City Council - Regular Meeting

all right good evening everyone it is six o'clock on tuesday july 14th 2026 and i now call to order the 2186 meeting of the regular meeting of the city of college place city council madam clerk will you please take roll call yes council member green present council member cleveland present council member lopez present

Council Member Evans. Present. Council Member Sherman. Present. And Mayor Hernandez. Present. And we do have an excused absence from Council Member Boyle and a late arrival of Council Member Steckline scheduled.

Thank you so very much. Will you all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, it's now time for public comment. Madam Clerk, did anyone submit a written comment in advance or request to speak via telephone or virtually? I received no comments. Great, thank you. And there is no one in council chambers. So I'm going to move on to consent agenda, which consists of the agenda for tonight, July 14 2026. approving the council regular meeting minutes from June 9 2026. approving council workshop meeting minutes from July 7 2026. approving approving resolution 26-010 back which is a bank signing authorization approving the january 2026 financials and excusing the absence of council member boyle is there any item any member of the council would like removed from the consent agenda at this time make a motion to approve the consent agenda we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented and i'll second and we have a second council member green great thank you

All right. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? The ayes have it and the motion is passed. We have one presentation on our agenda tonight and that's Police Chief Tamares will present the Yard of the Month Award.

Well, thank you mayor and council. I appreciate you letting me come in here and do this. We don't always get to do it and it's fun to do it because we have such a great community and it's fun to recognize Yvonne and Tanya Rick burger and they're a mother and daughter team and they live at 624 Southeast mockingbird drive and they have been selected as our yard of the month. And if you don't know, we've been doing this program for about the nine years I've been here, just trying to get people excited about taking care of their community and taking pride in it. But really, people were already doing that. We're just recognizing the great work that they're doing. So it's a fun thing to do.

I want to know who takes care of their grass. That is beautiful grass. Yeah, beautiful. Look at that. All right. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome. Appreciate it. All right, we're on to administrative reports of which we have three. The first one Mr. McAndrews will present on public works CDL training efficiencies.

Thank you mayor. Good evening council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight to kind of share some efficiencies that the public works department has has gained through our training process for commercial drivers licenses and some recognition that we've received from the American public works association. Um. So, yeah, a little history, especially here in college place in the valley, it's, it's difficult to hire folks that come with all the training and certifications that we require for the jobs commercial drivers licenses. Maybe 25% of the people that we hired our operations to have a CDL, the other 75% or so on average, we need to send outside to get trained. So, historically, there's not a good option here in the valley for a while. The community college wasn't doing it at all recently. Their courses are evening courses and it takes an entire quarter. So it's a really drawn out process. So we've been sending staff to a program that's a CDL school in Pasco called T-Enterprises. And the upfront costs of the program through them were about $5,500 per trainee, per staff. But it's five to six weeks, generally about six weeks every day. The staff has to travel to and from Pasco. That results in roughly three hours of overtime a day, plus vehicle costs. Um, really ended up being expensive when I ran the numbers penciled out to almost 36,000 dollars. To train somebody to get a CDL, a big portion of that about. Almost 17,000 of that is regular wages that we'd be paying them anyway. But they're otherwise not able to do work that they could be if they were here in town. So we discovered the state, so the state has very rigid rules and laws about commercial driver's license and training. if you do it through school there's a bunch of hours you have to log which is partially why it takes so long through t enterprises and pasco but if you have an employer-ran program some of those hours are waived you don't have to log as much time and you're able to do it much faster so we were able to coordinate with a group called dlts diversified logistics training solutions they're out of kansas but what they do And they do this in most states, but they hadn't ever in Washington before. So we were able to partner with them and be the 1st ones to do this in Washington. But they'll send a trainer certified trainer to us. Do the training and for 1 staff, the price is about 7,000 dollars. But for 1 person, they can do it in 5 days. So there's 3 days worth of. Pre trip and backing and just going over the vehicle and then there's 2 days where they drive with the staff and the city owned vehicles, same vehicle. They'll be driving on a daily basis. Gets them ready to train or to test. They won't stop until they're confident. They'll be able to test and then. They leave and we send our staff off to get their take their test and much more efficient cut back significantly on costs and time. And it cost us just under 10,000 dollars to do that per staff, which is a significant savings. So. All of that said, we, because we did 2 at the same time, it took 7 days because the 2 days of drive time is 1 on 1 instructor to student. But each each staff member was only tied up for 5 days at a time. So it was a huge efficiency to us. Again, the American Public Works Association got wind of it, recognized it, wrote an article about us. Myself and Cameron are planning to go to the fall conference this fall, and we're actually presenting a session about it. And I just found out today that they've pinned our session as a top, what do they call it, a top session. So they're actually going to advertise it ahead of time. So, yeah, exactly. No pressure. I'm expecting a huge turnout for it, but I really want to get the word out to other agencies around the state because I, you know, I have a lot of colleagues that have had the same issues. And most of us that I know have had the same impression that. There's no way around spending the time to send folks to the school. And so this is a. It was a great partnership we did with and I think, um.

sharing this with other agencies is going to be help a lot of folks out so i guess that's that any questions councilmember green no questions just wanted to say well done this is really cool to see college place on the map like this and getting some some uh some due publicity and for the work that you've done here and it's really cool way to see us be so efficient with uh with the money and the time for the staff so really really well done thank you

Councilmember Cleveland.

I'd like to echo that thank you and just recognize how you and all our staff invest so much in being innovative to save us money and be more efficient. It's so much work that you guys do. You can't be thanked enough, but this is just such a good example. Thank you.

Councilmember Lopez. No questions, thank you.

Councilmember Evans. Just wonderful work. I love the outside the box thinking and being the first in Washington state is huge, so well done.

Council Member Sherman. Yeah, I agree with all of them. Thanks to you and to Cameron for your work in making this happen.

Yeah, and I like what everybody else said, but I also want to mention, you know, it's nice getting College Place in any kind of media, right? It always highlights or brings awareness to our name. Eventually, we'll stop being called College Park or University Place. Right?

We want to get out college place, right?

And so every time we get wonderful stories out there like this, and whether it's regional, state, national, I think it really elevates who we are, what we're doing, and the importance of even small communities. and the work that everyone does to keep them going. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you. I would agree. And we do everything we can to make College Place its own entity. Even though we are part of the Walla Walla Valley, I pride myself on helping the organizations I'm involved in and making sure that everybody knows who College Place is and where we are and what we're doing. So thanks.

that's great that's great because so many times i mean i'm sure everybody else like i have to you know say i'm in college place well you know in walla walla right you have to always say that because they have no idea so this is fantastic thank you all right now you're going to present uh the public works wcia risk reduction grant award for the sidewalk grinder

Yes, this is 1 more kudos to city staff, public work staff, a little history on this. The, what is it? Washington city's insurance authority. I believe I get that, right? They have a risk mitigation grant, a risk reduction grant that they run every year. I think the last 3 years. 3 years up until this we've applied with various applications, trying to get some funding to clean up some of the ADA accessibility stuff here around city hall. And have never been funded. So, this year, we decided not to apply for that. And Kevin Wolpert, who's actually a water quality operator really doesn't have much to do with sidewalk grinding and trip hazards, but he took it upon himself to lead the charge on. On putting in an application for a sidewalk grinder, a new sidewalk grinder, so we could grind trip hazards on city on sidewalks around town. And he was successful gave us 6200 dollars, which allowed us to purchase a sidewalk grinder. Public work staff have already been out starting that work and starting to take care of some of the trip hazards. We're aware of. And we have some reporting due to WCA, I think in September. And then I think it's in October. December, I can't remember the exact date regardless at some point once we've demonstrated that we're actually doing what we said would do WCA will reimburse us for that. And so I'm really excited. I'm proud of Kevin proud of our public works team for taking this on and. know reducing some risk for the city and helping to ensure that folks are safe when they walk down their sidewalks that's all i have any questions fantastic councilmember green

Again, great work. I think it's kind of a cool thing to have an expectation of deliverables on a project like this, because certainly I do a lot of work with grants, and a lot of times they give you the money to do what you say you're going to do, and you sort of have to tell them you did it. But requiring some of that work get started ahead of time is kind of neat, so I'm excited to see that happening, and good work.

Councilmember Cleveland? No questions, but thanks again. Councilmember Stecklein?

Thank you. I just wanted to say that I really appreciate this because one of the things that I remember when I was really interested in becoming part of city council was the sidewalks being unsafe, right? And my husband is legally blind and It's not very safe to walk in some areas. And so when I saw this on the agenda, it just makes me so proud and so happy to be part of the city that's being proactive and really thinking about populations, you know, getting to different places. So it's a personal thing and I really want to say thank you.

That was lovely. Council Member Lopez.

Yeah, excited about it. I'm curious if there's a list of projects or how we would see like, how do we report them? Or is that just something that you have?

Uh, that is a good question. I know our operations staff have kind of a running list of some of the areas that they're aware of. If you have somewhere in particular, I would encourage you to send over an email to myself and I can share with our operations folks and make sure it gets looked at. And if. If if it's an option, then we'll add it to the list and we're chipping away at it as much as as quickly as we can, but it will take time to get to all of them. I've worked for several other agencies and I will say. Given our city, we are in. pretty good shape. I've seen a lot worse. I'm not saying we're perfect. There's plenty of trip hazards out there, but this is a good option for some of the smaller ones that we can grind them. And when you end up in some places, I'm not aware of any in town, but I've seen four to six inch raised panels and this isn't an option for that. You got to do more work, but for the smaller trip hazard, it's a great option to grind them.

Cool.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Evans. No questions. Thank you. Council Member Sherman. No questions, but thanks again. Yes, again, thank you. And I want to say, you know, this came in and, you know, robert's a bit humble sometimes and he had to get a little nudge from our city clerk to bring this to the council to share in the little bit of uh glory of the award so um i want to recognize that the teamwork again telling you know let people know what you're doing and show council members what's going on in the city and I think this is just looking at the list of the different cities and of course, at the bottom of the list is university place, college places by coincidence. Well, thank you so much, Robert. Last on our administrative reports is Mr. Ricker who's going to present the economic development tracker update.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. So this, I believe you guys have seen something similar in the past. Mr. Rizzitella used to present this to Council, I don't know, quarterly, probably. This generally is taken to EdTech. So that's our Economic Development, Tourism and Events Commission. And he would provide a, at least a quarterly update on where these projects are standing with the standing of those. They're. Kind of code named. Kind of not project Murphy. Well, Murphy USA is. They do gas stations at Walmart, so I'm not. Not super, we're not super close lipped about that. We've been trying to get them interested in our site. There's room at the Walmart site at the intersection. We've been told last year we were told that they had supply chain issues and it's on hold for a bit. We will continue to reach out to them. So ICSC is that Las Vegas convention where all the retailers and restauranteurs and they all kind of gather and it's a really great spot to get meetings with these big corporate companies. We didn't go this year. We will budget for going next year. It's a great event. um project sleep tight uh that is i've renamed that it was called project cobble um which was cobblestone hotels is whoever we're going after we've since learned that cobblestone hotels they're a franchise um primarily 100 franchise based um Business, and so what that means is that they expect investors to come in to to build these hotels and and. And they'll basically sell you their, their brand. We're not in that type of business. We want hotels to come and build their product here. We don't have the resources and connections to. you know, bring investment teams together. So not really courting that particular hotel, but we have several sites around town. The Whitman and Myra property is a suitable site for hotels. 12th and college would be another good site for hotels down near hop. Thief would be another good site for a hotel motel and then the Christian insights across from the high school. So 12th and Myra, sorry, thank you. 12th and college. Yeah, take out the indies. 1 thing we learned with. the recent um grand opening of the the traffic circle there tib was a big funder to that project and they have a new um it's called a grant program called uap urban arterial program and there's 6.8 million dollars for the eastern region available uh annually um and It's, it's, it's geared towards developments that have an economic development component to it. So if we actually have land that's been purchased in deals in place, and we can prove that that would make some of our road projects available. So eligible. So, in particular up here on Whitman, we. We need to address there's a pork chop that blocks access into that vacant field kind of right across from the driveway at Home Depot. And so we've been talking and I believe it's in our 6 year. It's on the list of projects, but a small roundabout there would alleviate and eliminate that workshop. And so a project like that, if we get a retailer for that site or any business going in on that site, it would make us a strong candidate for that program. So just wanted to keep that in mind as we go through this list. Project. LK, that was an assisted living facility. So Myra and Garrison Village Way, this big site there, there was import fill brought in onto on that site and you can kind of see the the piles of it there and it's has proven to be somewhat problematic for people to locate on that site businesses. So the We've been told the reason why they pulled out of that site was the geotechnical aspect to it. So. Can you elaborate a bit on that? What does that mean? So, so anytime you import soils onto a site, you need to make sure that they're. Placed properly. just how you put down the lifts, making sure that there's no organic materials that you've covered up, things like that. So when a business is looking at sites, they'll send an engineer out to do some soil samples. They'll usually do some test pits, see what the percolation rates are for like their stormwater related stuff. They'll take a look at the gradation of the soils on site. And that will help guide the type of foundation design needed for their buildings and stormwater facilities. And so if there's import brought into the site, and there's no documentation on how it was put down, that's problematic. And then just in general in our valley, you know, if there's a lot of silts on a site, that can be problematic. Too much gravel can be a problem. High water tables can be problems. so yeah and the soil was brought into that property by who um the property i don't remember when it's probably 10 15 years ago okay um I don't remember all the circumstances behind it, but you can see the so up towards Myra, you can see, you know, that that property drops off significantly from Myra and you can see where there was probably a 30 foot swath by the length of the of Myra where there was fill imported and it'll have to be addressed at some point. So. And is that something that the city allows? To be done anymore, we are much more regulatory over importing fill now in the past. So we would require a site development permit and an engineer analysis of how it's going to be placed and documentation and just can't go over and dump the dirt and observate. No, you can't not.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for having me understand.

Yeah. um project bullseye you guys can probably all have imaginations you can figure out what that one is yeah think about that so um that business is they're still expanding in the northwest and their stores are smaller than normal um there are then what they'd you know probably done 10 years ago We are, you know, we'll, we have some contacts, we continue to reach out to those groups, but Vegas is often a good time when we, the ICSC conferences, when we actually get, you know, to meet with them, so. Project Early Bird, so that's like your IHOPs and whatnot. Those sort of businesses like to locate around hotels. So we had one that was interested in the Myra and Whitman property because of the cobblestone concept. Obviously, that hasn't happened. But yeah, there's a market for it. Locations like Commercial Drive and Myra And I saw 125 that empty lot there would be a great site for. You know, a breakfast place, some other spots around town. Um. Project why so that was. there's a Yokes grocery store chain up in the Northwest, kind of Spokane area. I think there might be in the Tri-Cities too, but they're, I believe they're part of the, the Rozar's and Super One cash and carry chain. And they had been, they're kind of, they were kind of interested in our market, but they, they were looking at closing or selling some stores and Not really putting a lot of effort into that type of business because we kind of, I feel like we're a little oversaturated, but. With grocery stores in town, so, but still on the list project, smile, interesting name. I want to come up with something better. I'm not. I'm sure what that was about, but it's basically some sort of light industrial. production facilities. Good location would be out on West Whitman Drive, maybe on the Airport property, possibly, if there's a small sliver of triangular piece that we're trying to get in to our urban growth boundary, it could be another site for small manufacturing warehouse type of business. There's also Rose Street in Damson, the old Amelia Gugomelli's property. We did a study for a What we call that a flex building on that 2, 2, 2 buildings on that site, but kind of maker space. The space that, you know, it's a large building, but you can move the interior walls to. Meet the demand of the of the tenant. So, then moving on to project marketplace. That is your grocer and other apparel home retail type of stores. There's some interest in a particular retailer in our market. They've been following Winco Foods. not as closely as one would have liked because they were surprised to hear that the WinCo Foods was opening in October. So that kind of piqued their interest a little bit sooner than maybe they would have. So we're working, trying to keep them interested in our market. Had some good conversations a couple of weeks ago with that business. Project Fast Lane is your, you know, quick serve, fast food type stuff. We're, you know, looking in and out. Those five guys, Chick-fil-A, those are, you know, in and out is coming into our, you know, this region. So, same with Chick-fil-A. They anytime there's larger retail activity, like the wind co foods, I think is a really good thing for us because those types of businesses start looking a little bit more closely at our markets. So. With with those type of businesses, the conferences is a really good resource for us to get meetings and gain interest. Project Blue Mountain Vista, so that's a new name that I came up with to market the Southwest 12th and Myra property. It does have a nice view of the Blue Mountains. It also has a nice view looking north, you know, the trees along the creek. And so I think it has a good, it could be a good site for a hotel, honestly. And mixed use retail, possibly even like some town homes along the. A creek side or something the project. Property kind of slopes off a little to the north. So that's a local local property owner. Of course, we would reach out to use for trying to get. You know, different hotels and that type of stuff interested in it. Project crosswalk crossroads Plaza. That's what I'm calling that our Beanie property for now. There are Beanie property is off of and peppers bridge, but also potential. As our 125 access, if we were to put a roundabout at college Avenue, and it's a relatively flat piece of property and it's. part of our urban growth boundary application expansion for commercial. It's a really nice piece. The property owner is interested in, you know, something like that. So I think it has a lot of marketability for either like a big warehouse retailer or like gas stations like Mavericks. So, potential rest, you know, other fast restaurants, fast food restaurants. Obviously, we. The 1st hurdle is getting it into our, and then we can start working with the state and try to. Get around about there to open it up. We have. Is it a 24 inch or 12 inch? It's 24 inch water main. I believe that. no the the water main that goes from the well off of peppers bridge and mcminn and underneath the high highway and then up college avenue so we've we've got half of the utilities dealt um and we can serve it with sewer it would require an extension underneath the highway but we can gravity to it so Um, project flight, that's kind of aerospace stuff out at Martin airfield. Um, That's all kind of contingent on our elevated water tank, getting water out there, lift station. But the property owner is working with us. They're very supportive of being partners on getting utilities out in that area and making something happen out there. There's also, and I'll talk about it a little bit later, there's also a residential component to part of the Martin Airfield property. So getting into, so I guess we can pause here. Do you guys have any questions about like the commercial related stuff that I have in this list or suggestions, questions?

If you have questions, go ahead and just speak up.

I don't have any questions. I just wanted to say thank you for this. I'd spoken with Mike through a good number of these a year or more ago about some of this stuff. And as I came on to the council, it was one of those things that just kind of in the back of my head, I wonder where some of these projects are. And of course, some of them have kind of started and then Stopped and some just never have come. So it's cool to see that. There's still some possibilities here and it's, you know, it's good to see closure on some of that that I think we're kind of assumed, but good to see that. Um, but some pretty cool possibilities and, and, uh. Options ahead, so that's thank you for that. Okay.

Great. I was just going to ask kind of related, but the, who usually attends that?

So, historically, Mike would go down and then come back with gout. What's that?

And then come back with gout.

Yeah, he would put in the miles. He put in a lot of walking. It's a big conference and it's hosted in several hotels, so he'd really do some walking. But so the plan, I mean, I guess it's still all kind of up in the air. It depends on, you know, who replaces the city administrator and whatnot. But we have been talking internally for quite some time that even when Mike was still here, we had toyed with the idea of sending someone else down with Mike to tag team. um and so we talked about that being me at one point um but uh yeah it i think that we will probably plan on sending three people down yeah um to fill the shoes of mike basically but it may just end up being two we'll see um we'll see what the budget can handle and um and what you know who's sitting in in the city administrators you know spot

So, I think that's a great idea and that's a great question. I had really how many is planning on going. So I think that's good. Especially that we have these growth visions going that you've showed us. So.

There's a lot of prep work that goes into going down to that conference and I've talked with Mike about it recently. He's he's wanted to help coach and. We have an extensive list of contacts that he left behind, but it takes three, four emails, phone calls with the people that you're trying to get meetings with before you really have to pester them to get a meeting set. And then it's strategic too, knowing where they're going to be at in the convention. You don't want to have a 15-minute window meeting, you know, in one location and then and then have to book it you know literally a mile away potentially um so it's it's kind of strategic but a lot of and then there's just all the preparation in terms of making sure we have you know the contact and materials for the owners of the property and maps and all that kind of stuff so anyhow any other questions and i'll or i'll Okay, the residential stuff, homestead subdivision phase 4. so the homestead development has a chunk of that's 2 parcels on the East side of the development. Bisected by 4th street, they're, they're part of 4th street extension. And they originally were going to put. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 and 40 cottages on that site, they had development approved plans to do that and they were going to be leased out small 1 and 2 bedroom rental units. And they have decided to go to a product that would allow them to on individual lots and allow them to sell those off. And they'll be there, I think, 35 units is how many they can get on there with that model. And they'll be 1,000 to 1,200 square feet, basically. We have received some preliminary drawings from them and are scheduling a pre-application meeting with them here shortly. So that's moving forward. I believe we'll see actual submittals this late summer or fall and work that through the platting process. It is covered under the overarching PUD of that subdivision out there. So I don't foresee any major hiccups For that project, and that's nice, you know, Hayden homes, anytime they commit to something, they always follow through. So something that I really appreciate about them and working with them.

Can I ask you a quick question on this one? We talked at the work session a bit about, or maybe, no, was that the, sorry, was that our tag group? I noticed that the 4th Street conversation was in kind of in the long, I think tagged as in the long-term plans. Just curious how that looks and how that fits. It seems like there's been some contention there, and I'm just curious. I assume the development probably will happen no matter what, but I'm just curious how that ties in.

Yeah, so... this particular project will not um would not be impacted by the lack of that road not going through we it won't even be in the picture um the densities that were approved this this 30 these 35 additional lots are are covered under the overall number of units that were approved for the pud and so hayden holmes has has um met all of the transportation impact requirements for the homestead development. So we won't be asking any more of them in that regard. But development further to the west, it will become an issue and we'll need to figure that out. And as far as I know, I don't know that any opinions have changed from the conference's opinion on that road not going through.

Awesome. I appreciate that. I know they've been talking about adding those units in since we bought our house there in 2015. So certainly it's not a surprise that it's coming, but it's cool to see that it's coming finally. So thank you.

Northwest or Hillcrest construction that is the Hamby's Dave and Clayton Hamby. They've they're the developers of the apartment complex at the top of college Avenue on the right. They brought some property on Southwest 6th, and then you're planning that into 9 lots. That'll have duplexes on them. They have approved plans. And they have their site development permit in hand. They haven't started construction. We're still, you know, open dialogue with them. I honestly don't recall what their schedule is, if it's this fall, if they're holding off until winter. Latitude Apartments, so that has been rebranded, which was formerly the Villages of Fort Walla Walla. They have been in contact with us and are planning to build the development in phases. So this next phase we're hoping they're telling us that a late August early September start 60 units. So that would be 136 unit and 124 unit and then their clubhouse and pool. We did hit a little bit of a bump on the road last week in that they were planning on utilizing an 8 year multifamily tax exemption program. That is that we actually have. Adopted under in our municipal code, it's a pilot program. So the multifamily tax exemption program is. Typically only allowed for larger communities, 15,000 and above the state during this whole housing crisis issue ran a pilot program where smaller communities could participate in the multifamily tax exemption program. But the caveat was, is that. if you are a smaller community you're only eligible for the eight or for the 12 and 20 year program and the 12 and 20 year programs have a requirement that you actually um rent out 20 of your units as affordable for the 10 for the 12 or 20 years depending on what your program you go with um our code um erroneously adopted the eight-year program in addition to that and the appealing thing about the eight-year program is that you get that tax exemption for eight years and you're not required to offer any affordable units and so last fall commerce um we have to do some reporting with them and i was in going back and forth with them and i mentioned that you know we had this These developers that were interested in the 8 year program, but we have, you know, it hasn't happened yet. And they said, well, whoa, whoa, wait. They, you can't do that. You're not eligible for it. So. The developer wasn't aware of that and so that's. There happened to take a look a look at their finances. So, and I, I did ask them directly if they're, you know, if they're interested in the 12 or 20 year. Program, they said that that did not work with their portfolio because they're building class a units and that's not their market. So, um.

It's a question. Is this the land that's across the street from Home Depot?

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Right next to the water that I get asked by my neighbors all the time. What's going on? And can we cut the bushes? Because there's foxes there. I never heard a fox before and there are some hiding in there and they're kind of scary, but. Yeah, so right now the update is, it's in old and it's in the hold.

We're, we're hopeful that they'll be able to figure this out and continue to move forward. But, um, yeah. Um, project, um, oh, the sermon development. So that was an apartment complex on Spitz and bird that that was completed last fall spring. So that added for 40 apartments to our inventory. And from what it looks like, they're leasing them out and stuff, so that's good. Stone Creek Development, so that was the Christiansen property. And they are retooling to go primarily for a single family. They've been kind of on hold on submitting their plans. I mean, they're actually still in design. But the right-of-way acquisition process also kind of, they were like, well, We're just going to kind of hold off on doing anything because we don't know what direction we're going to bring our utilities from for or what fate where they would start their initial plan was to do their 1st phase off of the John here. And so they kind of just wanted to wait and see. So. I have let them know that where we've come to some agreements on the right away stuff acquisition and that they were happy to hear that. But this developer is out of post falls. It's lakeside companies. They're. they have this is the same company that actually was they have a division that does the assisted living facilities that i was talking about earlier so they have a number of investment companies that they manage so let's continue to work with them hopefully we will start seeing applications this fall or winter

Can I ask a quick question? Yep. I thought they were looking at doing some mixed-use housing within that development, not just single-family housing.

They were looking at doing some mixed-use stuff. That was going to require some code amendments, and I think the market, you know, has changed a little bit, and so they opt to just go to single-family this time. Villages of Garrison Creek phase 12, so that's under construction. You've seen homes going up there. They are committed to, I think, building another or going for permit for 12 to 13 more units through the end of this year. That'll leave half a dozen or so lots available that they'll build on next year. But they have phase 13 that they need to construct, and their plan is to do that. That's 33 lots in the winter of 27. So that's good. We like to see that development come to close out, build out. That phase 13 also triggers some improvements on Villages of Garrison Creek. Villages of Garrison Creek? Village Way. Village Way. Village Way and Myra. Sorry, my street names mixed up. They'll do a pedestrian crossing there and they're widening that section to allow for a turn lane. Those permits are through the City of Walla Walla and I believe next week they have a meeting with the council on because it does require, like, some park dedication. So, they, the developer has to compensate for that because it's widely towards the park side. And I think the council needs to accept those. The funds, you know, what they're proposing for the. They purchase, but it's good to hear that that's moving forward. Deer Meadows subdivision, that's a smaller subdivision on Southwest 12th. It's 12 lots and the developers of the Tri-Cities, Jeff Kelly, and he just, he and his partner are just kind of dragging their feet. It'd be a nice little development. That's a nice little quiet area down there. So we're just Trying to encourage him to finish it out to do it. Yep. The lots are large enough that it could accommodate some duplexes. So it kind of has some flexibility down there. And like I said, it's quiet neighborhood, so. Martin Airfield, again, so that's Tarragon Northwest, and they have about 80 acres south of Doan Creek that is zoned residential. They have shared with us some conceptual layouts. They're, you know, trying the idea of making some zone changes that would allow for some mixed use, maybe some apartments in the middle of it and then single family around it. And then there's an upper area where they have up on the bluff that they would do houses. So We keep in contact with them on a pretty regular basis. They are working with us right now to receive some fill dirt from our lagoon project and our Transmission main extension, that's all of course contingent upon who we select as the contractor and whether or not what their plan is to do with the dirt. But that would be really helpful for that site to to get some filter on it for what they want to do out there. And then project sod, that's 1 of that's 1 of the pieces up off of Lula. It was an old sod farm and, um. It's in our UGA application. It's about 25 acres and it would be suitable for multifamily development. That's what we're proposing to bring it in as. The west, the east side of that butts right up against the manufactured home park that's up there, Sunset Villa. So we're hopeful that that comes in because we need more affordable units in the valley. So it'd be good for us. I can give you a quick update too, I guess, on the UGA application process. I was going to ask you about that towards the end, so just go ahead. So I'm glad you're talking about it. So our applications, several months ago, I don't remember which month because it's been so long, I think it was in May, the Planning Commission Walla Walla County Planning Commission recommended that our applications be put on the county's final docket. And that was contrary to what the staff's recommendation was, which they recommended it not go on the final docket. It finally made its way to the Board of County Commissioners yesterday in a workshop. And, um, I was pretty disappointed in. The staff's representation of our application, there were several statements made about the city hadn't provided documentation on, for instance, documentation on all the zone changes that we've made since 2018. I was shocked and it was in the material. There was. several hundred pages of material that had been provided over this over a year's worth of work and Melissa misrepresented. I don't assume my hope out of error, but it underscores the importance of why we actually need a chance to present our case at a hearing Before the planning commission, and also before the county commissioners, because, you know, this was a workshop for them and all we could do is sit in the audience and like. You know, why die because it was a workshop for just like, when you guys have workshops, you don't open it up to the public. We still don't have any decision. They didn't didn't make a decision at that meeting on whether or not because it was workshop. But we have no idea if it's if they're going to. i gotta say i didn't like the direction yeah so it's um i have a call into melissa yesterday to find out if they you know what the word is from they had an executive session afterwards um yeah i i felt like there was a lot of

Misrepresentation, misunderstanding, maybe incorrect information provided at some point, because the county commissioners, one of them made a few statements that just was not correct. Luckily, I watched it on video. I wasn't in. So unlike John, I was screaming and spitting mad.

Sorry, I missed your text messages. I had it on silent.

Yes, I figured I was like texting John at the moment. I was just spitting matters. So yes, it was very disappointing and I think the way it was delivered really put us in a really bad light and put our application in a bad light in the way it was incorrectly

Delivered to workshop or not. It seems strange to not have. Representation to present on on a project like that. It doesn't make sense to me.

They didn't let the people talk.

I was prepared. I communicated with Melissa Shoemaker director last week. I said, do I need to have my consultant in attendance? And she said. pretty much word for word, if I was in your shoes, I would have my consultants there. And then we were never even, so we had our, our consultant was online. He took two hours out of, he was at a conference actually for the GIS conference and missed some good sessions. So he could watch So, it's kind of disappointing. It was very disappointing.

I know this sounds kind of selfish, but was it just our city that got that kind of misrepresentation or would you say? Oh, okay.

It was our application that they were looking at.

So our applications doesn't have any applications in and then there's. There were 2 other private applications made by by property owners in the Valley. All of our applications are represented by the city. So.

Yeah. It was hard to watch. I was feeling sorry for you, and I assumed Michael was in the chambers as well, and I was really thinking about you guys as I was spitting mad.

So we don't know where things are headed just yet, but hopefully we'll get our chance to present our case. Thank you for being there.

Yep.

That's all I have.

A quick question, could we extend maybe a friendly invite to our commissioner that represents our, our area and.

So, I have done 2 private tours, so I've met with Bertha Clayton. Twice, and I took her 1 time. I took her the most recent when I took her on a tour of the of all the projects properties. Um, same thing with, uh, commissioner gunner, um, former, um, we met with him here, uh. Early on, and then I took him on a tour and, um, I haven't met with commissioner Kimball. We met we met with him here at the city. I didn't take him on a tour because he's pretty knowledgeable the lay of the land and property owners and whatnot. And there. I would say all three of them are very open to our proposals. They're very logical and whatnot. There's just a lot of opposition from the staff level and their consultant. I have an opinion of the wax and that you know, there are requirements and then and then there's a recommendations on how to meet those requirements and that language is in in the wax and the county staff sees those recommended sections as like, that's just how you do it. And it's very word for word. There's no room for interpretation. um so and then um their buildable lands analysis um has they're they're saying that there's 100 there's room for 136 units which quite frankly is not a lot of units and but there's space available in our existing UGA and Michael and I, and our consultant just don't understand like where they're getting those 130, those 136 units, like where, where can you build those? And we've asked them to show us their work and they've not, they've just not responded to that request. You know, we've, one one of the areas that they seem to focus on is that in order prior to considering a uga expansion a city has to show all of the changes that they've made internally so up zones rezones increase you know development standards that allow for increased densities We had had to document that and we did, you know, we've been making changes since since 2018 on allowing for more density internally. Now, we got rid of, we used to have 2 single family zones. We went down to 1. we allow duplexes in all zones. We allow, we allow to use on every lot town for the, for the most part. We've zone some properties from single family to multi family. So for a small community, I think we've done a lot to allow density to happen internally, and then we provide that in a memo to them, and apparently they don't even read it because she didn't remember, you know, that it was information provided. She said it wasn't provided. She said it wasn't provided, and their consultant who was online didn't correct her and say, oh, no, Melissa, it's in there. and so it's just frustrating and then another thing that i and i i'll stop because everyone's already heard this and they want to go home but um i think it's important for council to hear so thank you so our our applications were turned in june 30th of 2025 And then literally nothing happened for six months. And myself, I emailed regularly trying to say, hey, what's going on with the processing of our applications? Michael, who used to work there, would email his and see if he could get anything out of him. And we would get breadcrumbs if we were lucky. But we never got an invite for like, let's have a sit down. Let's talk about your application. We never got a review letter stating their concerns. We just got this this year. We got this. You know, invitation to attend their public hearing and the staff report, which was released days before the meeting said that our application, they were recommending denial. I don't even think it was days. I think it was like a day or so right before we didn't even get a chance to look at it. And so that triggered a letter from me saying, no, we're requesting that the hearing be postponed because you haven't provided us with any reason why you're recommending denial. You haven't worked collaboratively with us. And if you want to be black and white about the rules, the WAC say the counties and the cities are supposed to work collaboratively on establishing UGAs. And if they can't come to an agreement, the county's supposed to put that down in writing. Well, we never had that collaboration. They just went straight to, well, here's the reason why. And their reason why is not, in our opinion, is not supported. And then another beef that I have, and this is, you know, conflict of interest, I would say, is their consultant also works for a firm, and he personally does work for the Department of Commerce. His name is one of the authors of the draft urban growth boundary guidebook that hasn't been published yet. And also, One of the things that they're hanging their hat on is a change in the WACS that states when you're reviewing for UGAs, cities and counties have to consider all available UGAs in the county for capacity. And that was a brand new addition that went into effect last fall after our application had been submitted in just silence. And maybe I'm a conspiracy theorist, but in the world we live in, it's a possibility. Can you explain a theory of what that would look like? I've kind of like, I think that if our applications had been processed in a timely manner, when we submitted them that that we wouldn't be looking at all available because that's 1 of the last things that they're hanging their hat on is they're saying, well, yeah, maybe you guys need, you know. more UGA, but there's plenty of capacity in the entire county, either in Walla Walla's UGA or Burbank's UGA. And so we really can't approve or recommend approval of a UGA. I mean, maybe it's far flung, but... That's ridiculous.

I mean, we're looking at for growth in College Place and they're saying, well, but Burbank has plenty of room to grow. So sorry, you guys, you're out of luck.

Yeah.

Makes no sense.

It seems to me that the biggest piece of this, like the biggest sticking point is feeling like we've been misrepresented, right? Like something was factually misrepresented. And so I really do feel that we need to address that with the commissioners. Mayor, it seems like a letter is warranted here. If we address nothing else, just addressing the misrepresentation of the facts that took place, that's really important. I mean, if they're saying we hadn't done things and they were clearly in there, that needs to be corrected and they need to see that because that clearly was a sticking point that they were pushing on. It may not be the only one, but it's a significant one.

So after the workshop ended, they were planning to go into executive session to discuss what they just learned, I guess. Their prosecuting attorney wasn't present yet, so they went into recess and I asked if I could approach Bertha and she said, yeah. And so I went up and I said, This is, I'm going to give you an example of why we need to send the final docket because we are being misrepresented and it happened today on page. There is a memo and in that memo. We have identified all of the changes that we've made to allow for additional growth to happen and become a more dense community and. Melissa completely misrepresented that and your consultant didn't say. Anything about it, so this is why we need. We need our date and she's like. Not on their head, so I would assume that she raised that as a point when they did go into executive session. I'm hopeful, but we don't we don't know just yet.

So if collaboration is required under the WAC, right, and collaboration did not take place, there's no question of fact, what is the remedy under the WAC if that does not take place?

Commerce does have a dispute resolution process that you can work through. I don't know that it would help in this situation. Possibly could, but I don't really know the answer to that.

It just might be, as Councilmember referenced before, a quiver in And is it the sack? I don't know where arrows go. An arrow in the quiver. There we go. Something to utilize. You know, obviously we want to continue to work collaboratively, but the thing that governs us all is the WAC. And if there's remedies under that, that is very straightforward, non-bias, non-confrontational. It just might be a route you guys can pursue. Thanks.

Any other questions? Or comments? All right. Well, John, we'll get together and maybe craft a message if you don't hear. I think so. I think the Commissioner should know that we found some faults in the statements that were being made and the misrepresentations because they take that as truth, right? You know, and so that's what they're going based off of. And in listening to the presentation yesterday, there was a lot of carefully chosen words to Make their argument stronger and, um, you know, like, we're just not really well organized. Like, we're not putting it together. Like, things that they, they would ask, they would ask a question a fact and then the response would be, I think so. Right so it's like, they're not really saying yes or no, but they're going with. i think so i think that's right maybe yeah i think so they're not actually answering the question right they're just giving a general thing and with that i think so people often take that as fact right and and there was a lot of those answers during yesterday's meeting which really disturbed me i mean i kind of feel like I wouldn't allow those answers to be given to me. I'd push back wanting an answer, right? But sometimes you don't catch those, that that's what's happening when you're being the one spoken to. So, but when you're outside, like I was sitting outside, you know, I was catching all those statements, which really concerned me of how it was very carefully presented to put us in the poorest of light or application, in my opinion.

Forget I 1 last thing too, if we ever have meetings like this in the future, I know they don't happen often, but I would sure love to see an invite to them because I'd love to at least attend online. There's a lot of lot of commissioner meetings. I do for work and other councils. I'm on. So I'd like to like, to be able to see that stuff too. So we can really back you guys up when we have things like this in the future.

Keep that in mind next time. We'll be able to make sure to send a. Notice of meeting that we're on a docket or something or an agenda and here's the link in time. You might want to watch it. Great, thank you. I think seeing more names online or in person.

Yeah, there are a lot of people that attend those border county commission. I mean, they're. Screen that big and it was full of attendees. Yeah, thank you.

Okay, anything else on this topic? All right, thank you so much. I know I went further in than you had expected, but thank you for that and thank you for You know, and seeing this list and this work that you put together, thank you for this update. It's reassuring to be able to see these things to know that they're continuing and that they're just not being put in a folder somewhere or that not having a city administrator right now means things are being just laid on the desk. So thank you for making sure that we know that this is still continuing to be worked on and you understand the projects that are in line. Appreciate that for taking that up. All right, so we're going to move on to new and unfinished business. We do have two items of new business that was added to the agenda. Yeah, so we received an application to fill two, we received applications to fill two open commission member seats, one for the Lodging Tax Advisory Commission, also known as LTCH, and one for the Civil Service Commission.

That's not anywhere on the internet.

They're added under new and unfinished business and the 2 applications are provided on the desk there for you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

So you all should have received it on there. Yeah. Yeah.

It came up this afternoon. Carol and I spoke about getting them moving forward so that we can just get them done and we did check and they could be added for new and unfinished. The day of agenda. Okay. So we received 2 applications. The 1st, 1 is from Charles Peters, uh, college place residents for a few number of years. How long? Uh, 6 years, um, which requirements as I need to be here 1 year, I think is what it is. Um, and he has, um, applied for the civil service. Correct? That's. Yep. My recommendation is that we approve the application for Charles Peters to join our Civil Service Commission. Let's see. Second. Okay. Well, I can't make a motion. So that's my recommendation. Who would like to make a motion to appoint Charles Peters to the Civil Service Commission?

I'll make a motion.

Thank you. And who seconded? I can second. All right. And Dr. Lopez second. all right so we're going to take these a little bit separately any discussion from any council members on this application all right let's vote all in favor of approving Mr. Peters to the civil service commission say aye aye any opposed All right, the eyes have it in the motion is passed and the 2nd application is to the lodging tax and advisory commission from Tara. That's correct. Who has lived in college place a year and she's already jumping in to participate in her community and volunteer some of her time.

I actually she lives in Walla Walla, but she manages the Walla Walla vacation rentals of which there are rentals that exist in College Place.

That's right. We have that discussion. Okay. Yep. So she let me make that correction. She does not live in College Place. However, she does manage rentals in College Place. Now our requirements of LTCH are that we have commission members who are representative of hotel rental industry at which so Ms. Luthi would fit that criteria even though she's not a college place resident she is still a vast interest in college place rentals and lodging um and you received her application do we have any questions or comments regarding this application from any members of the council so just to confirm she does meet our requirements correct okay thank you correct thank you if there's no questions we have a motion to approve miss luthi to our alt tech i'll make a motion to approve thank you councilmember green is there a second second thank you captain or sherman we have a first and a second any other discussion hearing none all in favor of approving miss luthi to the ltec say aye aye any opposed all right the eyes have it and the motion is passed all right thank you caroline i appreciate you getting those on the agenda so quickly thank you is does this mean all of your commissions are yes they are all full again so no vacancies now that you asked okay we're going to move on to closing items does any member of the council um have any items they'd like to discuss or share okay council member lopez and then council member sherman

Council Member Sherman? You all probably have in your email from Association of Washington Cities an event that's next week called 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. We have that presenter at the annual conference, and it's really, really good. It's free. I would encourage you to attend. This sounds like it's going to be a follow-up, but he's a very engaging speaker. Is it online? It's online, yeah. Oh, cool. The 22nd at 10 a.m.

10 a.m. Okay. Association Washington cities. Okay. Thank you. Council member Lopez.

Yeah, last week at our workshop, we talked a little bit about our staff and how much we appreciated them. And I started thinking about all the stuff that I've been interacting with over the last little bit. And naturally, I made a list. And so I had 12 people of our staff that I've been working with. I just wanted to publicly thank them. Carolyn, you've been awesome. Thank you for all the event stuff that we got to do together and for all the hard work that you do to make sure that we have everything we need here. And then, of course, Kat has been doing awesome at the farmers market and just represents us really well, I feel. I get to work a little bit with John and besides his great reports, he also gives good advice and I appreciate him in that regard. Brian, your financial detail reports are good. Thank you for the attention that you give the detail and the future growth of College Places is looking good. robert it's always good to see you um 8 a.m on wednesday mornings uh for a downtown college police association um brings a wealth of information and just uh yeah he's his conversation is always really helpful and he always does it with a smile so um chief troy tomorrow's already already left but uh he's always great to work with as well um I have to warn you or nobody warned me. I should say that and I had to learn this on my own that he can be really surprisingly difficult to recognize in public if he's not in. Yeah. But we, we should be proud of of what he does in the department and all of the different pieces that are happening in that space, especially the limitations of the age of and under size of the facility that they're using. I had the opportunity. Dylan officer don't help to arrange a police right along for me. And so officer Adams gave me 1st, hand, look at what the, what the work does what he does and enjoyed maybe too much turning on the lights and falling over a scooter. That was really fun. It's three o'clock. But yeah, I mean, they do all that work with grace and care and it's just really awesome. Most recently, I've been working with Scott Hall and his assistant Zachary Hoffer around getting permits for demolition and working on a project together. And so that's been really good. John Boos has been out there with the fire department. And then Jay... Sure, thank you. Came out with a water storm drain and stuff like that. It's been really amazing to me how many people we have that are so skilled and are just competent at their work. I also want to give a special shout out thank you to Mary Hernandez. She came out and visited our project and the volunteers, there were 40 volunteers out there, and she just recognized their hard work and commitment. they were buzzing talking about it for all day long it just kept them going and she even put on a hard hat and took a hammer to one of the toilets into the wall and yeah did some demo work so just she helped boost morale so thank you for coming out yeah i knocked the sink in one piece off the wall that's so true now it was cast

We expected it to shatter. Thank you for that.

That was fun. And I know this is a short list, but it's just a small sampling of all the people that make the city happen. And so I think it's worth just recognizing that we have a good team and I don't know how to show appreciation more than that. I know in sports, sometimes we'll do the tunnel after a game. you know if you do that when they come to work or something but um you know i appreciate appreciate you guys and uh maybe when you leave work but thank you to all the leaders here in that space well quickly on that note i did want to share with the staff that council um you know after last week's uh meeting council is um

truly interested in your mental health in your morale in how we can help kind of create some healing and some just some confidence building and okay we're moving forward kind of thing but they are concerned and they do you know there's something we can do We have strict limitations on what we can do, but please, I counsel really would like to be able to thank you guys and more than just saying, thank you. They really do. They want to recognize your hard work and all that you've been through and hope set out moving forward. It's a new day. So. I was included on a voicemail today, so I just want to mention this real quick, to Robert's team that we got a phone call from a citizen. I thought about sharing it right now, but she is thrilled with the work we're doing on the sidewalks. She took the time to call and say that she You know, she just wanted us to know that she is so happy seeing the sidewalks go up around town that they're, they're so beautiful. They're great. And she just wanted them to know that there's 1 citizen that is very grateful for them. And I think there's more than 1 citizen, but the 1 that called, but I just wanted to mention that that somebody took the time to call and recognize that team for their sidewalk. So please make sure that they. know that the citizen and that mayor and council really appreciate that especially you know one citizen colleen it makes me feel great right that somebody feel feels better about the community they live in so thank you for that yeah thank you i would agree it put a smile on my face to listen to that voicemail so sidewalks and she likes the way we build roads and that were thorough and that was felt good so yeah we don't get enough of those positive phone calls so that that was good

Yeah, make sure you save those for a rainy day. They're gold.

Yeah, accidentally. All right.

Now I'm just picturing Robert laying in his bed with headphones on, just listening to it on loop, kicking his legs in the air. Yeah, exactly.

all right so if there's nothing else oh john sorry yes i just wanted to put a plug in for next month's workshop just in case you guys are planning your schedule and i know is it well it's also your opportunity to spend two hours with our consultant and planning staff on our comprehensive plan update so you'll get an in-depth review an opportunity to interact with our consultants and make last minute suggestions of our draft comp plan before it goes out for public comment. So please attend that.

What day is that? August 4th? August 4th.

Yeah.

Be there or be square. mean to be fair we've already spent like 12 hours with them yeah i think you guys are really fascinating meetings have really heard all of this already but the rest of us all right thank you it's going to be really good anything else all right if there's nothing more do we have a motion to conclude so moved yeah put in there all right is there a second second all right we are first at a second so if there's no objections the meeting is concluded at 7 25 p.m thank you everybody