City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, July 14th, 2026 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with all council members present this evening. So with that, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

Move to approve the agenda. Second.

All right, we have a motion in the second. All those in favor of adopting the agenda as published, signify by saying aye. Aye. Excuse me. A proclamation recognizing Muslim American Heritage Month. And we have a shared reading of the proclamation, beginning with Councilmember Madron.

Whereas freedom of religion holds the distinction as a cherished right and a foundational value upon which the laws and ethics of the United States are based. and whereas Muslims around the world and in the United States specifically constitute a racially and culturally diverse group that is bound together by a shared belief in diversity as strength and unity as power, and whereas Muslims make up more than 25% of the global population

and Islam as the world's fastest growing religion, and whereas the Muslim American community provides support and assistance to people throughout the community through charitable contributions, social activism, and community groups, and whereas Muslims make substantial contributions to nearly every aspect of society, including academia, law, business, healthcare, military service, and more,

And whereas Olympia is home to a vibrant Muslim community that plays an essential role in enriching the unique character of our city and state and.

Whereas the Islamic Center of Olympia welcomes more than 40 ethnicities to worship in community together, which includes immigrants and refugees and.

Whereas we acknowledge that the history and contributions of Muslim Americans in our country are often neglected or defaced by prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, and Islamophobia.

And whereas on this occasion, the city of Olympia recommits itself to standing against hate and injustice in all forms and to combating anti-Muslim rhetoric.

through awareness, education, community, and meaningful action, and... Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Olympia City Council does hereby proclaim July 2026 as Muslim American Heritage Month in the City of Olympia, and our community joins those of all faiths and backgrounds in celebrating our Muslim friends and neighbors and the cultural and religious heritage of the Muslim community. Signed in the city of Olympia, Washington, this 14th day of July, 2026, Olympia City Council, Dante Payne, Mayor. And now I'd like to invite up Dr. Omnikazi, who is a member of our Social Justice and Equity Commission, to provide some remarks and to accept the proclamation tonight. Good to see you.

I can move this, right? Assalamu alaikum, shalom, and hello to all. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members, all my community members for joining us tonight for Celebrating Muslim Heritage Month. We are truly honored as it's our fourth year of Celebrating Muslim Heritage Month, and I'm truly honored. It's time to learn, share, and honor the rich culture and contributions of the Muslim Americans. Muslim Heritage Month means new understanding and lasting support. Our city is home to all. We share this joy as our diverse city of Olympia united on faith and community. Washington State thrives on diversity, with around more than 100,000 Muslim community members living in Washington State. And tons and dozens of mosques and Islamic centers are in Washington State. Muslim Americans contribute significantly to the United States across virtually, notably representing almost 5% of the physicians, of all physicians and driving over more than $100 billion in the domestic halal food market, which is huge. Their ongoing impact spans around breaking STEM innovations, civic leadership, and commitment to philanthropy and job creation. As we celebrate this month, let us commit to standing together. Let us say no to hate. Let us say let's understand each other. Let us say let's love each other. By building friendships, we create a safer place for everyone to live and grow. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council chamber members. Thank you, my community members for supporting us. Let us keep loving, leaving, and growing together. I'm really honored that we are joined by legislator Lisa Parsley, who played a huge role in making this Muslim Heritage Month recognized, along with Mayor Dante Payne and the other council members. Please welcome legislator Lisa Parsley. Thank you so much.

I bet you thought I was coming for a public comment. My grandfather once said to me, if you learn somebody's name, they cannot be your enemy. You cannot hate them. And if you learn somebody's name, they can actually become a friend. I feel like our proclamation that we started four years ago was the moment we started to learn people's names that actually lived in our community. What I've learned is the beauty of an iftar, the beauty of an Eid celebration, thanks to Dr. Qazi, I have learned what it means to pass a resolution and then a bill to celebrate the Eid holiday in the state of Washington. And it all began here. So you all should be very proud of the city. I know I am. It's very difficult sometimes to be unbiased with the other jurisdictions in my district. But once again, Olympia is proving why I'm super proud of you. And I thank you for this proclamation once again.

Thank you, Dr. Kazi, and thank you, Representative Parsley. Good to see you both. Are there any comments from council? All right, seeing none. So I just have to tell you how grateful I am to you, Dr. Kazi, for really being such a critical person and making sure that we build those bridges and relationships between the city and the Islamic Center of Olympia and the Muslim community who lives here. For those of you who may not know, the Islamic Center of Olympia represents over 40 ethnicities across the city of Olympia and in the Thurston County region. And so it's a very diverse place of worship that I think plays a critical role in really showing who lives here, who works here, and who enjoys being a community here. And it's so important that we do proclamations like recognizing Muslim American Heritage Month because we have a lot of work to undo a lot of the harm that has been inflicted upon the Muslim community for many, many years, especially post 9-11. And so what this is about is recognizing what the Muslim community is really about, which is a faith of peace and love and that's something we should all be celebrating and lifting up those who do celebrate it as well. I can't believe it's been four years since the first time we introduced this proclamation, and it's such a huge honor to do it once again. So I thank you, and Representative Parsley, thank you for being here to be a partner to Dr. Kazi and to celebrate this. So thank you both. And now I have the proclamation here to present to you. And you can come on up for a photo. And if you wish to join in the photo, please feel free to come forward. No, you did not have to come intentionally just for the proclamation. If you wish to be part of the photo, please come forward. I would be remiss if I did not give a shout out to Mr. Ibrahim Haroon, who just handed me a copy of his very own book, Ramadan with Ibrahim, an Islamic book for kids about Ramadan. So here is his book that he has published. It's very cool. Thanks for sharing it with me. All right, so that concludes our special recognition portion of the agenda for tonight. We're gonna move on to public comment and I'll turn it over to the mayor pro temp.

Thank you, Mayor. So we have all in-person public commenters. So that'll be a treat for us. And no virtual public comment, is that right? OK, I'm seeing that confirmation from staff. So for a couple of housekeeping items around public comment, just in case this is your first time or if it's been some time since the last time for you, everyone has two minutes. And you will start at the podium here. can see the mic's on it's green so once you come up and you you begin speaking then the two minutes will start the timer's just right over here and i'll start counting down there's also some lights before you on the podium and so when it gets to yellow that's just an indicator that you have 30 seconds left so please start wrapping up your comments and then once it gets to red and then of course the timer is over please conclude your comments Feel free to finish your sentence, but try to keep it at that. And if you do run out of time, please know that you can send us an email. Or you can return for continued public comment on another night. So with that, I'll just call up a few different names so you know where you are in the queue. And I do apologize in advance if I mispronounce your name. Just go ahead and correct it for the record. Oh, and we are very close to a primary election. So it would behoove me to remind folks to please not speak for or against anything that's going to be on the ballot.

But do vote of course so with that we have Chris Tucker followed by Lauren Richards followed by Ruth Kodesh Eskin Good evening Mayor Payne Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen and council members thank you for your leadership for our community the betterment of our community and our and our city. And thank you for your ongoing support of Olympia AHA Museum and Visitor Center. AHA is Arts and Heritage Alliance. I'm Chris Tucker, a founding board member and current board secretary of Olympia AHA, a nonprofit organization founded in 2018 to create and sustain a museum for arts, cultures, and heritage in downtown Olympia. And I am so happy to say that we're doing it. Just one year ago, we opened the Olympia AHA Museum and Visitor Center in the active corner of State and Columbia, yes, in the heart of downtown Olympia, with free admission. Funding from Inspire Olympia, thanks to you and city staff, has been key to our progress. And with funding from LTAC, we are a museum and a visitor center where we have some great info about museums and galleries, the farmer's market, parks, tribal centers, trails, historic sites, family activities, maps, and more. Also important are our many partners, Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, Squaxin Island Tribe and Nisqually Tribe, Evergreen State College, Olympia Artspace Alliance, and the Olympia Downtown Alliance. Our two part-time staff are here tonight, and we have dozens of volunteers who staff the front desk, greet and guide museum visitors, local residents, and tourists from near and far. We sweep the floors and advise and support our plans. So thank you. Our two part-time staff, Ruth and Lauren, can tell you a bit more.

Good evening. I'm Lauren Richards. I am in charge of visitor services at Ali Aha. And I want to echo Chris and thank you all for everything you do for this community and particularly for investing in Ali Aha and helping us make that dream come true and create this free, accessible, vibrant space for the community. I have been crunching numbers, and I'm really happy to share that in the last 12 months since we opened our doors, We have greeted more than 6,600 visitors to engage with museum content, participate in programs, and access local resources. Visitors represent 44 states and 22 countries, but the bulk of those that we serve come from right here within our own community. More than 70% of our visitors are from the greater Olympia area. Recently those visitors have included leadership and youth leadership Thurston county the Olympia downtown alliance reeves middle school seventh and eighth grade entire classes as part of their downtown field trips and high school exploration tours with the Olympia historical society. Aliaha is really powered by this local community. During open hours were staffed almost exclusively by volunteers newcomers and Olympian natives from students to retirees all here because they are passionate about our mission so passionate that they have collectively donated more than 2000 hours to help us keep our doors open. I really see Aliaha as a microcosm of the larger Olympia community. It's such a warm welcoming space, a little quirky, but really a place where people are curious and they come in to engage and learn and share together. Visiting is a wonderful way to experience that firsthand, so I hope that you all will take advantage of that opportunity. Volunteering is a wonderful way to participate in that and to share the experience with visitors and locals alike. And our new membership program is also a wonderful way to engage. All of that information is available on our website, aliaha.org.

Thank you so much. All right. So Ruth's up next. And then after Ruth will be Denise Dej, followed by Sheba Diamond. Thank you. Hi.

I'm Ruth Kodesh Eskind, and my job at Ole AHA is to create engaging exhibits that dive deep into Olympia's local history, arts, and cultures. I can't overstate the importance of having a museum in our community. Like libraries or public parks, museums are accessible hubs, and ours is free, like a library or public park. We foster dialogue, we preserve collective memory, and we give diverse community members a place to gather and engage with ideas. Right now, you can visit It's the Water, an exhibit exploring how local waters shape our community from Tumwater Brewery to the Tribal Canoe Journey. We partnered with the Nisqually Tribe, this year's journey hosts who loaned us paddles, regalia, and potlatch gifts to share with downtown Olympia. There's also Paint the Town, which walks through downtown murals and the stories behind them, including Rebecca Howard, Olympia's historic Chinatowns, and murals commissioned by the city of Olympia during COVID shutdowns. Our exhibit, You Are Here, shows how our museum's own site has changed over time. We sit where the Squaxin village Bischutwood once stood, about 12 plank houses and longhouses along the waterfront. Working with the Squaxin Island Museum, we display traditional clamming baskets and craft materials that would have been found there. And we trace how massive dredge and fill operations shaped this shoreline into the industrial area that we know today. Since opening last summer, we've curated 11 exhibits, including hosting the Billy Frank Jr. Maquette and the Pride storytelling projects. excited to watch the olympia aha museum become a cornerstone in this community a place that kids return to every year and where real conversations happen where inspiration has sparked i'd like to invite all of you for a private tour at the museum let me know anytime you'd like to come down and i would walk you through our exhibits thank you

Good evening, everybody. My name is Denise DeLegge Pierce, and I am very happy that workers affordability and protections is once again being brought forth before the city council. I want to say that workers rights are human rights that are all too often ignored. I speak from personal experience. I grew up in extreme poverty in a small town in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, that poverty carried over through my adult years into my life in a small Ohio City. I want to talk about that a little bit to give you an example of what it is that workers go through, that frontline workers, the quote unquote expendables, go through every day. I was a manager at a bakery coffee shop for six years. And when I left there in 2015 to move to Olympia, I was only making about $10 an hour. Now, put that in terms of affordability, which is what I always did. I always used a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk as my measuring stick. How long does it take me to work to make enough money to buy a gallon of milk, a gallon of gas? And the answer at that time was two gallons of milk and maybe half a gallon of gas. My husband, he was very sick, ended up in the hospital and I had to make the painful decision of did I continue going to work or did I visit my husband in the hospital? I had to choose to work because I couldn't afford not to. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and two minutes really isn't enough for everything I want to say, so I'll have to submit my comment in writing. But I hope you will consider just how greatly decisions impact workers, these folks, every day. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Shiva approaching, followed by Chris Fergus, followed by Rachelle Martin.

Hello, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, council members. My name is Shiva Diamond. I'm the cheese specialist at the Olympia Hagen. I'm also the shop steward for the store for UFCW 367. I'm here to offer my comments on the workers' affordability protections thing that's happened. Predictable scheduling for workers would make it easier for workers to plan out their lives and potentially allow for a better work-life balance. Requiring companies to schedule two weeks instead of one week in advance would help alleviate stress and anxiety by knowing how many hours are scheduled for their How many hours they're scheduled for their estimated paycheck and having more time to either swap shifts or ask for more hours. According to MIT's living wage calculator, the gap between the state minimum wage and the living wage for the city of Olympia is currently estimated to be $9, specifically $8.99 for a single adult with no children. Even for two working adults without children, the gap is still estimated to be at least 56 cents an hour. Every worker employed full time deserves to earn enough to afford to live without assistance, whether by the state or federal government family or friends or taking on personal debt. A rising tide lifts all boats and by raising the floor experienced workers wages would likely rise as well employers wanting to keep their skilled long term staff. would likely need to bump their pay to stay competitive, and retaining competent, experienced workers costs less than recruiting and training new ones. It takes time to learn, and that's lost productivity until they get the hang of things. Any business that offers good pay and a good working environment will attract and retain workers. This ordinance would simply reach the employees paying the least and protects the workers who need it the most. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Chris Fergus. Hi.

Hi. My name is Chris Fergus. I appreciate you all hearing me. I came to speak about workers' affordability and protections. I have spoken here before on the Worker Bill of Rights. I'm very passionate about this. I've served this community for about 10 years as a cashier at Safeway, as well as at Fred Meyer. So I've seen most of this community come through my check stand. And I have to say, I kind of interview people. I know a lot about our community, and I know that our grocery workers are not just the people that really need these worker affordability and protections. A lot of people in this community are struggling. And it's not just... the grocery workers. I did write a little thing, but I'm not very good at speaking publicly. One of the big struggles our grocery workers are facing is getting enough hours to pay our bills, not to mention to qualify for our medical insurance. This is huge for me. As I age, I'm needing more and more medical attention and not feeling the security of being able to just go to the doctor if I need to is very stressful. And that really weighs on the spirit. So I'm talking about not just affordability, but also the spirit of this community. And I'm telling you that we really do need more affordability and protections. I appreciate you all listening. Thank you for your time.

Welcome back, Chris. You did great. Next, we have Rochelle Martin, followed by Henry Valls, followed by Caleb Geiger.

Hi, everybody. My name is Rochelle Martin. I'm the president of the Thurston Lewis Mason Central Labor Council, which represents organized labor in those three counties. I want to say that this is fantastic to see that worker affordability and protections is back on the agenda. This is great. I want to thank Stacy for meeting with me this morning. and really going through what this process would look like with you guys. So I want to focus not so much on individual stories because I think you're going to hear a lot of stories. I want to talk to you about the container that this discussion is going to happen in and my concerns around it. I'm a state worker right now. I'm rank and file. I've worked in state government, um, for quite a while now. And I served as a social justice and equity commissioner with the city of Olympia. When I see the model that is being proposed, I have concerns that you're creating a very top-heavy model. You're not engaging in a co-creation model like we did with the Social Justice and Equity Commission when we were doing the police auditor guidelines. When you don't co-create, you create a level of authority that you are now inhabiting as the city council. So the buck is going to stop with you guys. And I have concerns that you are not going to engage with community members in an actionable way. That you're maybe going to talk to us as organized labor people, but are you, how, what is your model for engaging with unorganized workers? Or people that, workers, it's, I have a lot of concerns that this is not tied to a specific office within the city. Stacy is wonderful. and does about a million different things for the city. This work needs to be tied in with your economic development office. It is bizarre that your economic development director doesn't talk about worker affordability. Workers pay for things in our communities. We need money so we can buy things. Why is the economic director not talking about this more? We need more engagement, not just with the Chamber of Commerce, not just with the EDC. Thank you.

Thanks for your comments. We have Henry. Is Henry here? Oh, hello.

July is Drowning Prevention Month nationwide. We often discuss public safety. However, drowning prevention does not seem to come up often. But drowning is public safety for our children and our parents. Drowning is the number one cause of accidental deaths in children one to four and number two in ages five to 14. For children with autism spectrum disorder, drowning is 160 times more likely than their peers. For children of color, these rates are 2.6 to 5.5 times greater. A peer analysis showed that Muslim children were 61% more likely to drown than their peers, and had a relative lack of access to aquatics facilities. 79% of our children with a family income less than $50,000 have no access to swim lessons. In Thurston County, this inequity is far greater due to a lack of public pools. Drowning statewide has decreased. However, in Thurston County, they have increased over the last decade. This is unfortunately not surprising as we have lost access to swimming facilities. For Olympia's children and their parents, drowning is a public safety issue, is an equity issue, and it is literally a livability issue. Olympia High School is hosting our free swim camp starting yesterday, and we had 123 children in the water in a six-lane pool. With the closure of Evergreen and now River Ridge for the time being, we're down to 11 lanes available for all of the public in all of Olympia, Tumwater, and Lacey. And all the times are now full. We cannot get any more time anywhere elsewhere to provide lessons. 123 kids in six lanes is not tenable, but there is nowhere else to go, and that overuse of those two remaining pools is going to cause further closures and eventual elimination of those pools as well. We believe we are doing our job. It is too important to just let go. All we ask is the city to include in its safety plans its plans for drowning prevention and in its budgets aquatic relative to its peers and its state and nationwide. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. I see we have a very supportive audience tonight. So we have two more, which is Caleb Geiger followed by Suzanne Beattie.

All right. Thank you, members of the Olympia City Council. And thank you to staff for preparing the presentation today on workers' affordability and protections, which is what I'm here to talk about. Of course, this isn't happening in a vacuum. This is coming after work was already done by the city on this particular project. But it also comes on the heels of the Workers' Bill of Rights. And that was an initiative that a lot of working class people came out to support, put their hearts and their souls into when they knocked on doors, when they went sign waving, when they gathered signatures for the ballot. And this highlights the importance of focusing the conversation. This conversation should be about workers. And those are the people who should be included in this conversation. So I agree with what Rochelle was saying when I do feel concerned about what members of the community are being engaged in with this conversation so far. I know that the city council and the city has done excellent work in the past on helping Olympia to be a more affordable city through housing protections. That was done in my opinion it was very brave of the city council to do it wasn't particularly popular and it continues to face opposition so i know that the city has the capacity to do the brave work and that includes engaging the workers in our community engage those who represent them such as our local unions that we have like ufcw seiu and woofsy engage those who speak for workers like organizations like the central labor council But I agree with Rochelle. Find the ways to engage with workers. There were a lot of small business owners during last year's Workers' Bill of Rights initiative who said that they really cared about their workers. So perhaps there would be opportunities for listening sessions during business hours with city staff in order to engage employees where they're at and listen to how they can best serve themselves through their protections and through providing more affordable wages in the city of Olympia. Again, it's imperative to keep workers at the center of this. Without this, it's just another feel-good initiative. Thank you.

All right. So our final public commenter tonight is making their way up.

Good evening, Mayor Payne and city council members. My name is Suzanne Beattie, and I am a resident of Olympia. I'm here to express my gratitude that you are in the process of continuing the research and community dialogue on Olympia workers' affordability and protections. Tonight, I want to remind everyone about the cost of living in Olympia, how this impacts our workers, and my request for the composition of the work group membership. The average cost to rent a one bedroom apartment in Olympia is more than $1,500 a month. For renters to afford this one bedroom, Experts suggest the renter earn over $5,000 a month or $61,000 a year, so less than 30% of their income is spent only on rent. This means that the renter would need to be making more than $29 an hour for a 40-hour work week, 40 hours. The minimum hourly wage in Olympia is $17.13. Housing in Olympia is 17% more than the national average. Cost of living here is 12% higher. Groceries, 5.8% higher, and transportation, 28% higher than the national average. This does not include healthcare, taxes, or other living essentials. Given these facts, I find it essential to request that the work group have actual workers The boots on the ground from an array of industries living the day-to-day realities of living and budgeting in Olympia, the work group needs authentic working voices to find out how things really do work. What would a living wage mean for them and their families? How does an unpredictable work schedule impact them? What are the job safety issues they experience? Authentic working voices must be a component of this work group. Thank you for listening.

All right. That concludes public comment. I'll turn it over to the mayor.

All right. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. And just for the record, I want to mention that there is no online public comment this evening. So are there any comments from the DAIS? Mayor Pro Tem, when?

it's me again um yeah so uh see we had three different topics today okay so i'll just start from the top, I just wanted to congratulate and thank the group from the only aha museum. Only aha as an as an organization has been trying to have a museum in Olympia for a very long time now it's been. many years and i just really commend uh the organization for um for saying you know we're not gonna wait around any longer and we're gonna uh we're just gonna get to it and boy has it been a success and i've been really privileged to when i have the opportunity to be in the museum and to to see and feel uh the experience of what that success is like and how much people light up And whether they're from the area or they're just passing through to visit or for business and to there's real interest so i'm right there with you and believing in the mission. And, and you had mentioned a couple of you had mentioned some. some city support with Inspire and with lodging tax. And of course, we're not necessarily working from a place of abundance at the moment. But yeah, I wonder how that partnership can strengthen. And that's something that I'm really interested in. But overall, congratulations. It's such a value add to the community, the museum, and the visitor center. And I look forward to seeing how it'll grow. And for... I think this is probably obvious, but tonight's agenda item, we have just one. And so we will be talking about what the majority of the public commenters came in to share with us about workers' affordability and protections. And so just sort of hold my comments on that one. I appreciate folks' approach coming in. I try not to hold it against folks. If you're coming in and you're really upset about something or you're demanding something, And because I understand that there's oftentimes a reason why people are upset about something. But I just from what I'm hearing tonight, there is just a real willingness to there's a care and a willingness to work with. And I really appreciate that. So I hope you all that came in for this topic do stick around. Um, I'm anticipating a pretty rich council discussion on it, so we'll see how that goes. And then, um, oh, and then, uh, Henry, uh, you came in about drowning prevention month. Um, I don't want to just say yes from the days, but I am interested. Um, so I will explore with staff, uh, how doable some of those, uh, requests you had at the end of your, of your comments are, but thanks for coming in.

Thank you councilmember Barrett that I see here and earlier okay all right councilmember Gilman.

Thank you so I really appreciate your bring the aha update and I'll take you up with on the private tour because there's one thing about being sort of visible community and having retired politicians hang around the front of your lobby is that I haven't made it all the way in to the building But I've had great conversations in the entrance. So we'll work something out. We'll work something out. And I'm very, very grateful for each of the voices and perspectives that you brought as we look again at worker affordability and protections. You've helped sort of set my lens for the conversation later this evening. Chris, you've spoken several times and don't undersell yourself. I really appreciate what you have to say, your voice and your experience. So I wanted to shout that out. And Henry Volz and I were on another meeting last night, and I'm hoping that staff can check in that In your report last night you mentioned that the evergreen estimates for re commissioning the pool came in substantially lower than the initial numbers we talked about. It would be good to get an update on where we're at with the possibilities for the tsc pool. That I'm just grateful for everybody came out tonight, thanks.

Thank you. Councilmember Vanderpool.

Yeah, I will also take up the private tour. I've been in there a few times, but I'll be curious about I'll probably bring a bunch of questions. I'll be curious. Thank you for coming with an update. I'm also be interested in the public pool information just to see what the numbers are saying now, because I think the numbers were a barrier for some people. And if they if the numbers are better than that could change a lot of perspectives. I do have a lot more to say when the agenda item comes up, that way for staff notes and whatnot. But I do appreciate folks coming out. Authentic workers is a key thing and a theme that I think is very important. I mean, it is often hard to catch people that are not even represented by unions, but like are just regular people working at a coffee shop, right? These people probably two or three jobs and they have very busy lives. And it becomes harder to capture that. that lived experience, and that lived experience is key in the stake holding of this process. Because often, because they're not as organized, right, they're often not able to come out. But yeah, I'll be saving a lot of my I hope you could stay because we it's going to be a consent calendar and then the other business starts. And so I do have a quite a bit written here that I'm going to preserve for that.

Thank you. In queue, are there any additional comments from council? All right. Seeing none, I will just reiterate some of the comments the Mayor Pro Tems said around your willingness to come out for public comment. And it seems that you're taking an approach of collaboration and also already offering some insight as to what you think of the process that is at least written down so far. And so this is how I think we're going to be able to really create and shape something here. Stay tuned for the rest of that conversation. To our folks from AHA, it's good to see you. Thanks for coming out. I so appreciate the work that you're doing. Council's already heard me go on a tirade before about how I feel about Olympia being the capital and having a museum. I very much am supportive and believe in what it is that you're doing. It started out as sort of this proof of concept, you know, that, you know, a museum could operate and that there's a demand and a desire. from the public, and you're here tonight to tell us that there is, and we so appreciate that. Lauren, I think I met you back in January at the annual ODA dinner, so it's good to see you, and looks like things are going well, so good to see you. Ruth, we haven't met, but I very much look forward to meeting you in the future and haven't been to see some of the most recent exhibits, so I'll take you up on that offer to check it out. I think there's tremendous opportunity for something like this to talk about the past, present, and future of this community with what you can do with your exhibits and really attract and draw more people to the museum. Um, and, and I just so appreciate, um, all of your work that you've done to this point, um, to at least get us to a place where, uh, this isn't just a concept, but there is, uh, something real and tangible here. And, um, I very much look forward to, uh, seeing in the future, how are there ways that we can be supportive of the museum so that it can expand and grow and draw more visitors to our community? especially our young people who are the students here in the community. So thank you for coming out. All right. So with that, that concludes public comment for tonight. We're going to move on to adoption of the consent calendar. I need a motion and a second.

Move approval of the consent calendar.

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Are there any requests for comments or questions? Any polls? OK. Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor of adopting the consent calendar as published, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. The consent calendar is adopted. OK. So that takes us to our only business item that we have for tonight. It's item 6A on our agenda. And it is the workers affordability and protections process update which is going to be presented by our assistant city manager Stacey Ray.

Hello good evening for the record I'm Stacey Ray assistant city manager. So the purpose of tonight's agenda items to provide you council and the community with an update on where we are in addressing workers affordability and protections. In 2024, the City Council's Finance Committee began a discussion on addressing minimum wage, predictive scheduling, and workplace safety to help address concerns about the cost of living and job safety for lower wage earners in Olympia. In late 2024, Council received a significant amount of community input on a draft process and response directed staff to slow the process and revisit the research portion in 2025. And we paused the process midway through 2025 when a citizen-led initiative was placed on the November election ballot. Proposition 1, as it was known, failed at the time. And council asked that staff bring this topic back for further work in 2026. So the discussion tonight is really focused on process and timeline. And it picks up where we left off in 2025 and yet is also very early in this process, so my hope was to just talk briefly about a proposed process and timeline. that's in response to what i've heard from all of you, thus far, your interest in this process and timeline and then open it up for conversation and questions. So what I want to introduce is shown on the slide, and then we also have handouts available for folks that are here today. What I'm going to talk about is a two-part process that helps us accomplish three things. The first is understand the data and the research around low-wage earners in Olympia and what other cities are doing to address similar issues. The second part is to determine what issues around affordability and workplace safety the council wants to address. So in other words, support you coming to agreement on what the key problem is that you want to try to potentially solve through council action. And then the third is to identify possible solutions for council consideration. Based on what I've heard from the conversations that you all have had to date, I'm sharing a proposal that helps address two things. It helps strike a balance. Between one is the urgency to start this work this year, And to get to some conclusion or end in a relatively short amount of time on again a topic that some of you have said requires that kind of urgency and ambition. To is to try to again strike a balance to involve Community a variety of Community Member perspectives and lived experiences in that conversation. So. What this is is a process, I provided for discussion tonight is one that involves the community in providing input and feedback. So that means that you know as city staff and primarily me so i'd be the staff to this work works directly with the Community throughout the process to ensure their concerns and desires are understood and considered and we would do that through listening sessions. and would then use that input to guide the development of options for council consideration we remain transparent and communicative about the process throughout and we provide feedback to the community on how their input influence the decisions the series of listening sessions proposed here would be for major groups so we've heard from earlier public comments that we know you know are potentially impacted by this issue for example but not inclusive but for example Low wage workers earners and Labor groups nonprofit organizations and businesses of a variety of sizes. The benefit to the proposed approach is that it does move relatively quickly and can produce possible solutions for Council consideration, the first quarter of 2027. It also considers the reality of our capacity do the work when balanced with other major priorities and initiatives during this time period. This looks a little different than some of the processes we've done in the past. So this process, as proposed, and again, it's up for conversation tonight, does not include the same depth and level of engagement that you've seen us do in prior work. So including examples like the one community plan, Olympia Strong, reimagining public safety and community oversight of law enforcement. It doesn't mean we wouldn't be able to go out and get quality input. But those processes used more of a collaborative or a co-created approach that involved work groups at the center of them. And because they were significantly based on involving an extensive list of stakeholders, they went deeper and took longer in order to have an experience around shared learning, building a cohesive work group, spending time with a larger variety of stakeholders, working with that work group to then develop recommendations for council consideration. So I want to just kind of balance that there's two different approaches there and they have some differentiation between the two. That type of process would take more time and involve kind of a greater lift on the part of staff. And I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I just want to articulate some of the reasons why we're starting with the proposal that you see in front of you tonight. This process tonight for discussion is broken into two main phases with a study session in September. And the purpose of the study session would be to be able to review the initial research and data findings and talk about where you want to go from there. So it'll be an opportunity to refine the scope, whether that's deciding you want to do more or do less, we can pivot and we can adjust and make changes that we may need to for the second half of the work. So my role, again, is just to ensure that we design a process that provides you with the information and the different community perspectives and voices that you need to feel confident in deciding about how to move forward. And so with that, I'm happy to answer questions and welcome your input and feedback on the proposal. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Stacy. Are there any questions or comments from the days? Councilmember Vanderpool.

So I wrote down a few of these and I'll also make a photocopy for you. So it's that too. Anyway, a few things I believe would be critical in this process as we explore this work. And the first part of this has been brought up tonight several times is including working class folks, unions, individuals experiencing poverty. um we had over 100 people over this last few years that have public commented you know if we have that record we should be looking at those folks right um And then I want to emphasize that they're the subject matter experts when it comes to affordability policies, right? You know, it's easier, it would be much, it matches the work much closer by talking to those folks that they may not know what the policy is, but they know the experience because they live it, right? And then I think that especially right now with things like the federal budget, benefits cliff will certainly attribute to the growing of this of this issue right now that downward pressure that we're experiencing in local government. And I have to say that. You know, I think, as a Council, as we go through this, we have to think about where the buck stops right, we have to think about. You know, traditionally local governments don't do this work right usually states in the federal government, but because of that downward pressure. and the fact that people trust us as a local government, we may have to take on more responsibility along these lines. Again, including the stakeholder of these folks is very important. With that said, I have two things I believe would be critical to ensure this work is done correctly. And that is taking on the task of making labor and working class affordability policy FTE position. We have staff who work with our local businesses who speak their language. Why not labor? Why not affordability? This systemic issue is too large for a one and done process in which we continue to only support half the economy. And, yes, this is not a traditional city thing, but we're also not a traditional city. We have a climate plan. We have climate staff. We have housing plan. We have housing staff. We have equity planning, and we have equity staff. It is important that we meet this need in the community. And I think the other part of this is that this last few years there's been a little bit of a debate on the council. There was a couple years ago. about whether or not labor policy was a part of the one community plan and other various policies. I think that it is important that perhaps we create a separate action plan to guide labor and working class affordability for this staff member so that this need is met. Because there is that long debate amongst us up here about whether or not it is a part of that policy. And I think that if it isn't clear enough for folks, that that be an action plan, because it's not going to get any better. And I don't think that a one and done policy will resolve it, because in another few years it's going to, you know, if the economy continues to worsen, we're going to continue to feel that downward pressure. And so I think it is critical in this way. And I want to emphasize one last thing, that when we do business policy in the city of olympia we often don't include the workers that work there why would we have the business community be involved in labor policy that's that seems to be the thing that's strange to me right these are two different you know if we want to do one way and then the other we have to do both And so to me, I think that it's important, despite where we are with the budget to include it to do an action plan to have a position in the city that is that works on this policy because Stacey Ray does great work, but we're down an assistant city manager and it's a lot it's a lot to ask you to do this and jungle work and other stuff that's going on right and I think that's it defines someone that is subject matter expert in this is would be important. That's all I got.

Okay. Councilmember Madrone, Mayor Pro Tem has a question for Councilmember Vanderpool. Are you okay with that? Okay. Mayor Pro Tem, wait.

Yeah, just a quick one. I want to make sure I'm capturing correctly what you're saying. So you said that there's two main, I know you care about this quite a bit, so you said a lot. But you said there's two main points, and one of them was that you believe there should be a FTE dedicated to labor policy. And then what was the second one?

Labor policy and affordability.

Oh, OK. So OK. Was that the two crucial things? It was just one FTE for those two things?

Well, having an action plan that's attached to that. OK. Like we have a housing action plan, and we have housing staff.

Got it. Thanks.

Okay, Council Member Madrona.

I have a couple of questions. I understand that at this point in the process, we're talking about the process itself and making sure that that's on the right track before talking about outcomes that might come out of it. So that's kind of where I'm focusing my comments. I have a couple of questions. What will be the role of our economic development director in this process?

So I am working closely with Jenica Machado, our economic development director. So she has technical expertise. So her and I have been working together in terms of identifying what the research scope would look like, what data points to include are we looking at, how to frame up what we need to understand the picture of our current state. We also have had conversations and will continue to have conversations about stakeholder engagement and making those connections. So I am tapping into her with her depth of experience and expertise. And at the same time, my role is to project manage and lead the process overall.

Okay. And will there be... Before we hit the pause button on this, there was an RFP or an RFI, an RF something, RFQ, I don't remember, that was published. We were looking for outside support, specific expertise to support this kind of research and process. Will that still be a part of this?

So there's still a research component to it, yes. We have revisited the scope of that in order to better right-size it with this process and then also to break it into two parts. So the first phase, we're going to do some initial research to kind of understand what is the experience of a low-wage earner today, like, you know, that piece of research. And that's not all-encompassing, but that's to summarize. And then, once we have our study session September week that will help me better hone in on what else you want to explore which can inform. A second research component, rather than you know, knowing upfront where where you all want to go with this, I think it would be it would behoove us to have that conversation in September, so I can better scope that second part.

Great and I appreciate that two phase process so that there's a checkpoint with us in the middle and you don't get so far down a road and then. you come to us and you're like, no, you missed this big major thing. So I appreciate how it's set up. A couple of things that I'm interested in is considering sector-based conversations. The initial proposal was brought forward by UFCW. We've heard from a few grocery store workers here. So I'm curious about what is the experience of grocery store workers. We heard concerns from the health care sector, child care sector. And so to think through how the impacts might be different based on different sectors and structure some conversations that way. Because one thing that I am concerned about is providing protections in one space has impacts in another that we didn't think about. And that's one of the things that I saw come forward with the Workers' Bill of Rights that was on the ballot. And then also You talked about engaging a variety of sizes of employers and employees at those employers. And I don't know exactly what these sizes should be, but I do recall a lot of concern around how it was structured in the initiative. So what is a small employer? What is a medium employer? What is a large employer? And getting clear on what that is for Olympia So if you're considering engaging small medium and large that we know what the those sizes should be upfront I don't think we should just work off of what was in the original initiative because I don't think it landed in the right place Yeah, and I'll just say you know I'm really interested to see what comes forward from this from the the process and glad to see people here interested in wanting to engage and You know, I hope that we just don't set it up as a zero zero zero zero sum game, because I think there was a lot of really important considerations that have come forward over the past couple of years in our discussions around this. A lot of needs to be met. And so I have faith that we can find ways to have these conversations so that we're thinking about the needs across the community. So that's what I've got.

Thank you. Before I call on our next commenter, I'll just mention for the purposes of our discussion tonight, we need to make sure that the assistant city manager leaves with some clear direction, right? So are we moving forward? And are these the right steps and approach? And is this the right approach? So if we can make sure that she gets an answer to that tonight, that will be a success to round out this conversation. Yes. Did I answer? Yeah.

Okay, I just want to make sure that wasn't specifically at me, that I didn't... Yep, just wanted to make sure that was said.

Okay.

Councilmember Gilman. Thank you, Mayor Payne. So, to the very first question, yes, I think we should move forward with this. and to the question of whether this process could serve sort of more of a literature review or reaching out to other cities rather than doing original research. I'm okay and I think that both the co-creation and the idea of having a community development staff can all happen in the future, but I would like us to continue moving forward this particular project. Most important to me are the questions that we ask that frame the research. I think that one of the biggest challenges I had in the previous run at this was that we spent a lot of time trying to lay out the challenges to employers, and we had very little material or effort around documenting the benefit to workers, to landlords, to health care providers, to our whole community of what's the affirmative side of protections or of a minimum wage for the whole community. So I'm hoping that we can look at both those sides this time. And my question is about how far along the framing of the questions, the scope of the questions. And could those be made public sooner, or at least could counsel see those as you're embarking on this process rather than having the finished process to thumbs up or thumbs down in September? I really feel like the questions that you put in this initial internal scoping document are going to shape the outcomes to more or less degree. It's just really important to me that we look at the affirmative side, the potential benefits to workers and to the broader community. I'm glad we're taking this back up. Thank you, Stacey.

All right additional comments council member green.

yeah thanks for distilling this down Stacy I know this is a a significant body of work, but I think what we learned or heard from the initial request that came forward back in 2024 and then certainly from the initiative is you know there's definitely a need for this work and while I recognize this is not a. I think you use the language and sort of the public comment or co created approach, the way, some of the other plans have I also. think about how long some of those took to come together. And I think you're right that there's a little bit of a balance here of we recognize there are very real, very current issues with this. And the longer the process takes, the longer before we even consider it. So all that to say, I'm supportive of this approach. I think the September study session will be really helpful. One of the things that came to mind just in thinking about As you talk about listening sessions and I know that's not a well defined thing you know, but we heard several people tonight talk about finding ways to include workers who are not represented not you know, through an organized. Labor organization and one of the things that comes to mind is if there are going to be opportunities for listening section sessions. Could we incentivize even if it's even if it's just downtown businesses, you know. could we use some Olympia Strong funding to say, hey, if you pay your workers while they're on shift to come be part of this, we can help with some level of, I don't want to say reimbursement because that's very technical, but is there a way we could incentivize folks to not just allow, but encourage some of their workers to come? Because I do think having some of those voices would be incredibly helpful. So yeah, I'm supportive of where this is going and I look forward to our more detailed conversation in September.

Thank you. Council Member Barrett, followed by Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Thank you, Mayor. Just some thoughts. I did have one question, Stacey, and that was, I was under the impression there was going to be a consultant that kind of drove this work. Was I under the wrong impression? Or did we decide to go in a different direction? Or will that come later?

Well, we may seek out consult support with the research component, because that's not something we'll have capacity to do in-house, and particularly if we're doing a literature review or looking at other communities. But no, I would project manage it. So we wouldn't, at this time, unless the scope changed dramatically, we're not looking at going with a consultant.

I just wanted to clear in my own mind how that was going to work. Thank you. Some thoughts. I think this question that you've raised about how we reach out to the right people to talk to is very important. I have every confidence that People who are representing workers in labor unions are going to do a great job in representing their voice in this process, and as they should. And so my hat is off to them. My greatest concern, frankly, is with workers who are not represented by unions. And one of the things that you called out was getting nonprofits involved. I'm really interested in the nonprofit worker. to be involved, because I think that these are universally workers that are paid the minimum wage and do not have much of a chance to earn higher wages, maybe a small pay scale. And I would like to hear from them. And in the process last year, one of the things that was really disturbing to me, frankly, repeatedly hearing from nonprofit leaders that they weren't interested in paying anything more than the minimum wage to their workers. And this was in a budgetary sense. But those workers are valued too. And I would really like to know, not from the nonprofit leaders, but from the workers of those organizations, how they feel about wages in Olympia and how long they have worked at the minimum wage, how affordability has impacted them. Senior citizens are universally pegged into these jobs where they are not given pay increases, although their earning power continues to shrink. Healthcare workers, this is another subset of, if they're represented by UFC, SEIU, healthcare workers, I think there's a shot that they're getting good representation, but many, many, many, many, many of these healthcare workers are not represented in unions. And so they're not necessarily that easy to fuss out. I'm not sure how to go about it, but I would very much be interested in the health care community because this is a very large labor segment in the community. I think many people would be very surprised what percentage of people are working in health care, home health care workers. If you go into just about any neighborhood there are people who are home health care workers working people's homes and, of course, in assisted living centers and and and so on. The entire part of town around St peter's hospital that I am kind of really interested in, because I think we really kind of ignore that piece part of town is a part of our city, sometimes. This is heavily laden with. low-income health care workers, and I would like to see this process really engage this segment of the working population in really determining what's going on in health care for the low-income worker. I think it's really important also that we not forget that a lot of organizations that we have a lot of sympathy for are sometimes put forward as front groups for corporate interests in these processes. Honestly, nonprofit organizations are used in this way. The chamber doesn't want to be the face or you know, a corporate entity doesn't want to be the face. They put forward, oh, a nonprofit organization that's a friendlier face. And I think we need to be cognizant of that in this process, that it's really a representative group for our community. And we should always remember that Even if it's not a wealthy, wealthy organization, many of these organizations receive public funds. And we shouldn't forget that they have an extra special social responsibility for the treatment of their workers. Senior citizens are, I mentioned this before, Many, many senior citizens that do not receive a public pension in this community are forced to work in low income, minimum wage jobs to survive. And I would like to see special recognition given to senior citizens. I don't know if we can go to maybe areas to do some of our research where there are groupings of seniors that come together, whether it's meal programs or whatever, to see if we can identify senior workers and what their status is in the community in the workforce. Anyway, thank you, Mayor. I think that's it.

Thank you, Councilmember Barron. Before Mayor Pro Tem Wynn goes, Councilmember Green has a comment or a question in response.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Payne. Councilmember Barron, I'm going to veer a little off course here because I just feel a little compelled to respond to something that you said. I've worked really closely with a lot of nonprofits in this community, and I just feel like what you shared is a not a bit of a mischaracterization, but a mischaracterization. I feel like nonprofits work on very tight budgets in a time where giving is down, need is drastically up, particularly for nonprofits who support folks with food, housing, whatever that is, as federal funding has declined, as grants have declined. So while you may have a specific one or two in mind as organizations that get put forward or I GUESS THE INTERPRETATION I HEARD WAS USED. I JUST FEEL LIKE THAT'S A REALLY BROAD CHARACTERIZATION FOR A GROUP OF ORGANIZATIONS THAT TYPICALLY DO A WHOLE LOT OF WORK WITH VERY LITTLE RESOURCES AND I JUST FELT LIKE I NEEDED TO SAY THAT.

THANK YOU. COUNCIL MEMBER BEARING EAR. THANK YOU. WELL, THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENT. IT'S BEEN MY EXPERIENCE THAT Last year, I experienced three significant nonprofit organizations that were very hostile to lifting up their members. And one was the senior organization in particular. And I pushed that back very aggressively saying, you know, it may be hard on you to pay your senior members more money. but it's your members who are really being hurt by the lack of affordability in the community, and they need the pay increase the most. And so it's the classic struggle, I think, of the challenges of meeting societal needs. But we shouldn't just pretend that... that just because a worker works for a nonprofit organization that they need to take a second-class status in their labor negotiations. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Okay. I have a lot of thoughts. I know you need clear direction tonight, Stacey. I want to make sure I give you that. So I'm going to run through all of my different thoughts, and then you let me know if I'm answering the questions that you need. Sound good? OK. So for me, I need September to happen. I need that study session to dive in deeper to see what the research findings are in order for me to honestly have too many opinions about who should be included, who shouldn't, at what depth should they be included. I feel like it makes sense for that to happen first. Yeah, otherwise it's a little catawampus to me. I just, I don't want to say, these things definitely need to happen when I don't know what the research findings are going to say. So that, for me, makes the timeline and the sort of type of engagement up in the air until September happens. And then on the timeline, since I'm sort of to be determined on that, I don't want this to be a thing where you and the teams of people that you've worked with have great examples of collaborating on very difficult topics. You noted some of them as examples. And reimagining public safety, I mean, that was a years-long process. There's other things that you've done that have been a years-long process. You put the workgroup together. You also need to make sure the work group gels. It takes a second for that to happen, making sure people show up. I mean, that's a lot of work. Also, it's a lot of, not to say that the work isn't happening as time goes on with the types of groups like that. And also, everyone's waiting and wondering what's going on. You know, it's true. And a lot of things are being slowed down. A lot of other priorities are being paused while that work is happening. And I do believe that there is an issue with affordability. I do believe that these things that people are asking for, predictive scheduling, all of these different things are urgent. and I wouldn't want to put a process forward that is going to, well, first of all, I'm not sure what we're going to put forward, at least for me, because September has not happened yet again, but I wouldn't want to put something forward. That's going to take years. It's I'm not interested in that at all. I'm sort of like doggedly about it. I just, I don't, we have so much at the city that we're working on and that's not me saying this is not important, but it's, um, it is so much. And I agree with Robert. We, excuse me, council member Vanderpool, that this is, you know, we're a unique city. We take on a lot. I think community members come to us because they think there might actually be a chance that they might be interested in this and they might work on it. And I think that's a great thing. We're a very ambitious council. And we, as a city organization, continue absorbing. Staff continue to absorb. And even if staff right now didn't do any special projects, didn't do any special studies, they still have work to do. They're busy maintaining things, making sure that the city is just doing its services that it needs. So that brings me to say I am really concerned about capacity. I want there to be, you know, I want City Council Chambers, staff to be able to be just really open and transparent about what is the capacity, because I can sit from where i'm at and assume. City Council Chambers, Though and sometimes I think staff take on a lot because. City Council Chambers, The Council Council wants it to happen and what we get from that is. City Council Chambers, issues with morale people being burned out, you know, and we are in a transition time right now, where we have. Through attrition there's been some key staff members that aren't with us anymore, and I can't leave that out of this conversation So yes, we are a unique city and also We've been taking on a lot and there are so many and other things even if we took on this one Right now with this proposed timeline. Let's just say The other things can't stop so It's, I'm really concerned about it. And so I'm going to say, every time this comes up, I'm going to say that. And so while I don't want this to be a years-long process, I also, I'm really concerned about staff capacity. And I don't think it's always comfortable for staff to, you know, say that to council. And so I'm just going to say it. And then also, there were, City Council Chambers, obvious to all the folks that are interested in workers protections and affordability probably know that there was a workers bill of rights initiative last year and it's important to me that we. City Council Chambers, don't leave out the different parts of that initiative like right like predictive scheduling like safety, the wage I digress and it's also important to me that we don't essentially just only work on. City Council Chambers, Pretty much a workers bill of rights, I don't want to water it down so much, but I do really want us to be open about what affordability and protections like what that could be, and it could be more it should definitely include the things that were outlined, but it could be more. City Council Chambers, And that that could be positive, because it could be things that us as a city of it makes sense for us to. help improve. So just want us to be open. And then also, and I think that jives well with Council Member Gilman's sort of, you were saying in the affirmative, but having a holistic approach isn't also important for people to understand or communities and members to understand, like, how would this benefit them positively, right? How does it really help the whole community? And it might sound silly to folks that are in this room, like, well, of course it does. But it's not always that clear to people. So it is important. And then in public comments, we did hear some concern around or questioning how come economic development isn't pulled into this. And it sounds like our economic development director is. And we'll hear from you and her in September. So I'm looking forward to that. I wonder how much of this needs to be its like a whole separate initiative and how much some of it could be some of it aligns with our Olympia Strong plan. Not to sort of put it off until then but we are actively working on Olympia Strong and I don't see them being as wholly separate things. And then and then also just as the preparing for the September study session something that I do want to see is some information gathering I guess I'd say around is there anything in this upcoming legislative session that that we know that state lawmakers are working on and things that we can support that are in this vein and then oh just wanna I heard some comments that from Council members and so as you're tracking trends some of the ones I just sort of want to plus one on is I agree with council member major and I think it's really important to To see clearly and sort of divide out sectors. However, however that looks in practice I thought that was a great point and then also The idea about compensating or doing something to sort of relieve workers of so they don't have to come on their own free time and um however that engagement looks i think that there is a possibility that we could just compensate them directly so i'd love to talk about that and there's whole guidelines from the state about how to do that so i thought that was a really great council member green and i just want to reiterate that i'll have more opinions after September happens. I really am trying not to get ahead of this and lock us in. If we can do this process, and there's some engagement, but it's not the same depth as some of the other projects, then great. But only at that time will I be able to clearly and confidently share what I think it needs to be. Yeah. I will say that public commenters tonight, your public comments did change my initial thoughts on this. And for that, I really thank you for that. Yeah. So thank you. Oh, did you get what you needed from me? And if not, just let me know.

I'll need to circle around at the tail end for some clarification, just holistically. Sure. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Um, I'll try to help out with that Stacey. So, um, as I said, a clear direction, are we moving forward? It sound like, um, I heard majority yeses from council on that. Um, myself included. Um, I do think we should proceed. Um, the second, are we taking the right approach here? Um, Sounds like we're, for the most part, in agreement in terms of this approach, although I do question the approach to some extent, because I do wonder about phase three in council consideration, January through March. I think that it's very ambitious, and I'm concerned about I'm concerned about the scope and the scale of this work. And as we heard from our public commenters, they mentioned about how they wish to be engaged. And so the current process, when we're talking about listening sessions, as you compare that to your one community planning process or your reimagining public safety process, where there was really robust engagement that did take you know, some time, at least 18 months or more. I'm concerned about following this timeline, and then when we get there, we get a bunch of people in our chamber saying they weren't engaged, right, frankly, and saying that they weren't a part of the process, which is something that, you know, we do hear a lot, even when we have an 18-month process, we hear that, right? So it is my concern that we have listening sessions versus going to where people are. And so that outreach and engagement in the timeline with which you're working with, I'm not sure go well together. And I'm a little bit concerned about whether or not that council consideration date is realistic if we want to do a really thorough process. So do you have any thoughts on that?

yeah yeah so so I yeah so I appreciate you, you know uplifting that point because tonight's conversation has been really helpful for me, I think there's a couple things. You know one Council member Gilman talked about wanting to have some additional Council involvement in crafting the research component of it so. You know I don't disagree, but I would need to put some thought into the time frame, the timing of that, because if we were moving towards a September. City Council Chambers, Study session to be able to put some data in front of you that again that's an awfully quick turnaround to have that Congress to come back and have that data conversation so that's one piece. City Council Chambers, This the second piece is that tonight you're able to provide some really clear indication of what groups are what you know stakeholders or groups and perspectives are important for you to hear from. City Council Chambers, And, and that that list is probably lengthier than what we could do prior to a September study session, so I think that's some of why I was hoping to break it into two parts. was to be able to do some initial stakeholder engagement enough to get to the study session to then be able to kind of hone the rest of that engagement. So I just want to kind of set some expectations that we wouldn't in the first phase be able to necessarily talk to multiple sectors plus some of the particular groups that have been listed tonight. But I think that's okay. I just want to make sure that, again, we're okay with the phasing and the check-in in September, if that makes sense.

Yes. Yes. Thank you, Stacey. Council Member Madron, followed by Council Member Gilliman.

Yeah, and I would be satisfied in September to see here's the sectors we've identified. So again, it's kind of like defining the research question. It's defining like who's being engaged. So that's kind of what I anticipate seeing in September is just like fleshing this out a little bit more and making sure that it's ready for the next

phase of engagement so um none of my comments were expected to be like oh that's what should be done by september so i just want to make sure that's clear that helps thanks uh council member gilman and in a similar vein um what i was hoping is you could share your your set of questions or your your planning document with us not that we would redesign it by committee okay but just to give us some assurance and for us to be able to holler if we think it's way off. But I'm not asking for an additional process to design the scope of the research or the questions. And I wonder if when we come together in September is the right time to consider that phase three and whether we want to expand the scope and the time or whether we feel like we can move forward. I think I'd be comfortable

Using this document, but knowing that in September we might modify up to extend the time frame for the phase three Thank You councilmember Vanderpool, I guess a similar question, you know, I there's two questions I have my mind is well first is Is this going to be a one and done process? I think that in my mind. Do we create a package of protections, pass as a council, and then move on with our lives? Or do we continue past phase three and have someone else in charge of continuing the work? Because to me, it's a systemic problem, not a direct problem. You can't just plug away at it with one direct thing. Um, you know, I see everything that's mentioned that was mentioned in the workers bill and everything that's led up to that as the short term. And then there's the interim and then there's the longterm planning. And I, and I, you know, I want us to think about that as a council and especially by September. Are we going to do this as just a one-off thing, or are we going to continue to make the responsible thing of having affordability a part of our city policy? Is it going to be a third rail thing? Is it going to be treated the same way equity and climate and everything else is treated? That's my biggest question.

Thank you. Councilmember Vanderpool I I think that that's a part of the evolution of this process right to to determine if that is if that's where it will take us. Your suggestions about a labor policy FTE and labor action plan. You know in in the context of well, we've done other things right as a city that we traditionally haven't done. When I hear that, I think of 2018 when we first started working on housing and homelessness as a city, and we didn't always do that. And so I think that that is a point well taken. I do think, though, that it will take us to conversations at our annual retreat in January when we really will have to have some conversations about the feasibility of this and when we compare it to the city's budget. because I am concerned about taking on additional work for an FTE or a mini office, if you will, and just simply adding two without having some difficult conversations about what's going to come off in its place. And so I think that's a conversation that we may have to have in January about that since it is a priorities discussion. Just a few other things that I just want to make sure I cover. One, I want to make sure it's clear to our community. What we're not doing is doing a process that goes against what the voters said. The voters said no to the Workers' Bill of Rights, specifically as it was written as a scope. What we're not doing is turning around and then doing what the voters said they didn't want to do anyway. We're not doing that. What we're doing is continuing a process that we were actually working on before the initiative actually came to the city. So I just want to be clear that this is a conversation that we were having before the initiative went to the ballot. And also that there's a lot of politics around this, right? And I will just say that, for me, this is not about political ideology and what I personally feel about workers' rights. This is about, more so about feasibility for the city government, for me. And whether or not this is an additional thing that we can take on for the long term. And I guess that's a conversation we will hear more about through this process and to see if we can in fact get there or not. I do have some thoughts around establishing the definition, so I appreciate that Councilmember Madrone brought that up. And so I don't know where in this process that will happen. You know, if that's after we've done the research and the data gathering, or if it's more after you've done your interviews and meeting with folks in your listening sessions. But I do think it's important to establish those definitions so that we all understand that we're talking about the same things. And then I'll also say there were some comments made about nonprofit workers and even, frankly, the business sector. So, yes, absolutely, workers should be centered in this conversation. Those who are union represented and also nonrepresented, however, Just because a population is center doesn't mean we're ignoring everyone else and so yes nonprofit workers, but there are board members and executive directors who make decisions for these organizations who understand the impacts just as we do to the city government. Who also need to be included in these discussions and conversations. As well as the same with the business sector who are running their Although they are private, they still have a certain experience and role that they play in those organizations and they understand how it works. And so they do need to be a part of this process as well, even though we are centering workers. And yeah I I and I appreciate Councilmember Barrett the mention of senior workers are or I guess more accurately put workers that are seniors I appreciate that they are often overlooked in many discussions and so. very much looking looking forward, excuse me to hearing how specifically they play out in this process and so. It's a yes for me. I'm moving forward. And then also, you know, I think this is the right approach for now, and we'll see where it takes us. Thank you. Are there any additional questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen, followed by Council Member Gilman.

Stacy, I have a question for you. It's sticking out to me a little bit more now. The phase one, the first stakeholder listening sessions. Who are you talking to?

So Sarah, I was calling that stakeholder-like. City Council Chambers, So it was to try to have conversations with some of our major known entities in order to start to get an initial bit of input. City Council Chambers, But you know as we dive further into particular groups like tonight i've learned there's an interest in workers who are senior citizens Okay, you know okay that that helps kind of bring that to the surface. But when I initially put this forward, I was thinking there are some stakeholders that we clearly know from the outset. And so I wanted to see, well, if I could get just some initial input to inform that study session, that was the goal.

I see what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Council Member Gilman.

I'm just glad to have the shout-outs for elder workers, my people. All right. I wanted to respond to Councilmember Vanderpool's question about, is it a once and done? In the first sentence of this, we talked about we're going to begin revisiting minimum wage, predictive scheduling, and workplace safety, those protections. And I see this process as pretty narrowly looking at questions like that and can those come to a decision point for us, whether or not we're going to act on those. And I think that the rental regulations and tenant rights work we've done over a decade is a good analogy that we've passed some really specific narrow protections or registration programs that have built over the years. And we've built a staff team to support that work over the years. So I don't think that taking this specific worker affordability and protection project on says that we will or won't take on additional work around affordability in the community or around protections for poor people in the community. or working class people in the community. So I just I just want that's that's my perspective is that we can take this on and it doesn't say that we will or won't continue to do similar work going ahead.

Thank you. Just one more comment specifically to those who came out tonight for public comment. Thank you again. I want to make sure that it's clear that when i'm talking about phase three and the council consideration and and how i'm a little bit concerned or skeptical this is not an attempt for me to stall this work it is simply a matter of um you know i am a little bit skeptical about doing a thorough process uh with the timeline that i'm seeing here um and just a little concerned about um Again, having folks in the chambers in January, February, March, saying that they weren't engaged. And so I'm hoping that we can find a way to strike that balance of engaging as many people as we can in a shorter time frame that doesn't take a year or two. So, Stacey, Thank you in advance for the work. This is going to be a big task, and we just appreciate the thought and time that you've put into it already.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for the feedback and the guidance tonight. I appreciate it.

Yeah.

Yes. And do you have what you need? I have what I need. Thank you. All right.

Yeah.

Thank you very much. All right. So That concludes our business for tonight so we'll move on to Council reports and I'll be quick with the mayor's report. You know Council hasn't met here in chambers for the last 2 weeks and in that time we had a fantastic time at the Olympia pride parade and enjoyed that in that time I also participated in Tom waters Independence Day parade. and the Dragon Boat Festival, which was pretty awesome to do and to attend that and welcome them back. And most importantly, over the break, I spent quite a bit of time in response to recent incidents at the encampment known as The Jungle and just working here internally with city staff. and having many discussions with several folks who are involved such as the sheriff and others On public safety response to what's happening in the encampment And so that's what I've done over the over our break And so for the sake of brevity and we have an executive session after I'm gonna start to my left with councilmember Barrett. I

Thank you, I too, it's been a kind of a dull two weeks, but Council Gilman and I were both at the GRUB meeting, a meeting at GRUB that was regarding food security, which was very informative and I think it just indicated a lot of momentum towards the effort Councilwoman Madrone is leading on food security that I look forward to being engaged in, and I know a lot of people in the community are too. With that, I'll just keep it brief and leave it at that.

All right. Thank you. Any questions or comments for Council Member Barrett? Seeing none, Council Member Green.

Thank you, Mayor Payne. I have no report.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Wynn.

Uh, happy to hold any comments. Um, I know that we might have, uh, it's going to be a longer night possibly.

Thank you. Council member Gilman. Just a couple of things. I will expand just a little bit on council member Barrett and I did attend the south sound food system network meeting. And it's a, uh, a broad variety of organizations advocating for, um, food security and food production. And I just saw on the news that they're a recipient of one of the community foundation grants. So they'll continue on this next year because they weren't sure whether they'd have any resources to stipend somebody to manage that. So onward, onward there. And last night, I attended the Coalition of Neighborhood Associations. And it was a really good meeting. productive. There was a lot of neighborhoods at the table sharing out the events that they have going on and comparing notes. That was super useful. And just a couple things I wanted to shout out that are adjacent to this. One is that August 4th is the National Night Out Against Crime. And I'm hoping you're all up for having a hot dog in every neighborhood of the city on that evening. I think it's a great night and several of the neighborhood associations coordinate to have their annual picnic or block party on that night. So that's really cool. And the other thing we talked about, well, we talked about the gateways, the art coming into the different neighborhoods. Harrison and Division is next. So the west side adjacent neighborhoods will be consulted. And the other thing that we mentioned briefly that I wanted to shout out was that The 14 plinth sculptures for this year are along Percival Landing and we're taking the community's choice your favorite voting ballots until July 31st. You've got another week or so to walk Percival Landing and tell us which one we should acquire to have as part of the city art collection. Thank you.

Thank you. Questions or comments for Councilmember Gilman? Seeing none, Councilmember Vanderpool?

I brought a list for all of you. So land use and environment met since last time. We went over the urban forestry management plan. We're a few years out for this. But I will let everyone know on council who isn't on the committee that there is a deep community concern about it because of it having to be delayed over the years. We had outside of our own, losing a grant and then coming back to a grant has delayed it over the years. And so there's this concern from members of the community about saving and preserving some of our resources. City Council Chambers, forestry now and having and looking at do we do a Council direction versus doing a temporary ordinance and that conversation is going to come to us in the study session in the near future, so I wanted to let everyone know that's going to be coming up. Um, and, uh, let's see. And then, um, we also looked at, had a preliminary discussion with, uh, I invited a bicycle pedestrian advisory committee, but also in land use and, uh, um, our land use chair and vice chair, uh, attended and we talked about you know being more proactive with uh about our comprehensive goals and our pipeline and making sure that we align things better into the future with our work plans between what they're doing and what we're doing um it was a very good conversation a number of items came up in that and then um i wanted to put this on everyone's radar who's on council that there's a couple folks out there active members of community who've reached out to us uh Just wanted to meet with each each Council member around the school district and leading up to it because I don't I'm so busy with Council work I don't I will be thinking about school district more in a few years, but. I think that it's important to become informed about from folks in the Community about what's going on, and this and that and their concerns. I would encourage folks to find time to meet with them those folks and then I met. With the advocacy group how's our neighbors since we last met. As a Council and they're talked about the how the neighbors is the advocacy group that pushed for social housing in Seattle and helped for years advocating for that. And what was really informative was talking about how they govern it, how it's funded and ways. And I asked a lot of questions and I'm going to meet with them again is we're a smaller city. We don't have the same tax base as Seattle. That's a barrier, right? How can we as a city consider something like that? And they talked a lot about how do you structure this and that? And how can the legislature help make it feasible for every city and each community in the state? And I think that that is a very good conversation to have. Yeah, and they talked about things like public banking, revolving fund around this, because that being a barrier is the initial cost. So that was a very good conversation. And then the Transportation Policy Board met since last, and we looked at, it got a wash dot update from I-5 Master Plan, Amtrak Cascades, and then High Speed Rail. They're currently doing a service development plan around high-speed rail. The biggest thing I ask is, how can folks be involved in this process? Because we get updates every so often, and people are like, when are we going to get there? I hear about that all the time. A lot of people do support this in the community. How do we get there? And so one of the biggest things is that they're going to be doing public feedback in August and September via the open houses. I don't think it's up quite yet to be involved in that, but it is was.dot.wa.gov slash Cascadia program and then they also said. To be getting into also get involved through the Cascadia innovation quarter group which means annually that's another way to be involved and also contact your legislature, they said that it can't just be staff. Advocating for these things it has to be members of the community advocating it and saying why it's important that we need these programs So that's my update Thank you questions or comments for councilmember Vanderpool Seeing none councilmember Madron Well, first off.

I'm really really glad to hear that council members Barrett and Gilman made it to the South Sound food system and meeting that occurred, I saw that pop on my calendar and was like i'm going camping so it's nice to be able to go off into the woods and know that my colleagues have got the terrain covered so thank you. I wanted to let you all know just some follow up on the inspire program first off thanks to everybody who provided some feedback on. some things that you have on your radar in terms of potential program improvements, process and program improvements. I attended the start of the retreat for our Cultural Access Advisory Board and brought that feedback to them. And they are going to be working on making some recommendations to us around changes, potential changes to the program that will come to Community Livability and Public Safety in August. And then we'll anticipate that coming to the City Council for a study session in September, knowing that any updates to the program do need to happen by mid-October because there is a grant cycle tied to all this. So that's what we're looking at. I did want to flag that there is one issue that has come up both in our discussions here and one-on-one around behavior of organizations, code of conduct, and things like that. i don't think it's the role of our advisory body and people ranking grant proposals to to dig into you know what how people are behaving out in the community i think that and i've had these conversations with the mayor and a couple others of you i think that's our role as a council to have that larger view um and so i'll be talking with the city manager in terms of you know what that looks like for us as a council to be able to do that kind of decision making as Things come to us and we're like, oh wait, which we've done before. We did it with LTAC when a particular organization was doing something against our values, but it's not always clear cut. And I think it should be more clear for us in terms of our ability to ask questions and pull things aside. So just know all this work is in progress and things will be coming back around to us. as a full council in September with some proposed changes for the program. So we can all move forward and that could all just be a blip in the history of the INSPIRE program. That's my report.

All right. Thank you very much. Questions or comments for Council Member Madrone? Mayor Pro Tem Lin.

Just really appreciate the chair of clips or councilmember Madrone for being so responsive I know that was you know, it's a tough discussion with a lot of folks with a lot of feedback and you've been hard at work working with staff to make sure the things that we were concerned about our address and also you deserve that camping trip and You've been holding it down for food systems for a long time and trying to keep it relevant for the City Council Yeah, so thanks Ditto all right and last but not least city manager Bernie From 9 to 2 here in council chambers

This afternoon you were emailed the agenda and all your packet items. We'll also have hard copies for you on Saturday, so you don't need to print everything, but just want to make sure you saw that those are in your inboxes so you can read ahead and be ready for a robust discussion on Saturday.

Great. Thank you. Looking forward to it. All right. So, well, actually, any questions or comments for the city manager? All right. Seeing none. So at this time we are going to recess for 5 minutes and then we will reconvene in room for 23 for an executive session pursuant to potential litigations no decisions will be made after that executive session the Council will be adjourned for the evening so with no further business before the Olympia City Council. We're in recess.