City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

I just want to go on the record for saying that, you know, I'll say it later. What's that?

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY FOR THE RECORD THAT TUESDAY IS MY BIRTHDAY, AND I'M ONLY SAYING THIS BECAUSE I DON'T WANT YOU GUYS TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY AND DO NOTHING, ALL THAT, JUST, YOU KNOW, YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO DO A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF. A SIMPLE GUY. I REMEMBERED THAT EXACTLY.

TOMORROW IS YOUR BIRTHDAY. NO, THE FIRST.

NO, NOT THIS TUESDAY. YOU'RE GIVING US ENOUGH NOTICE.

I DIDN'T THINK OF IT THAT WAY. WELL, HE'S TELLING US THAT WE KNOW FOR NEXT MONDAY.

RIGHT, RIGHT.

SO WE'RE NOT HERE NEXT MONDAY.

I was just saying next week is my birthday, but you don't have to go out of your way to do anything special now

I don't want to put any pressure on anybody or anything like that. So just, you know, just FYI, that's all.

I can't believe we heard that same speech last week.

Did I say that last year, boo?

ALL RIGHT.

GOOD EVENING. I WILL NOW CALL THE AUBURN STUDY SESSION MEETING FROM MONDAY, AUGUST 24TH, 2026 TO ORDER. TONIGHT'S STUDY SESSION MEETING WILL BE HELD BOTH IN PERSON AND VIRTUALLY. SEAN, CAN YOU PLEASE CALL ROLL?

DEPUTY MAYOR TRACY TAYLOR. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER HAMMER.

HERE.

COUNCILMEMBER BALDWIN.

HERE.

COUNCILMEMBER LOTT. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER RAYS. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER STURGESS. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER CLINTON-TAYLOR.

HERE.

Thank you, Sean. Do we have any agenda modifications this evening?

Chair, there's an executive session added to the agenda. Thank you.

All right, our first item tonight is the Pierce Transit Proposition 1, More Within Reach presentation provided by Pierce Transit. If you wouldn't mind coming up to that.

Hello, council members. I'm Mike Griffiths. I'm the CEO of Pierce Transit, and I'm here today to talk about our ballot measure. In July, our board unanimously voted to send a ballot measure package to voters in the November 3rd election. If approved by voters, Pierce Transit would be able to serve more people, more places, more often for a three-tenths of one percent sales tax. This was built on years of engagement, data, and planning. It takes into account regional plans, municipal goals, and community input to ensure we are putting transit where it can have the greatest impact in our community. Now the package is in the hands of the voters who will decide the future of local transit on the November 3rd general election ballot. Pierce Transit is currently funded at half the rate of our peer agencies. We are funded 80% through sales tax. The state legislator has set sales tax as the funding mechanism for local transit agencies. Our sales tax rate has not changed since 2002, nearly a quarter of a century. In 2002, just for reference, minimum wage was $6.90, and a bus was nearly three times cheaper than it is today. We are proud of what we've been able to provide for the community despite funding constraints. This has taken deliberate effort on our part, and a disciplined approach to managing costs, streamlining operations, and improving efficiency. In the past five years, we have completed 133 projects focused on administrative and operational improvements. The results of this work show, based on the FTA national transit database on total agency operating costs per passenger mile, we are the most efficient transit agency in the Puget Sound region. Our community is growing and its needs are changing, and we are hitting the limit on how much we can be accomplished doing more with less. Largely due to inflation, expenses are expected to exceed revenue as early as next year. Without additional funding, Pierce Transit will continue running the current level of service for as long as possible, but transit service would need to be reduced to match the funding available. Service reductions could begin as early as 2031. Our community has asked for transit that serves more people, more places, more often, and a transit system that connects work, school, and essential places like healthcare and grocery shopping. Eighty-nine percent of riders take trips that benefit the local economy, and studies show that one dollar invested in transit returns five dollars in economic value. Today I want to focus on three issues. Pierce County is growing and growing quickly. Our local economy depends on how well people can access jobs and how reliably employers can access the workforce. Looking ahead, Pierce County is expected to add a quarter of a million new residents and 117,000 jobs by 2044. As the region evolves, transportation will continue to shape how efficiently people can connect to opportunity. Without additional transit, most of that growth will rely on cars, adding congestion to already busy roads, making it harder for people to access jobs, schools, safe places for youth, medical appointments, and other essential services, especially during peak congestion. This is why you often hear us say that even if you don't take public transit, you benefit from it. You benefit from less cars on the road and more people keeping our economy moving. Even if you don't use transit, someone you rely on uses transit. Whether it's your barber, your nurse, your mechanic, your kid's teacher, transit gets them there. And we learned during the pandemic who the essential workers were because they continued to ride on our buses. We have a plan to serve more people, more places, more often. A plan that will improve transit for the 21,000 daily trips our riders take, and a plan to help make transit possible for those who our current system really cannot accommodate. A plan for a 47% increase in service that spans across 13 towns, cities, and unincorporated areas that we serve. This does not expand Pierce Transit into new areas that we do not currently serve. That's a separate process determined by elected officials and voters in that area on if they would like to pay for and receive transit service. We also provide runner microtransit service and operate the 12th largest rideshare program in the nation. But today I'm going to focus on bus and paratransit because that is where the new funding will be directed. I'm now going to pass it over to our senior planner, Anna Peterson, to share the details of the plan.

Hi. Thank you. Before we dive into all the details of the plan and what it would fund across Pierce County, I want to first provide some background on Auburn's participation in our public transportation benefit area, also called the PTBA. As you can see on the maps in front of you, it's only a small portion of Auburn that is within our PTBA. It's in the Lakeland Hills neighborhood, and that's that diagonal shaded area on the map. The blue lines on your map show where Pierce Transit Services are, and the green lines are routes run by King County Metro. While this package would not affect the King County Metro lines, we thought it would be helpful to understand the interconnected regional transit system in your area and our role in the system. During the PTIC process in 2011, and that's, I don't know how many of you are familiar with that process, but it's the process for either coming in to our public transit benefit area or leaving our public transit benefit area, Auburn asked to stay in our PTBA. and to keep Route 497. Route 497 provides a connection directly to the Auburn station. It's timed to meet Sounder trains, and it currently connects nine of 10 Sounder trains to and from Seattle. And with this package, we would keep these services as well as continue to monitor ridership and growth to assess the need for connecting to all trips. And we could look at connecting all trips as ridership grows. There were 20,000 annual boardings on Route 497 in 2025. Auburn also benefits from our rideshare program with vanpools traveling to and from Auburn. Notably, we have connections, the rideshare groups connect to Boeing and the J&D Hydraulic and Repair Company. If approved by voters, this measure would cost an additional three pennies per $10 spent on qualifying purchases within Pierce Transit service area. For example, for a $20 sweater, it would cost an additional six cents. And a pair of $80 headphones would cost an extra 24 cents. This would fund a 47% increase in transit services. And if approved by voters, we would add four new routes. The Port of Tacoma route would serve the new Maritime 253 High School and help connect students and workers to jobs at the port. The Central Tacoma route would connect Lakewood and travel along Tyler to Cheney Stadium and Allenmore Hospital. The Northeast Tacoma route will connect riders to the light rail stations in Federal Way and Fife. We will add a weekday route serving the Shaw Road area in Puyallup. And we would also adjust the current Route 11 to connect to Ruston and allow year-round access to the Tacoma waterfront. And for special service, if approved by voters, we would add seasonal waterfront trolley and special event services. In other words, we would serve the Gig Harbor waterfront and the Tacoma waterfront with seasonal trolley service. This would allow us to maintain a flexible pool of funding to work directly with communities and partners each year to design service that meets our community's needs. Our special event service has historically carried significant ridership, including over 100,000 boardings during peak Washington State service years, and more than 12,000 riders in a single day during major regional events like Freedom Fair. if approved by voters, we would have three high-capacity transit lines along our current routes one, two, and three. This means that buses would arrive every 15 minutes on weekdays and 20 minutes on weekends, and stops would receive additional improvements. More than 140,000 people live within a 10-minute walk of one of these stops, and there are approximately 110,000 jobs located within a half mile of these routes. To put it simply, for the people who live and work along these corridors, transit becomes something they don't have to plan around in the same way. With buses arriving every few minutes, there's less need to check schedules or worry about whether a shift, meeting, or event will line up with the next bus because the next one is always close by. will also increase weekday service. So buses will run more often on our highest rank. Buses running more often is our highest rank request from riders. And under this plan, 86% of our current routes would run more often. Seven routes would run every 15 to 20 minutes, and most routes would operate every 15 to 30 minutes on weekdays. These seven routes carry nearly half of all bus trips, meaning they represent one out of every two rides we provide. This means no more hourly waits on weekdays. Nearly one in four Pierce County residents live within a 10-minute walk of a bus route operating every 15 to 20 minutes. This makes transit more reliable and practical for everyday travel. It means getting to your destinations faster with less wait time. We'd also have more frequent service on weekends. There are a lot of buses and numbers on this slide, but I want to call out that the weekend improvements mean that people can actually use transit to get to work or their destinations and also get home. Currently, the majority of our routes operate hourly on weekends. Today, 15 routes operate every hour on Saturdays. With this plan, we would improve that to having 23 routes operate every 30 minutes or faster. Currently, 22 routes operate hourly on Sunday, and if this is approved by voters, only eight would operate hourly on Sunday. The rest would operate more often. With later service, 23 routes, or more than 80% of our service, will run longer and later hours. Most routes would start between 5 and 6 a.m. and end at 10 p.m. or later. This represents significant improvements for evening service, a longstanding request from riders. We hear from riders that our services do not operate late enough for many people to get home after work, evening classes, or other evening commitments. These changes make transit a more realistic option for people who currently cannot rely on it for their full day. Students attending evening classes, workers in late shifts at restaurants and retail, and people traveling home from evening activities. We've built this plan to align with other regional plans, transit hubs, and connections with light rail stations. We've planned for changes to Pierce Transit's routes to better align with future regional light rail connections, such as the Tacoma Dome Link extension, as the Tacoma Dome Link construction project comes on board. Eight routes will connect with the new light rail stations at Federal Way, Fife, Portland Avenue, and the Tacoma Dome Station. This means easier transfers and less time stuck in traffic on I-5 and other congested roads. Extended paratransit will also be a benefit of this plan. People with disabilities are one of the fastest growing groups in our community, making accessible, reliable transit more important than ever. All of our buses are accessible and we had over 37,000 wheelchair boardings last year. Shuttle, which is our paratransit service for riders who live within three-quarters of a mile of a bus route and are unable to take the bus due to disability. Paratransit operates at the same time as bus routes. Anytime we make a change to the bus routes and bus schedules, those changes impact our paratransit or shuttle service. Under this plan, we would be able to serve more people with disabilities, especially in Puyallup, near the port, and in northeast Tacoma. We hear from our paratransit customers how essential shuttle is to their independence. Some of our most visited locations are kidney dialysis treatments, grocery stores, and community centers with programming for adults with cognitive and physical disabilities. Expanded paratransit means more people will have access to safe, reliable, and affordable transit that meets their needs. And for fare-free buses, Under this plan, we would make buses and paratransit fare-free for seniors aged 65 and older, and they would join the current youth ride-free program. Well, different program, but youth will continue to ride free under this program. And we'll continue to offer the ORCA lift-reduce fare option for people with low incomes and disabilities. And as for our implementation timeline, this plan would be implemented over five years. We would begin with weekend service improvements as we can implement that with our current fleet. For reference, it takes about two years for us to receive a bus once we order it. So as soon as this passes, as soon as we start collecting the new rate in April, we would begin ordering buses and recruiting and training new operators. Next, we would implement weekday service improvements. New routes would start towards the end of this timeline, following permitting and design. Every step of the way, we'll work with community to ensure new routes and implementation align with the community's vision and needs. AND NOW I'M GOING TO PASS IT BACK TO MIKE TO CLOSE US OUT.

THIS IS ABOUT BUILDING A TRANSIT SYSTEM THAT WORKS FOR OUR REGION. IT'S ABOUT PEOPLE, CONNECTING EMPLOYEES TO A WORKFORCE, CONNECTING STUDENTS TO SCHOOL, CONNECTING SHOPPERS TO SMALL BUSINESSES, CONNECTING YOUTH, SENIORS, AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES TO MOBILITY, AND CONNECTING FAMILIES TO SPECIAL EVENTS WHERE MEMORIES ARE MADE. PROP ONE IS ABOUT CONNECTING OUR REGION TO OPPORTUNITY. The last thing I'd like to say is that Pierce Transit, we say, think like a passenger, but also think like a taxpayer. So thank you for your time, and I'm here to take questions.

Thank you for your presentation. Council, any questions for our guests? Council Member Baldwin.

Yeah. One question that I had is you made note that with these changes that you would be connecting into the Federal Way light rail station or stations potentially. The one that's there on 320 with

the image at least currently that you're sharing i don't see that route in this proposal getting to the federal way station is that correct yeah so some additional nuance there we've been calling that connect calling out that connection point because this route aligns with a king county metro route so it would be a two-seat ride to that federal light rail station but currently that um you know the yellow line into northeast tacoma there uh YOU KNOW, DOESN'T EXIST. LIKE, THERE'S NO SERVICE OUT THERE BEYOND OUR RUNNER MICROTRANSIT. SO IT WOULD PROVIDE THAT CONNECTION FOR FOLKS.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, COUNCIL? COUNCILMEMBER BALDWIN?

YEAH, THE REASON I WAS ASKING ABOUT THAT IS BEING ABLE TO GET FROM, YOU KNOW, SORT OF CORE TACOMA OR SOME OF YOUR OUTLYING AREAS, THE FEDERAL WAY TRANSIT STATION AT 320 RIGHT NOW, AS WELL AS THE SOUNDER STATION IN AUBURN, are both going to be able to connect you into even bigger transit opportunities. And I feel like this is fabulous, but I just really wish that I could see a direct into those two stations because that immediately expands possibilities and opportunities for your riders to be able to go not just to Seattle, but to Linwood and Everett and other places, you know, much farther, deeper out than what this is currently showing. And so is the goal to, you know, have a handoff at those points or I'm, You know, this is a huge proposal, right? And so I think that's the hard part of what would it be to make that difference to get that last stretch to make that happen?

Just trying to remember if it shows some of these connection points here. Sorry about that. So you can see with this map kind of how we are trying to work with King County Metro. When we were putting together this plan and really thinking about that connection to light rail, we did explore what it would cost for us to run over the county line with more of our routes. And it was unfortunately just prohibitively expensive for the use of our service hours. But we in the past have had partnership opportunities with King County Metro to create those really efficient handoff points. And as we go, you know, the lines, especially for a new route like 63 are very illustrative. You know, it's going to require intentional planning and development with the Northeast Tacoma community. So really making sure that we take advantage of those connection points.

And your point is well taken. In the region here, we have a regional mobility partnership, which is the CEOs all sit together. Sound Transit, Community Transit, Kitsap, Everett. And we all talk about how we can work together better. And those are probably some of the things that we should probably bring up to our partners. Sound Transit and... Pierce Transit have a really good partnership. They actually, we have almost 1,000 employees, and about 300 of the jobs that we have are driving the Sound Transit buses into Federal Way from Tacoma and Lakewood, and also from Federal Way into the Puyallup Station. We also serve the Auburn Station with the Sound Transit buses. So a lot of that work would be Sound Transit work. And they have some real plans coming up to help serve those areas.

Council Member Amherst. I have a question. Correct me. So I see the bus station coming straight to here from Tacoma to here to Auburn Station. Is that correct? Yeah, the one in the map, you show it, the 497. 497? Yes.

Yeah, so you can see, just swap back to that other map, because it is fairly isolated looking out there, at least on our kind of demonstrative map there, which is why we kind of wanted to come talk to you all about, you know, what that service is for, you know, why you're in the service area, and kind of the connection points with Metro there.

SO THIS ONE WILL COME FROM TACOMA TO AUBURN STATION, IS THAT CORRECT?

IT GOES FROM THE PARKING RIDE OUT IN LAKELAND HILLS INTO THE SOUNDER STATION.

OUT TO THE SOUNDER. OKAY. BECAUSE TECHNICALLY, USUALLY, WHEN YOU RIDE THE PASS, IT'S USUALLY HARD TO FIND PASSWORD, TAKE YOU, LIKE, FROM HERE, LIKE, FROM TACOMA STRAIGHT. SO YOU CAN HOP TO THE NEXT ONE, WHICH IF THIS WILL BE EVERY 10, 15 MINUTES, THAT MEANS THIS IS IMPROVEMENT RATHER THAN YOU WAIT hour or every 30 minutes. So I like the idea, like, there is no waiting. I ride bus, and they know the separation, even here in Auburn, between north and south, and you need to take a bus to get. So just to have the time, I think it's a good idea and a lot of improvement, because we have a lot of buses here. I can talk about 181, take you to Federal Way, 917. So thank you. THANK YOU.

YOU MENTIONED BRIEFLY THAT, YOU KNOW, OUR STATE HAS DECIDED THAT YOU GUYS ARE FUNDED BY SALES TAX. AND SO, TO ME, I'M JUST GETTING INCREASINGLY SENSITIVE, OBVIOUSLY IN SUPPORT OF THIS, BUT INCREASINGLY SENSITIVE ABOUT TAX INCREASES FOR EVERYTHING. AND SO IS THERE DISCUSSION, ARE YOU HAVING DISCUSSION AT THE LEGISLATURE AROUND HOW IS THERE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE THAT MODEL WHERE THE STATE HELPS FUND IT MORE OR I DON'T KNOW.

WE'VE DONE EVERYTHING WE CAN TO TRY AND GET THEM TO GIVE US DIFFERENT KIND OF REVENUES.

WHY IS IT THE SALES TAX?

THE SALES TAX FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BENEFIT AREA is authorized to go up to 0.9% tax, but that has to be approved by voters. And so like community transit up in Snohomish County, they collect 1.2 because they went in not only for their 0.9, but they asked for an additional 0.3 from the legislature and they granted that to them. So we've tried to get the money. And the other thing we get, we operate a lot with the federal transit agency and work on grant opportunities. So another, I think it's 18% of our revenues come from grants from both the state and from the feds. And then we have our local match on those. Does that answer your question? Because we would love to have the sound transit model where we can collect car tabs and property taxes and sales tax, but that's only for regional transit agencies. It's not for the local transit agencies.

So, Councilmember Lott, did you have your hand up?

Yeah. Yeah, I just had a question about 497 there. I think it was mentioned earlier it was 20,000 a year. TRIPS. IS THAT 20,000 INDIVIDUAL ROUND TRIPS OR EACH WAY?

THREE, 20, 25, YEAH. THAT'S PASSENGER TRIPS.

YEAH, PASSENGER TRIPS. SO IT WOULD BE 10,000. EACH WAY? YEAH, EACH WAY.

PREDOMINANTLY WEEKDAY SERVICE?

YEAH, WE THINK IT WOULD BE THAT. YEAH, IT'S WEEKDAY SERVICE.

COUNCILMEMBER BALDWIN. AND WILL THERE BE ANY SERVICE CHANGES ON THE 497?

ONLY IF THE SOUNDAR CHANGES ITS ROUTING. Because really that service is meant to match up with the sound returns.

Council Member Sturgis. So going back, I'm just trying to understand. So is that, so there's, I know that the RCW says that currently. So why is there no way to change that? And not saying that you're not doing all the work to try to. This is a question to our state that I will, you know, go research more. But I'm curious just of what you, what your thoughts are.

Jake Fye, who's the representative Fye, who's the chair of the House Transportation Committee, is in our service area and used to be a board member of Pierce Transit. And I have conversations with him all the time. And he said that that would be a big push to try and get that changed. And so we are trying to get some things like people have councilmatic authority to do things. We'd love to have a little bit of that, but I'm sort of blue in the face from that discussion, I guess. you know, up in the community and community transit area.

I do think, you know, as the legislature is looking at a variety of revenue options, including for local governments, now is the time to kind of have those conversations. As, you know, Mike alluded to, it certainly is a challenging lift right now, in part because local governments have a significant need, right? And so figuring out what revenue tools we all look at. But yeah, always open to the discussion and happy to chat more later.

Yeah, one thing we do get from the state, though, is Climate Commitment Act funds. And that was to fund the free rides for youth. And that's 18 and under. And last year, we carried over a million trips of youth riding. And a lot of the parents tell me that just gave them a lot of freedom because they can just hop on our buses. And our operators tell me they hop on the buses. So it's being used.

Question would be, how much of the sales tax revenue is projected to come from the Auburn service area?

About 1.7% of the total of this part is part of our PTBA, so I don't know how you calculate that tax, but it also depends on where people are going shopping.

Council Member Baldwin.

That was the point I was going to have you clarify for folks who are watching is I'm sure they're looking at this and saying, oh, my goodness, you know, this increase on sales tax. I have concerns about that as a shopper. But that sales tax increase is only applicable to people who are doing that shopping in Pierce County. So just reaffirming that so they don't see all of Auburn and wonder, well, hey, is this going to affect me up here in different neighborhoods?

70% of Pierce County is in our service area. And so that 30% got cut out in 2012 when they did their public transit improvement conference.

Any more questions, Council? I see none.

Just like to make one more comment. So we're putting 47% more service on the street for a fifth. It's really a 50% tax increase when you look at it. So we're not loading up our overhead costs. We're trying to put as much of the service as we can on the on the street. Make sure that they're, you know, here's here's county residents haven't really had a good transit system for a while and and you know, forever as far as I can tell. And I think that it's time. And with the congestion out there that you can experience if you ever travel any of those roads, they're going to need something, especially our traffic analysis show that it's going to be gridlocked by 2032 if something doesn't happen. And we're doing it now because it takes a long time to get all of that done. As somebody here might know.

Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for your presentation. Oh, excuse me. Council Member Baldwin.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that I think the changes that you're making in this for the regions that you do have that high coverage are fantastic. Being able to go to a more consistent, higher rate of buses going through areas and neighborhoods is going to increase the likelihood of people wanting to take advantage of it. I think that those changes that you're making are smart and needed and I think with having you know close to 300,000 people that are going to be coming into the area you know getting ahead of that challenge is critical So just for folks who are out there, I think that this is going to give a lot more dignity to riders and I love what you're doing as well for being able to make it more accessible with getting folks who maybe have disabilities to transit as well. So just kudos all around and if you ever need anyone to go to bat for you when it comes to getting those last EXTENSIONS OUT TO, YOU KNOW, THE FEDERAL WAY STATION AND THE AUBURN STATION. PLEASE REACH OUT. I'D LOVE TO SPEAK ABOUT HOW CRITICAL THAT WOULD BE AS WELL. SO THANK YOU.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. AND THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR TIME. AND I KNOW NORTHEAST TACOMA THANKS YOU TOO.

I LIVED OVER THERE FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND I WAS LIKE, WOW. YEAH, SO THANK YOU FOR, YEAH, THAT'S GOOD. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. APPRECIATE IT.

Okay, next up is our community wellness discussion items. I'm going to turn the meeting over to Councilmember Taylor.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So at this time, we have our Director, Director Krueger, and her staff, and they're going to present on our community fitness wellness program.

So thank you for having us. Councilmember Taylor, Deputy Mayor Taylor, Councilmembers, Mayor, we're here tonight with Kevin Witte, Recreation Manager, and Kirsten Lang, Recreation Coordinator, to chat with you and just share information about Auburn Community Fitness Program that we host out of the Auburn Parks, Arts, and Recreation Department. So I'm going to turn it over to them and share with you all the fun information.

Thank you for having us. I think the point of tonight is really just education. We've been trying to come to council to just kind of tell you everything our department does because Parks, Arts and Recreation does a lot. I was here a few months ago with another program coordinator, Monique, talking about our teen programs and all the different teen things we offer. We're just trying to come and help you guys understand as council everything that we do. And so Kirsten here has worked for the city for a long time and does an amazing job coordinating the fitness program among many others. And so I'm going to let her do most of the talking because she lives and breathes this program every day. So go ahead.

Thank you. So this is Auburn Community Fitness. WE ARE HOUSED AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER OVER IN LESKOVE PARK.

OH, THANK YOU.

WE ARE OPEN MONDAY THROUGH THURSDAY 7 A.M. TO 8 P.M. AND FRIDAYS FROM 7 A.M. TO 7 P.M. AND SATURDAYS FROM 8 A.M. TO 4 P.M. AND THOSE ARE THE HOURS OF THE COMMUNITY CENTER. WE RUN FITNESS PROGRAMMING ALONG WITH OUR OPENING HOURS. So we have three primary goals with our community fitness program. First is to promote the engagement of physical activity by providing accessible and affordable fitness opportunities. Second is to strengthen social connections and build a supportive and healthy community. And third is to encourage sustainable healthy habits through consistent enjoyable activities. We know that when people come together with other people, they're much more likely to build a healthy habit. And so we see that the folks that come to our fitness classes, they are the ones that keep coming back. They're the ones that are making those social connections, they're making friendships. THEY'RE MEETING FOR COFFEE AFTER CLASS, THEY'RE WALKING THE PARK TOGETHER, THEY'RE MAKING PLANS, AND THAT HELPS THEM TO MAINTAIN THEIR ACCOUNTABILITY. BUT EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY, I THINK IT HELPS THEM DEVELOP THOSE SOCIAL CONNECTIONS, WHICH WE KNOW ARE SO CRITICAL FOR QUALITY OF LIFE. WE KEEP OUR MEMBERSHIP REALLY AFFORDABLE. WE HAVE AN ADULT RATE FOR ADULTS 18 TO 49. ONE THING I THINK IS REALLY EXCITING IS THAT IN AUBURN We recognize senior rates at age 50. So we have a lot of people who take advantage of that. And they get a little bit of a price reduction with $25 a month for their membership. And that's the same rate as we charge for our teen memberships. 50 is very, very young. Very young. Sorry, when did the senior became 50? We also offer an optional add-on for unlimited childcare. We know that childcare can be a barrier for people to participate. And so we do have a small, well-equipped childcare center with a fantastic staff. MOSTLY MOMS THAT ARE VERY NURTURING OF THE KIDS AND DO A REALLY GREAT JOB OF PROVIDING ACTIVITIES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEM. SO WE DO JUST CHARGE $15 PER CHILD PER MONTH FOR AN ADDITIONAL ADD-ON. AND THAT ALLOWS THEM TO, THEY CAN COME IN THE MORNING, THEY CAN COME BACK IN THE EVENING, TAKE TWO CLASSES A DAY IF THEY LIKE. And we do offer a daily drop-in for people who aren't ready to commit to a membership but want to just give it a try. And we charge $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and teens, and $5 for child care. One program that we're really excited about is the opportunity for seniors to earn, to receive a free fitness membership through their health plan. Kevin kind of manages this program, so he can tell you a little more about it.

Yeah, I do. In conjunction with our senior center manager, Rocky Kerwin, who's not here tonight, I've also run these programs in other previous cities that I've worked for in Parks and Rec. It's a really incredible program. The Silver and Fit Optum and Silver Sneakers, those are three of the largest programs providers of this program. So insurance carriers will partner with one of these three programs, and their goal is to have seniors live an active, healthy lifestyle because that reduces their potential costs of health care. So through their insurance, and we have staff at the Senior Center and at the Community Center that will help seniors navigate this, provide them instructions on how to get in touch with their insurance find out if they are eligible if they are eligible we will help them get enrolled and then once they're enrolled they get a free membership so they scan in they get a membership card just like everyone else they scan and then it records that visit we just have them enrolled under a specific package such as silver and fit and at the end of the month our staff will run a report of all the visits that we're scanned in as a Silver & Fit membership, report that to Silver & Fit, and then that company reimburses us up to a certain dollar amount, but it sometimes actually covers more than a membership costs for a senior. It covers more, like maxes out at maybe $35 a month versus the $25 a month we charge. So we are still getting revenue from those people, but it's free to those community members, which is a really, really awesome service that we provide. There have been a couple others that have approached us. These three are not the only three. However, they're the largest in the area. But sometimes someone like Primera will say, we're no longer partnering with SilverSneakers anymore. We're now partnering with this other group. And we know that there's a huge chunk of our population that has, for example, Primera in this area. So we would then look at partnering with those if something like that happens.

We offer a whole range of senior specific fitness classes that focus on stability, balance, a lot of strength training. We've spent the last year really encouraging people to get involved in strength training and to lift heavy and we've seen some really exciting growth in muscle and I hear a lot of really great stories from people that come in and say I have my bone density test and my bone density is improved and my doctor is really happy and we hear some really fun stories you know in Parks and Recreation it's all about those little tidbits that we get. Um, I, I had a woman who told me that she lived up in Lakeland Hills and that she would fall down a lot and she'd have to call the aid car to come and help her get, get up. And she came to our sale class and she graduated up to our silver sneakers class. And she came in one day really excited. She had fallen, but she didn't have to call anyone. She was able to get up on her own and just, you know, didn't have any injuries. And That was exciting to hear, just to hear about the independence that comes as a result of the classes. We also offer membership to all of our city employees as part of their benefits package. So city employees can come to fitness classes, use the facilities, and take advantage of all the services that we provide. Some of our amenities include 36 fitness classes that are offered each week. We have unlimited use of the fitness center, which includes cardio machines, Nautilus weights, and free weights, as well as a stretch area. Open gym programming, which includes right now basketball, volleyball and pickleball. We also offer an unlimited access to our virtual class library. This came out of COVID. When we were in COVID, we switched to all online virtual fitness. We did that for two years. We did it for a solid year and then we did hybrid. So people had the option. A lot of folks weren't comfortable coming back in person. So we offered a hybrid option. They could come in person or they could come online. And it was really fun actually during COVID. I learned a lot about technology that I never thought I would ever learn. But we would have members who would come to class online with their sister in a different state or their mother. And it was really fun to have them have their little chat session before class started. And so we started this 24-7 virtual library. So if they can't come to class for whatever reason, they're traveling or they're caring for a family member or whatever reason, they can take a virtual class with the instructors that they know and love or at any time that's convenient. And then we have the drop-in childcare, which is available Monday through Friday. 36 fitness classes a week. We have tried to keep a well-rounded schedule. So we've got yoga classes, a lot of strength trainings, balance and stability, cardio. Tai Chi is a really popular option. So try to have a good variety of things for people to choose from. Different fitness levels, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. So there's really something for everyone. And our instructors are fantastic at making modifications and accommodating everyone. It's really a very welcoming place. We currently have 18 fitness instructors that teach those classes. Our fitness center, here's a little view of some of what we've got going on in there. Nautilus weight machines. Cardio machines have treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes. We have a freeway area and then a stretching zone.

So our open gym programs is part of our athletic program. We have an athletic coordinator who's not here tonight. So we have open gym basketballs. We've been expanding that. There's been a lot more requests for people to be able to come and just play and shoot hoops. So we have those Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. Our open gym volleyball is Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then open gym pickleball is Monday through Thursday in the midday time frame. We'll do pop-ups as well and other open times where people can come. The gym is also open during the rec where kids are coming and shooting around. We also have sports leagues, pickleball leagues, volleyball leagues, basketball leagues, as well as youth sports leagues. So there's other fitness components of sports that aren't included in this, but... open gym is these three open gym programs are included in the fitness membership. So you don't have to pay a separate drop in fee. It's part of we consider that part of fitness is sports, get you moving, get you active, help you leave that lead that healthy lifestyle. So these open gym programs are included in that membership.

And trends change in sports and recreation. So we're frequently like checking in with our members in our community to see What are they interested in right now? We've definitely been through a pickleball phase. Basketball took a little bit more of a backseat and pickleball was kind of dominating the world for a while. And now we have had a little bit of a little less pickleball and bringing more basketball back in. Drop-in child care we offer at 9 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. Monday through Friday and then 4.15 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday. It does follow the bulk of our fitness classes. We do take a little bit of an afternoon break in fitness. And so it's open in the morning and then again in the evening. We also offer kids playtime. And I know when my daughter was young, we didn't have a babysitter. that we used. And so this is a really wonderful community resource. We have some students that attend Green River that are single parents that come down and they get a membership and they bring their kids and they'll sit in the lobby and study. We have some parents that come and just take a break. They go to indoor playground and they play and then they bring the kids in and they just kind of take a break. So it's really a wonderful resource. You don't have to attend fitness class to use the child care. We do require that parents with kiddos under two years old stay on site. And if they leave, we do require that children be potty trained and that they keep their time to a maximum of two hours. We charge $5 for a two-hour session, $10 for a two-hour session if they're dropping off. So it's very affordable. And then $15 for unlimited. ALL OF THE STAFF ARE BACKGROUND CHECKED AND TRAINED AND REALLY WONDERFUL WITH KIDS. LIKE I SAID EARLIER, MOST OF THEM THAT WORK IN THERE ARE MOMS THEMSELVES. SO THEY'RE VERY EXPERIENCED. COMMUNITY OUTREACH IS IMPORTANT. WE WANT TO GET PEOPLE IN AUBURN MOVING AND ACTIVE AND HELP TO FOSTER THAT HEALTHY LIFESTYLE. WE DO THIS IN A VARIETY OF WAYS TO GET OUT. WE DO FREE FITNESS IN THE PARK UP AT SUNSET PARK EVERY SUMMER. YOGA IN THE PARK THIS SUMMER We had usually averaged around 35 people per night, which is great on a hot July evening. I joked on our first night, it was very warm. I said, we have free hot yoga tonight. Bring your mat. We even had someone bring their dog. Sometimes we have kids. It's really fun. We also do fitness events. We have a really popular turkey burn after Thanksgiving Saturday. By the time you're, you know, ready to get out of the house, you've had enough family time, enough food. We do a really fun themed event. A circuit class last year, the instructors came dressed up as turkeys. One had an inflatable turkey costume. So it was really entertaining. And then we do a summer sizzler. We do an open house in September that's coming up in a couple of weeks and really just try to change it up to keep people interested and engaged. And then we do a host of specialty classes and workshops. Some of these are free pop-ups that we'll offer to the community as an outreach option. Some of them do have a fee. We have a really popular class right now for women 40 plus, which teaches them how to lift heavy, gives them a plan so that they can continue on their own. So it's really a coaching program that has been really popular this year. We do a yin yoga and sound healing class that's really fun. Beginner Tai Chi. Again, mixing it up. And then we have our almost 5K fun runs. Who's been to one of our 5Ks? Almost 5Ks. 1,135 feet short of a 5K. We just had the poker run two weeks ago, a week and a half ago.

On Friday, about a week and a half ago. Yeah, it's really fun. A little over 200 runners.

Nice. We have the glow run that comes up this year. It's on October 3rd. And last year it wasn't very glow-ish because we had a beautiful sunny day. Mayor was there. It was beautiful, sunny and clear, and so it didn't get dark very fast. But it was a really nice day. And the park puts on a good show that time of year, so it was a really pretty day. February, we celebrate Heart Month with the Love Run. Love is not a nod to Valentine's Day, but is to American Heart Month. And then we have a new fun run that's going to be coming in 2027. That'll be really fun. Some of the stats, we offer 144 hours of fitness classes each month. We average around 500 fitness members pretty consistently month to month. And so far in 2026, we've had 9,826 visits to a fitness class. So people are moving. This is our new, our shirt. We do a fun giveaway shirt every year. This year's is let's lift each other up. This was designed in December, which was a good time because we did a lot of lifting in December. And these are just some of our member testimonials. Our members are really complimentary of our program. They really enjoy coming to the community center. It's a wonderful facility, has a beautiful view out those fitness center windows. If you are struggling to lift those weights, you can just take a look out at the serene park and take in the view. AND IT'S JUST REALLY A WONDERFUL COMMUNITY THAT WE'VE BUILT. SO WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT. ANY QUESTIONS?

COUNCILMEMBER AMMER, START YOU OFF WITH THE QUESTIONS. THANK YOU. FIRST OF ALL, THANK YOU. I WAS SCARED. YOU KNOW ME. IT'S THE ONLY PLACE I'VE NEVER BEEN THERE, THE FITNESS ROOM. I THINK NOW AFTER ALL THIS PRESENTATION, I PROBABLY WANT TO BE A MEMBER. AND GUYS, I CAME FROM MIDDLE EAST. WE DON'T SAY HOW OLD WE ARE, AND NOW YOU PUT 50 AS A SENIOR? I'M 25. WE WON'T ASK YOU HOW OLD YOU ARE. WE'LL JUST ASK YOU WHICH MEMBERSHIP YOU WANT TO SIGN UP FOR. NO, I LOVE IT, AND I THINK My husband will sign. My husband will be a member, too.

So it's a very welcoming place. They'll be ready to help. Oh, I know. I love the place.

She'll be around. Thank you, guys. Thank you for all what you do.

And we will offer an orientation for the fitness center. So if you don't want to do a group class and you just want to come and use some of the free rates we have, we'll send Either Kirsten, myself, one of our fitness instructors, someone who's available or schedule time to go through that fitness center and show you how the machines work, show you how the weights, so you're doing it correctly and safely and using proper techniques so you can avoid injury. So we try to, if you're not ready for a group class with a bunch of other eyes on you and you want to just go into that fitness center and do your own thing, we'll make sure that you feel comfortable doing that.

Thank you. I had a question about the child care. So the hours the parents have to drop them off there, or do you pick them up?

No, they have to bring the kids. Yeah. Okay.

But the hours are scheduled at times where we have a bulk of our fitness classes. So basically, if you want to come take a fitness class, but you don't have anywhere to take your kid, if you have that child care option on your membership, you walk in, drop off the kid, go take your class, or go into the weight room. Either one, do your workout, come back, pick up your kid.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Can we talk about adaptive fitness programs today? Sure. Do we, there are options available, yes?

Yes, yes. That's something we didn't include in this presentation, but we have as part of our specialized recreation program, which is absolutely something we can bring forward to council to educate about all that is included in that. We do have a fitness program that's led by one of Kiersten's fitness instructors. And we do that on Friday. Every Friday.

Yeah, every Friday. But we also incorporate a lot of sports programming, sports skills. classes. It's not competitive, but they teach basic sports skills, and then they'll have friendly competition within the group. So every Wednesday and Thursday night, we have a rotating specialized recreation.

We've done pickleball, we've done goalball, we've done bocce, we're doing softball right now, we've done track and field, we've done kickball, so yeah. Swimming's coming back this year.

So for that population, for all of our populations, but that one we really do consider activity and programs active. Also, all of our classes are modifiable. We have people who come to gentle yoga who require a chair. We have people who attend silver sneakers who are in a wheelchair or come with walkers. So we have a lot of mobility challenges that people are dealing with and our instructors are prepared and trained to make modifications to address those.

I WAS GOING TO ASK ABOUT THAT AS MOBILITY CHALLENGE MEETING. ANYWAY, ANY MORE QUESTIONS? YES, COUNCIL MEMBER.

YEAH, THIS IS A GREAT PRESENTATION AND GIVES A GOOD OVERVIEW OF EVERYTHING THAT YOU GUYS OFFER, WHICH IS ABUNDANT. AND I LOVE THE RATES THAT WE HAVE FOR THE COMMUNITY TO KEEP THINGS AFFORDABLE SO FOLKS CAN GET IN AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT, AS WELL AS THE RATES FOR THE CHILDCARE. I DON'T THINK, YOU KNOW, I used to charge my aunt more for that when I was a teenager. So the rates are going to be hard to beat. The one question I have, and this is perhaps a little bit silly, but for your classes, I have seen something that is beginning to trend in Japan and some other countries where they are bringing parkour to seniors specifically in that space of teaching them. Teaching them to fall. Teaching them to fall is that similar to what you're doing with the sale program?

It is not But actually I was just talking last week with our one of our senior center Coordinators about that program and we were kind of discussing whether we wanted to try something like that sale is a fall prevention class and it is it is a a research-based class, so it is designed. We do not design it ourselves. Our staff go to a full-day training for that program, and it is all about fall prevention. So we're not going to teach them how to fall in that, but we do talk a lot about, you know, if you fall down, we need you to be able to get back up. works on strength and balance. It has a chair, but it does a lot of up and down. So working with them to be able to build the strength to get up if they need to because we know the dangers of falling down and not being able to get up. But that is a really interesting concept. We've been discussing that.

I've seen some videos and I'm shocked at how well you see these seniors kind of go through different motions of movement, uh, where they're, you know, like, you know, IT LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE ALMOST DOING GYMNASTIC SOMETIMES. IT'S VERY IMPRESSIVE.

YOU HAVE A VERY POPULAR YOUTH PARKOUR PROGRAM, SO I'M SURE IT WOULD BE FUN FOR ALL AGES. YEAH.

I WAS GOING TO SAY, THE LAST TIME I DID ONE OF THOSE CLASSES, I GOT MYSELF OVER A WAIST HEIGHT BARRIER AT A MODERATE SPEED AND WAS RATHER PROUD OF MYSELF. BUT, YEAH, THOSE ARE FUN.

THAT'S ALL.

EVAN MAYER.

THANK YOU. CHAIR, CURIOUS ABOUT THE SELECTION FOR FITNESS IN THE PARKS. ARE WE EXPLORING, LIKE, DIFFERENT PARKS? JUST BECAUSE I THINK, YOU KNOW, WE DO FALL IN LINE WHERE WE EXPECT IT TO BE AT LESKOV OR MAYBE SUNSET PARK OR WHATNOT. BUT SOME OF OUR LESS VISITED PARKS, ARE WE LOOKING INTO MAYBE BRINGING SOME OF THAT PROGRAMMING INTO SOME OF THOSE?

YEAH, FOR SURE. I THINK WE'RE ALWAYS LOOKING AT HOW WE CAN BETTER REACH OUR COMMUNITY. AND WE ALSO CONSIDER WHAT OTHER PROGRAMS WE ARE OFFERING. FOR EXAMPLE, Are we getting out into the community with rec and roll? Are we getting out with the summer ride program? Or what other programs are we offering? Maybe it's not specifically a free fitness in the park class, but we're offering something for those targeted neighborhoods. We've been in discussions about

doing some things downtown and we did we did do tai chi two summers ago here in the city hall plaza we found with that well on a hot summer day the concrete was members were like it's too hot um we absolutely with the new downtown park that's coming adjacent to the theater and having that be grass there will be opportunities to do downtown programming as well But we're always looking at the parks and the different community neighborhoods. We also look at when we've tried programs before, were they successful or not? And what was successful there versus maybe somewhere else? Sunset up on the hill, it's got a nice breeze in the evening. So when it is hotter, it actually is a great place to do fitness. But yeah, those neighborhood parks, we absolutely look at going to the different ones and We'll try and see what the attendance is and if it's well received by that community or not. Some are more family oriented programs do better. Some more adult programs do better. Some more like this summer ride program. While it's not fitness in the park, we've had 200 people out there every day checking out 60 bikes plus to different kids and adults. We taught how many people to ride. How many little kids to ride and actually pedal?

I think I average four to five a night.

Right. So they're doing fitness without realizing they're working out. But I've taken a couple of laps around that pump track, and I can tell you, you're breathing real hard when you're done.

I think also I am often thinking, like, how can we engage not just, you know, a mom or a dad or a six-year-old, but how can we get the whole family out? And so one reason why we choose Sunset is because It's got proximity for the playground. So we know that we can pull multiple members of the family and not all of our parks have the right space with that kind of proximity to other amenities. So that's one reason why we chose that park.

I have a question. This might be a little complicated question, but this is going on in our family right now. My granddaughter has a little one that's type 1 diabetes, and no fitness center will let her take her in to where the children are. Is that the same way with the parks?

We wouldn't have that. We're not a huge center. We don't have 5,000 people in the building. So it's very quick and easy for us to track down a parent or a guardian should we need to. Okay, great. And our front desk is great about helping with that. And the staff, you know, we have an intake form. So if there are any emergency situations or... medical conditions that we need to be aware of, allergies and such, then the staff are informed of those things, and we can get in touch with the parent very, very quickly if needed.

That's good, because there isn't very many places that they can go with them.

We have kids with a lot of abilities and challenges that they're working with, and we work with that.

We try to be as inclusive as we can. I love it.

Thank you.

I remember a lot.

Yeah, I'm You talk about all these great services and I keep on thinking, how do we get the word out to the community of everything you're thinking about doing as well as what you are doing now? And I'd be real interested to hear not in this session, but what your ideas are in getting the word out to the community.

getting better attendance because you have a beautiful facility you offer a lot of things and I feel like part of the challenge is making sure everyone knows what you offer marketing is one of our biggest challenges and we have the event marketing manager Christy Pachares who's not here tonight but I mean we do e-box we do social media we do pop-up events we have signage in our parks we Try to brand things consistently. Like, Rec and Roll's got the big QR code on it that takes you right to that page. We hang banners everywhere. But people also see it everywhere, right? We're not the only ones marketing our programs, right? So it's a fine line with pushing information out without bombarding people and then God, I hear from Auburn Parks all the time with my email. I'm going to unsubscribe. So it's finding that balance. And that could be a different presentation of how we market our programs, you know, bring that to council. But I can tell you we do push it out a lot. But we do find a lot of times, like say at a Kids Day event when we're talking, you know, have a table promoting our programs. You're like, oh, I didn't know you did that. But word of mouth is a big one. A lot of people that come try our programs, they come back and they bring their friends once they realize so much we do. I can tell you with our recreation team, we've been having much more intentional meetings when we build our schedule not to stack programs on top of each other. Or if we're going to stack a program on top of each other, all right, there's... youth ballet going on tonight. Let's shift that ballet class by 15 minutes so it aligns with the fitness class. And on the first night, we're going to hand out a free fitness pass to all the parents and say, hey, have you tried our fitness classes? Why don't you work out while your kid's doing ballet? And then you don't have to add on the child membership because you've already paid for the ballet class. So we do try to be intentional in some of those ways as well. It's just a few examples to help try to answer some of your questions.

It's very challenging to get people motivated to work out.

Guilty. It's hard.

You've got to get your shoes tied. But that's part of why we push the relationship so much. Our instructors, I always tell them, we're never going to be a place where you come in, hit play on your music, teach your class, and leave. You're going to come 10 minutes early, and you're going to chat and get to know our members. You don't have to be best friends. You're going to have a warm, welcoming presence here because that is what keeps people coming back. We don't know who's lonely and hasn't talked to anyone today. Maybe that fitness class they go to is their first interaction with somebody. And so if we can build those relationships, they keep coming back and they bring friends, they bring neighbors, and the word does get out. It is difficult to get them in the door for the first time. But once we do get them in, we usually have a good success rate of getting them back in.

With, do you guys share your programs consistently with the Auburn school, with all the Auburn schools to like send information home to parents or?

We don't use as much as we used to.

It's incredibly expensive and the open rates aren't as good as they used to be. So we will send, I can tell you we're getting ready to send a fall program kind of advertisement out through Peach Jar. It's going to include all of our fall programs as well as that open house that I believe everyone, all of you just got invited to. And fitness is going to be, have a big part of that event where it's, we're going to have several fitness demos, not quite like the full

Do a full one two days later on Saturday.

Right. But we're going to hopefully tease that for that Saturday program to get people to come back to you. So we absolutely do. We have a wonderful relationship with the school district across all the programs we offer, such as the Teen Center, as well as we've gone and met with the high school principals and the middle school principals and just to tell them, hey, here's what we've got coming up. Is there something for like our bike program, the Kiersten's Overseas, the Cascade, the grant funded bike program that we presented on? And they say, you know, how do we get into your school? We want to lead a cohort in your school. So like we'll go and go to those meetings with the principals to get together and share what we're doing. And they'll invite us in. They'll say, we'll send it in our principal email that goes out that parents tend to read more than the peach jar emails. So they're a great partner. And we work really closely with them because they do have a lot, you know, the parents and the kids are who we're trying to serve. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Questions? Well, I would like to say thank you because I used to be a team coordinator at the park. So for years and just a lot of the things that you guys are doing, I wish we would have had half of that, a fraction of that back in the day. But it's great to see all of the ways that you can engage the community. And I like the idea of the whole family. And I know that a lot of times it is just... THE CHALLENGE OF GETTING THEM IN THE DOOR THAT FIRST TIME. I'VE SEEN FAMILIES COME AND, OH, I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD ALL THIS. WE'VE BEEN HERE FOR A WHILE. SO THANK YOU FOR ALL THE WORK THAT YOU'RE DOING AND THE WAY THAT YOU'RE ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY, MAKING IT ACCESSIBLE AND AFFORDABLE, TOO. THAT'S REALLY BIG, TOO. SO THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION.

THANK YOU.

TURN BACK TO DEPUTY MAYOR.

THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER TAYLOR. ALL RIGHT, OUR NEXT AGENDA ITEM IS ORDINANCE 7025 PROVIDED BY DIRECTOR CRUM, PLEASE.

THANK YOU, DEPUTY MAYOR. SENIOR PLANNER DIANA REED WILL BE PROVIDING

Good evening, Deputy Mayor, council members, and Mayor Backus. I'm Diana Reed. I'm senior planner with the Department of Community Development. The daycare code update starts on page 40 of your packet. And I will be presenting for ordinance number 7025, the daycare code update. So the purpose for this update, in accordance with House Bill 5509, text amendments are required to allow childcare centers and the conversion of existing buildings for use as childcare centers as an outright permitted use in all zones, except industrial zones and open space zones. However, the city must also provide for conditional use approval of an onsite childcare center in those industrial zones. The effect of this change expands the potential use of childcare facilities in Auburn. And just as a note, the City of Auburn Code uses the term daycare versus the term childcare that is used in House Bill 5509. So wherever City of Auburn Code uses daycare that's not in Title 18, it's meant to be the same as childcare. So I'm going to briefly go through our text amendments to daycare. Under Chapter 18.04, we combine definitions of daycare and childcare into the new Section 18.04.2381. We removed or adults in the combined definition of daycare. Adult daycare would continue to be allowed under a different use, meaning facility, public, or private, as an outright permitted use in the commercial zones. and as an administrative use permit in the industrial zones. We removed babysitting care. We suggested not regulating that in our city code. And Auburn City Code 18.04290B allows for 16 children in a home-based daycare pursuant to the WACs. And they can have as many as 16 children if they apply in writing to request waivers from the state to have more than the 12 children. Continuing on with text amendments, we have amendments, daycare uses to be outright permitted in all residential zones. It was previously prohibited in residential conservancy zone, which is the five acres per home. And it removed the requirement that daycare centers must be located on arterial street. Section 18-23030, it amends daycare to be allowed as a conditional use permit in the light industrial and heavy industrial zones. It was previously prohibited in these zones. In our special purpose zones, we updated daycare to childcare to match the definition. So daycare was changed to the term childcare throughout Title 18. Daycares are now allowed in the public use and open space zones where they previously were not allowed. And similarly, we removed the term adult daycares. We updated daycare to childcare to match the definition under 1831.010. So in terms of the process for this code update, Staff met with the Planning Commission on June 2nd and July 7th for presentations and discussion of the text amendments. And we held a public hearing on August 4th where the Planning Commission deliberated and voted to recommend adoption to the City Council. The Planning Commission recommendation is for the City Council to adopt, to vote to adopt the proposed daycare zoning regulations, amending, recodifying, and repealing certain sections of Chapter 18.04, amending certain sections of Chapter 18.31, and amending sections 18.07.020, 18.09.020, 18.23.030, 18.35.030, 18.38.060, 18.52.020, 18.74.030, 18.76.045 of the Auburn City Code. Do you have any questions for me about the Day Care Code update? Council Member Baldwin. Yeah.

With the removal of the adult daycare references, is there anything in code that's going to continue to speak to those facilities?

Well, the adult daycare is still allowed in the code. It would fall under a land use referred to as public meetings, meeting facilities, public or private, without adding a whole other adult daycare, adult care section, it does, it still allowed use under those. And it's outright permitted use in the commercial zones and would be, it would be an administrative use permit in industrial zones. So it's still in the, it's still a land use. It's still in the code and it's under, would be under that land use. Does that make sense or?

Could you run through once more in residential it would be permitted?

It would be outright permitted in the commercial zones and an administrative use permit in the industrial zones. So I'm not sure that it would be allowed in residential zones. I'd have to look at the code real quick.

neighborhoods if that's your question yeah basically to clarify is we absolutely have a need for more childcare centers but we also have a generation you know the boomer generation that's going to be shifting into later age and so being able to have more centers for those seniors as they're getting to different phase of their life where they may need more you know, adult daycare supports around them for themselves and for the caregivers supporting them. I just want to make sure that with the change to focus the language in this ordinance on child care that we still have accommodations for the adult daycare sites.

Yeah, and that is the case. This serves more to make the distinction between adult care and child care because they do have separate regulations and separate processes. So this is just kind of a proposed correction to see those as two distinct operations.

Council, any more questions? I see none. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next ordinance will be Ordinance 7026. Director Crump?

Thank you again, Deputy Mayor. I'm going to pass it right back over again to Senior Planner Dinah Reed.

Now I'll move on to my next presentation. THE LIVWORK CODE UPDATE STARTS ON PAGE 91 OF YOUR PACKET. I'LL BE PRESENTING FOR ORDINANCE NUMBER 7026, LIVWORK CODE UPDATE. THE CODE UPDATE IN THIS CASE HAS A DIFFERENT PURPOSE. THERE WAS NO SENATE BILL OR HOUSE BILL ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR LAND USE. Auburn City Code added live work and work live as a definition in 2012, but they didn't add anything else like supplemental design standards or any other real regulations that go along with it. We just had the definition of what that is. And so we are now adding supplemental development standards that will set clear and objective standards for this use. So essentially a live work unit is an integrated space that allows for residential and commercial workspace in the same building. The business owner resides and operates the business within the same space. And for simplification, we are only keeping live work. We're removing work live from the code. It did have differences between the ratio between how much space was used for live and how much for work. And we decided to just have the one definition. Supplemental development standards will apply to new live work units and for repurposing existing buildings into live work units. This is just a couple of images for you. They're examples what a new live work unit might look like where the ground floor is open to the public or open to a client of the person who lives above. And a repurposed building, this would be an example of where the bottom floor would be open to the public or to a client and somebody might live in the building above. So the supplemental standards for live work, we added a new section, Auburn City Code 18.31.125. It includes a purpose statement and the supplemental standards. Basically, those supplemental standards are that the ground floor storefront transparency would be the non-residential portion. New development would be required to meet the storefront block frontage design standards that were recently updated in our design review standards. Public entrances at ground level will also need to meet the street level transparency standards for storefronts for the citywide design standards. The unit would be occupied as a single unit. It may not be rented, leased, or sold separately. OFF-STREET PARKING WOULD NOT BE REQUIRED FOR THESE UNITS, AND THE USES THAT ARE ALLOWED IN LIVWORK WOULD BE LIMITED BASED ON THE ZONING DISTRICT. SO FOR INSTANCE, IF IT WAS IN A RESIDENTIAL ZONE, IT WOULD BE LIMITED TO THE LAND USES UNDER THE COMMERCIAL USES CATEGORY. IF IT WAS IN THE COMMERCIAL ZONE, IT WOULD BE LIMITED TO THE CATEGORIES OF RETAIL, SERVICES, AND RECREATION, EDUCATION, AND PUBLIC ASSEMBLY. And in the non-residential, in the special purpose zones, it would be limited also to retail services and recreation, education, and public assembly. The text amendments for live work. So in the residential zones, it permits live work in all zones except residential conservancy and R1 residential, one dwelling unit per acre. In the commercial zones, Live work would no longer be part of a mixed-use development because mixed-use development is simply you have commercial and residential in a larger unit. Apartments would no longer be part of a mixed-use development. And the other changes that we did, we added mixed-use development to the commercial zone code. Under the special purpose zones, it removes references to work-live. And in the off-street parking section, there will be no off-street parking for live work units required. In the definitions, we removed live work units from the list. And the live work unit definition itself was amended. And it also removes the definition of work live. So same as the daycare code, staff met with PC on June 2nd and July 7th to present and discuss the text amendments and a public hearing was held on August 4th where the Planning Commission deliberated and voted to recommend adoption to the City Council. Planning Commission recommended City Council to vote to adopt the proposed live work text amendments amending Sections 1804-527, 1804-913, 1807-020, 1823-030, 1835-030, 1852-020, and creating the new section 1831-125 of the Auburn City Council. Do you have any questions on live work? COUNCILMEMBER TAYLOR.

THANK YOU, DEBORAH MAYOR. THIS SLIDE BACK WHERE I WAS TRYING TO WRITE, BECAUSE IT'S NOT ON HERE. OH, IS IT? NO, IT'S NOT. SO THE ONE ABOUT THE REMOVING OF THE APARTMENTS. WHY WAS THAT ADDED? LET'S SEE. ONE MORE BACK. YEAH, APARTMENTS ARE NO LONGER PART OF MIXED USE. WHY?

WELL, WE HAVE APARTMENTS AS A SEPARATE LAND USE PERMIT. BECAUSE APARTMENTS DON'T REQUIRE TO BE MIXED USE. SO WE WANTED TO DISTINGUISH THAT WE WANTED TO SEPARATE OUT MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT FROM STRICTLY AN APARTMENT BUILDING IN THE COMMERCIAL ZONE.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the information. Based on, you said this one isn't like the other one where it's a bill change that's requiring it. So do we have a lot of requests for this? And if so, what types of businesses are typically the businesses that owners are wanting to live in their unit?

Well, right now we have in a larger development of live work. It's not just a single unit. It's not a stand-alone live work unit. It has, I think it has as many as eight or nine townhouse-style buildings, and they're all designed to be live work. IT'S IN A COMPLEX. IT'S ON 16TH AVENUE. IT HASN'T STARTED BEING BUILT YET, BUT IT HAS GONE THROUGH THE DESIGN REVIEW PROCESS, AND IT'S IN THE CIVIL PHASE. SO THAT ONE'S A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT, BUT WHAT THIS IS GEARED MORE TOWARDS IS STAND-ALONE, LIKE THE PICTURES I SHOWED YOU. AND WE DON'T HAVE A LOT OF... WE DON'T HAVE ANY APPLICATIONS FOR IT YET, BUT THE PLANNING COMMISSION FELT THAT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT COULD BEGIN TO START HAPPENING MORE, ESPECIALLY WITH PROVISIONS FOR MORE public transit, the sounder station, the rapid line bus line, that people might want to start working from home more, but instead of having a home occupation, they can actually have a building that is geared towards the first floor being commercial, and then they live above it. SO IT JUST PROVIDES A DIFFERENT OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WORK FROM HOME, BASICALLY. IT DOESN'T RESTRICT THE SQUARE FOOTAGE OF YOUR WORKSPACE, LIKE A SPECIAL HOME OCCUPATION THAT RESTRICTS THE AMOUNT OF WORKSPACE THAT YOU CAN HAVE ON YOUR PROPERTY. LIVWORK DOESN'T RESTRICT THAT. AWESOME. THANK YOU. COUNCILMEMBER BOLDEN?

YEAH. MY QUESTION COMES BACK TO HOW WE'RE DECIDING who gets to live in one of these types of buildings. Because when I think about people who are starting businesses, oftentimes it's gonna be someone maybe working with a family member who might not be in the, I think in the proposed code language it said like a single household, but a situation where it could be two siblings together where maybe one owns the business and the other one is an employee that could be taking advantage of the living portion of that in support of it or a parent and their kid or cousins or nieces or nephews. I mean, I just could see more potential uses of this in a beneficial way for people who are looking to be starting businesses and and kind of springboard into that type of opportunity if we looked at how we were phrasing who would be allowed to be living in that space. Does that make sense?

And the Planning Commission did ask a lot of questions about that as well. Essentially, the unit needs to be owned and occupied by the same person. It doesn't restrict another family member from living there, but the business license that they apply for for this unit, the business license would need to match up with the person who owns the building as well and who lives in the building. And this is going to be something that we're going to be It's going to be a little bit of trial and error, you know, to, at this point in time, we don't want them to have to sign affidavits for this type of unit. But we will be checking business licenses and making sure that the business owner is also the property owner. And that's pretty much, that's where we've kind of left it for now. If we start to find a lot of issues with this, we may have to come back to it in the future and have some more, be more restrictive. But first we want to get a sense of how popular this type of land use would be in Auburn.

Council Member Lott.

Following up on that, if it was a partnership, how would that work? If you had a partner that, two partners, one owned the building, but it's a partnership, and the other didn't, would that still, would they be able to get a business license? Because everything you've talked about sounds like a sole proprietorship, single owner.

Yeah. I don't really know how to answer that. I mean, is... I think you could have more than one employee. They could both be working there. I'm not sure how to answer that.

Yeah, there may be circumstances that we would look at it on a case-by-case basis. But there has, per the proposed code, there's a connection between the property owner and the business owner. So, I mean, we could look at more specifics. And then also... You know, this is a distinct, separate type of use that is not mixed use. It is not a home occupancy, which both of those are also allowed. And so maybe some of the other circumstances that are being considered fall into different categories. And some of those categories are just going to dictate what building code requirements and what specific uses are allowed based on zoning. So I think this just represents another option and an opportunity for us to make it more clear in our code where previously there were references to live-work and work-live, which had kind of some different distinctions. This code is intended to kind of simplify and provide another option.

Council Member Sturgis. Thank you.

And I think just for clarification, because I've seen the model, I mean, the model is awesome and it works really well in a lot of cases where, I mean, if you have someone who owns the home and then makes it storefront into the front, so like a shoe repair place or watch repair, jewelry repair, We've seen that work really well. But then also there's lease options as well. So if a developer is building these units and they're gonna be a landlord, then the business owner can go in and lease the unit and they're running their business in the front like an alteration store and then they're living upstairs or what have you. So it's whoever the business owner is, the lease or the property needs to be in their name, correct? It's not just for purchasing the property? They're able to lease it as well. Or are we working with, because I would see this as a great opportunity for developers to be able to build these and then if they choose to sell them, great, but if they want to have them be rentals or leased property, wouldn't that be an opportunity?

No, our code is, the idea of it being leased is not part of the code. Oh, okay. The idea is that the person who works in these units own them. Okay.

So it's not an opportunity for a developer to come in and build?

Well, a developer could come in and build them, but then they would sell them like a townhouse to someone who wants to live and work in the same building.

Council Member Taylor.

Just so I'm tracking, because I'm visualizing an example of that right now, and I could be wrong, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe there's something similar like that with the gentleman who lives down the street here who owns the watch shop. who does the watch repair shop, and they live, the building, the house, they live there, and in the section they just, I guess they come downstairs and there's a watch repair shop. And I know they've been there for several years. So is that what we're, something similar to like that, is that what we're talking about?

That would be very similar. I mean, this part of the code may not be rented, leased, or sold separately. I looked at, you know, the THE CITIES AROUND US, AND THIS IS VERY STANDARD WITH KENT AND RENTON, ALL OF THE CITIES AROUND US, THAT THE IDEA BEHIND THIS IS THAT IT'S THE BUSINESS OWNER OWNS THE PROPERTY AS WELL. AND LIKE I SAID, THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE'RE LOOKING AT TO SEE IF THERE'S A USE THAT PEOPLE WILL REALLY GO FOR AND IF IT WORKS IN THE CITY OF AUBURN.

Is there a requirement then if the building is set up as a live work that they have to have a business?

That's a good question. I know that in the city of Seattle, for instance, they've built live works, and the commercial space has never been to become commercial. Right. I've been told that. And so that's something that... I don't think there's any way that we can require that.

Council Member Baldwin. If we can require that the business owner has to be the occupant, I don't see how we could. I feel like if we can require one, we should be able to require the other if it's a necessary part of the live work process. the live work definition yeah part of the live work definition because the concern that I have seeing challenges that we've had in other areas of the city where you know there's intention to have storefront or there's intention to have commerce and there's not any type of check or balance to ensure that that that is happening I think I would maybe be hesitant if we didn't have that incorporated in some way shape or form within this if we're designing it to be specifically in that sort of hybrid type of structure. And that's not necessarily to you, but more to my fellow council members, if that would be something that you would be curious about. Because if we're putting this zoning, right, certain areas of the city we're using in places where there's an anticipation of more commercial opportunity right so would we be concerned that we put this in and then people can just buy them and live there without necessarily having any type of business or storefront in which case are just treating it as residential well we might have to look that

further into some sort of restriction, an affidavit or something.

Director Crum, I have a question. Is there a model similar to this that is by the Sounder Station, the Kent-Des Moines Sounder Station that we're looking at, like at that model? Is that what, because I'm trying to envision what this looks like. I know her, her I would say, yeah, explanation and examples are there, but is that something that, is that the same similar model?

I don't know that I'm familiar with the Kent example that you're referencing, but I will certainly look at it.

Okay.

And I can get back to you.

There are live work standard era models that are, like if you imagine three connected town homes in certain cities, but WE DETERMINED THAT SOMETHING LIKE THAT WOULD FALL BETTER UNDER A MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT. SO WE CHANGED THE CODE FOR STAND ALONE.

Sorry, Council Member Sturgis. Just in response to what you're talking about, I think that, I mean, I would, based on where they're going to build makes the difference there for me. And so if it's in an area where we're trying to build commercial business storefronts, retail storefronts, You know, typically the business owner's intent is that they're going to have a real business there. And that's why they'd even go look for a property like this. And then if it's in a residential, I mean, some of them, I know this is more on the East Coast, but the residential areas where they're built in residential neighborhoods, it's because they may work for, you know, a tech company and work from home. And so they want a real office downstairs and then be able to leave that and go upstairs to their home, you know. IT'S NOT NECESSARILY A BUSINESS OWNER IN THAT STANDPOINT, BUT I THINK THERE, TO ME, IT WOULD BE BASED ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD, BECAUSE WE'RE NOT GOING TO, AND WHAT TYPE OF BUSINESS IT IS, BUT IF WE WERE TRYING TO DO A COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT LIKE DOWN HERE, WE OBVIOUSLY WANT BUSINESSES IN THE STOREFRONTS ON THE BOTTOM FLOOR, BUT THESE WOULD BE BUILT AND APPROVED IN AN AREA WHERE PEOPLE WHO ARE PURCHASING THESE ARE TYPICALLY BUSINESS OWNERS WHO ARE LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO HAVE THEIR SHOP. So would we want to put a bunch of barriers around that to make it more difficult for them? I wouldn't want to do that.

Councilor, did you have your hand up? I did.

Yeah, I was just curious. This would trigger if somebody pulled a permit, right? If they were to just go buy a house downtown, and let's say it had something that looked like a storefront on the ground floor, they could live in it. This doesn't trigger until they go pull a permit and say, I want to run a business in the bottom of it.

yeah that's correct if there's a proposal for converting an existing structure to whether it's mixed use or home occupation or A LIVWORK UNIT, THERE LIKELY WOULD BE SOME PERMITTING REQUIREMENTS. AND AT THE VERY LEAST A BUSINESS LICENSE.

AND THAT'S WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY. AND THE TRIGGER COULD BE AN APPLICATION FOR A BUSINESS LICENSE AT THE SAME ADDRESS, WHICH TRIGGERS THIS WHOLE SECTION. BUT UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, IT'S JUST A HOUSE OR A BUILDING OR WHAT HAVE YOU WITH THIS EXISTING ZONE.

CORRECT. UNLESS IT'S A BRAND NEW DEVELOPMENT.

COUNCIL MEMBER BALDWIN.

and i think where my head's going is more in the space of a brand new development if we're putting that zoning in and saying hey this is meant to be live work because we're trying to bolster commercial opportunities and i bring it up because i remember when i used to live up around green lake there was a lot of ground floor you know live work uh units that never turned into any type of business at least from what i could tell walking around in the neighborhood it was just a closed door right and so i would hate to see us develop this you know plan to use it in an area or neighborhood and not have any type of you know balance that would ensure that businesses are actually going in there right because i think we've seen uh without having checks and balances having empty storefronts is not a fun place to be

Council Member Sturgis.

I guess my comment to that would be that for Jason and his team, that's where they're really negotiating with whoever the developer is on the front end. And it doesn't need to be written into code. It would be that if this is a development that's in our city, then your team would be negotiating as you're going through the permitting process with the developer on Hey, we're really looking for this area to fulfill, you know, a certain amount of retail businesses or what have you, but does that have to be put into code?

Council Member Baldwin.

Well, what they said earlier is that developer develops it, but once it's sold, it can be anything. So I think they can build it with that intent, but until whoever purchases it and occupies it, if we don't have something in there, I don't know is that we would have any protections there.

Sorry, Council Member Rakes.

I get what you're saying, Kate, but I've seen this before, and I've seen it in different states. Say they purchase it, they buy it, they open a business.

Or don't.

But what if they then something happens economically and they have to close their business? Great question. Then I don't know that we can kick them out if they own the building.

All great questions.

So that would be... My comment, because it does happen with small businesses. They open, they're excited, and then they get six months down to it and they can't afford it.

Council Member Baldwin.

Yeah. And I think the reason I'm bringing these things up is because this is new code, right, that we're talking about, not something that we've had before. Or at least we're adding more detail to try and bolster the definition. And so, you know, I would say from my perspective, I still have concerns about the limitation that it doesn't allow for – business owners who are working with partners or who have multiple stakeholder parties that would be interested maybe in living in it in whatever type of family unit that that could look like. So I would prefer if we could see some flexibility in that space where you may not be the business owner owning and living in it, but if you're the business owner and you've got, say, a family member, either immediate or extended that would be living in that I think would be more flexible and would match a lot of the startups that we do see particularly in South King County where we have a lot of immigrant families that do startups where you'll see different combinations of family members working to start businesses. I think that would be more inclusive if we were able to adopt or adjust that requirement and I think that maybe being able to hash out a little bit more around whether there is or is not a business requirement. And if, say, a business went under, would that trigger anything or not? And just making sure that we have those clarifications understood. So I like where this is headed. I'm just not sure that we've COVERED OUR BASES YET. COUNCILMEMBER AMER.

I LIKE THE IDEA, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU SAID THERE IS A NEW DEVELOPMENT THEY WANT TO BUILD IT. BECAUSE I KNOW I SEE SOME AREA WHERE IS THE FRONT STORE EMPTY WHILE IF YOU GO NEAR A STREET LOWS, YOU CAN SEE THE FRONT STORE HOW FULL THEY ARE. LIKE THEY HAVE A GYM, THEY HAVE A CAFE. SO I THINK THAT WOULD BE GOOD BECAUSE THE PERSON WHO WILL BUY IT, THIS UNIT PROBABLY, YOU CAN HAVE FIVE UNITS AND YOU HAVE ONE AS A LIVE WORK AND MAYBE YOU WILL BE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER OR MAYBE YOU WILL BE THERAPY. I THINK WE SHOULD NOT, I THINK IT WOULD BE GOOD BECAUSE PROBABLY and work there, and different. I thought Director Krome said they will discuss it case by case. If I'm me and my husband, that's me and our name, and you sign it, that's how you get the permit. At the same time, I think we need to tie it so we'll not be people make money, like buy it, then it will grow, then it will start rented to make money. That's where I like the idea to make sure it's like, if I own it, It will be my business, not like try to make money. So that's my two. I like it because I envision it like South Park in Seattle. They have this area. It's amazing to have it. And the new generation, probably they will love it. You can see some physical maybe will cover the area and will never say no to somebody when I come to build houses, condominium here in Opera.

Well, those are all really good comments and questions. So what we used to have was just purely a definition. Now we've added these supplemental standards and changed some of the text. But it sounds like you want us to go back to the drawing board. I'm not sure how . OK. Great.

I think with that being said. I don't think we're asking for her to go back to the drawing board, though.

So I wouldn't want that to happen. Sorry. Typically, it moves from this to the next. And so I think staff is asking for a little bit of guidance. And so there is not a vote available.

Mayor? So in the case of a new build and it's a live work unit and the owner lives there and has their business down below and the business ultimately for whatever reason doesn't succeed, it can just revert back to residential because it's most likely in a residential zone. So there would not be an issue with that. It would just revert back to residential. And that entire space can be utilized as residential space. So I don't see that there's a problem with that. Agreed. Council Member Baldwin.

I think the... I wouldn't want us to be in a position of kicking people out because they no longer have a business. But I do think that there needs to be you know, some consideration of the fact that without trying to have an assurance that a business will be there and operating that there, then I don't know what the benefit of having live work as a separate designation is per se, because if it can always revert back to residential with no, you know, no fees, no penalties, no anything, I don't know what the, uh, I don't know what the certainty is of having a commercial component of the facility. If we're trying to have commercial, we're trying to have storefront, but you don't have to have a business, well then why call it live work to begin with? Let's just call it residential.

So if I could respond to that. So the live work is, it's a distinction on a separate type of use. Where someone's living there, they're also working there, probably operating a business, which is separate from a home occupation, which is even further limited on the types of uses that can be done and how those are approved. whether those have to go to a hearing examiner for a conditional use permit or not and then it's further there's a distinction between a mixed-use occupancy where if someone has a home and they want to do something significant of a commercial endeavor say on their ground floor they may have to go into that building and provide fire separation sprinklers emergency egress, accessibility, there might be a myriad of additional building code requirements as well as adhering to whatever the local zoning and land use allows for that zone. again this just represents it's an option that's in our code currently but it lacked clarity on some of the design standards or distinctions about if someone were to want to use this as an option so the proposed code here that our team has been working with the Planning Commission on for a few months is is really to provide additional clarity eliminate some confusion and allow it as an option so I'm hearing from you know some members of council that maybe we want this additional flexibility and option and and maybe some are think that we should have more provisions or regulations on it, but what we will do is kind of take the feedback from tonight, talk about it as a team, and we will be back to be continued, perhaps.

Council Member Lott.

Yeah, I think the piece that Excuse me, pause. Is the owner occupied? And I keep on thinking if somebody were to find a lease, they wanted to lease this and live upstairs and do a storefront downstairs, that there ought to be options. There ought to be options for partnerships. There ought to be options for leases. It shouldn't be restricted to just an owner-occupied facility building.

All right. With any more questions, we won't move on.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

All right, our next step is the elected officials' social media guidance overview. And City Attorney Whalen. And our CAO, Scott McCall. Oh, wow. And the city clerk. Oh, and the city clerk. All right. And Sean. I'm just going to hide here. Deputy Mayor, can we take a break before we go into executive session? Sure. Can we take, is that, is that okay? Oh, before we go into executive session.

Is that okay? Okay. No, that's okay.

Thank you. Yes, we will. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Well, good evening, council members, mayor, deputy mayor, Jason Whalen, your city attorney for your, my last appearance before you as city attorney. This matter came up as a result of the action involving a council member in the city of Spokane Valley. made some news, raised some questions, and so the question came to us as the legal team and certainly the city clerk as the public records officer for Auburn, gee, do we need to help council by providing some guidance that might be meaningful? because we can't direct uh policy unless you folks want to adopt your own policy with regard to social media guidance so what we did is we met as a team digested some of the recent cases including the issue with council member al merkle SPOKANE AND SAID WHAT CAN WE PROVIDE THAT MIGHT BE OF HELP TO COUNCIL FOR CONSIDERATION. INITIALLY I WAS JUST GOING TO SEND OUT AN EMAIL TO YOU KIND OF DISCUSSING THE THREE CASES WHICH I HAD PREPARED FOR YOU AND A DRAFT SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDANCE DOCUMENT THAT WAS PREPARED WITH JONATHAN'S HELP AND COMMUNICATIONS. BUT WE THOUGHT THIS MIGHT BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU TO HAVE A CONVERSATION BY AND BETWEEN YOURSELVES as to whether this is something you want to take further down the road, because Shawn loves assisting and revising the rules of procedure, so she would be more than happy after my exit to assist.

He says that as this is his last week.

So we're here just to kind of answer any questions you may have and to go through kind of the analysis, if you will. It's an interesting thing. You know, again, I was in this role a bit for 16 years of my own life, and the issue of social media posts becoming or being deemed public records is really kind of I don't want to say really new because it's been around for the last few years, but it's kind of becoming more in vogue for those people who want to make an issue out of it. So we are here to help reduce risk to both the city and to you individually because we represent you folks. And that is the genesis for what is before you today.

One of the things I think it's important to consider is that you all, if you post on your own personal page, the city does not capture that, right? If the city makes a post, it's captured in the city servers, it's captured by the city. And if I get a request for all records involving ordinance 7025 regarding live work, the city servers would be able to pull that. If one of you make a post that is deemed public records, I don't know you did that. I don't have a way of knowing you did that. And then I DO MY SEARCH, I DON'T LOOK AT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES, AND I MISSED A RECORD. SO THE RISK TO THE CITY COMES FROM THAT.

SCOTT WAS GOING TO PROVIDE A LITTLE BIT OF FEEDBACK FROM HIS LOCATION WHERE THEY HAD MORE OF A MECHANIZED STRUCTURE OF CAPTURING POSTS.

YEAH. GREETINGS, COUNCIL. THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME SIT UP HERE FOR MY FIRST RUN OF THIS. MY EXPERIENCE IN PRIOR STOP IS THAT WE HAD COUNCIL MEMBERS THAT WERE VERY ACTIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA, AND AS A RESULT OF THAT, THERE WERE A LOT OF RECORDS, AND IT WAS HARD TO CAPTURE THEM TO GO BACK after six or eight months and try to find everything is pretty challenging and so one of the things that we wound up doing for council was to set up basically drop boxes for individual council members to be able to screen grab and capture what you post on your social media that's city related so that when the request comes in there's a way for the city to look at it without having to come to you at that moment and say we need all of this for these time periods and keep in mind if you post something on social media and there's an opportunity for people to respond to it each new response continues the public record so even if you give it at point certain we might have to come back later on and ask for an update for that same post and so part of this is to help you all manage your own pieces and try to figure out how much work you want to put in on your on the back end if you will to manage if and when public records request comes in for or anything related to an issue that might be on your individual social medias. And so part of what you're seeing here is trying to help. It's a bit of a gray area. I think you'll see in there, there is no hard and fast line. And so really it's sometimes it's up to the individual as determining whether or not that's a public record. But if somebody, excuse me, If someone can provide the back end of that record, if you will, and say, I want to see this from the council member's version, we have to be able to produce that, right? So if somebody just screen grabs and then says, I want to see everything related to this, then individually you are all responsible for doing that. We have found that to be challenging for council members given you all have day jobs and other things going on and you want to do right by your community. So this is just hopefully some guidance to help keep you on the path of not having to be in a position to have to go back and basically forensically recreate a whole bunch of records. QUESTIONS.

OKAY. I'LL OPEN IT UP TO COUNCIL FIRST FOR QUESTIONS, AND THEN I HAVE A FEW THAT I WOULD LIKE TO ASK. ANYBODY HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

COUNCILMEMBER AMER. I TRIED FINE. Sorry, my question not ready. I was reading that avoid online discussion. I understand that clearly, especially if I want to post something, everybody vote yes and they vote no. That means I will be in violation of our rules and procedure because after the voting, the vote will be the majority vote. IS THAT CORRECT STATEMENT?

WELL, COUNCIL ACTS AS A BODY BY MAJORITY. CORRECT. SO ONE STATE LEGISLATION.

IF EVERYBODY VOTES FOR SOMETHING, YES, AND ONLY WE VOTE NO, AND THEY GO ON FACEBOOK.

AGAIN, SOMEONE CAN DO THAT, BUT YOU'RE CORRECT THAT THE DECISION OF THE COUNCIL WAS WHAT THE MAJORITY VOTE WAS. YEAH, OKAY. SO THAT SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE LEAD, THAT COUNCIL ASKED ORDINANCE 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. which provides for X or whatever.

No, thank you. I don't want to like to create account because that's one thing they think are rules. You cannot block anybody because it's done if you sell. And you be account if you have there is no separation in your life. So I appreciate that, the guidance. I don't like to discuss city business anywhere. I'm sorry.

One of the risks that is a true risk for an OPMA violation is if Council Member Emmer developed a Facebook account and then posted it on a topic that was coming before the council, and three of your fellow council members either voted, or not voted, but liked it or commented on it somehow, that is a quorum. And that, in itself, is an OPM account.

It's a string meeting that we're trying to avoid with email.

Thank you. Any other questions? I will ask a few. Let's talk in the sense of I would say some have multiple accounts, right? You have a personal, you have a campaign one, you have a city council one, right? CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE PARAMETERS AROUND WHAT YOU CAN AND CANNOT DO ON THAT? I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY THEY'RE ALL OPEN TO PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS, RIGHT? YOUR PERSONAL, YOUR CAMPAIGN, AND YOUR COUNCIL MEMBER ONE. SO CAN WE KIND OF DIVE INTO THAT A LITTLE BIT MORE? IT'S LIKE, WHAT IS APPROPRIATE, WHAT IS NOT APPROPRIATE, YOU KNOW?

Well, I think, as the guidance suggests, you know, you have a right to speak as private individuals, whether it's on your personal Facebook, your campaign Facebook account, which is also personal, right? And you certainly have a right to communicate generally with constituents. You can share public information, as our guidance indicates, the basic generic stuff that's going on. I think the line that gets crossed is if and ultimately the court if push comes to shove, is going to deem or determine what is a public record. Was that post made by Councilmember X a public record that requires disclosure? And a public record is any writing containing information relating to the conduct of government or to the performance of any governmental function and prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency. And that third factor is the one that kind of got the courts going in different directions in the Julie Doerr matter in Puyallup and the Neeson matter in Pierce County. And that determination fell on that third element of whether it was a public record. And in a council member's situation, it is whether you are acting in the scope of employment as a council member. Yes, you are an elected official, but you're not an agency employee per se like I am or like Sean is. And so the scope of employment test was did the position of a council member require the post to be made? Did the city direct the post to be made on the person's private Facebook account? or three, did the post further the city's interest? Well, we can also, we all hope that what we provide by way of information is helpful, but whether or not it's sufficiently helpful or whether it was sufficiently within the scope of your employment to generate the yes for scope of employment to deem it to be a public record becomes that question of fact where there's some gray area back and forth. So to answer your question, Deputy Mayor, Lawyerly it depends right and so I have a right to communicate Yeah, so outside if you're soliciting input, that's what got Merkel in trouble He was doing polling on his personal Facebook stuff and asking for input from the public about city decisions outside the normal public process and it got him into trouble he had like 350 some odd posts and Spokane Valley had a precise policy that they had adopted. And so he was in violation of the council's policy. And then when the records officer said, hey, we got a request. You got to produce your stuff. He said, nyet, I'm not going to do it. And then that caused the city to sue him. And it went down the rabbit hole. They had a huge investigation. They spent tons of time. And ultimately, the city PREVAILED AGAINST ITS OWN COUNCILMEMBER AND IT RESULTED IN THAT ORDER THAT I THINK I SENT A COPY OF TO ALL OF YOU. AND IT WAS PRETTY THOROUGH THAT HE SHALL RECOVER X, Y, AND Z FROM ALL OF HIS PERSONAL FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS AND POSTING IT. HIS WAS NEXT DOOR, SOMETHING SIMILAR, BUT IT WAS A PUBLIC SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT.

BEFORE I ASK ANY MORE QUESTIONS, COUNCIL, ANY QUESTIONS? COUNCILMEMBER STURGIS.

I guess to me it would be that we should have a leave keep our personal social media personal and that would be for opinions so nothing regarding city of Auburn but then um is it suggested that we we do a separate social media account as a city council member then or um Well, I don't even like social media anyway, so I would not want to have a separate account. So I don't know. I guess because to me it's pretty cut and dry. You're not allowed to speak on behalf of the city. It's in our council rules and procedures that if you do, it has to be in a positive light, but it could be then open for public records. Is there an underlying request here that we have a separate social media account as a council member as well? Because I know we had to do that during campaign.

Sure. It isn't a proposal that we have offered to council tonight. We're just providing guidance. It would require, if that was something as a matter of policy, THE COUNCIL WANTED TO KIND OF BUDGET, IT WOULD GO TO THE MAYOR BECAUSE JONATHAN, AS COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, WOULD HAVE TO SOMEHOW MANAGE THAT, AND IT WOULDN'T BE EASY FOR HIM NECESSARILY. YEAH. HE WOULD PREFER NOT TO FROM COMMUNICATION WITH HIM. SO THAT'S WHY WE WANTED TO PROVIDE THIS SORT OF HELPFUL GUIDANCE TO YOU. AND, AGAIN, WE'RE NOT TRYING TO KEEP COUNCIL MEMBERS FROM CONSIDERING INTERACTING WITH THEIR CONSTITUENTS BY POSTING GENERIC STUFF. THIS IS WHAT WAS ON THE AGENDA. WHAT WAS PASSED, THAT KIND OF A THING. IT'S WHERE YOU'RE DOING THAT INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE AND THEN LIKING EACH OTHER'S COMMENTS OR, YOU KNOW, CREATING THE POTENTIAL OF A STREAM MEETING OF THE OPMA THAT RUNS US DOWN THE ROAD OF RUNNING A FOUL OF EITHER THE OPMA OR THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT.

I'M SORRY. BRIAN, DID YOU HAVE YOUR HAND UP? NO. NEXT QUESTION WOULD BE, LET'S TALK ABOUT, LIKE, Maybe you don't like somebody's post or their comment to what you do post. You can't delete that. Can we talk about the legality and the issues that come with something or doing something like that?

a little bit more flesh in the bones.

So, for instance, I make a post about the e-bikes and I'm like, let the kids be kids, you know, or something like that. And somebody's like, they're tearing up our parks and, you know, something like that. I don't like it. I'm like, I don't like it because it doesn't go with what I'm trying to say. And I delete the comment. Obviously, there's repercussions that come with something like that.

So deleting or blocking someone's comment on your personal Facebook page. One of the issues that can come up It is the creation of a public forum. So even though you have a First Amendment right, when you start discussing city business on your personal Facebook page, if you do it to an excessive amount, it can become a public forum to the point where if you exclude other commenters by disliking, and I will tell you, I personally blocked a few who were dropping F-bombs on mine, and they raise this issue. It's like, hey, you're, you know, blocking public comment. And we got around that a little bit. But there is risk to that if you're creating that public forum. What do you think, Sean?

There's a great risk to that. Jason was never a council member where I was the public markets officer.

He would have slapped my wrist more than once.

Mayor.

Sean, what is the penalty? Let's say there is a post. The requester of the public record has that post and they know exactly what's on it. And the social media that's provided to you to give to them does not include that. And it's been deleted... OR MODIFIED OR SOMETHING SO YOU DON'T HAVE THAT RECORD ANYMORE. WHAT IS THE PENALTY PER DAY BY NOT HAVING THAT?

UP TO A POTENTIAL, A JUDGE CAN AWARD TO $100 PER DAY PER PAGE. AND SO, ONE, DESTROYING A PUBLIC RECORD IS A FELONY. TWO, A JUDGE, IF THEY SUE US, THEY CAN WAIT UNTIL 364 DAYS AFTER THEY MADE THE REQUEST TO SUE US, AND SO IF IT'S TWO SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS, AND ONE OF THEM, COUNCILMEMBER TAYLOR LIKED IT. YEAH, YOU'RE THERE. HE LIKED IT, AND THEN HE REALIZED THAT THIS BRAND-NEW SOCIAL MEDIA POST THAT COUNCILMEMBER AMOR CREATED, AND HE REALIZED THAT THREE OTHER PEOPLE HAD ALREADY LIKED IT. SO HE GOES IN AND UNLIKES IT, RIGHT? AND IT IS SOLICITING, AND IT'S DEEMED TO BE A PUBLIC RECORD. But he knew that doing that made it a serial meeting. If anybody saw that four of my council members had one posted it and three others liked it, and they took a snippet or they took a snapshot or they commented, and then when I asked Council Member Amber for that record, and he deleted his post and Council Member Lott unliked it, that is two separate instances, in which case, it would be up to, in that case, $200 per day for each individual item. And so judges do not look kindly on that sort of thing. And who pays that? So the city pays that out of the general fund. Our insurance does not cover any public records lawsuits. Litigation is covered either...

we would have to sue them. Yeah. Say that again. What was that comment? I didn't hear it.

So the city, if we lose a public records lawsuit, it comes out of the general fund. I heard that part. And then if the city chose, if you purposefully destroyed a public record and the city chose to go after you personally, the city would have to sue you for that.

Okay. I think the problem in Spokane Valley was they made a lot of requests to Councilmember Merkel, and he just refused to comply. And his refusal to conduct a reasonable search of his own records when requested was what ran him afoul and opened him up to personal liability. That was the problem there. There was not a lot of love lost between councilmembers, apparently, over these issues in Spokane Valley.

So one of the things I think that also needs to be considered is if you violate the OPMA, that is a fee to you personally. It is not, the city would not pay that. The public reception, the possible undoing of an action, those are things that the city would have to deal with. But if you personally violated the OPMA, that that fine is to you personally. Scott, you had a comment?

JUST ONE OTHER FOLLOW-UP ALONG THESE LINES. THERE'S A COTTAGE INDUSTRY OF ATTORNEYS, NO OFFENSE, THAT ARE JUST TRYING TO CATCH CITIES OUT ON THIS STUFF. AND THEN THEY'RE GOING AND GETTING JUDGMENTS AWARDED, AND THAT'S PART OF HOW THEY ARE. AND WHILE THEY MAY NOT HAVE have shown up in Auburn yet. They're they're making their way around. So just another piece of this is it doesn't have to be somebody in specific, or anybody that you know, it can be anybody asking for this information. And at my prior stop, we had a couple of them that were what I would call fishing to try to catch the city out and then to file action.

And again, where that happens is because your social media posts are not captured. And if you have social media, for the most part, I don't look at your social media. I'm not going to your social. I know. It's very sad. We're not friends on the Facebook. Neither is my team. And so for any specific post, I'm not going to find it.

We're just here to help, and it's up to you if you want to take any next steps with regard to your internal policies or guidance amongst yourselves.

So, Council, I guess the question sits is, is this something that we would like to introduce into our council policies and procedures so that there is a guideline on how we conduct ourselves online for not only protections of ourselves, but for the protection of the city? So is this something that we want, Mayor, with your directive, to have legal pull something together to put into our council policy and procedure? Is this something to consider? Council Member Sturgis.

I would say yeah, because I think it's great guidance. I really appreciated, too, just the quick test questions at the end. You know, it seems silly, like common sense, but it's helpful. We do have personal lives, too, and opinions. And so I think that just I thought you guys did a great job. It was really clear and just gave us some good examples. And so as a new council member, you know, being able to get this when you're onboarding either in training or part of the rules and procedures of this is I would hate to add anything to that. But it is good clarity. So I would be in supportive of doing that.

Any other questions for staff? Thank you for your presentation. Appreciate it. NOW, THE CITY COUNCIL WILL ADJOURN INTO AN EXECUTIVE SESSION PER RCW 42.30.110. OH, WAIT. ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE A BREAK AND DO IT? OKAY. JUST DO THAT. OKAY. 1101III TO DISCUSS LEGAL COUNCIL REPRESENTING THE AGENCY LITIGATION OR POTENTIAL LITIGATION TO WHICH THE AGENCY IS OR LIKELY TO BECOME A PARTY. WHEN PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGE REGARDING THE DISCUSSION IS LIKELY TO RESULT IN ADVERSE LEGAL OR FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCE TO THE AGENCY, LINK THE TIME FOR THE EXECUTIVE SESSION WILL BE HOW ABOUT 15 MINUTES. 15 MINUTES BECAUSE WE BUILD IN FIVE.

WELL, YOU WANT TO TAKE A BREAK. AND THEN AT THE END OF THAT BREAK PERIOD,

Council member?

Yes.

So you have a five-minute recess, and then after that five-minute recess, you adjourn to an executive session. Okay.

Fabulous. We'll do that. Thank you. For ten minutes. For ten minutes. We'll do ten minutes. With that, in addition to Mayor Backus, the City Council, City Attorney Whalen, Chief Administrative Officer Scott McCall, Director of Public Works Ingrid Galb, and Megan Udame, Government Relations Policy Advisor, are required to attend. There will be no action following the executive session. So we'll take a five-minute recess. Yeah, we'll come back. Okay, so. 7.54. 7.54. Thanks.

I love that there was some work done on

We are back to 816. Council, this is the section of the agenda where we can share topics of interest and or reports on special focus area matters. Reports should be limited to five minutes. We'll start with Councilmember Amar.

Nothing to report, Council Member Sturgis. The SFA for October 12th, I believe, is the date for the next study session. There'll be an update. Chief Collier's just confirming that for Project BeFree. And then also Candace is putting together plan to put a presentation and give us an update on all things court. She may be coming to us prior to that, though, for a budget amendment because they need to be able to have staff to continue propping up the court. But she has a great update. She's preparing for October 12th. Thank you. Council Member Lott?

Nothing to report.

Council Member Baldwin? Nothing to report. Council Member Rakes. No report. Council Member Taylor.

Nothing.

Thank you. Mine is very quick. We met today for the NLC, Transportation Infrastructure Committee Board, and we've got some things coming