item? K. So I'll entertain them or or we'll we'll vote on ordinance 26 dash o seven zero seven. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed, say nay. K. Motion carries. Oh, you know what? I read the wrong ordinance, by the way. So I should have said agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero six. So sorry. My my bad. But I think we know what we were approving there, so we should be good. Okay. It takes us to item d, agenda bill 26 dash o seven zero seven. This is the ordinance amending Edgewood municipal code 3.25 dash o one zero payment of claims. Once again, mister Hardeep Guraya, our finance director, would you please brief the council on this item?

Sure. Staff, proposed to remove the two signature requirements in the code for, payment of claims, but we took advice from council. Council recommended to leave the two signatures there and add ACA, assistant city administrator, to sign as a authorized signer and also make provisions for ACH payments. So we made those changes, have the ordinance reviewed by legal, and we recommend counsel to make a motion to adopt those changes.

Okay. Thank you. Any questions for mister Guraya on this item? Yes. Deputy mayor Creeley.

Just wondering if you had a chance to check into getting signature cards for the council members, whether they need to go to the bank to get those or whether you can get those for them to sign and have someone prop them off.

Yeah. Where where were we with those? I I think well, I'll let I'll let you answer that, Hardeep.

I believe council members have to go to the bank to get signature verified with

the bank, but we will double check that. I think there might have also been a an opinion that since our assistant city administrator is now approved, we may not need to have every city council member go fill out a card, but that's maybe yet to be determined. So council member Keith has her hand raised.

So I we ought to be able to show show up at the bank with a copy of our bylaws that gives us authorization and our council business cards. I am gonna go in the next week or so so to get a signature card on file so I can back markup. I don't think like, I I think you're right. I don't think we all need to be on file, but at least one of us should. And I will, I will take one for the team and and go get the card done. But it would probably be a good idea if you guys gave them a call, like, before I showed up.

So you want us to forewarn them that you're on your on your way?

Yeah. There's this woman who wants access to our money. You know? Tell them that. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. If we're we're fine with kinda letting Hardeep handle that. But, yeah, Christy, if you wanna get your name on that. Mark, you're already your name's already on that, and my name and Rachel and I don't know if anyone else is. But, yeah, we'll let we'll let Hardeep kind of but are are we good with maybe not all seven of you need to go to the bank to sign? I'm seeing long as

we have a

long as we have a few to choose from. That way if,

you

know, the four of us aren't available, we at least have someone else to

Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Any further questions for mister Garaya on this item? Seeing no further questions, I'll entertain a motion. So moved. And is there a second?

Second, Southard.

Okay. It has been moved by council member Edwards and seconded by council member Southard to approve agenda bill AB26DashO707. Council member Edwards, you have the floor.

Just thank you to staff for doing the work over the past week to make those changes to get us to where it is now. So thanks for that.

And now council member Southard.

Nothing at this time. Thank you.

Any further council comment on this item? Seeing none, all those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Motion carries. Okay. Takes us to our final item, council comments. Would anyone like to kick off our council comments? I see council member Keith with her hand raised before I saw anyone here. So council member Keith, you have the floor.

First and foremost, I would like to welcome Maylie back. We missed you. You were very missed. Welcome back. On that topic, we have been having some stress with Roberts' order and getting policy through the council.

And I have an agenda item on specifically committees that's scheduled for May 5, I believe. How would everybody feel if I didn't present that specific committee information, but let Meili and her firm do a general presentation on parliamentary procedure, how to get bylaws done, committees, all the tools that the council might use to do our jobs and get policy done. Would that be amenable with everybody if we just sort of gave Meily that spot instead of me doing something specific to committees.

It's a pretty big spot, pretty wide range. Council member Ramirez has a question, but I I think I'm gonna defer to our city attorney. Meily had her hand raised too. So we'll we'll

Thank you.

Kate Meily.

Thank you, mayor. And thank you, council member Keith, for the welcome back. So I would totally agree with that. I do have a suggestion, and it's something that we can discuss, later or now. But I think it would be really great to have, Anne McFarlane come in.

And I've spoken, you know, to a couple people about that, including our firm. That's something that our firm normally actually suggests to different councils in different cities. So I think that would be really great coming straight from her. And, yeah, and she does a great presentation, And maybe that's maybe we can discuss at a study session or whatnot. Per our council rules too, that for discussion, especially during council comment, the mayor, you can put it on a study session later this discussion, especially if it's somewhat, you know, a consensus here for the council.

So that would kind of be the next step. Is that if that's something that we wanna discuss, we can put it on a study session, discuss it some more, and then I can work out the logistics with the mayor or staff. What do you think about that?

That sounds good. Thank you, Maylie.

I just wanted to follow-up point of information, I guess. Anne McFarlane is the dinosaur people, the parliamentarian what's the name? Somebody knows the name.

Jurassic.

Jurassic parliamentary Yeah. That's

good. Correct.

Now she's she's great for Robert's rules of order and parliamentary procedure. I'm not sure all of the the stuff that we have a lot of the stuff that we have scheduled next week, regarding the committees, I don't know that that is within her area of expertise, but I so how are we how are you proposing? Are you wanting to put that on on Meily to handle all the committees? Because I I view those as two separate items.

Yes and no. Committee how committees are handled is part of Robert's rules. I view the committee conversation as the tail end of the entire Robert's conversation. What our roles are, what tools we have to to do each you know, the executive's job and the and the council's job. And that conversation about Robert Schirle's order ends in and here's the place that you do it, committees and committees of the whole. So I I don't really consider them completely separate, more of a progression. You know?

Okay. Thank you, Christie. Council member Ramirez, he had his hand raised.

So I do have some some concerns about that. As I mentioned last time, we still haven't put any rules and procedures in place that we've been working on for months. I'm also concerned about the cost to the city as it pertains to a discussion on committees. And I'm still struggling trying to understand what's the necessity for us having said committees. We're a fairly small city on a tight budget.

We had a Robert's Rules presentation, I think earlier this year, and I thought we all had agreed that we would get through and redo these rules and procedures for city council. I struggle with moving on to a new topic where we're talking about committees and we don't even have a finalized draft of rules and procedures. Those are my concerns, and I think a statement was made. I am not in support. I don't know.

It was like the general counsel's in support. I'm not supportive going down this path at this time considering we have a lot of other business that we all have worked on that still hasn't bared any fruit. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, council member Ramirez. Any further council comment?

Yes. Council member Suthard.

So I attended, my first, Edgewood Water Board with council member Ramirez and board member, Creeley, and, it was a really great experience. I hear how the water board functions as a a non government entity, I guess. And I attended the Unified Regional Approach to End Homelessness in Pierce County, meeting on Monday. Two more, cities attended, so that's, we're really close to, starting to work on the resolution of intent and the eventual inner local agreements. And we'll be having, hopefully, Pierce County Council chair, Jenny Hitchin on I believe, is it the May 5?

Okay. And, before that, we I also attended the Soft Sound for affordable housing, shape meeting. And the Pierce County, has a lot of resources to help those that are in danger of becoming homeless and those who are homeless and not just the unified regional approach and shape, but there are a lot of other Pierce County programs out there to help those that need help with finding housing. And we had a great presentation from from Pierce County on that. Thank you.

K. Thank you council member Southern. Is that a that wasn't a hand raise. Okay. Sorry. Deputy mayor Creeley has his hand raised.

Yeah. Just kind of in response to, council member member Ramirez's question there about, committees. Our council rules should correct me if I'm wrong, mainly, but, I believe our rules have to have some sort of mention on committees and how they're formed and they're you know, I think that's part of our council rules. So that's why it's all grouped together. Also, size of the city doesn't matter.

I mean, committees are used all over the place. It's it's a normal function for councils to have committees, finance committee, public safety committee. Like, Sumner has a special one for what lodging tax committee, I think. So the committees are, you know, used all over the place. So it's not not something special we're trying to dig up here. It's a tool we haven't been using that we're trying to be able to have available to us.

Okay. And, Meily, with her hand raised. Meily?

Thank you, mayor. And to support council member Creeley's point, it looks like it's, council rules 6.3 that talks about committees. Also, from my professional experience, there are a lot of committees that can, actually push things along and make things go faster because you can get, you know, council members together and push things forward. But that is also up to you. One of the reasons I raised my hand, though, mayor, was to just clarify as far as the Robert's rules of order, presentation, but from Jurassic Parliament, that would be Anne McFarlane.

If that's something that we wanna discuss as, or you wanna discuss as a council, I would ask that, mayor if you could put that on a study session, and then that way we can take, whatever part it was taking in a different agenda. So that's something that I was hoping that you could do, and that's, authorized with your rules and or your rules and I can't talk. Sorry. Rules of procedure here.

Okay. Perfect. Okay. I think I follow you there. And more importantly, Jill and Rachel follow you, so we'll we'll sort that out and get it on the on the on the foul. So any other council comments? Oh, yes. Assistant city administrator, Rachel Pitzel.

Thank you. I just want to, clarify. So council member Keith, are we removing your two items next week and putting it on pending on the future agendas list? Or I just wanna make sure I'm understanding

was that we do Parlum a parliamentary presentation instead. Man, I'm not sure that we got clarity on that. So

Yeah. I don't know if we'll be able to, get that so quickly turned around for next the fifth, but we do have those two items scheduled on the fifth. So I just kinda wanna make sure we don't drop the ball.

Yeah. Why don't you give so I'm sorry. I can never the dinosaur people have four or five staff members. Of course, we all love Anne. She's she's, like, amazing. But they they have other staffers. Why don't one of you, maybe Rachel, buzz them and see what their availability is? And and if this is not possible, then we'll figure out what to do with the agenda items. Yeah. So just buzz me back if you find out if they do or don't have availability, and then we'll work together to get the agenda fixed.

Perfect. Thank you.

K. Thank you. Any further council comments for tonight? Seeing none, we are adjourned at 07:33.

Good night, everybody. Take care. Welcome back, Maley.

Good night.