City Council - Regular Meeting

The Yalb City Council meeting for May 5 is called to order. Will everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Will the will the clerk please call the roll?

Deputy mayor Johnson? Present. Council member King?

Present.

Council member Gilliam? Present. Council member Castamer? Present. Council member Smolco?

Present. Council member Adler? Present.

Mayor Witting?

Present. And we'd like to recognize our young people in the audience. We do have one here, and we appreciate you being here. And someday, we hope that you'll be able to sit up here and represent the city. Right on. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Okay. We'll jump right into presentations and proclamations. We have two tonight. Our first one is for older Americans, and it reads as follows. Whereas since nineteen sixty three, May is annually recognized as Older Americans Month, and according to the Administration for Community Living, this year's theme is Champion Your Health, which focuses on prevention, wellness, and personal responsibility as cornerstones of healthy aging, and whereas the city of Puyallup includes a growing number of older Americans who contribute their time, wisdom, and experience to our community, and whereas communities benefit from people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds have the opportunity to participate in community and live independently.

And whereas in 2016, the city of Puyallup became the first age friendly city in Washington state designated by by the AARP and the World Health Organization. And whereas an age friendly city supports and enables older Americans to age in the Puyallup community and live with dignity, respect, security, good health, opportunities to participate in social and recreational activities, and whereas an age friendly city can provide endless opportunities to enrich the lives of citizens young and old by emphasizing the value of inclusiveness, and whereas the city of Puyallup offers various programs, activities, and resources for our communities, older Americans at our highly regarded activity center are well represented on the city's senior advisory board and are effective on the Puyallup eight Area Aging and Communities Committee, and whereas the city of Puyallup re recommits itself as an age friendly city and pledges to continue advocating for our community's older Americans and their independence for years to come, now, therefore, be it resolved that the Puyallup City Council officially recognizes May 2026 as Older Americans Month. In witness hereof, I have I, mayor Ned Whitting, have heretofore set my hand and caused the seal of the city of Puyallup to be affixed this May 2026.

And accepting the proclamations are members of our senior advisory board. And I'd just like to recognize the members of our senior advisory committee that are are here with us tonight. They they serve on the on the board and and help oversee the programs at this senior activity center, and and Doug's here from the the senior center as well. So and, I'd just also like to mention that Pierce College this past weekend, we had an aging expo that was interesting, and and it was amazing how many presenters we had, and it was a great event, and I really enjoyed it, and I picked up some materials that I think would be very beneficial to me. So it's an annual event, and I encourage seniors to look out for it next year if you didn't make it this year.

Our our second proclamation is for the for National National Police Week, and it reads as follows. Whereas each May during the week surrounding May 15, our nation salutes the American men and women who put their lives on the line every day to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law, and whereas there are more than 900,000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across The United States, including the 70 dedicated officers of the Puyallup Police Department, and whereas over 85,000 assaults against law enforcement officers are reported each year, resulting in over 28,000 injuries, and whereas since the first recorded death in 1786, more than twenty four thousand five hundred law enforcement officers in The United States have been killed in the line of duty, including three members of the Puyallup Police Department, Marshal William Jeffrey in 1894, officer Harry Strom Storm in 1935, and chief of police Frank Chadwick in 1935. And whereas it is with heavy hearts we mourn the heroes taken from us only because they chose to serve, and we rededicate ourselves to carrying forward their noble legacy. And whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DC, and now therefore be it resolved that the Puyallup City Council officially recognizes May 2026 as National Police Week and 05/15/2026 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day in the city of Puyallup and publicly salutes the service of law enforcement officers in our community and in communities across the nation.

In witness whereof, I, mayor Ned Whitting, have heretofore set my hand and caused the seal of the city of Puyallup to be affixed this May 2026. And representatives of the Puyallup Police Department are present to accept this proclamation. And I just have to say we benefit from the service of these men and women every day. Whether it affects us directly or indirectly, they do a great job and and, serve our community well and and with with honor and respect for all of our citizens. We'll now go to to citizens public comments.

Will the clerk please read the instructions for public comments?

This part of the meeting is for general citizen comments. Please reserve any public hearing testimony to that section of the agenda. The mayor will call on those who have provided their names in advance, then the mayor will call for other citizens who wish to speak. For the record, please state your name and address or city council district in which you reside. Please direct your comments to the council as a whole, not individual council members. All comments are limited to three minutes. The clerk will provide verbal notice when only thirty seconds remain. As a reminder, this portion of the meeting is council's opportunity to hear from the community and not the time to engage in debate. Lastly, per state law, this public comment period cannot be used to speak in support of or in opposition to a ballot measure or individual candidacy, and no such comments will be allowed.

Thank you. We will first hear from Joseph Colombo from District 2.

Alright. Good evening, counsel, mayor. Thank you for this opportunity to address you this evening. I'm here because I understand that the vote for the 100 foot flagpole was moved from last meeting to this meeting. Therefore, I'm going to just read what I said at the last meeting, on how I feel about that.

So I understand that we're voting tonight on allocating a $150,000 in taxpayer funds for the installation of a flagpole near Highway 167 that's close to Kings Putt Putt. I want to be clear that I have no objection to a project like this when it's funded privately and placed on private property as what was done with the flag, by Tacoma Screw. However, given the city's recent decision to increase our utility taxes to help fund the rental of the Beni Royale Building for police operations, along with growing concerns about an approaching economic downturn and widespread layoffs, I believe this is not the appropriate time for this expenditure. I strongly support our military and veterans. I personally purchased a commemorative brick at the Veterans Memorial that's across the street as a reflection of that support.

My concern is not with honoring our service members, but with the responsible use of limited public funds. At this time, there are more urgent infrastructure and community needs that should take priority. For instance, the culvert that's near 17th And 18th that requires attention to prevent flooding in nearby homes. I believe at the last meeting, there was also talk about speeding that's occurring at Puyallup High School, causing dangerous situations that needs to be addressed. Residents expect taxpayer dollars to be directed towards essential services and critical improvements that directly impact public safety and quality of life.

I respectfully ask the council to vote no on this proposal and instead reallocate these funds toward the projects that address the city's most pressing needs and help prepare for the financial challenges ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now hear from Paul Wicklander, District 1.

Mister mayor, before I begin, I have, 10 copies of a master index of superior evidence I'd like to formally submit to the for the record. May I hand them to the clerk for distribution to you, the council, and the city attorney?

You may.

Mayor, council, and Paul Wicklander in District 1, I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of myself and my neighbors on 8th Street as we have a shared interest in the accuracy of the official stormwater map. I'm submitting this master index of superior evidence on behalf of this collective. It provides the forensic and contractual proof that our corridor is a municipal storm water facility and not a natural wetland. Specifically, exhibit k documents the infrastructure reality of the 17th Avenue culvert and the Wildcat pipe that connects our parcels. Exhibit n proves the existence of reserve contractual rights that prohibit the natural wetland designated for these residential parcels.

Exhibit k and f confirms the saturation on H Street is a man made engineered outcome from the 9th Street hidden trunk line, not a natural occurrence. As a unified group of neighbors, we demand the immediate deferral of any mapping certification until these superior records are reconciled. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the efforts of the city workers that have been relentless in the opening up of working to locate the culvert and piping around 17th Avenue. They are very professional and a dedicated crew. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now hear from Andy Anderson, District 2.

Good evening, mister mayor, members of the council. I know you're dying to hear a report from the battlefield. The situation is unchanged from last month, and I will report further next month. I'm here tonight to talk about Memorial Day activities this year. On Friday morning, May twenty second, the American Legion folks and our scout troop are inviting the public to join us in placing more than 1,200 flags in Woodbine Cemetery on the graves of of all known veterans in that cemetery starting at at ten a.

M. In the morning. Additionally, markers will be placed on the graves of 27 service people who were returned to their families after they died on active duty. On Sunday, May 24 at 2PM, the city sponsored program will be held in the pavilion and the names of a 144 of our known dead since World War read and wreaths placed. Appropriate music will be provided by the Puyall Valley Community Band.

A potluck will be held in the VFW following the following the event. On Monday, May 25, the American Legion Post will hold a short ceremony in Woodbine Cemetery at the flagpole to remember our dead that starts at noon, and we'd like to thank the city for its support of our Memorial Day activities, and we hope to see you all there. Thank you.

Thank you, Andy. Next, we'll hear from Paul Herrera from District 2.

Thank you, mayor council. Stand before you to talk about the flag. Just just kinda heard about it. But, you know, I won't tell everybody how old I am, but I do remember the two hundredth anniversary in 1976, the bicentennial, and it's one of my first memories, and how exciting that was as a as a young kid, remembering that court, that special quarter that had the drummer boy on the back. But speaking about this flag, and as a combat veteran, having been away from home from long stretches of time, I've developed an amplified appreciation for home, and home is Puyallup.

And it's here that my roots run very deep, and it's here that I see the spirit of America in every corner of this community. So I know I've heard that some people have said that the cost of erecting this flagpole, it is significant, but I can only imagine if we put our heads together. Now we have a bunch of service organizations who have who can help maybe with this this project. We have many examples in the city parks of projects that the rotary and many other people have done. You have the VFW, you have all kinds of people here.

There's no doubt there'll be help for this. Some of the questions I hope that some of the councils may ask is who's gonna pay for the flags? Who is gonna pay for the lighting? Who is going to do the maintenance? These are important questions because we need to have those answers so we can get this across the line because I am fully support of putting up this flagpole because it's a it's a visible statement of this town's appreciation and love for this country with all her faults and all her greatness. So I hope that we can get across the line, and I I hope that this council can come together like it's 09/12/2001, and get this across the line. So I hope we can say yes for the flag, say yes for Puyallup, and say yes for America. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Joshua Wealdon. Did I get that right?

Yeah. Yes, mayor. You did. Thank you. So, mayor and members of the council, I I'm here to speak in support of this flag topic.

Right? So the Puyallup community has been built on tradition and and connection from cent the Central Fair that's right over here to the local Grange up on the hill by Costco, to the American Legion, the VFW, and many other organizations that are founded here in this valley. These these institutions reflect community that shows up for one another and honors those who have served. Recently, I stood in this very chamber, I believe two weeks ago, in support of our children here in the city of Puyallup. And we spoke about the future and about raising raising our cheer our children to carry our community forward.

Yeah. It was about basketball then, and tonight it's about American flag. But it's about one thing, and that's our community here being an inviting space for all. So I believe in this community, and I believe in Puyallup. And I believe that the American flag holds a space for connection, And where the the proposed location for this flag is from my avenue of approach, it's the entrance to the city.

Hey, you might come from this side. I don't know. So, to me and to other veterans that are here in this city, it serves as a symbol that brings people together, honors the past, and teaches our children, the next generation, about the future. And it's part of something that's bigger than ourselves. So, as I said in the beginning, I'm here in support of this flag idea, and there's plenty of more conversation to be had. But just take that into consideration tonight, it's about the future. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll next hear from Cami Barusco.

Thank you, council members. Sorry. I'm not a public speaker, and this is my first time. But I just wanted to say in this particular instance, spending this type of taxpayer money on a project like this is nothing more than performative patriotism. Slap an American flag on and call it good. We have real problems in this city that this money could be addressing. A speed trap on Canyon Road, for example. People fly up and down that road every day, endangering everybody. Litter cleanup. I think everybody who drives on a suburban streets will agree there's trash everywhere.

Or what I would prefer we do with this money, give it to the Puyallup Food Bank. A $100,000 donation to them would be the equivalent of 1,000,000 meals. What more could we do to serve our community than feed the people who need it the most? Furthermore, using this type of funds when people are already struggling to put gas in their car, to put food on their table, frankly, just shows how out of touch the council would be. Thank you.

Steve Aldrich.

Good evening, mayor and council. I've been waiting months to talk to you about this. Is it okay to steal? Is it okay for the government to steal from the citizens? Is it okay for the younger generation to steal from the older generations? Well, that's what's taking place right here in Puyallup. The younger generation your planning department is stealing from the older generation because their values are different. My comments are on the critical code changes tonight. I've attended planning meetings, open houses, and city council meetings concerning the comprehensive plan, as well as those code changes. My voice has been silenced all because I live on the out border just outside the city limits, but within the GMA.

The plan being pitched tonight is just a bunch of college educated environmentalists, conservatives, ecology activists with the title city planner, being encouraged by the Fish and Wildlife Department to make these changes without facts or data. There is no RCW that says changes have to be made to the critical area part of the comp plan. It only states that one has to be included. What's wrong with the current plan you have? If this plan is passed in current form, it will make many land parcels unbuildable.

Many of these properties were purchased years ago as investments, paid taxes for years, and now we'll be told, sorry, we changed the plan. Your property is now useless. Page seven in the plan shows in green the proposed changes and the setbacks. Everyone is within the city limits except for one. Page 26 shows which one is outside the city limits.

It happens to be my property. Why is my property being singled out? It's outside the city limits. I'm not a fan of the planning department, and they know this. I believe this is why they have singled out six parcels outside their jurisdiction, and I don't really care what you do inside your city limits, but the city has no right to make changes to parcels of county residents. Let's just make this simple for everyone and avoid court cost and strike that change west of 94th Street and 115th Street. Thank you.

We'll now hear from Nadine Weinrich. Hello. My name is Nadine Weinrich, District 1, and I'm here to speak about why I support the American flag in Puyallup, Washington. I support the installation of the American flag in Puyallup, Washington has a stands as a profound symbol of our nation's enduring commitment to freedom, unity, and sacrifice. As we approach the celebration of two hundred and fifty years of American independence, the flag serves as a powerful reminder of the principles upon which our country was founded and the generations who have worked to preserve them.

We demonstrate our respect for these ideals when we recite the pledge of allegiance and reflect on the responsibilities of our of citizenship. The rep the American flag represents not only the freedoms we enjoy today, but also the sacrifices made by members of our armed forces throughout our nation's history. It should be displayed prominently illuminated during the night and treated at all times with the dignity and respect it deserves. If our nation deemed it meaningful to put the American flag on the moon. It is equally appropriate to display it with pride here in Puyallup.

Last time I was here, I believe it was Dennis King had mentioned maybe that to try again to apply for funding, and maybe if we hired locally, maybe more could support this. So that's all. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you.

Paul, waiting the slow.

Good evening. Don't have anything written down, but I do have some flags for everybody that are here. And I give that to, I guess, the

city clerk. That would be one

for everybody that's over here.

It's been a long time since I've been here. Saint Francis House, I sat on the, where you going? That's good. I sat on Saint Francis House, board a while back also, I mean, they do great things. They always had people helping and doing those things that are needed. Today, a lot of money is spent on things that maybe are not the greatest things, but, you know, man, when it comes to

the

flag, we need to come to an understanding of what's going on because the flag is not offensive. The flag is America. Also, I just want you to know, I really got wrapped around. Somebody was taking a flag, threw it in the trash can as I was coming down one of the streets. Turned around, said, hey, what are you doing?

Didn't know that there was a retirement for flags, which you can go to Lowell's, you can go to McClendon's, you can drop it off at the VFW, you can drop it at the American Legion, and probably many other people. If you take down my number, 2532280949, I will take care of that flag and dispose of it correctly. I will retire it. How do I do that? I've retired over, I'm getting close to 4,000 flags since November.

My daughter is in charge of the crematorium for Western Washington, and we do a service for flags on any given day or once a month or whatever it might need. I would tell you that the American flag is something that Americans should be proud of every day. Americans should stand up for the flag. Americans are American. And I really appreciate your time today.

I'm a older person also, but I support the blue a 150% just like everybody should because that's not offensive also. I would thank you for your time tonight. And again

36.

If you ever need a flag taken care of, please drop it off at one of those locations or get my telephone number and give me a call because I would be more than happy to come down and retrieve the flag and ensure that it is retired correctly and properly. Thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you. Libby Bristow.

Good evening. Libby Bristol from district two. I'm was curious about what goes into buying the flag and how long they last. We have a flagpole at home and a flag and I do minor repairs on that, but you're talking a flag that's probably the size of some lots in the city. I think you're looking at a 30 by 50.

I did call Tacoma Screw and ask them about their flags and how often they replace them. Their flag is 40 by 80 and it weighs 125 pounds. If you're looking at a 30 by 50 flag, you're looking at 82 pounds, which would take quite a few people to get it up to the top of the pole. They need to be heavy duty polyester to withstand winds. They can last from three to eighteen months, and that eighteen months is really pushing it.

The Tacoma screws that they take, they have two flags, 6,000 each, and they fly a flag for three months, take it down for repairs, put the other one up, they can repeat that four times before they have to retire the flag. So we're looking at an ongoing cost of continually buying flags plus you're looking at the cost of lighting and it has to be specific lighting or lit all day or all night because you're flying it the whole time, you're not taking it down, and we also have high winds around here. The weather's against the flags, and if it's flying twenty four hours a day, that interrupts the service level of the flag. Budget considerations are when you're trying to do this whole project would be an internal halyard system for security and noise reduction, nothing worse than clinking lines against a flagpole. Shipping for a pole this size would be four fifty to six hundred dollars per pole.

The lighting code compliance for this is about $400 Replacement flags are 4 to $6,000 each and on this size, you may have to order out of Texas. Shipping would be about a $125. So think about, yes, flags are great. We have a flag pulling a flag at our house, very proudly fly it. But think of the the consistent costs every align item budget every year to buy a new flag. Thank you.

We'll now hear from Val Dent.

Valdet District 2. And tonight, we're gonna switch up a little bit. First, I wanna say the flag. I'm not opposing the flag. I'm opposing how counsel presented it.

Like a construction project, you have open comments, people discussing it, people bringing up their views, and what the plan was originally and what it could be modified to later. I don't think that happened. So city council needs to step back, start at square one, bring it forward to where it is so it satisfies everybody and covers all the i's, crosses the t's, and it's a done business. The second thing I'm talking about is the little eye candy I gave you two weeks ago, the sewer systems. Now, I have a map of the street of 112th, and down the middle, the black line and the little circles that you see, is the sewer line lifting or the road sinking.

Those circles is where the base under the pavement has eroded away over the years due to the increased heavy traffic that is now going down there, the heavy rains, the mysterious sidewalk. 1996 was an election year. A representative came through the neighborhood, held a neighborhood meeting, said, we'll get your sidewalk in. We'll get this fixed and dealt with. City council meeting comes up.

The vote ends up. We're just gonna work on the street. It was placed on Appendix d of the storm sewer system, 1996. It's been sitting there unassigned. 2012, It then gets to tier two and is now at critical capacity.

So I started picturing and sending click fix, and the road is now scheduled for chipping. You're gonna fill all the divots and treat them as potholes. Those are not potholes, people. That is where the base that that pavement is sitting on is washing away, and it needs to be dealt with. It needs to be fixed, and it's causing all the flooding that you've been hearing about going on.

There's other areas attached to that. That 150,000 Mister mayor, speeches. Whatever it is that you want for the flagpole can be held and get that problem fixed first, but deal with this and get it fixed. Thank you. Kathleen

McLeod.

Kathleen McLeod district three. I was gonna say almost the same thing she said, so I'm going to add to it. But I'm gonna start with my father was a Carnegie Medal of Honor winner. All of his uncles were in World War two, two of my brothers and one of my sisters. I am all for honoring veterans. I am not for another monument and neither are they. I am for taking care of our own, taking care of the fact that we are in a financial crisis right now for people, not people like you. 60% of the goods and services in this country right now are being bought by 20% of the people people like you. I don't know what it will take. You did a fabulous job.

Thank you. To point out the fact that the needs in this city are not for a monument. We honor a veteran every time we speak to them. Another monument isn't gonna change that. We need to fix this country and honor everybody. I'm gonna throw a word out here. Equity. Don't cringe. Picture a pool of 50 people full of white men. Now picture a group of people who didn't get to get in because they had to go to a starting line, go through a bunch of obstacles to even get to the pool.

Now change that. Make everybody go to that starting line. Make everybody get through the challenges and the hurdles, and fill the pool with who gets there first, and you will see this country. But you know what you'll hear from all those white men in there? They've been discriminated against. The time of that mindset is over. The word equity means everybody. You want us all to celebrate this country? In 1976, I was six years out of college. We actually had a feeling in this country to celebrate.

What do we have now? Gold ballrooms and a war. I'm not in a celebratory mood and if you are, if you're that excited about a flagpole, I want you to consider how this company does business, you guys. Something comes up, we all go, where did that come from? Like equity.

We wait and you delay a vote and then we all come and talk to you and you go off in session and come back and vote just the way you were before any of us said anything. And then we get a little speech from the mayor to shame us. This is the same thing. I didn't know about this flag until a week ago. Most of the people in the city don't know that that money is available for the food bank or people who are trying to figure out how to buy gas and groceries and pay their electric bill in the same month. About Speakers for Thank you. Thank you.

Matthew Carras?

Okay. Just give me one second. Okay. At our last meeting, it lasted roughly three hours and thirty minutes because there was confusion about the structure of their own meeting agenda and the following of Robert Rules of Order. Unfortunately, by the time it got to the issue of the expenditure of the flagpole, it was already very late into the evening, so vote was delayed.

Members of the board, tonight you have an important decision. Vote no on spending $149,000 and $710 for a flagpole on America two fifty day because there is a better way to serve our veteran community. Last weekend, I had an opportunity to talk to over 45 neighbors in our city of Puyallup who are unaware of the spending of this flagpole. Some were houseless veterans, families of veterans, and single veteran mothers. Unfortunately, they do not have the capacity to come to these meetings or even to send an email because every day is packed with just trying to survive.

An uncle and proud e four corporal moved to Puyallup after they finished their service in 2016. After having endured severe trauma after deployment, they spent the next few years in various mental health facilities. Currently, they move between spaces, but has been a part of the city off and on throughout the years. I asked him about the flagpole and he told me that he doesn't really care because he already lost everything like many people that he knows. When I showed him the document, he said that the council should visit the underpass by the Emerald Queen Casino and talk to some houses veterans there because some of them have worked temporarily at the local state fair or even locally in the city.

They may have a different perspective on how that money should be spent. I wanna talk about another person. This is a mother of three from our Puyallup schools. She relies on after school programs and other child care programs and help from family with child care because she has a night job as a nurse out in Auburn. She was unaware of the spending of this flagpole and as a former veteran who cannot make these meetings, she would rather see that money go to helping veterans in crisis, veteran families, and single moms in the Puyallup community.

I even like to take a moment and talk about my mom for a My mom is also a veteran and also a member out in the city of Pyot. I did not ask her opinion about the structure of this flagpole, but she was unaware of the spending of this flagpole. I wanna leave the council with one last comment. There are many ways to memorize memorialize our veterans, but only three out of the 45 people I talked to knew about the installation of this flagpole.

Hearing the speakers reach three minutes.

Thank you.

Shannon

Bennett.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Shannon Bennett, and I'm currently a Puyallup resident of District 211. Sorry. Thank you, Jeff. I am here tonight because of the proposed a $165,000 flag pole and what this decision says about priorities and accountability in our city. And before I go further, I do want to be clear about something. I'm an Air Force brat, and Jeff and I proudly fly an American flag at our home. I strongly support our veterans and what our flag represents. Respect for our country is not the issue here. Priorities are.

At our at our last meeting, I was proud to see residents, including two of our own high school students, show up and speak clearly about what matters, safer streets, better planning around 7th, and real investments in youth and veterans. That's the kind of civic engagement we say we want. And I'll acknowledge the pause on this item. That was the right step, but let's be honest. People in this room and across this community are watching closely to see whether this is genuine reconsideration or just another delay before the same outcome.

Because right now, this proposal feels like a public necessity, less like a public necessity, and more like public dollars being used to create a highly visible private benefit. And what's hard to ignore is this. We heard strong statements from this dais about student safety and community priorities, and then we watched this item move forward anyway. That's not alignment. That's a disconnect.

At the start of your meetings, you often take time to acknowledge and celebrate our youth. You did tonight, and thank you. But if we're going to say we support them, then we need to show it in decisions, not just words. Because when young people show up, speak thoughtfully, and then don't see their concerns reflected in outcomes, it sends a message. And that message is this, this is performative.

One of the students said he'd never thought about coming to a council meeting before. After what he saw, do we really think he'll be back? There were real alternatives offers offered investing in safety, supporting veterans, or even bringing the community together as we approach our nation's two fiftieth. And if this project is being justified even in part as a way to deter birds around nearby commercial properties, then let's be direct about who benefits most. Because at this point, this stops looking like a public investment and starts looking like a taxpayer subsidizing a private benefit.

So why is the public being asked to fully fund something where the most direct and measurable benefits appear to fall to surrounding private businesses. If this project moves forward, it should be a true public private partnership with the businesses contributing in a meaningful way. Anything less, ask the public to subsidize a private benefit. And it's worth noting, recent council races were decided by razor thin margins. That's not just a statistic, it's a signal. This community is paying attention, and the expectation for accountability is higher than it's ever been. So here's the ask. If you're gonna pause, then pause with purpose. If you're gonna listen, then let it change the outcome.

Three minutes.

And if you're going to lead, then lead in a way that matches what you say in this dais because the community is paying attention, and we're not just watching what you say, we're watching what you do. I say no on the flag. Not the flag, but the public.

Bud Metzger.

Bud Metzger, District 3. So many issues. So, yeah, let's hear it for the kids. Right? You know?

Because teaching them what flags mean is gonna be individual on in a lot of ways. But with what kids are seeing now, it's probably best to do it in a way that they can relate to and not have it be in controversy. I just bought a new plague two weeks ago. I won't tell you it was a good deal, but, you know, with respect to the school district and their plans for the roads over there, I was dissatisfied and kind of uncomfortable with some of the comments were made and such as there was one woman here. I won't identify who who said she felt like, you know, it was she was the only one worrying about kids' safety.

That doesn't seem like it should float around here. They all she also said that that in the to solve this problem with the school district, who is our partner, who is a key portion of our city and something we should all value, She said she wanted to dismiss the school district and planning of this and just go on with her and the council and decide what roads should be any changes should be done what you know, where. She also mentioned two council members, councilman Adler and Kastema stopping by her her house and talking to her and how great that was. It doesn't seem like councilman Adler or Castamad did anything to bring her her position in this with this this, decision to the middle. It seems like she was still more on the fringe.

And I think, you know, it must have been a difficult situation. With respect to this Puyallup School District, the principal approach, of, Puyallup High School was here and spoke about the challenges with the traffic, both driven by kids and by adults. A council member Gilliam ignored the fact that the principal had said it was by adults, not just kids, but said that she wouldn't unless those kids kinda snapped to attention and had objective results, she would deny what the school district was asking. Councilman Johnson also asked, you know, that he wouldn't support this because three kids three or three parents were speaking in opposition to this Mister mayor,

this is

problem or maybe more. There's 3,000 to 4,000 parents of those 2,000 kids going to Puyallup High School. That's a lot bigger number than three or four families, I suggest. And I think you need to work on solving this problem, not just empty rhetoric and stirring the pot.

Thank you. Andrew, Linda, is squared up? I hope I'm getting closer.

Yes. So much closer. Good evening, council members. My name is Angeline East Gerdau from Pierce County District 2. My topic today is on adding Puyallup Police Department to southson911.org online reporting system.

So for the past four years, I have been trying to help our community have more access while having a dangerous encounter or experience in terms of reporting incidences that do not get reported as much via online reporting. Since our state of Washington and County Of Pierce have put forth efforts in achieving this through the South Sound nine one one website, there has been more encouragement for victims and survivors to speak up and also bypass discriminatory practices like oppression and racism while ensuring in a way through reporting ensuring in a way thorough reporting with or without assistance. Just giving the community the capability of a chance to mention what crime has been committed against them is a good stop was a good step towards our local public safety goals. So why not streamline and merge PPD operations by including their precinct into the Southside nine one one dispatch system for their units and as well as our people? There used to be a way to reach the precinct online but was removed in the 2023 while I was checking through their website and having to use it often.

We are now in the year 2026. Can this request please make it in onto the Puyallup Police Department agenda this season or even the next as crime rates tend to increase especially during the summer months so Puyallup doesn't get left behind. Thank you.

Eric. Show us, I believe. Eric,

District 2. What the hell is going on? I mean, it's honestly getting kinda weird. Last I heard, the state was in the middle of a budget crisis, And I, the people that are normally really upset about property taxes and the cost of gas are now excited to blow a $150,000 on a flag. I got 13 in the car, and they're only three by five.

We could probably lay them out and get something decent. For our poles, we use a PVC pipe, cut them in half, put the dowel up the middle, use a buckle, easy to transport. You know, I don't think we need to spend $30.40, $50,000 on

a pole. There's a lot

of ways that we can be patriots. The flag isn't mentioned in the constitution. Why aren't we just handing out constitutions and educating people on our rights? Like, I mean, we could be feeding the homeless. We're a joke about how we have the most expensive military and we do not serve our veterans afterwards, and we're gonna go, hey, don't worry, you can sit in the shade of the flag this summer.

I'm supposed to be better than this. And I'm so sick of coming down here because somebody's got some weird way of wasting something, or cutting a corner. I want my Tuesday nights back. Donald Trump put two fifty foot flags on the White House grounds. Each one costs $50,000.

Why the hell does ours cost three times that? What if you don't give us an itemized breakdown of every penny spent between here and the third parties, I have no reason to believe that that money's not going to America two 50. Who sits on that council's board? Pete Hegseth, Kellyanne Conway. Why?

I don't know, but she's there. Marco Rubio's there twice for some reason. He's listed You guys, this is we can do better with this money. We can be better patriots. We can show that we care, and it doesn't take a flag. Please put that money to better use. Your citizens deserve it. Thank you.

That concludes the people that have signed up in advance that we now offer an opportunity for those that would like to speak at this time to come forward. Please state your name and district or address.

Yeah. My name is Don Cottom. I live in District 1. Couple of items. Last week, we talked about the possible vacation of 7th Street Northwest, and I wanted to speak then, but I had my eight year old grandson with me, and he was getting kinda antsy, so I didn't have the opportunity, but we heard a lot of information about the many, many students across there going to the portables or going to the parking lot, but I would just add, my grandson plays baseball, and every Saturday there is one game after another, and they also play on Tuesday nights, and if you don't think high school kids watch where they're going, you ought to watch nine and 10 year old boys.

They don't watch at all. So I am for the vacation of 7th Street Northwest and I support deputy mayor Johnson's proposal to do it up until, 3rd Avenue. Second item, I am a veteran. I served four years in the US Air Force. I support veterans and I know a lot of people give lip service to that, but I think we should come up with ways that we can actually serve them.

I don't wanna toot my horn, but one thing that I did when my neighbor was away, I mowed their lawn for him while he was gone. That's a simple thing, but it's something that can help. My neighbor was a Korean War veteran. Yes, I heard all his stories three, four times, but you know, I'd go over and talk to them and hear them again. So I think we need to come up with constructive ideas to really support our veterans, and I'm not sure that putting a $150,000 flag up does that. Thank you.

Thank

you.

My name is Glenn Markovitz. I live in District 3. I just became aware of this $150 flag issue, and don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for our veterans, the American flag. What I'm seeing is a lot of these flagpoles are becoming more than The United States Of America flag. Later on down the road, a year or two, suddenly we have different special interest groups that are fighting for real estate on that flag.

So even though this is good idea, good intentions for the city council, I think down the road we might be opening up a Pandora's box. It's a $150,000. I'm still dodging the same dips and potholes on Shaw Road for the last eighteen years, and I'm still doing it today. I have an f four fifty dually, and I have to cross the yellow line so I don't jar my teeth out by hitting those dips where Crystal Ridge and Janelle states come together. We need to spend more of our money on things like that.

I just ran a five k around Puyallup here, and there's several unleveled sidewalks. There are signs that are leaning towards the road. There are dips in the sidewalk. There are safety issues. A $150,000, I think, could be well spent in much better ways in this city. And if we do want a flag on private property, I would highly encourage the community of businesses to come together with the funds and put that flagpole in with private funds, not

public dollars. Thank you. Are

there any further anybody else wanna speak?

Hi. James Steves, District 3, United States Air Force veteran. I have a one question for you. Are you listening? Are you hearing us? Thank you. Great. Honor us with a flag. We need more than just a flag. We need our veterans taken care of.

We need you to serve them personally. That's what we need. We got need another self serving idea. So you listen to everybody in here and what we're saying. Don't just let this go.

Don't just go back to your little cubbyhole and vote the way you guys are going to vote. Listen to everybody here for once. Say no to this, find a different way to finance this thing, and serve the veterans the way you need to serve the veterans. If you say yes to this, you're telling every single one of our veterans in this beautiful beautiful city of Puyallup that you don't care about their needs and what they have to have.

Thank you.

Any further citizen comments?

Good evening. My name is

Christopher McGrew. I'm from District 3. I've heard a lot of comments tonight. I got invited here by Josh. I'm also a veteran. I think we need to separate some of the, verbiage that comes around with the flag. It's not just for veterans. It represents all of us in this room. And there's a lot of

people who say that we

need to fix potholes, which I agree with. There's a lot of other projects that need to be fixed, and I think that's true too. These can be two very separate lines of accounting. They don't have to overlap each other. I feel like as a symbol, it's not just for veterans. It's for everyone here. It's for unity. It's for patriotism. And if if there's potholes that need to be filled, and we also wanna erect a flag, I feel like we can do both. Thank you.

Any further speakers? If not, citizen comments are closed, and we will move on to our consent agenda. The consent agenda is a number of issues that we believe are noncontroversial, and and, we'll receive a unanimous vote from the council. Is there any item on this agenda that a council member would like to pull off? Hearing none, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Motion to approve. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Motion

passes. We'll now move on to ordinance four a, first reading of an ordinance provided for additional public parking around 311 West Pioneer and a three hour time limit. City Manager Steve Kirkley will introduce the ordinance.

Yes. Good evening, counsel. Steve Kirkley, city manager. This is, an ordinance, that will add additional public parking in downtown. If Jill, if you could display the map just for reference.

So as counsel knows, the main police station relocated up to 1015 39th Avenue. And right now, the parking around the police station in downtown 311 West Pioneer has reserved parking for police vehicles. And so this ordinance would, in essence, remove that restriction and instead be consistent with other downtown parking restrictions, which are three hours. And so the ordinance would add approximately about 15 or so additional parking spots in the downtown that would be available for the public. Pretty straightforward ordinance. And here before you for first reading tonight, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you, mister mayor.

Deputy mayor Johnson.

Thank you, mister mayor. I move approval for this ordinance as stated by our city manager.

Do I hear a second? Second. Is there any discussion? If there's no discussion, I all those in favor? Oh, hang on. Council Member Smallco.

Thank you. That was at the the final bell. Sorry about that. Just quick question for before second reading. I'm wondering whether there are provisions for folks who may need longer stays for medical or social service access in the area.

What do you

So with the regard to the time limits on the parking and things like that, will there be designated areas or what tell me a little bit more about the designations for time limits particularly.

Yeah. So in this particular area so it's on the west side of the building and the south side. It's three hour parking, so it's general public parking. So there is no specific provision. Obviously, there are some areas in downtown that have ADA stalls that would be available. And so this is not that in particular, though I believe if somebody does have a disabled permit, they are exempt from some time restrictions. But let me let me confirm that before second reading. Yep.

If there's no further comments, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passed. Ordinance passed this first reading. We'll move on to item five, consideration and request, funding approval for installation of flag as part of the American two fifty program. And city manager Steve Kirkley will give a presentation on this as well.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, mister mayor. So, just a brief presentation on the matter. Just as background, at your council retreat in February, there was a discussion on this proposal, and there was a consensus amongst the majority of council to for staff to go back and explore the opportunity for a flag to be a 100 foot flagpole to be placed on North Meridian.

City staff has worked with Department of Transportation, Washington Department of Transportation, as this area of Meridian is state highway, as part of the state highway system. The estimate that we have received from the DOT is to install the 100 foot flagpole. It would be $150,000 And so tonight, the question for you is funding for that. There is tier three funding that would be available. Tier three is, counsel knows, has about a $10,000,000 balance at this point.

And about 5,000,000 of that is, at this point, set aside for the jail remodel and substation. The other approximately about a half million is or 5,000,000 is available for projects such as this one time capital type of projects. So just as a brief background, city staff worked with the Department of Transportation. They, as as council probably knows, this is part of the Gateway Project. So this is where 167 will be extended all the way eventually to the Port Of Tacoma.

And so right now, the project, as we can see out there, phase, I think it's 2a, is adding a full interchange at Meridian and Valley. And so this is within the scope DOT. As part of that larger project, we'll also be doing enhancements along North Meridian in this area. They reached out. DOT reached out to their at to their design build firm, which is Atkinson Construction, and they provided the quote, which is before he denied the 149.

That includes a 100 foot flagpole, lighting, a 20 by 30 foot flag, some carpentry to to install it. And it would go approximately where the star is. It's kinda hard to see there, but it would go just just north of 4th Street before you head on the bridge over over North Meridian. This is a very rough rendering of what it could potentially look like. This is just a schematic, just to give you an idea of of where it would be and and what it would look like.

And I think I've gone over a thing. We would also add a plaque at the base of the flag to commemorate why this is being installed as part of our 200. So that's the extent of my presentation. Both myself and Ken Davies, our public works director, is available if you have any questions. So thank you, mister mayor.

Mayor Johnson? Oh.

Thank you, mister mayor. I wanna defer to council member King first, if don't mind. I think he had he's the one that sponsored this. I'd love to hear from him first, I'll go after him if that's alright.

Council member King.

Thank you, mister mayor. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, indeed.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Steve. Thank you for all of that information, and thank you to, everyone who came out here and spoke tonight. You know, this isn't about politics, ideology, or political parties. Tonight is about honoring two hundred and fifty years of American sacrifice.

For two hundred fifty years, the brave men and women who have worn the uniform of the United States Armed Forces and defended the freedoms we enjoy today. Some came home, some did not. Here in Puyallup, we know of a name that has been mentioned often, staff sergeant Brian Black, the US army special forces green beret who was awarded just recently the silver star for his heroic actions in the service to our nation. He was one of our own. He gave the ultimate sacrifice defending this country.

And respectfully, he is not likely, and we we know, he is not the only individual from our community over the last two and a half centuries whose story deserves to be remembered. That is what this project is about. Nothing else. The America 250 memorial flag project is about remembrance, gratitude, patriotism. The proposed flagpole is intended to stand as a lasting tribute to those who have served this country with honor.

This is not a political statement. This is a statement that Puyallup remembers. I've heard some attempt tonight to frame opposition around affordability. But respectfully, this project is not why housing costs are high, not why groceries are expensive, and it's

not

why families are struggling financially. To compare a memorable opportunity like this, like the memorial honoring two hundred and fifty years of American service and sacrifice to broader economic issues misses the heart of what we are discussing tonight. This community has always stepped up to support meaningful projects, just like the memorial bricks across the street. So with that, I am proposing an addendum to this project that we establish a memorial two fifty community fund in conjunction with what was presented tonight that would allow residents, veterans, families, and local businesses to contribute directly towards this project through the 2026. And I want this council and the public to know that there are donors out there that are willing and able to make significant contributions to help offset this cost to this memorial.

That doesn't mean that we delay this project any further. It just means these funds would come at a later date throughout the rest of this remainder calendar year. This would be a community supported memorial for our city. And importantly, this memorial flagpole would be dedicated solely to flying the flag of The United States Of America and only that flag. Long after all of us are gone, that flag can continue to fly over this city as a reminder of the men and women who defended it.

Children will see it. Veterans will salute it. Families in the city of Puyallup will gather beneath it, and future generations will know that Puyallup chose to honor those who served this nation over the last two hundred and fifty years. I respectfully ask counsel tonight for your support for the two hundred and fiftieth memorial project and this flagpole. Thank you, mister mayor.

Did you, sir?

Thank you. Deputy mayor Johnson.

Thank you, mister mayor. Tonight, I'm appealing to you, mister mayor. I'm also appealing to council member King King, council member Castama, council member Adler, cast council member Gilliam, and council member Smokel. I'm asking you to join me in advancing a lasting memorial for Peel. Since our country's founding in 1775, an estimated 40 plus million Americans have worn the uniform in every branch of our armed service.

Approximately 1,400,000 have died in service to this nation, many paying the ultimate price. So the rest of us sitting here today and will continue can live in freedom, service this nation, many paying the ultimate price. So the rest of us sitting here today and will continue can live in freedom, uphold our way of life, and pass on the opportunity to the next generation. Given the magnitude of that service over the past two fifty years, it's a small but worthy investment for Puyall to erect a 100 foot flagpole flying a 60 foot wide American flag dedicated to those who served and the families who bore that sacrifice at their home. This is not just a flagpole.

It is a public, permanent act of gratitude, built in steel and carried forward in memory. The

two

hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the United States gives us a uniquely fitting moment to dedicate this memorial. I propose we hold the ribbon cutting and the first raising the flag on 07/04/2026, so that on our nation's anniversary, Pealt makes it crystal clear and lasting commitment with gratitude, remembrance and respect for those who have served and those who never came home. This flag will be seen every day by families, workers and visitors driving through our city, and this flagpole will stand at the tallest as the tallest monument in our downtown core, rising even higher than City Hall itself. And this is intentional. It reflects the highest regard with those we hold in deep respect and especially for those who paid the ultimate price.

And the beauty about this is that there are many who a few who disagree, even some who

are hearing the murmuring, but that's the freedom that you have to

have that expression to disagree. You have that right, but we also have rights both ways. This will be a constant and visible reminder that the liberty we enjoy, the ability to raise our families, to build our livelihoods and to grow our business in peace was secured through courage and sacrifice. And it will speak beyond our own time to the next generation and the next reminding future generations of Americans that service and sacrifice are not chapters we close, but values we carry forward. I'm asking you, counsel, for your support to fund and deliver this memorial and to stand with me in dedicating it together on 07/04/2026.

Listen carefully. This project is a small price to pay for the rich life we're fortunate to live here in Puyallup. The safety we depend upon and the opportunities we pursue and the freedom to raise our families and to express our differences, of which you're doing a few doing well, and we allow that. The estimated cost of $160,000 to construct this memorial is remarkably small investment in proportion to the service it honors, representing only oneten of 1% of our $153,000,000 annual budget. Oneten of 1%.

And approving it would not increase taxes because

it would

be funded through a one time expenditure from our tier three funds that are set aside for unique needs and opportunities like this. Furthermore, the estimated cost of $160,000 measured against sacrifice is roughly $0.11 for each individual that passed in our two fifty year history. Dollars $0.01 1. And to measure it against duty, those who have served in our country, this $160,000 is less than a half a penny for all those who have served in our military. In light of that, this is not a costly gesture.

It's a modest and enduring commitment to honor those who have served in the past, those who are serving today, and those who will answer the call in the years ahead. If we cannot, as a community, as a council, unite around a public act of remembrance with such insignificant cost in the scope of things for those who served and for those who died in service, then we risk sending a message that their sacrifice is easier to benefit from than to honor. I, for one, would not want to be the person or the small group who argues that this recognition should be deferred or that these funds are better served for something else. We only get one two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and this is our moment in the city of Puyallup to stand unequivocally behind those who served and those who never came home. I fully support this memorial and stand behind it wholeheartedly with no apologies, no hesitation, and unmoved in my decision.

Therefore, I make a motion that we approve and fund this memorial project as given the amendment that councilmember King has mentioned, and that we vote tonight to dedicate it in honor of all those who have served, those currently serving and those who will serve in the future with the first raising of the flag to commence on 07/04/2026. Mr. Mayor, that's a motion.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Councilmember Smallcoe.

Thank you, mister mayor. Ahead of tonight's vote, I want to be direct about my position on the proposed FICOL expenditure. I cannot support it, and I urge each of you to reconsider the expense. At a time when our constituents are watching every dollar we spend, committing any chunk of taxpayer dollars to a single decorative structure is frankly indefensible. As our neighbor, Libby, pointed out, that figure does not include the ongoing costs of flag replacement, lighting, maintenance and repairs, expenses that will compound year after year with no return on investment for our residents.

Beyond the financial concern, I want to name something we should all be willing to examine honestly. I agree with our neighbor Tammy Briscoe this proposal risks being little more than performative patriotism. Love of country is not measured in the height of a flagpole or the size of a flag. It is measured in the quality of our roads, the safety of our neighborhoods, the services we deliver to vulnerable residents, and things that, man, this money could meaningfully support. Council member King described the flag as a lasting tribute, but I'd like like to offer alternatives that would more authentically and arguably meaningfully echo for generations.

We could, with this money, provide something like 165 vocational scholarships at $1,000 each for low income high schoolers. That's a transformational number. We could also provide 55 home weatherization projects for low income households to an average of $3,000 a unit, permanently lowering energy bills. We could have a world class mural or sculpture by a regional artist with full community co design for a fraction of this. We could have several of them.

We could have 33 neighborhood festival micro grants of $5,000 each, one per neighborhood every year for multiple years. A $165,000, a $150,000, $5, whatever it is. We can have 400 trees in our hottest neighborhoods for Pete's sake or years of youth programming at our library or art docents in any of our schools. What does this flag do for a Puyallup kid who needs a meal this summer? And I'm a teacher, and I know there are many.

Or a family paying too much to heat their home or cool it this summer. I'm not opposed to celebrating America. I teach American history every day. I'm opposed to this price tag when our community has unmet needs. I'm also concerned about the signal this sends.

When residents struggling with rising costs see their local government spend this kind of money on a symbolic structure, it erodes the trust I'm trying to work hard to build. A flag or other such memorial on this site should be grant funded, and it sounds like council member King has it all lined up with people ready to flip the bill. It shouldn't be fought over. I've not heard anyone call the flag itself offensive, but the means of paying for the whole project with taxpayer dollars and without consideration for ongoing cost, potential harm to local and migratory birds for Pete's sake. I've there's heard a bald eagle's nest nearby, and I don't want an American flag to potentially harm the nation's bird.

I'll be voting no tonight, and I respectfully ask that you join me. There are far better uses of this money, uses that reflect the real needs of the people we serve, and I thank you for your consideration.

Councilmember Adler.

Thank you. Steve, I have a few questions I just want to be crystal clear on. So the property in which this would be installed is city property?

It's state right of way.

Who would own the flagpole?

Well, in theory, we would own it on state property.

Who would you. Who would then maintain the pole, the flag? And therefore, would be responsible for ensuring that the flag is properly presented every day?

Since that would be our flagpole and it would be a city flag, we would want to take responsibility for that.

And do we have that agreement in place now with WSDOT?

There's not a formal agreement in place, but we certainly once authorized with the funding would be able to do that.

And do I have it correct that this is likely a flagpole that is not easily accessible to the public because it is surrounded by moving traffic?

Yes. It would be in the median between north and south lanes of North Meridian.

Thank you. No further questions for you. Thank you again. So I feel very sad, frankly, because while we have some have stated that this is not political, actually, what it has become is inherently political, and that makes me very sad. This decision has inherently become political, and that makes me very sad because it shouldn't be.

And many here tonight actually, I'll say there's, I think, not one comment tonight that I disagreed with. I have to be honest. I think council member Herrera's comments, I appreciated them very much. I agree with him. I think that there's a lot of opportunity out there for public private partnership to council member King's proposal.

The problem I have with that tonight is that I would be considering something that I don't know the outcome of, and that doesn't make me feel very good. But I'm sad because the flag to me, this discussion, it has now become divisive. And I didn't run for office to to, bring more divisiveness to our community. Both of my grandfathers, maternal and paternal, served in our military. You know, the flag is it means something to everyone regardless of where you land.

And so this notion of of perhaps if you don't support this, you're not American, I I have a really big challenge with. I have had the incredible opportunity and honor in my life to work with one of our members of congress to have flags flown above the United States capital in honor of veterans who never veterans who have passed and active duty members who never came home. I have stood there with that same member of congress presenting that flag to that service member who lost his life, presenting it to his family who was here from Puyallup. But I just I mean, I'm truly speechless. You know, I support having a flag however many feet tall.

I support I support supporting our veterans. I always have. That is a nonnegotiable for me as I assume it is for everyone else. But this notion of, you know, if you don't support this proposal, you're not American, whereas your patriotism is something that is very concerning to me. Folks can judge.

The good lord knows folks make judgment about me all day every day. This will be another one, and that's okay. But I I can't support this. But I wanna be really clear. Let my walk be my walk.

That does not mean that I do not stand unwavering in my commitment as it has my entire life to our active duty and our veterans in this community. Let that be the judgment of where my patriotism falls. Thank you very much.

I'll weigh in at this point. I agree that we can all be patriots whether or not we we support spending public funds on this project or not. I personally worked on the Veterans Memorial across the street in installing it. I held the shovel that helped dig the holes for the for the flagpoles across the street that that, sit next door to our Veterans Memorial. I worked with the I led the scouts that were instrumental in in bringing that memorial to to pass.

I I honor and and I'm proud of that service that I provide. It's nowhere near the service that our veterans provide have provided. But I'm also sensitive to the to the city budget, and and we needed a new public safety building last year, and we ended up raising some taxes and some fees that that made a a dent on our in citizen budgets. And and I don't like raising taxes. I resist raising taxes, but I felt that public safety building was something that we desperately needed to to house our police force in a in a workable situation.

So I raised those taxes. And the tier three money we're talking about tonight is the product of of those taxes. The the money from our general fund flows into our into our tier three funding, and we're proposing to now spend that money on the the on this flagpole. And and, you know, I that tax money is sacred money. You know, people have have, you know, it's I I take the responsibility for spending that money very I take full responsibility for that.

And and as a finance officer, I know how hard it is to come by that money. I and I treasure our tier three money because it's there to deal with with unexpected stuff and and major projects that like the jail that that we need to refurbish. That's a $5,000,000 chunk. That's not to say that we won't have another $5,000,000 chunk in a year or two. So I I am frugal.

I'm a I turn myself a fiscal curmudgeon. So so I I really don't like the idea of of spending our our tax our sacred tax money on a on a project like this. So I really applaud council member King's proposal that we that we spend private money on this. And I think that's the right place to be. The the Tacoma screw flagpole in in Tacoma was privately funded.

You know, I've been to Texas. There's there's flags all over Texas. You can't drive down a highway without seeing a dozen flags as big as the one in in Nalley Valley. They're huge, but they're on car dealership lots and business lots, and they're funded by private sector. And I think that we as community can privately fund this flagpole.

And I would invite all of us here tonight to to to consider ourselves patriots to to step up and and contribute to this. And and let me be the first one. I'll I'll chip in a couple $100 in this effort. And I invite everybody to do the same. And I so I am going to do yes.

So I that that's what I have to say about it, and I will yield the floor to council member Gilliam.

Thank you, mister mayor. Thank you, mister mayor. I just wanna clarify really quickly what's before us. It's my understanding that the motion is to have the city pay for this and open up an opportunity for the private sector to invest and have their name on a plaque. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. So with that in mind, I am for this project. I just heard the mayor saying he'd be willing to contribute. I just saw a community member several community members in here say

And then we get maybe a few donations after?

I'm pretty confident that the community would rally behind

us. So

200 from the Americans what? How much is King going

to? There's no dialogue out there, mister mayor.

No one's gonna see

the plot because it's in the middle of Meridian there.

There's no dialogue, mister mayor. I

call the meeting to order. King. The The public comments section of this program has concluded. We are now having a discussion as a council. I ask you to refrain from further comment from the audience.

Councilmember Gilliam, were you done?

I got my answers, the questions. You. Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think it was mentioned that this perhaps has gotten a little political. And I would think that that's maybe safe to say. But I do think we're taking it out of context in terms of the amount of funding for this. It's insignificant compared to the proportion. Let's use a proportion. Let's just use the average median income at $75,000 a year. Whatever you want to be. But the point, the proportion is the same is that if you made $75,000 a year and you were going to, in a sense, erect some memorial for $75 it's doable.

In terms of the city, we're talking about onetenth of 1% of our annual budget. It's insignificant in comparing it to a private household to be able to donate onetenth of 1% for the memorial. So we're taking it out of context here. We're using words like we can do so many things with this, but it's really a minor amount in the scope of our city budget. And so anyway, I think this is going to be a great memorial to honor those who have served in the scope of what it's doing.

It's going to be something that we'll be proud of. I want to just focus lastly on high insight. There was the council made a difficult but courageous decision and to fund and to provide for the public safety building. And with high insight, the overwhelming support of the community rallied around that once we had the ribbon cutting. There's a few folks who may not like this flagpole, but it's likely going to pass, I suspect, I don't know the count, but it's likely going to pass.

And with hindsight, when they look at that flag going up, they're going to be grateful for that when they see it. And a few that don't, that's their right of liberty to have a disdain for it and think that it was wasted. One tenth of 1%, nothing. Therefore, mayor, I call it to question and order, if we can, for the vote.

We have

several council members queued up, and I will recognize council member Smallco.

Thank you. I, as a citizen, would be confused by a plaque that is paid for by private donors. To me, that would look like they paid for the whole thing. And I feel like if the roles were reversed in the in the payment process in providing the the finances for this. Let the private sector pay for it, and maybe the city gets a plaque. I think it's confusing optically, visually to have a plaque with some private donors on it where that was maybe just a chip, you know, drop in the bucket. I don't like the way that looks. I think that's confusing, and I I actually think it's a bit dishonest in appearance.

Councilmember Radler.

Thank you. I appreciate the second bite at the apple because I don't often do it. I like to say things once and say them loudly and clearly. I wanna be extremely clear, crystal clear, the clearest you can be that me not supporting this flagpole is not a reflection of disdain. That is incorrect.

I do not appreciate being impugned. My commitment has been, will always be to supporting active duty and veterans in our community. A flagpole does not decide how I honor this country and those who have fought and defended her. And I will say, and I will ask that every single person hearing this to hold me accountable. Hold me accountable.

If my talk does not follow my walk, and if my walk does not follow the talk here tonight related to supporting our active duty and our veterans and all of those that support these men and women every single day hold me accountable. Thank you.

Councilmember King.

Thank

you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to be clear on the amendment. And the amendment was that the city were to proceed with the construction with the addition of the memorial fund for the two fifty Memorial flag and that this memorial were to only fly The United States Of America flag at all times, and that it would not be removed or replaced with any other flag through its lifetime. So that is the amendment on the table. Thank you.

Mr. May I call for the question, please?

I still got a comment. The couple of items here. One, the location. If people are going to be raising and lowering it, taking to half masts, in the middle of the highway, I I see that as being a a safety issue. I also wonder where the plaque is gonna be.

If it's in the middle of the road, who's gonna read it? So I would strongly advocate that we that the poll, if we do this, be moved out of the median strip and to the side of the road where people can actually see it. It'd be nice to have it by the Riverwalk Trail where people can go by and read the plaque and see what it has to say. The other comment I would have is if we approve this motion, then I think there's a sacred you know, I talked about the sacred funds of the tax revenues. I think there's a sacred obligation here by the people that support this to come up with the private funds to do it.

So we've had a lot of veterans organizations that have stood up. You know, I honor those veterans organizations. And again, I've already made my commitment. So I think there needs to be a sacred obligation to make the citizenry whole on this because clearly not everybody here feels that public funds ought to be spent this way. So let's honor both sides of this question.

Honor the people that want a flag because they feel it's a way to honor our history, our country, and but also honor the people that think there's better use for the funding and make sure that the public funds are not used on this particular project. We pay for flagpoles on city buildings and in city parks, and this is neither. So I think it's not one that screams for public funding. So those are my closing remarks. The question has been called. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All those opposed.

Nay.

The ayes have it. Thank you very much for this robust discussion and I'm hopeful that everybody, if the sacred obligation is carried forward, everybody in this audience will be happy. Thank you. Let's move on.

Next Mayor, point of order, just to make sure clarity.

Yes. Councilmember King.

I just wanted to be clear that the amendment to this proposal was included in this vote as one.

Correct. So just to restate, flag will be initially funded. Private funding will be solicited and the flagpole will be will only ever fly an American flag. Thank you, mister mayor. Thank you. Okay. The so next is to authorize a budget amendment for the West Meeker Public Parking Lot project, and our city engineer Hans Hunger will introduce the request.

Thank you, mayor. This was an item that was on our consent agenda last week, and it got pulled. It's for constructing 14, stall parking garage just by the old police station. What we're doing is coming before you for authorization of the funding based on our estimates, and then when the funding's in place, we'll go out to bid. I will say that right now this is a pretty conservative estimate on that that we've done. It's got a 20 contingency, so we're hoping that it will actually come in less than what we've estimated here. But we tend to not want to bid projects before we actually have the money authorized there. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Councilmember Adler.

Thank you. Just real quick, Hans. When this is completed or for city attorney, city manager, any three of you, I apologize. When this is completed, will it come back on the agenda for acceptance?

Typically, because it's a public works contract, it would Councilman Bradler. Right.

Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Make a motion to approve.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Any

opposed? Motion passes. We will now move on to other business and we'll have a report on our state legislative session. It'll be teed off by Eric Johnson, our public affairs officer.

Okay. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Eric Johnson, Public Affairs Officer. And tonight I will give you an update on the twenty twenty six state legislative session. So for tonight's agenda, first I will just walk through our capital budget request, the three that we made for 2026, and then I will touch upon the legislative issues of importance that you all approved this past year.

And then I will pass it off over to our state legislative affairs consultants, Luke Esser and Jim Hedrick, who are here this evening who will give you an update on this latest session. So first off, just diving straight into our capital budget request. So our number one request is a project that you are all very familiar with, the next phase of the 4th Street Northwest stormwater project. This would be for phase N2B, which continues the new storm main replacement south well, starting at West Stewart South down to 5th Street Northwest and would go underneath the BNSF railroad tracks and end at roughly the Sound Transit parking garage. That's the phase.

N2B is the phase that we will be seeking construction funding for. The total construction cost for this phase is $3,300,000 and I am happy to report that we were successful in securing $1,030,000 which is technically more than what we requested. That's always a good thing. So appreciate the 25th Legislative District for advocating for us and getting us additional funding than what we requested. Our number two request is for the Van Leer Park Public Parking Lot.

So this would be for the final design and engineering to expand that parking lot, which would include 55 parking stalls, new roadway improvements, curb, gutter and sidewalk along 8th Avenue. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2027 at around $4,000,000 And I'm happy to report that we asked for $350,000 for final design and engineering, and the 25th Legislative District successfully secured us $361,000 So again, more than what we asked for. That's great news. Our third capital budget request was for construction funding for the Meridian Gateway Arch project. So that's part of our way finding signage plan to improve way finding in downtown.

The Gateway Arch would be located on North Meridian just south of the 5th Avenue Northeast Light Intersection. Construction is anticipated in 2027 at about $1,000,000 Unfortunately, we were not successful in receiving capital budget funding. However, we are going to be making an LTAC request that is a discussion that we heard from you all about seeking LTAC funds would be a more appropriate funding source for this. So we'll be doing that this summer. Next up, I've got our legislative issues of importance that you all approved this past year.

The first one is, to support providing direct financial assistance to cities in the in the wake of the recent state supreme court decision, which lowered the public defender, caseload standards. That's the first legislative issue of importance. The second one is to safeguard existing funding for the SR 167 Gateway Project and ensure that that project is completed on time. The third issue is to oppose legislation that mandates highly prescriptive land use regulations on local government. That's a very important one to you all.

And then the fourth one is to increase access to behavioral and mental health resources and services such as funding for our designated crisis responder program through the Puyall Police Department. And then we have the fifth issue is to support condo liability reform aimed at lowering the regulatory barriers associated to building condominium projects in the city of Puyallup. And then the next issue is to increase state funding by covering 100% of city's costs associated to sending a police officer recruit through the Basic Law Enforcement Academy program. And then the next issue is to expand and preserve state funding for the Public Works Assistance Account and other state infrastructure grant programs that support capital improvement projects. And then finally, the last issue of importance that you approved was for the state to increase funding to WSDOT, the Washington Department of Transportation, and also Department of Ecology for removal of trash and debris on state highways, specifically along the SR 512 and the SR 167.

And so with that, I'm going go ahead and turn it over to Luke Esser, who's going to give you an update on the last session. And also Jim.

Thank you for telling us apart. Counsel, thank you for having us. Great night to be in the great city of Puyallup. Just want to kind of talk about the past, present and future of the budget situation that they've got down there. I have been doing this for a while now, and I've never seen where you've got a linkage, a clear linkage of the twenty five legislative session, '26 and the '27 that we're ramping up into.

If you recall last year in the 2025 legislative session, lots of taxes, lots of cuts, lots of fund transfers and whatnot because they were in a structural deficit. We came into a supplemental budget year, not the long budget year, but supplemental budget year in January 2026, again with a $2,300,000,000 budget deficit. That would be a large budget deficit even for a biennial year. And that overcast the entire session this past year. We did see the 1 millionaire's tax and we're going to talk about that a little bit, but you didn't see a lot of tax increases.

There's opportunities for locals that Luke is going to talk about here in a minute. A lot of fund transfers, lot of backfills, a lot of more cuts, but they still ended up spending about 10.8% more this biennium than they did last biennium. So they're still spending money. And what's putting pressure on that is reduction in federal transfer payments. It's Medicaid, it's healthcare, largely human services, some education, but the pressure right now on healthcare, both with inflation and what's not coming from federal transfers is putting an immense pressure on the budget and rising caseloads.

Don't want to forget that. Millionaires tax, again, been doing this for a long time. The two things I wanted to leave you with on a millionaires tax about, I don't want to talk about equity and unity and or the uniformity and all that that the Supreme Court will probably take up. What I want to leave you with is I've never seen a tax where it was outside of the biennium that they were in. So I mean, the millionaire's taxes didn't do anything for the current problem statement that they're in.

And also the other thought this is they bought back a lot of policy, they bought back the sales tax increases that they did. They did a lot of things to make small business less tax burden on small businesses by buying down, by upping the threshold on the small business threshold for the B and O tax. The other thing is they started out with a payment for public defenders. It got winnowed down and eventually it got eliminated altogether. The millionaire's tax was going to be the golden egg, if you will, for or the solution for paying for public defenders.

Still a very large problem that they're dealing with in the legislature that did not get funded through the millionaires tax. And I know it's a pressure that concerns city staff here in Puyallup. Looking to 2027, I don't want to give you any numbers, but I mean, they're still looking at another budget deficit or a structural shortfall, if you will. Don't know if they can go back to the tax well. Don't know how much more they can do on spending cuts.

Don't know if we're going to see any more federal transfers, probably not. So, going into 2027, they are really looking at the probability of not being able to pull another rabbit out of the hat. So it's going to be very interesting to see how 2027 shakes out. I'm not going give you any numbers, but I would think that their budget shortfall is going to be at least $1,000,000,000 if not in the hundreds of millions. The twenty twenty six legislative session, just to give you a flavor of it, is the sixty day short session.

The only thing we lobbyist care is that they actually adjourned on time last month. Supplemental capital operating and transportation budgets all got adopted. On the transportation budget, the governor wanted $3,000,000,000 for maintenance and operation. He didn't quite get that much amount of money, but he certainly changed the trajectory of transportation policy with this budget in that we've got a lot of money, almost $2,000,000,000 going towards maintenance and operation. The other thing that's important to note is that no changes in the superhighway projects, including our Gateway project here in Pierce County of State Route 167 did not change.

Two sixty seven bills passed by this legislature, seven partial vetoes. The governor did not veto any bill. I would characterize that as pretty sparing on the veto pin as his predecessor was Governor Inslee, Governor Locke, Governor Gregoire probably were not so sparingly with veto pin, but just to give you a flavor on that. We're going to talk about some prominent bills that affected the cities for those. But if we've given you a write up on the budget, what we know about it for the 2026 and kind of previewing the twenty twenty seven legislative session.

If you have any questions, comments or editorial opinions, please let Luke and I know and we will get back to you. If we didn't cover a bill that you were interested in tonight, we stand ready to answer those questions for you. Shoot us an e mail or a text and we will get you your answers. But I'm going to turn it over to Luke to talk about step housing.

Yes. The first of the four bills of particular prominence for cities that we wanted to mention was House Bill 2,266 regarding step housing, that's supportive housing, transitional housing and emergency housing, a bill that had been before the legislature in many different iterations for several years. And the final form that passed the legislature this year, it requires cities to allow transitional housing or permanent supportive housing in any zones in which residential dwelling units or hotels are allowed. The starting point from the session was it was only in zones where hotels were allowed and they added zones where residential dwelling units. Now, cities must allow transitional housing and permanent supportive housing.

It also requires cities to allow indoor emergency shelters and indoor emergency housing in any zones in which hotels are allowed, which is also a new provision and in addition additional zones if needed to meet the comp plan projected needs for that particular city. One of the conditions that cities can require before a certificate of occupancy is allowed for a proposed project came up as well. And there's new provisions that limit the certifications that cities can require for proposed indoor emergency shelter and proposed emergency housing projects to self certification by the project sponsors of a specified list of items. The project sponsors will certify that they have met any conditions and that there's no ability for cities to go beyond the self certification by the sponsor. Additional certification requirements will be allowed for indoor emergency housing, indoor emergency shelter projects if they are proposed within 500 feet of a school or another indoor emergency shelter or housing project.

An issue that comes up a lot is what are called good neighbor agreements or codes of conduct operational requirements that cities may enforce on affordable housing developments. In the future, they're going to be limited to income qualifications, coordinated entry, reporting and monitoring. And the only additional operational health and safety requirements for step housing that a city may require would come via contract if a city donates land or a long term lease of land or significant general fund dollars, and I threw up the air quotes because that term is not defined in the statute what significant means, so that will be another element that will be negotiated between the parties. The cities must adopt all or incorporate all of these provisions into their ordinances by 06/11/2028, or the effective date of its next comp plan update, whichever is first. And I'll turn it over to Jim now for the next of the two bills.

Senate Bill 6,026, this is governor Ferguson's affordable housing bill. This was a major priority for the governor. We in the lobbying community called this ground floor bill because it would not allow a city to require a ground floor commercial retail or commercial permit or special use permits for residential development in more than 40% of total acreage zoned commercial or mixed use. What did he just say? Essentially, you cannot mandate that a ground floor of a mixed use building, say you've got three stories of residential apartments or condos above it, you can't mandate that that ground floor be residential, which is very popular even here in Puyallup and in many cities.

That doesn't mean that you that doesn't happen, you just can't require it to happen. And you have to have at least 60% of your acreage in your zone commercial or mixed use area have that restriction on it. This was a hard fought bill. AWC was deeply involved in this. We were involved in this bill as well as the governor's office. So there's no ground requirements allowed for publicly subsidized affordable housing. I want to make that clear. So if it's subsidized affordable housing, there's no requirement because would probably all be housing. But that is this was the governor's bill. It's 6026.

Lots of cities, and I think we talked about this a little bit last year. This a lot of city councils did not like this bill because it usurps local control, goes counter to what some of you did in your comp plans under the Growth Management Act. But this is seen as a major step as part of the Governor's step of unaffordable housing, making more affordable housing available. I'll turn it back over to oh, no, I got the next one, don't I? Sorry.

Is yes, Senate Bill 6,002. That's the limitation on the use of the AOPRs or license plate reading cameras. I think you've talked about this plenty. Just so the backdrop of this, if you look at the suite of bills the legislature passed this year on immigration worker protections for immigration workers, privacy technology, protection on or regulating AI voting rights. I just data privacy is foremost on this legislature's mind.

And I don't think that that's going to go away. So that's largely what came up at 6002. It is the unlawful to use an ALPR system or data not specifically authorized or exempted under this act. The use of data is very restricted. Data retention was a huge fight between ACLU and cities and law enforcement and others.

Data sharing in cities. You've seen the city of Seattle, even city of Ruston has turned off our cameras so we can make sure that we're complying with this new law. But it gets complicated quickly. If you have questions about it, we're happy to take those offline. But 6002 was that ALPR or flock camera bill that they passed this past year.

And the final of the four bills we really wanted to spotlight was House Bill 2,442, which provides some new local option tax revenues for cities and some expanded uses of existing local options, a few that I'll spotlight. The one new one is there's a new 0.1% sales tax option to fund children and family services that local jurisdictions can utilize. If they choose, they must be used to fund services assisting children and families. There's modification to one element of the local REIT, real estate excise taxes. It amends the existing authority for that second REIT, the second point 25% as it's sometimes called, to expand the allowable uses to include abatement of nuisance properties.

Currently, all those funds can only be used for capital purposes. The right now, there's two different types of property tax levy lid lifts. One is a single year levy lid lift and the other is a multiyear that's limited to six years. This, without really changing the underlying mechanism in either instance, lengthens the period. The single year version now is up to a two year version, and the multiyear version goes from being a six year option, can go up to ten years now.

And finally, the local sales tax for housing expands the allowable uses for that particular funding source to include rehabilitation, operations and maintenance of existing units and not just the construction of new units. And the item we wanted to close out our report on is some elements of the budget that particularly affected cities. Jim mentioned indigent defense briefly. The legislature did not provide any committed funding for indigent defense and a new meaningful committed funding, which remains a concern because Washington State is one of the states that provides the smallest percentage of assistance to local governments for indigent defense costs in the entire nation. The original version of the millionaire's income tax included a set aside, but by the final version of the bill that was gone.

There's some intent to provide funding for cities in other elements of the budget, but it's not a commitment. The millionaire's income tax will actually have a negative impact on city budgets in the aspect that as part of the grand bargain on that bill, sales taxes on diapers, over the counter drugs, grooming and hygiene products will be repealed starting in a couple of years, which has an impact both for state sales taxes and local sales taxes. It's estimated that statewide, the local governments will lose $400,000,000 by the twenty twenty nine to two thousand thirty one biennium. The state in its adopted operating budget included an intent to provide $200,000,000 in mitigation funds, but that is not an obligation on future legislatures. That's going to require continuing work by city advocates in the future years to try to help the cities to not go even further backwards in terms of their revenues going forward.

And the final element I'll mention, the public works assistance account, also known as the Public Works Trust Fund. There was yet another sweep from that of $395,000,000 that was backfilled by about two eighty million dollars in state bonds. The problem on an ongoing basis with that is though the public works assistance account is a revolving fund. Cities get loans at very low rates for public works projects. They repay it and that replenishes the account by sweeping it.

When these bonds are repaid, it doesn't go back into the fund. And so it limits the amount that future local governments can have to get these very low interest infrastructure loans. We know it's been a long night. Happy to answer any questions you might have, and thanks again for the opportunity to represent you in Olympia.

Thank you, Luke. Jim, Deputy Mayor Charles.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry if I missed it, I stepped out for just a moment. But if you could expound a little bit for me on the work of the I thought I mentioned the condo liability work. I know they did a little bit of work a few years ago.

Is there any increased work that would be substantial to actually cause investors to have a peace of mind? Because I did hear from developers on the moderate reform, but it wasn't enough to make them feel comfortable. So it was it felt good, but it didn't seem to supply assurances that developing these projects was safe without misuse of some legal fund for money that may not be as really as bad as it potentially could be. So, could you tell me a little bit about that and if there's any substantial difference that would put developers at ease with responsible development?

I think it can only be described as incremental, relatively small incremental progress. There was a House Bill 2304, and here's the increment. The underlying problem in the state, as we understand it, is that there's Washington State has some of the strongest implied warranties on the construction condominiums anywhere in the country. And there was legislation last year to provide so that only an express warranty, which is more limited than the implied warranty, for small projects of up to two stories and up to 12 units would apply, trying to at least make it more insurance more affordable for those projects. A bill was passed this year that added it could go up to three stories and 12 units.

So a very marginal incremental change, hopefully headed the right direction, but I can't present it as anything more than a small incremental change on the condominium construction front this year.

Thank you for that word. Incremental means again, I'm interpreting it my way. You didn't say this, but it's a snail pace. Every day that goes on, every session that goes on, this isn't dealt with, I think, suppresses economic development for homeownership for folks who would like to have some high density purchase units. And what's driving, in my opinion, I've heard from developers and spoken with them directly that for the same amount of money, they would rather build apartments.

And now we have cities with height a lot of units, but no opportunity for folks to buy. And so I think the lack of dealing with this and moving from incremental to the at least the HOV lane where they can move a little faster with some changes really is going to continue to hinder a one-sided growth that could come back to bite communities because by the time the infill is filled up with apartments and by the time they pass any non incremental, there may not be a lot of available land because you filled it. So I sure hope that there's a stronger push. Just a guesstimation, do we have any idea what's holding that back? I mean, is there really a sense and maybe this is too rhetorical of a question, but what's holding back?

Why is there a sense that this could be misused? Why is this not moving forward if it's a data that shows that it might encourage a different type of housing? It could even be a middle housing for that matter if it's micro condo. Right?

I can tell you that one constituency group, homeowners associations across the state generally like stronger implied warranties, and so they're usually lobbying in the opposite direction. And so that is the political counterweight to those who would like to see that change.

There's a coalition with the trial attorneys as well to a lesser extent. But I mean, the consumer protection advocacy on this is what is the push pull on the issue.

So the trial attorneys, and I think I've heard this from at least one of my colleagues, is kind of a effective and sometimes could be called kind of a powerful lobby. They tend to wield some influence and resources. Is that a fair assessment that they have some leverage of influence?

I think that's a fair assessment.

Fair assessment. We'll just leave it at that.

It's a fair assessment.

A fair assessment. Diplomatic way to say that they really tend to kind of get their way. And it sounds good too. I mean, I think I could see where policymakers looking at that, what we're advocating for, whatever. But don't trial attorneys have a vested interest financially in having those types of suits come forward that they get the financial interest in

I'm sure in some instances they do.

I'm sure they do. That's all I wanted to talk about was the condo. I hope that they can go from increment to HOB lane and get that down a little farther. Thanks for all your work, what you're doing. Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay. Further Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Lou.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Moving on, we now have a traffic impact fee presentation by city engineer Hans Unger.

Thank you, mayor. So tonight I wanted to come back to you with getting some little additional guidance on the traffic impact fee. Staff has heard what you've discussed so far and we've got a lot of it set, but we have done a lot of thinking towards implementing the traffic impact fee and particularly around trying to be both predictable and transparent to our existing permits that are in the queue right now because this is a fairly large increase here. So I put together this graphic. Hopefully, it'll explain it a little bit better.

But across the top, you see the timeline in years and where we currently are 4,500. And right now, to be give some predictability on this to adjust to this large increase to $87.62 we've set the implementation of the fee out to January. So that gives six months to adapt this, and then that increase will go in. So all permits that come in after that January would have that rate. Now, the permits that are in the queue.

So one of the things that we're proposing here and looking at how the state law is worded, the way we currently issue permits is you're paying the fee at the time of permit issuance. So whatever the fee is at that point in time. And what we're proposing here to make it a little more predictable is add a vesting component into this TIF so that at the time you submit a complete building application, you would be vested the TIF fee at that time. And that fee vesting would last for a total of twelve months maximum or until your permit is issued. So it gives you a little more predictability of, okay, as I get my permit reviewed and approved in that twelve month time frame, I'm locked in.

Now, I will say this is more lenient than state law requires, but we do think in trying to talk with our customers and trying to give that predictability, we think that's an option there for that. Now, if you went beyond the twelve month period, then you're looking at losing that vesting. And that's where I want to bring in the deferral option. So we have a deferral program right now in our existing code. And somebody can ask for deferral of their TIF fees all the way out to either occupancy or eighteen months after they ask for the deferral, whichever is shorter.

That's when they have to pay the fees there. And the way state law is, it's very clear that the deferral rate is the rate determined at the time you ask for the deferral. So you can't really vary from that. You can't so you have to follow state law there. But a question before the council is this.

You could look at that to say the deferred fee is just like the state law says. What is the rate at the time you ask for a deferral? And so if you're planning to ask for the deferral and it is after that January date, now you're deferring the 8,762. Another way to look at that is the deferred fee is the rate for that application. It's whatever you were vested at.

And at that point, you're locking in that vesting rate for an Intel certificate of occupancy or eighteen months because state law says that it can only last eighteen months, that deferral. So that's an option before the council to look at there to say, you know what? We want to lock in that vested fee and give them the time. The state law requires us to offer the deferral fee program, and it's clear on how it's stating on the TIF rate at the time of the deferral. But if we wanted to be a little more lenient there, we could set that at it's the vested fee that you got when you complete application there.

And so that's one of the options before it. I've put also at the timeline, you know, that'll go beyond like the next increase after we increase in January. We increase in February every year with the construction cost index. So in this case, the first increase after we increase in 2027 would be February 2028. And I put on there an example of like, okay, the construction cost is, let's assume it's 2%, then that fee goes up that.

But it's a way of, I guess, making it a little more palatable for the folks that are in the queue right now and they have a little more predictability on there. The other option would be, well, if we don't vest at the time of complete application and we just say, no, we'll take state law. When you apply for the deferral, that is telling us you're vested at the rate at the time of deferral. That's when you're locking in. I do think if we don't do the vesting at the time of complete application, what you're doing is hugely incentivizing everybody to take in the deferral process.

We don't have a lot of users of it right now. It's the people that want to like extend out that payment a little bit later on and stuff. But if it's trying to beat a big rate increase, I think you will definitely see a run at the counter of people trying to get that deferral locked in there. So from in talking with myself and Courtney here, we think probably the best thing to not set ourselves up with that huge race to get to a deferral would be to vest at the complete permit application. Just to be clear, this is building permit application. We're not talking back to land use or anything like that, But that's one of the choices there. So there's a couple other minor choices here too. Oh,

go ahead.

Just to clarify, you talked about complete building permit application, not building permit issued?

Correct. So when somebody submits an application and the department determines this is complete, you're ready to start the review process.

So so if, again, if we've got the 2026 there on the graph, if we if a deferral is started on December 31, then they would get the TIFF as at the $4,500 rate. But if they filed a deferral as of 01/01/2027, it would be the 87.62?

I think I'm saying that's a policy choice that I need some guidance with tonight. If they apply if they apply before January and they get vested, that's lasting twelve months. The policy choice is what if they ask for a deferral in February? Are they locked into the vested 4,500? Because we're interpreting that as that you're locked into that vested fee, and we will honor that through the deferral.

Or is it the permit if you're going to get the benefit of the deferral, you're paying the fee at the time you ask for the deferral, which would be the 8,762. So that person, if we chose that method, they would be probably better off saying, I'm not going to ask for the deferral because the fee has already gone up, or I'm going to ask for that deferral before January date. I will pay the fee at my permit issuance, and I'm locked in at that 4,500 as long as I pay it by that. I'm probably making this more confusing. I'm sorry. I

have to agree. It is confusing. Councilmember Gilliam, maybe you can ask a question

that I'm typifies all this

for not sure if I can. But down at the bottom where it says our deferral policy choice, there's one and two. So it sounds like what actually works best for most people, including the city, but really to serve our customers, the builders that are constituents that want to build would be the second option. Right? Defer fee is vested at the complete application determination. Is that what I'm understanding?

No. I I think if you were trying to be the most lenient with the developers, you would say option one. So that rate is the same as the vested rate for

So it really is just a grace Oh,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have made myself confused. I apologize. It really is the two. It is the number two. I am sorry.

Okay. I am inclined to give a grace period for the projects that are currently in the works. I don't want somebody who has worked really hard to get to where they are right now all of a sudden to not be able to afford their project. So I'm inclined to go with option two. And I'm just sharing that with my colleagues for opportunity to discuss. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Are you looking for direction or are you looking for a motion?

No, just direction.

Just direction.

We're going to come back next week with the revised ordinance and the public hearing.

Then I'll just echo what I heard from my colleague, Councilmember Gilliam, on option two, just to kind of give you clear direction. Thank you.

Any further questions? Councilmember Adler?

I don't have any questions. Thank you. I don't have any questions. I just saw you looking at me. So I felt like locked eyes. And so I thought, you know, I better say I agree with my colleagues. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Good. Thank you for that clarification.

We

need a little levity here once in a while. With that, do you have the guidance you need?

One other question I have on this. So right now, the way we're wording the ordinance is the fee doesn't increase until January. But the ordinance goes into effect what's typical is five days after it's approved by council. So that would mean that the other elements that we've discussed in the policy, the heavy truck trip adjustment, the vesting or giving credit to land uses looking back ten years, the trips associated with those, all those would go into effect five days after. It's just the fee that delays out there. And I just wanted to make sure that was understood by the council.

Thank you for that clarification, and I'll weigh in on that one. I think that's appropriate.

Okay. All right. And with that, that's the guidance I needed. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for that presentation. So we will now move on to 6C, informational presentation on draft update to critical area code proposed time limit map. Take it away, Chris.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Chris Beal. I'm with the city's planning division. So tonight, we're going to give you an update on our critical areas of ordinance. I believe the council received a presentation on this close to about ten months ago.

This is a work of our planning commission and looking at a recommendation from the planning commission. So critical areas ordinance, commonly known as PAL Municipal Code 2,106, the updates are required as part of our comprehensive plan. It's kind of one of the only set of regulations that are required to be tied to our comprehensive plan update. The last update to the CAO, or Critical Area Ordinance, sorry, I'm using a lot of planner acronyms, occurred in 2006. We did do some major updates in the 2010s when we had some wetland updates.

And the updates must be based on best available science and consider the conservation protection of particularly salmon fisheries. Again, Growth Management Act requires those jurisdictions to update with their comp plan periodic updates, which actually has already occurred. So this is sort of a conditional process that we're still working on as part of the comp plan. This is just kind of a brief timeline. Sorry, the font is not very big here on the screen.

But essentially, we initiated this process in early twenty twenty five. The Planning Commission held a public hearing that was well attended in August 2025. Further deliberation as well as our environmental review process was issued towards the 2025 a planning commission recommendation, and as we sit today here in spring giving presentation to city council. So just as kind of a summary of our outreach and engagement methods, obviously, we met with interested parties, including Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Planning Commission public hearings, as we mentioned. Through our routine SEPA process, we reach out to other public agencies and tribal governments.

We produced a frequently asked question sheet. We have a project website, as we do for all of our code amendments on the city's planning division page. We also provided mailers to all property owners who own property next to or adjacent to riparian areas that are adjacent to streams. We also, after the planning commission process, offered kind of a unique process of office hours, so allowing people to do Teams meetings or come into the office to talk to staff with questions, which it worked pretty well. And then we obviously had public comment periods here with city council and then with the Planning Commission.

So what are critical areas? So under critical area ordinances, this is pretty much statewide for anybody planning under GMA, Growth Management Act. Critical areas are wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat areas, streams and stream buffers, critical aquifer recharge areas, so things that affect our groundwater geologic hazardous areas, including landslides, erosion hazard areas. And unique to some jurisdictions, both seismic and lahar, so volcanic hazard areas are included in that as well, as well as frequently flooded areas, although that is covered under a separate ordinance. The regulations are meant to protect public safety and enhance the quality of the environment and protect environmentally sensitive areas for ecological function.

So, the code updates. Our PMC 2,106 is broken apart into articles. So they basically are headers that follow those categories that we just talked about in terms of the critical areas. Articles one through eight are largely procedural. We covered sections that are cleanups related to our definitions, our procedural processes for reviewing critical area reports and critical area proposals, mitigation sequencing and exemptions.

Under wetlands, there aren't many significant changes to our wetland regulations. This is largely to clean up our code, follow guidance, not necessarily like major changes to best available science. Those really happened about ten years ago. And some of those regulations really haven't changed. Some of our mitigation standards were updated just to basically provide better functionality in the way that they're written.

We did obviously update for drinking water facilities within wetland buffers as well, as well as our mitigation standards around known loss of wetland area function. We also reformatted our mitigation ratios. There were no substantive changes to those ratios. They were just reformatted into a table for readability. We did have some technical updates around hydroperiod analysis for wetland protection when we have development adjacent to wetlands as well as updates to regulations for stormwater discharge towards wetlands or in wetland buffers.

We also added an in lieu fee option for wetland mitigation, which is pretty standard. Under the further articles in the code under critical aquifer recharge areas, we added updates to protections for Group B wells, including the closest areas, one year travel time or buffers from critical off or recharge areas. There were some expanded prohibitions on uses like mines and treated wood facilities, things that do have risks to impacting groundwater. So some of those were updated as well as updating some of our licensing and reporting requirements. Under geologic hazard areas, not many changes here.

We did cite the 2022 USGS or Geological Survey lahar modeling for Mount Rainier. I believe the council is fairly familiar with this as a part of our mental housing ordinance. So I won't go too far into that other than to just re show you the map. It shows you in the lighter pink color, the older version of the lahar boundaries and then the new 2022 updated computer modeling from USGS. So one area of interest, obviously, that we got through our public engagement process are streams.

So stream mapping and stream buffers are a pretty hot topic that receive quite a bit of public feedback as part of this process because there are significant changes in the best available science around protecting fish and protecting water quality in streams. So there are a lot of mandates both at the state level as well as just the environmental level for salmon recovery. We have 14 species of salmon and steelhead that are critically endangered. They are listed under ESA as critically endangered and on the verge of extinction in some cases. We also have southern resident orca listed under ESA that's dependent upon salmon as a food source.

So salmon are in most of our jurisdictions and in streams, and our southern resident orca are obviously dependent upon those. Numerous species of ESA listed salmon are in our streams, such as Clark's Creek, Meeker Creek, Silver Creek, Deer Creek, a number of other ones as well further on the West Side of the city. Factors for salmon recovery that are noted, habitat degradation and water quality, are really kind of number ones. Pollutants and storm water and development patterns obviously impact water quality, and and most regulations are built to try to handle that, but there are obviously impacts to salmon as they have been listed and continue to decline. So stream buffers play the critical role for water quality, habitat, and pollution filtration towards the state salmon recovery goals.

So, what does the best available science update say about stream buffers? So, stream buffers are kind of composed of what would be called a riparian zone or a riparian management zone. So, that's the vegetation that is in the upland area directly abutting and directly adjacent to any active channel or stream, whether it has fish in it or not. The riparian zone provides those important functions for habitat, but it also provides pollution removal and water quality protection. The current best available science says a 100 feet is the minimum buffer width necessary for water quality filtration.

It also provides for bank stability during erosion. So as we've seen larger and more intense storms over time, we do see bank erosion. Folks may remember that we did do a major bank stabilization project in the Clarks Creek area on some of the state land up above Maplewood Springs a few years ago. So buffers obviously provide that erosion protection as well. Shade, which is important for cooling the stream temperatures, particularly for fish, as well as providing nutrients, large woody debris, and providing habitat for fish, but also for terrestrial species and birds.

So, one of the major things that came out of best available science review that most jurisdictions are grappling with in their updates is that Fish and Wildlife provided kind of a pretty rigorous scientific it's got multiple volumes of how riparian zones would function in an ideal sense to protect habitat and water quality. One of the things that came out of that is a thing called site potential tree height. Essentially, what that means is for old growth forest to function in sort of like a full sense from a scientific basis, buffers would, in an ideal sense, provide enough distance for trees to grow up to their maximum potential height based on the soil and the conditions that are present, and then also to fall into those buffers and provide the functions that we know are necessary for streams to function as they would without development. The site potential tree height is not necessarily being adopted by most jurisdictions, but it is considered best available science, and so it is reviewed. It's not something that is proposed to apply to private properties, although say potential tree height in our code update proposal would apply to some public lands, like public parks and public open spaces that don't have development on them.

And we've coordinated some of that stuff with our parks department. The other thing that Best Available Science said, I think I've mentioned this on a slide previously, is water quality standards. So, you'll see in this slide, this is kind of the the pollutant removal function. So sediment, things like nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticides are obviously detrimental to water quality. The science basically says that you do need a specific distance both on the surface as well as subsurface, particularly for nutrients that come out of septic systems that leach from the septic system in the drain field towards water sources.

So this table basically provides the distance that has been sort of scientifically tested to show effectiveness for that pollution removal. The science essentially, because there are different widths here, balanced out at about 100. Our best available science memo, which we do have sort of an independent best available science review as part of this process, Noted that 100 feet, because that's the water quality function, would remove roughly 95% of particularly surface runoff pollutants. So that's kind of how the best of all science landed on that 100 foot level is this analysis of pollutants and how they're removed through buffer areas. The other thing we wanted to mention just in terms of buffers and their local importance is that we do have water quality improvement plans or commonly called TMDLs, total daily maximum loads.

We actually have three of those, one for Clarks Creek, one for Deer Creek and one for the Puyallup River. Those TMDLs relate to, in some cases, dissolved oxygen, particularly for Clarks Creek, as well as fecal coliform, which I believe applies to all three of those. Particularly in Clarks Creek, this is important because Elodea is fueled by nutrients from septic systems, from lawn spaces, from stormwater. That Elodea obviously grows in the bottom of Clarks Creek and chokes out the flow capacity during the summer, creates flooding hazards. We spend quite a bit of money and time managing Elodea on an annual basis.

And also lack of riparian shade, basically direct solar access for Elodea is not a good situation. It allows it to grow at very high volumes. So in the past, when we've done our Elodea outreach and Elodea management plans, both elimination of nutrients and providing more shading over the creek have been really important goals. We've acquired additional properties and have been managing that for a number of years to try to reduce Elodea growth. Elodea also lowers dissolved oxygen levels, which is essential for fish habitat.

Septic systems and pet waste are other things that are part of our TMDLs, And those buffers provide that distance to try to remove those pollutants out of there. The last thing I just wanted to mention, this is kind of emerging science, but there is a tire preservative commonly known as 6PPD quinone. And 6PPD Q or as what it's commonly called is a significant pollutant that's transported through surface water runoff. It's very, very, very toxic to salmon, and it is kind of the number one thing that stormwater engineers are concerned about in the state. So buffers provide some function for that as well. The stream

And that just comes from traffic and tire wear?

Yes. Tire wear, basically the preservatives that are in tires to make them last longer, shed small amounts of six PPD. When those hit the ozone, they oxidize and turn into six PPDQ. The science essentially says if you had a grain of rice size six PPDQ and you put it in an Olympic swimming pool, you would kill fifty percent of the fish in it immediately. So, it's very, very toxic. It's not we haven't necessarily found the regulatory pathway to eliminate it. We've also just got a lot of public roads that likely will never have a way of treating it. So buffers provide just a really essential function for fish protection because of six pbdq.

And does that break down over time?

It does not.

Even though it may not get into the river today, it might get there in ten years?

That's why I believe what the science has said, yes.

Proceed. Oh, Councilmember Adler.

Thank you. Just to be really quick on the regulatory answer, if you will, to the challenge. Our own Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland just introduced a bill in the United States House of Representatives that gets at the heart of this and the impact that it has, particularly on salmon. I, many years ago, was at the Washington State Extension Center that we have here in Puyallup, which is home to the Washington State Stormwater Center, and they have a very impactful video of when runoff that contains six PPDQ hits into the stream, it kills the salmon just, like, almost instantly. It's it was very impactful.

And so a lot of that research is happening at WSU, which is very, very cool. But hopefully, at some point in the future, we can we'll see some regulatory opportunity at the federal level to help combat this and share in that so that it's not just on state local. Thanks.

The other major update to our codes is just changing the naming convention for streams. This is something that most jurisdictions are moving towards. So in the current code, we sort of use a one through four type one as kind of our highest. So shoreline is the Gallup River and Clarks Creek. Fish bearing streams are Type 2s.

And then there's a couple of different categories for perennial and seasonal. This would move to the more standardized DNR naming process of shoreline, Type S fish, type F, type NP, which is nonfish perennial, and type NS, which is nonfish seasonal. And I'm very sorry this does not come out very well, but this is a comparison table. We did take a look at most of our peer jurisdictions Pierce County, a couple in King County, I think, and one in Thurston. Just to give kind of a snapshot of where jurisdictions are at in their update process, most jurisdictions have gone through their updates for type NP and NS.

Most jurisdictions have adopted the 100 foot water quality standard, although you can see some deviations here as well as a couple jurisdictions. Auburn and Bonney Lake have not conducted their updates quite yet. Enumclaw has conducted an update and does have a smaller buffer. But as you can see, most of our jurisdictions, peer jurisdictions have moved towards that 100 foot or just slightly larger buffer. One thing we did want to cover here is there are three different options for managing the buffer width for any development proposal where the buffer might extend onto a property.

So option one is stream buffer averaging. The best way we try to describe this is think of the buffer like a balloon. So if you squeeze the balloon on one side, you can reduce the size of it, but it gets a little bit larger on the other. So we allow the buffer to basically be averaged across the property to a certain extent. There's some maximums in there.

That has kind of always been in our code, but we have made a few tweaks to that. One thing that is new, this came out of request from the public to develop maybe an option for further reductions. Option number two is a stream buffer enhancement option. So it allows the buffers to be reduced basically in most cases by 25% by providing specific features such as enhancing the buffer by removing invasives and planting natives, things like fencing to keep pets out of buffers, things like directing stormwater away from buffers as to not necessarily inundate them or potentially direct untreated stormwater into a stream, essentially provides an enhancement option to reduce the buffer by 25%. The Option three, which is available and has been available in our current code, is just a mitigation option.

So if you have a property that is burdened by entirely encumbered by a stream and a buffer, We do obviously allow for what we would call reasonable use exception. The government can't render somebody's property completely useless by regulations. We do have to allow reasonable economic use of the property. So we allow for people to say, hey, I have a hardship here. I need further reduction beyond that. And then we basically would go through the permitting process to ensure that folks would have reasonable use of their land as long as they could mitigate the impacts. So those are kind of the three options, some of which already existed, but I would say the Option two of enhancement option is new and it was something that we developed out of a request from the public.

Councilmember Gilliam.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just had a quick clarification on this reduction beyond 25% situation. Does that mean that the landowner would have reduced property taxes? Or like what is that?

They can reduce property taxes through an open space taxation request, particularly if their properties are covered by wetlands. Some of that does actually come through you guys, but it is also through the county tax assessor. If you meet certain criteria for your property is covered largely by wetlands or streams or steep slopes or a combination of those, And it's really it may be developable, but it's going to cost you a lot of money. People can always apply for an open space taxation relief and essentially places that in kind of a that's the best way I can describe it as it kind of conserves the land in exchange for getting reduced tax rate. So that's always available, has been available for a long time for So property

if the state is putting a mandate on us and we're going out as a representation of authority saying, hey, by the way, we're taking away 100 feet of your property because there's this stream here. And they are paying property tax on that and they can't do anything with it. They can come to us and say, hey, I'm having a hardship and we can figure this out for them?

For the open space taxation, we'd have to look out on a case by case basis. The one thing I is the state is not mandating anything. So, we review best available science. We determine local conditions and the sensitivity of the critical area and we adopt regulations that are based on that. So, it's more of an iterative process. We can review available science sources from across the spectrum. But most jurisdictions have reviewed a few different things. We reviewed Department of Commerce's. They have a critical areas checklist. Department of Fish and Wildlife has, like I said, the site potential tree height and the repairing management zone volumes.

There's other sources of information, but there has to be locally available science, particularly for protecting like salmon. Like we don't have salmon in other parts of the country, so the science is based on protection of the environment here. But there's no mandate necessarily by the state to do that. We review the policy and we determine the policy, but it has to be defensible and it has to be reasoned and it has to be based on the science review.

Okay. Thank you. Yes.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was going save my comments until Chris is done. Are you done or is there any more to this?

Oh, boy. Still got a couple of slides.

I'm going wait. Maybe I'll wait until he's done and I'll make comments. I'll just stay in the queue. Okay. Thank

So, I just wanted to show this was what the buffers would look like with the 25% reduction, just so you guys saw the number there. Again, the public comments that we received on stream buffers, I think maybe the council has heard some of these as well. There's obviously just kind of an opposition to expanded stream buffers and excessively encumbering private properties. Disputes over some stream classifications, particularly for channels that may be intermittent or seasonal and may be lacking maybe observable fish because it is seasonal. There's concerns over just fixed standards that don't account for site specific conditions, property rights and economic impacts.

And then there were some comments about uncertainty over allowed uses. For maintenance and repairs and improvements, we have exemptions in the code for that. Maintenance and repairs are preexisting structures that are in buffers are not necessarily affected by expanded buffers. There's already exemptions. Those exemptions aren't changing. Repair and maintenance is allowed. The stream mapping, and again, sorry for the expanded map here, but just wanted to show you kind of the scope of where all the streams are. One of the things that we did hear pretty loud and clear through that public process is there is some concern over some of the map streams. And we do have a couple of locations, particularly in the Radesco area where the streams are not readily observable from public rights of way. They're on private properties and backyards.

In some cases, they exist. In some cases, they don't exist. In some cases, property owners have placed them in culverts. Some of those things over time here at the city have been very challenging to determine, particularly in the Radesco area, the upper parts of Deer Creek, whether those streams exist or not. We're currently engaged with coming up with a scope of work for a consultant to help us with that.

We will need to do some property owner engagement, particularly asking folks to potentially be cooperative to allow us to come into backyards, to observe whether a channel is there, try to straighten out some of these mapping things that we just over time have not been able to get completely clear because of streams that are mapped on private properties. This is important because we draw from sources both locally and from DNR and Fish and Wildlife for our mapping data. So the example that I would give is we could modify the local data, but a consultant maybe ten years from now could pull the state data again, and we would be in a little bit of conflict if we didn't resolve where those streams are. So we're really hoping that we can work on that. We kind of view the stream mapping project and clarification of where those stream channels are at in their presence is slightly disconnected from the CAO update.

They're not exactly married at the hip. Obviously, the stream buffers would be tied to that. But because of those areas, we didn't add any new streams to the mapping. They essentially have existed. We just will clarify that through this stream mapping project. Would you like me to go on or did you have questions?

Councilmember Gilliam. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I have had an opportunity to review this map prior to this hearing. And I believe the purple streams or the purple marks on the creeks represent that there's potential salmon.

I don't think in all cases, but yes, go ahead.

Well, because I'm just curious how the Wildwood Creek has salmon in it if it doesn't connect to a river. So are we also in the process of verifying that these streams indeed line up with what this information shows as in there really is salmon in that river. And we're going to update this. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes. We're going to update it. I wouldn't say for all of the creeks. And I would say, too, the purple, any named creek has had observable fish in them, not necessarily salmon. So like for Wildwood Creek as an example, we do have fish both in Willis Pond. Bradley Lake Park is stocked with trout. And then there's a stream channel that essentially connects to Wildwood Park and downstream of that. So we have fish, not salmon, but fish. And I think that maybe there's some confusion over whether that was supposed to indicate salmon only or whether it was all fish.

Thank you

for the clarification. I appreciate that. Thank you.

The last couple of slides here, sorry to keep going on you guys, but SEPA review extended a little bit past the planning commission process. We did do some of this routine distribution again to our public agency partners as well as tribal governments and our city stormwater staff, which was very helpful because we caught some really critical things with compliance with our stormwater manual that we weren't completely aware of. So we did make some changes. This is just a document. We made a few changes and tweaks to the draft after the Planning Commission made the recommendation, mainly because our CEPA environmental review extended past that time period.

So happy to go over those with council members if necessary, but those are not major changes. Okay. Next steps would be here we're here in May 5, given the council presentation. The tentative first reading would be in June. And then obviously, we would go from there in terms of a timeline for a second reading. Just wanted to provide this little QR in case anybody wants to access the project website. And then my contact information is available here. And happy to answer any questions.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Could you Chris, could you go back a couple of slides just before those maps? I think we could say customer concerns. Yes, public comment. Yes. I just want to kind of walk through. I don't typically get a lot of response from constituents on typical issues that come to our diaspora discussion. And if they do, they usually come to the galley here and express it. This one, I got a lot of calls, a lot of e mails, a lot of contact on it.

So that's significant to me that over the ten years I've been here that that's hitting a nerve on people that are very concerned about what this implication might be in respect to their property and property rights. Really going back to the states massive reform for middle housing. And if you want us to have density housing in the downtown core that's already developed and yet you have potential increased buffers or limiting buffers, it kind of is counterproductive for us to increase density in a downtown core. So it does seem to be sometimes a tug of war against each other. But I want to go back to some of these bullet points on bullet point one.

I would echo that I'm absolutely opposed to any expanded stream buffers period. And so I would echo that. I do agree on the third point. I do believe and it has to be, I mean, the state cannot micro analyze every city, every county, every jurisdiction. And so in some essence, they have to do a broad brush, a paint of one size fits all, which is why and I can understand that and respect that.

But I do think that each local jurisdiction should be able to kind of micro that and say how does that broad brush really paint nicely within the lines of the intent of the law and the protection, applied appropriately in a regional area, in this case such as Paolo. And then of course, customer, Gilliam, mentioned about potential loss of property value and people's nest egg to perhaps sell and downsize and be able to get a return on their investment or perhaps to increase middle housing for for their in law or child or adult single, newly married, things like that is certainly concerning. I understand that. So that's my thoughts on that. I would like to suggest that the city conduct an independent study that would look at reviewing the designation of streams and buffers using the best available science that the state has given us to see how does that apply in our areas.

If you can go to the next slide showing the maps, there's something kind of ironic here. When you look at the areas mostly impacted by this review, it's really in Districts 2 And 3. Down in District 1, very minimal impact, but there's a lot of big lots in 2 And 3. So I got a lot of calls from folks in 2 And 3 who are concerned about this. I think it's a valid point there.

So and then if we were to implement this independent study and they came back and provided us with some data that might be a little bit more of a fine brush rather than a broad brush. It could bring relief to specific property owners in geographic areas and then provide some development and infill for middle housing as is intended to do. I guess a question would be is, if they brought back data, well, let me back up one more step. Now I'm against any increased buffers, I would actually like to find a way to decrease the existing buffers contingent that we could show mitigation that there is no impact. So let's say for example, there was a 100 foot buffer that's already in place, but there was a study by the city or by the property owner to say, hey, we've got built in infrastructure right here.

We've got storm water pipe that goes right in front of the street. We've got a sewer that goes right. There's no septic. And if we can design this in a way that can scientifically show there's really minimal to no impact on that stream, why keep it at 100 feet if we can get closer, create infill and affordable housing without impacting the negative stream? I think we could do both.

So that would be my hope is that through some kind of independent study and allowing some latitude scientifically to show that, hey, listen, we can develop in this because there's infrastructure, then maybe we could even decrease those buffers closer to these buffer areas or streams of buffer areas, because the science and engineering would show that there's minimal to no impact on that. So that would be, I guess, my hope that we could accomplish or identify. I certainly would agree that if certain areas or property is on a slope and you're trying to develop and it's going to run right down there, but that's obvious. There's not much you can do. You have to respect the mitigation standards on that.

If you're developing in an area where there is no sewer or storm water, you got to say, okay, the seepage from the septic and sewer is going to be impacting. But if you're in a higher density area where there is provided storm water channeling and sewer channeling, those buffers should be, I think, shrunk contingent that they are not adding to that habitat risk. So, that's my hope. That's my recommendation. I hope that council would support an independent study to review some of these areas in our city to allow for maximum property rights and development for middle housing and affordable housing, while protecting habitat through again some mitigation, scientific mitigation that would prove that this is not going to impact negatively as if it was an area where mitigation wasn't possible because of the lack of infrastructure to channel that.

Thank

you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. So direction. Yeah, I'm looking at the slide with the stream buffer comparison by jurisdiction. So we're looking at that. We're proposing no change at this point in time for the shoreline, no change on the 100 foot buffer for the fish bearing stream, but then increases to the non fish bearing streams up to 100 feet for both of those.

Yes. And I will say too to Councilmember Johnson's point about sort of a site specific analysis. The 25% reduction essentially acknowledges that. It says if you provide a site specific context, design features that mitigate for that, you can just automatically reduce it by 25. I mean, maybe there's alternatives that the council wishes. Maybe there could be a further reduction. I would say that it does have to be supported by the science. We did do, I would call it, an independent best available science review because it was a consultant that we hired. It's not the state mandating anything. So I think it would be like revising the existing BAS memo that we have, Best Available Science, sorry, using more acronyms.

But revising that, potentially looking at other alternatives for the enhancement option to provide more relief. If that's what the council desires, we can definitely look into that.

Sure. Go ahead.

Yes. I just want respond to that since you mentioned my name on to continue that. Yes, I think the 25% is good. But what if the study shows that we can get closer to the other 25 reduction and that's just a very again broad brush. Can we provide some mitigated data that says, hey, listen, we can even get closer than 25%, maybe 50%, again allow more property to be developed.

Because most lots we look there's a lot of lots that are along these stream bearing areas that have infrastructure. And if you get 100 foot or more, most lots aren't even that wide. And so, you're in a sense landlocked lots that can't be developed. So, again, whether it's infrastructure that should be lowered more than 25%, provided the science and the data shows it. So anyway, I would hope the study could take a look at some of these areas and provide some broad allowances for that without having to have each individual property owner do a scientific study, which get very expensive.

I don't know if the city could do like we do with the CEPA or whatever we do, EIS or whatever that is to take certain areas and say, hey, we want to pre vet this. And so in this area, we vetted this and so properties don't need to go through and do that study 100 times in a district when it could have been done once by the city to give some clear direction for development on that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Just want to add to that.

We Thank can look at some alternatives.

Councilmember Adler.

Thank you. Chris, thanks for hanging tough in the late hour. To what you said, the city hired a consultant. That data that the report that the consultant did produced, am I correct in assuming, which you should never do, that that data has informed what is proposed here? Yes. Thank you.

Any further comment?

Okay.

Okay. I guess we're done.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, counsel.

Thank you, Chris. Okay. Moving on. Long, city manager's report.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor. You have a meeting next week, next Tuesday, and the items on there, one will be the ordinance that city engineers spoke about regarding the traffic impact fee, and there will be a public hearing with that. Also be an ordinance coming forward regarding some changes to the land use, kind of housekeeping ordinance that's before the Planning Commission right now. But staff wants to bring it to you to get some further guidance to inform the Planning Commission process.

And then there will be two resolutions pertaining to the Bell property and the AOB property and that developer is seeking the eight year multifamily property tax exemption. As you know, those come before you. And so both of those will be on next week's agenda. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Fair enough. Councilmember Keane.

Mr. Mayor, I believe that Councilmember King and Councilmember Kastam are no longer on the meeting.

Okay. Fair enough. Councilmember Adler.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be brief. I did want to share that the city received some good news last week via our federal lobbyist, Jen Covino. The city of Puyallup put forward a congressionally directed spending request to Senator Cantwell's office for the city of Puyallup Police Department's designated Crisis goodness.

So it's about that time. Designated crisis responder, also known as DCR program. The senator selected our project at $288,000 to receive congressionally directed spending, spending funding from her office, also known as an earmark. This is a first step in a very long process as this funding will be part of the fiscal year twenty seven federal budget. We are just getting started, but the selection on its own is an incredible feat and success.

And so I just want to say thank you to the team here at the City of Puyallup and Jen and thank you to Senator Cantwell. Let's hope that this moves forward. Thanks.

Council Member Gilliam.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll try to keep this brief. I was very pleased to hear tonight that the 25th District legislators were able to produce extra income for us above and beyond our original request for projects. Regarding our storm water projects, bringing given us $1,300,000 for that project and then the parking lot for the playground over by Farm 12. We asked for $350,000 They got us 361,000 I'm very proud and grateful. So thank you to our twenty fifth district legislatures. Also, I just wanted to remind Puyallup, we're going to be bumping in town. I probably shouldn't use that phrase. There's going be a lot going on this Saturday.

We obviously have our farmers market, but we also happen to have our SiP Puyallup event from one to five. And then I just want to extend a very wonderful Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers this Sunday. So thank you.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, I'll keep it fairly brief. This Thursday, two days is National Day of Prayer. It turns out that we all host the Pierce County Prayer Breakfast, which is held down at the Washington State Fairgrounds. Many in fact, everyone on this dais got an invitation and I think many of you are RSVP'd and will be attending. It's the largest prayer breakfast in Washington State. It's been going on for over forty seven years. It's nonpolitical, nonpartisan. It's not focused on that.

There's not a time and a place. This is a time to gather in prayer and pray for our county and for our state and so forth. So, very wonderful event. It is sold out. We anticipate somewhere around 1,300 people to attend and it's quite moving. Our guest speaker will be former quarterback, Seahawk quarterback, Jim Zorn, who will be sharing his story and his testimony of his life and his faith. We also confirmed that our governor will be attending and he'll be saying a few words as well. First time the governor has ever been to the Pierce County Prayer Breakfast, so it's significant that he's going be joining us. I've seen him speak recently last year at the Governor's Prayer Breakfast, which is a much smaller one in Olympia, but he did a great job speaking. He had a great message.

Was very good. So, that's that. And lastly, I want to say hi to Marla, one of our great constituents. Hi, Marla. Thank you.

Councilmember Smolico. So

happy Cinco de Mayo, especially to my family in Pueblo, Mexico where this battle was fought hard and won. So that's where I spent a significant amount of time during my high school years living with a host family. So I appreciate them still. We're still connected. That was many moons ago, and I know it's a it has been a big night there tonight, so it's very cool. Thank you.

I just wanted to make mention of a couple of things. First off, community health here in Puyallup. They're been here a couple of years now, providing medical services downtown, right by the train station. They recently did the ribbon cutting on their new foster adopt program. And I toured the facility and it's an amazing facility.

They can treat the kids in a atmosphere, in an environment that's got toys and not so much medical equipment and is a parent of a foster daughter that had to go to the emergency room at one point in stage. I can't tell you how traumatic that was for a little infant girl. And I just want to say that that facility is going to be a great addition to our city and we contributed to that. We made a donation and they recognize that donation, which I have here tonight, recognizing the contribution we made to that. So we can pat ourselves in the back a little bit there.

I also wanted to mention that Shape is going through their budget process and looking ahead of for the next couple of years. They had a meeting last week. The since 2024, they've held the member city fees fixed for that time period. That's no longer going to be the case. Expectation is that they're going to rise.

There are significant percentage rises, but not much in terms of dollars. The current number is about $14,000 and in 2027, it would go up to $15,000 $20.28 dollars $16,000 $20.29 dollars $17,000 and 2,030 and 31,018 thousand dollars and change. So obviously, those aren't numbers that are going to break the bank. And we do get, I believe, get good service from our Shape membership. So just wanted to inform the council.

And if anybody has any comment about that, I'd appreciate hearing it. And with that, I conclude my remarks and I believe do I have a motion to adjourn? Done. Thank you.