City Council - Regular Meeting

321.

Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, 04/28/2026 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with council member Madrone excused and council member Barrant joining us remotely tonight. Before we move on to adopting our agenda, I do just wanna acknowledge the passing of a a former state senator Sam Hunt, who was a giant, to the Olympia community and to Thurston County. Our hearts go out to his family, his friends throughout our community. He will be deeply missed.

He served this community, for over two decades, and we're gonna miss him. When I see him, I picture him in that white suit, and I'm gonna miss seeing him come up here, to the podium to to greet the council. And so rest in peace, senator Hunt. So, with that, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

Move to approve the agenda.

Second. All those in favor of the agenda is published, signify by saying aye. Aye.

Aye.

We have an agenda. Our first item tonight is a special recognition proclamation recognizing Olympia Bicycle Month. And we have a shared reading of the proclamation beginning with council member Vanderpool.

Whereas riding a bicycle can improve Olympians' mental and physical health and well-being, and whereas bicycling cannot can can connect many community members and opportunities and resources without needing to own or maintain a vehicle and

Whereas we can make our transportation system more equitable by changing our streets to better serve people who cannot or choose not to drive, and whereas bicycling instead of driving can help Olympia achieve the comprehensive plan's goal of net zero emissions by 2040. And?

Whereas, the city of Olympia has a bicycle network, includes two bike corridors, 82 miles of bicycle lanes, and eight miles of the regional trail system within the city limits. And whereas the city's transportation master plan includes projects to expand the bicycle network and Whereas the city's transportation benefit district sales tax collects approp approximately $3,100,000 annually for bicycle and active transportation projects, and

whereas the city's street safety plan prioritizes the safety of bicyclists among other vulnerable users of the street and

Whereas intercity transit, with the support of many local businesses and organizations, is hosting the thirty ninth annual bicycle community challenge during the month of May and bike to work day on 05/14/2026.

Now therefore be it resolved that the, that in recognition of the fifty sixth Earth Day and sixty ninth National Bike Month, the Olympia City Council hereby proclaims the month of May 2026 as Olympia Bicycle Month in the city of Olympia and encourages all community members to ride their bikes during the month of May and throughout the year. Signed in the city of Olympia, Washington, this twenty eighth day of April twenty twenty six, Olympia City Council, Dante Payne, mayor. Okay. So at this time, I'm gonna invite up Kristen Gilkerson, who's a special, program specialist, from the city of Olympia. Hi, Kristen.

I'll start over. Thank you. So good evening, mayor Payne and council members. Thank you for declaring May as Olympia bicycle month. My name is Kristen Gilkerson. I'm the senior transportation program specialist with the city. Tonight, I'm joined by Allie Fuller, Intercity Transit's new bicycle community coordinator. Shortly, she'll share details about, the bike challenge, some great work happening at Walk and Roll. But quickly, I wanted to lift up, two city projects that are currently underway to support bicycling in Olympia. So first is the Phones Road corridor project.

This major project will turn Phones Road into a safer corridor for everyone that uses it. It's really starting to take shape, and, bike improvements include separated bike lanes, an improved trail crossing, and, much more. Next, we have the bike and pedestrian safety project at 4th And Plumb. So that's downtown right outside of City Hall. When completed, it will include a parking separated bike lane, bright green bike lane markings, and changes to make that intersection safer.

So we'll have more projects starting later this year. I just wanted to invite you to visit the transportation web site to learn more about those projects that's at olympiawatt.gov/transportation, and I'll turn it over to Ali. Thank you.

You, Chris. Hello. My name is Allie Fuller, and I work with Intercity Transit's walk and roll program and coordinate the Thurston County bicycle community challenge. Thank you so much for welcoming me here tonight, and thank you once again for proclaiming May to be bicycle month in the city of Olympia.

The bicycle

community challenge or BCC for short is one of our local celebrations of bike month. The BCC is always free, fun, and open to Thurston County residents of all ages and abilities, and it just encourages people to hop on their bikes for any reason during May. Much of the BCC takes place remotely with people riding individually or in small groups and then recording their miles on the BCC website, but the challenge also features a handful of in person gatherings this spring, and I'll just mention a few. So the first event happened already. That was the twenty first annual Earth Day Market Ride on April 18, and altogether, about 200 cyclists beginning at nine different locations all converged to bike together to the Olympia Farmers Market.

So it's a pretty cool, powerful day. Still to come this month, we have the bike month celebration ride on May 20. During this event, cyclists are invited to gather for a lunch ride. We'll all bike down to Tumwater Historical Park and really just celebrate bike month once again. And on May 14, as Kristen mentioned, we have bike anywhere day.

During this event, community members are invited to bike to school, work, or really just anywhere and to stop by one of our celebration stations along the way. The city of Olympia will have a station at Heritage Park, so definitely stop by that one. And while May is certainly a high point for us at Walk and Roll, we do a lot year round, and definitely in May, in order to further our goal of getting more people on bicycles safely. So this slide highlights one thing we do, which is bike festivals and rodeos, which aims to make biking really exciting for people of all ages. And we have a bike festival coming up in Olympia at Garfield Elementary on June 6.

We do a wide range of youth and adult bike education and aim to tailor each program to the group we serve. And altogether, across our adult and youth biking programs, we served over 2,600 people by teaching them bicycle safety skills in 2025. And we have walk and roll to school events that take place all over Thurston County. This slide just highlights a handful of the schools we go to, but those are happening weekly and monthly. Another one of our age specific programs is teens biking to destinations.

In 2025, we served a 158 middle school and high school students through these programs. You may see them riding around town in their brightly colored safety vests running errands for us, such as dropping off the bicycle community challenge banner at City Hall. So keep your eyes peeled. You might see them come by this week. Walk and roll cannot do many of our programs alone.

We rely on strong community partners to deliver impactful program, and one of these partners is Safe Kids Thurston County. And with them, we served over 2,300 youth in 2025 with our mobile traffic garden, by which we bring this pop up traffic garden to schools to teach them the rules of the road. And while many of our programs take place out in the community, walk and roll also has a home in the form of our educational bike shop. We're located in Olympia right along Martin Way, and the shop serves as a venue for bicycle maintenance classes and is often bustling with volunteers who refurbish donated bikes that are destined for redistribution back into the community. And so to close this out, get ready to ride in the thirty ninth annual bicycle community challenge.

Our theme this year is enjoy the scenery along the route. So hop on your bike, go for a ride, and take a moment to just enjoy this beautiful place we live. And then don't forget to log your miles on the BCC website because that's how you earn prizes. So to learn more, please visit bcc.innercitytransit.com. And just thank you so much, and I hope to see you all at another event in May. Also, I brought flyers, so definitely take a flyer. Did anyone have questions?

We'll get to that in a moment. Let's give her a round of applause. Thank you, Ali. Any questions or comments from council? Questions or comments? Councilmember Gilman.

I'm just gonna say I am so pleased and so proud that the BCC continues on, that walk and roll continues to grow, and that our infrastructure continues to grow. It's it's even better to ride my bike downtown today than it was when I was 18 years old. How do you like that? Yeah.

And the League of American Bicyclists would agree with you. Washington state was voted the most bicycle friendly state in The US again this year. So, yeah, go us.

Nice. Yes. Councilmember Vanderpool.

Again, thank you so much for doing this. I I was at the bike ride this year for to the market. Every year I do it, I do my own route, actually. I start I go from the West Side over to Squaxin for Earth Day, and then I go downtown. And I'm I'll be honest with you, it was pretty stressful for me this year because Charlie is old enough to ride on the back, and it was the first time doing that.

At Yad's perspective, when you start thinking about young ones in the community and ensuring that our routes are as safe as possible for for kids. But, you know, I put I originally put this in my council reports, but, you know, every, you know, it it every, I would say, couple of weeks I end up reaching people reach out to me, talking to me about the network, and how can we make it safer, and and concerns about their neighborhood, whether it's speeding or infrastructure, and various things like that. And so it's always top of mind for me. Right? I'm always, as the staff probably knows, I'm always trying to get us to do more with it.

Right? And I'm my councilmates know that too. And so I'm, I'm excited about what we've done and where we were going to go be going into the future. So thank you.

Additional comments? Alright. Well, thank you so much, Ali.

Thank you.

I'm gonna share something. Mayor Pro Tem leaned over and whispered to me. She's perfect for this. You're so Clearly, you have so much passion about this and what you do, and so thank you so much. I this is the thirty ninth, so I'm I'm already, of course, thinking about I hope you are thinking about what you wanna do for 40. That's a pretty big milestone. 40. Yeah. Yeah. And I, myself, am slowly starting to get out there a little bit more on a bike with my daughter, especially now that we have the Grass Lake Nature Trail.

It's a great bike ride if you've ever been. I enjoy the hills. And, I also wanna give a shout out to somebody I recognize. You had a celebrity in your slideshow. Shout out to Mac the Owl.

Go McLean Owls. But in all seriousness, I think it's so important that we, not only for our own personal health, not only for our emissions reductions, but just for the, general sense of community, meeting people when you're out riding your bike, is something that has already happened to me quite a few times, and it builds that sense of being part of a community. So if you can get out and and help celebrate this month. So with that, I'm happy to present you with the proclamation, and we can take a photo. Whoever wants to come up, please join us.

Well, you cyclists.

And, yeah, you cyclists. And if you have a bike here, feel free to bring it up for the photo. Alright. Thank you all so much, and have a great night. So we're gonna keep rolling here and, continue with another special recognition, proclamation recognizing Public Service Employees Month, and we also have a shared reading of this proclamation beginning with councilmember Barron.

Whereas since 1985, public service recognition week has been celebrated during the May to honor the people who serve our communities as federal, state, county, municipal, and tribal government employees, and whereas as public servants, our family, our our neighbors, and our friends who every day with efficiency and integrity provide the diverse services our community demands of its government and

Whereas currently at the federal level, the work, value, and contributions of public servants are being treated with skepticism and scorn, and whereas with these public servants at every level, the continuity of our democracy would be excuse me. Without these public servants at every level, the continuity of our democracy would be impossible in a system that regularly changes its leaders and elected officials. And whereas public servants make crucial contribution in every American community, reflect the full diversity of our nation, and deliver on the promise of government for the for the people and by the people. And

Whereas throughout the month of May, we honor a number of specific groups of public servants who deserve to be highlighted. And whereas on May 2026, we honor one of the oldest roles in public service, the professional municipal clerk, and recognize city clerks for their vital work in promoting government transparency and ensuring public records are open and accessible to all members of the community. And

Whereas on May 2026, we celebrate economic development week and acknowledge the contributions made by professional economic developers to create more economically vibrant and livable communities and to forge equitable paths to prosperity for all members of the community. And whereas on May 2026, we recognize National Police Week and honor the service and sacrifice of those law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty while protecting our communities and safeguarding our democracy. And

Whereas May 2026, we honor EMS week and acknowledge the emergency medical services is a vital public service that access to quality emergency care dramatically improves survival and recovery rates for those suddenly ill or injured and that emergency medical services fill the important gap in out of hospital care and whereas May 2026 also marks the sixty sixth annual national public works week and reminds us that we are able public works week reminds us that we are able to have clean water, safe streets, reliable infrastructure, and a livable community because of public works, and that public works employees make a sustainable sustainable commune contribution to public protecting the health and safety and quality of life of our residents and.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Olympia City Council does hereby proclaim May as Public Service Recognition Week, May as Professional Municipal Clerk Week, May as economic development week, May as national police week, May as emergency medical services week, and May as National Public Works Week in the city of Olympia, and urges all residents to consider how to work to Olympia's public servants, improves their lives, and to recognize the devotion, sacrifice, and the commitment of the employees of the city of Olympia and many other public servants who support us on the county, state, and federal levels. Signed in the City of Olympia, Washington this April 2026, Olympia City Council, Dante Payne, mayor. And now I'm gonna turn it over to city manager Jay Bernie.

Thank you, mayor and council. Again, for the record, Jay Bernie, city manager. It is a privilege and an honor to be here tonight recognizing the outstanding service of our employees. Public service is not just a job. It's a commitment to people. It means showing up every day ready to solve problems, to listen, and to serve with integrity. It requires patience, resilience, and genuine care for the well-being of others. Every year, the May is celebrated as Public Service Recognition Week. This is an opportunity to honor those who serve their communities at the federal, state, county, city, and tribal levels. Here at the city, we have over 700 employees who serve our community with compassion and dedication, helping ensure that Olympia continues to thrive.

Although Public Service Recognition Week is the first week in May, throughout the month of May, we recognize the amazing work of our employees through Professional Municipal Clerk Week, Economic Development Week, National Police Week, Emergency Medical Services Week and National Public Works Week. The work of our employees touches every aspect of our daily life, from public safety, parks and recreation, public works, housing, planning and permitting, environmental stewardship, the economy and much, much more. Much of this work happens quietly behind the scenes. However, throughout the month of May, we will take time to shine a light on their professionalism and their dedication. It is an honor and a privilege to serve as Olympia's city manager.

Communities across our region, state and nation look to the work being done here as a model. This is a reflection of the exceptional talent we have at the city, and my hat is off to each and every one of them. All around us this evening and every day are city employees. Please join me in a round of applause for their outstanding service. And with that, I'll turn to you for comment, and we'd love to grab a photo with you and all of us here.

Thank you, Jay. Comments from the dais and from online. Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Oh, I just wanna recognize all of the the public servants that are in the room with us here today, that our city staff that have taken the time to show up here tonight and accept this proclamation. And I understand that there is gonna be some goodies and additional recognition planned for throughout the month. So I hope to see you there and and join in the fun time. Your work is truly appreciated. And, I know for some of you, you probably almost never get a thank you.

And, the work you do matters so much, especially at the local government level. You really have a way of impacting folks' daily lives. And, yeah. So I just wanted to lift that up and say thank you for being here.

Thank you. Additional comments? Alright. Well, I wanna take this time, to just say on behalf of myself and the council, thank you, so much for your service to not just the city of Olympia as an organization, but to the city of Olympia as a community. Everything that you do every single day, seen and unseen, matters.

What you do, especially those who are in uniform, specifically, is distinct. You put your lives on the line to serve the people of this community, and we thank you for that. In terms of all of our our other employees here at the city, we know you're there even when we don't see you, even if we're not sure what it is exactly that you do because maybe it's something that's so technical or something maybe we're not even necessarily completely keyed in on, but you're here being a part of what makes this community run, and we so appreciate that from every single one of you. So I thank you, not just as the mayor of the city, but as a resident of Olympia, who knows what it means to have people working on the behalf of the community so that we can all sleep at night. So thank you so much.

And so with that, I have a signed proclamation here, and you can join us up front if you wish to take a photo, and anybody is welcome to join us as well. Alright. Thank you so much. Everybody, have a good night. Thanks for bringing Bodhi, officer Coates.

Alright. So we are gonna continue with the rest of our agenda and move on to public comment, And we have a few people signed up in person as well as online, so I'm gonna turn it over to the mayor pro tem.

Thank you, mayor. We'll go ahead and call up those that have come in person first, and then we'll move to online. So in the order of, we have CeCe Coates followed by Victoria Harmon followed by Eve Madeleine b. So go ahead and it looks like the mic is already on. And so when you begin speaking, you'll see the timer right over here start counting down from two minutes, and then the light before you will turn yellow when you have about thirty seconds. And so that's your cue to wrap up your comments. And if you don't have, time, to share all of your comments in two minutes, please feel free to email us afterwards, but we'll try to keep everyone promptly at two minutes. Go ahead.

Hi. I'm Cece Coates. I've been an Olympia resident for about thirty five years. Before I became disabled, was a union carpenter and had myself a nice little hobby farm. So for all of you who may not know, happy May Day, International Workers Day, which actually was founded here in The United States.

I'd like to talk to some of the most pressing economic issues of our times. I know Trump doesn't understand the word affordability, but I think some people in here do. And for years, we have made it impossible for disabled people or retirees or low income workers to actually afford to live here. Currently, the subsidized program that I qualify for is no longer issuing new subsidies and they're also not covering increase. So we're gonna see a deluge of disabled people turned onto the street, elderly people turned onto the street.

They're not paying for rent increases either. This is a disaster and they are going to be met with an increasingly brutal police state. All the homeless people have noted and many of the shopkeepers downtown have noted that the police are very aggressively going after homeless people. First, you make it so we can't live anywhere, then you add salt in the wound. We need systemic changes, broad and compassionate.

It's not legal for somebody to actually host my van nor is it legal for me to be anywhere on the street. You've basically legislated me out of existence, and the threat is to steal my only refuge and home. It's my it's my only retirement. We need to change this. We need to bring back compassion and figure out a way of being able to offer people hospitality and not have them lose their home for it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Please hold your applause. Please hold your applause. May I have a tem?

Yeah. I see Victoria's making their way up. Go ahead and start when you're ready.

Hello. My name is Victoria Harmon, and I'm the regional manager for the Olympia and West Olympia libraries. I'm here today to provide a brief update on recent service changes at the Timberland Regional Library that Olympia residents. The past three months have been challenging for our district. On March 15, layoffs were announced.

And on April 16, 36 of the 61 positions affected were rescinded. Following a recent agreement with the Library Workers Union, regional managers were asked to reassess local staffing levels and usage patterns and to recommend adjustments to staff open hours. These changes are intended to ensure safe, sustainable operations while the district continues developing a long term plan to stabilize and increase revenue. Even with rescinded lay layoffs, current staffing levels do not yet allow us to maintain all previous open hours consistently. As a result, effectively effective Sunday, May 17, the West Olympia Library located at the Capitol Mall will no longer be open on Sundays.

The West Olympia Library, revised hours will match the Olympia Library. Both libraries will be open Monday through Saturday, ten to six. We recognize that Sunday hours are particularly important to working families, students, and others who rely on weekend access, and this decision was not made lightly. Patrons are encouraged to visit our website for up to date information. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Eve Madeleine b followed by Georgia Ost followed by, Susan King or Kim. I apologize. I have that mixed up. So we have two speakers before you.

Is Eve Madeleine b here? One moment. I I don't believe we have a Korean interpreter. You can go ahead and come up and share your comments. Did you have a public comment? Yeah. Go ahead.

I was arrested by domestic violence, and I could go the nine jury trials. And after that appear but here is the superior court of Washington, Charleston County, Southern County. Clerk motion and notice for dismissal for one of prosecution. But this is dismissal notice about to me. And but there is a two I I got I have knowledge about the common sense.

Common sense is the law. But the process or everything process there is I met public attorney, But the the I sent my the the PDF file, the 25Dash1Dash00959Dash34. Did you examine the two PDF? I've sent it here, the council.

Yes. Sir, if you don't mind, I'm actually gonna ask staff. I wanna make sure that we're able to help you and support you with what you came here for. And I don't think we are going to be able to do that in the two minutes for public comment. So I am going to ask that someone from staff, perhaps from the city manager's office, follow-up with you outside in the lobby just so we can get a better understanding. Okay. And you can have a conversation. And if there is any type of language barrier, we'll at least get your contact information and follow-up with you with an interpreter. Is that alright?

The the personally, the the not in here and over there's somebody

Yes. Just you'll see someone right over here.

Yeah. Yes.

I wanna but I wanna explain about the the big problem.

Yes. But

our time for I went to there, the the the sheriff's officer Yeah. Again Yeah. About the the my who took a driver license.

Yeah. I understand that I understand that you're frustrated and you need some assistance. And so Stacy's gonna go ahead and talk with she's right behind you. She's gonna go ahead and talk with you. Is that alright? Somebody right here.

With me?

She's right there. Okay. Yeah. She's gonna help you.

And the service for me, Korean interpreter?

She's gonna connect with you and then maybe yeah.

Oh, okay. Okay. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Sorry about the confusion. Alright, folks. I'm just gonna circle back to the last couple of, public comment folks. Do we have Georgia Ost with us? Thank you.

Well, hello, everybody. My name is George Aust. I've been living here in Olympia, Lacey, and or Tumwater for the last six years now. I am here today in support of my friend, Cece Coates, and indeed all unhoused people in Thurston County and around the world. I'm also a member of the LGBTQ community.

I'm a trans person. And some time ago, this city, the city council, you know, passed a proclamation saying that this is a sanctuary we wanna be a sanctuary city for members of the LGBT community and other marginalized groups. And, you know, what I see happening here at the city council, you know, bike month stuff, stuff like that, it really seems like we are making Olympia a wonderful place for anybody with enough money to live here. And I feel that a lot of people are falling through the cracks. When somebody can't even exist living in their van harming nobody in a community where people want them without being harassed by the police, without being pushed out of their home, what are we doing?

I understand that the city council only has so much power. I understand you guys don't have an infinity budget to build all of the affordable housing that we need. But at the very least, we could stop harassing people who aren't bothering anybody, who are vital members of our community. You may not know this if you're not, like, embedded in the trans community, but there's a internal refugee crisis happening right now. Every week, I meet a new person who moved here from Texas or Florida or someplace that they're running away from.

And what are what are they coming to when they come to Washington if what they're met with is the only place that they can live is maybe on the streets, and then they're being harassed and they're being shuffled around. We can't just be putting people into shelters that are overcrowded. We don't have enough affordable housing. These are problems that need to be addressed. But the first thing we can do to stop the bleeding is to stop harassing people who are just existing in the world. Everybody needs a place to be, and that's what I ask you to do as the Olympia City Council. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'll ask that folks hold their applause. With that, there will we'll continue rolling through public comment, and then there will be a opportunity for council respond at the end. So if you're hoping for a response, just let you know, we will get to that at the end of public comment. Can I do a a a final call for Eve Madeleine B?

Okay. Then we also have Jean Eberhardt.

Hello. My name is Jean Eberhardt, and I'm a homeowner on the West Side Of Olympia and a member of the LGBT community. And I'm here in support of all of our housing challenged neighbors. Had I not bought into my crumbling farmhouse in 1984 for a song and put a lot of sweat equity into it to rebuild it, I would be in the same situation. I retired with a pretty crummy retirement income, but I'm fine because I own my home.

And so I feel particularly grieved about the state of the world for young people getting into homes and for our housing challenged neighbors, houseless neighbors who live in their vans, live where they can. Some in tents, some just on the streets. It's like, we have crisis. I know you all know that. But I wanted to share that Cece here was my neighbor for almost six years, living right across the street from me, and a good neighbor.

I, aging now, used to be I felt like nothing could get in my way. Now I feel vulnerable. I'm an elder. And I had some sense of safety because she would look out for me. She would accost people if they were on their way into my yard and say, hey, you know, she's not home right now.

Who are you? And I appreciated you looking out for me. Twenty nine seconds. So I wanted to to just say that acknowledge that I believe that Cece was run off by hate crimes and also city employees who delivered the charge by an anonymous liar demanding that she moved, accusing her of things that I know not to be true. But there was no recourse for that.

So where were she supposed to go to? And so she is living in the safety of some other nice neighborhood. And I hope that that she doesn't get thrown out there. But it's it's a there's a crisis. And and it's also very personal because I care about you.

Thank you, Jean.

And I miss you.

Yep. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. We have Annette, Ruizika, followed by David Webb, followed by Jennifer Robinson.

Hi. I'm here to continue the discussion about how the city of Olympia cares for its unhoused trans and disabled community members. I was present on April 14 to speak about the harassment of c c that CeCe received from the city, police, and private citizens, which resulted in her moving locations for her safety. Our testimonies coincided with Olympia declaring April fair housing month. And as this is the April, I'm here to ask what Olympia has done to make housing fair for those who do not have the resources to access traditional moneyed pathways.

How have you used this month to ensure fair housing for all? There are also a few things I want to respond to from that meeting. One, in our in response to our testimonies, mayor Payne said that such proclamations as Fair Housing Month and Sanctuary City are aspirational and that Olympia will never be a 100% crime free. And I just want to be clear that I'm not asking for a crime free Olympia. I'm asking for an Olympia where the crime is not committed by the police department.

I'm asking for an Olympia that does not sanction police stealing survival gear or any personal belongings from someone only for the simple fact that they have nowhere else to put it and where the police do not harass those with nowhere else to go. After the meeting, Mayor Payne offered for Cece to speak with police chief, Parker. And during that meeting, Chief Parker asked why someone would target CeCe. One reason is because people are empowered to do it by witnessing Olympia police officers do it. Repeatedly moving individuals who have no other place to go and without providing alternate options is targeting and harassment, and it's cruel and tantamount to saying go die somewhere else.

I request the city review every ordinance that targets the houseless community and suspend any ordinances that do not meet the needs of our unhoused community members or puts greater burdens on people who are already challenged by the cruelty of our collective culture and government. There is still time to devote April to Fair Housing for All, and it will require a moratorium on any policy practice or ordinance that targets those who cannot access traditional housing no matter the reason or circumstance. There is a compassionate approach, and I implore the city to seek it and enact it.

K. David

Webb, city of Olympia. Thank you for bike month. It's, bikeability is one of the things that is great about this city. It's nice when a city prioritizes a community through policy and practices. It's great that there's such a welcoming culture for cyclists here. It shows that you care when there are systems that uplift and protect and empower them. It shows you don't when there are systems that harm and oppress people. People like Cece and our neighbors price out of conventional housing. You're not listening to them. You claim to be a transsanctuary, but you don't listen to them.

The Olympia Police Department has never been held accountable for killing Timothy Green, a mentally ill, black, unhoused man in crisis who is well known to officers, the final straw that necessitated some form of accountability to the public, resulting in the so called oversight structure that exists now. Last week, the mayor, before referencing rules, protocols, and policies that don't seem to exist, tried to claim the administration has oversight. That's a lie, and I would like to address the myth of police oversight in Olympia. 100% of all investigations into OPD policy violation and misconduct are completed by a department within the OPD. That is to say, the Olympia Police Department investigates itself.

Members of the Department investigate others based on their own policies and procedures. Then a single man in an organization in California reviews that investigation. That man releases twice a year to a panel of seven members of the public. This man needs to appease the city to maintain its yearly renewed contract but isn't forwarding requests in compliance with the laws that were created when they're sent to him by the public. He's accessible twice a year to those seven people.

This is eight people who have oversight into the investigations. No one has oversight into the MPART department. Last week, you dismissed the concern of violence and discrimination, citing oversight and pressured Cici and the chief into a meeting and entirely ignored the community's concerns. Your system seems to exist for the purpose of giving you plausible viability rather than police accountability. Please create fair housing and actual accountability. Thank you.

We have two more in person public commentaries. We have Jennifer Robinson. Thank you. And then followed by Alexandra Vic.

Hi. This is along the same lines of people being homeless because I wanna know because police are being rude to those who are homeless. It's like they frown frown upon. They discriminated. In our case, we got threatened.

We were told that they would the officer, we don't even know his name, threatened to hunt us down, and we can go on one, but he'd find us anywhere because he was gonna motor home hide and seek, and he did exactly that. And it's not right. I mean, everybody has their own situation, own reasons why they're in a you know, they're homeless, why they're living in motor home. And according to, you know, like, twenty five years ago with the state legislature, they expanded the definition of homestead to include personal property that the owner uses as a resident, which also includes automobiles and motorhomes. But you guys make it make us like, we're the bad guys.

Like, we're committing crime when, in fact, we're not. And I wanna know if people that are homeless, for whatever whatever reason, are living in motorhomes. Okay. I wanna know where it's written down that it's against law, where it's illegal, where it's a crime. And if it's not and the police force are doing what they're doing and threatening and and harassing and intimidating us, what's being done about it?

Because if nothing is being done about and motor homes are being taken, you guys could have a huge lawsuit on your hands. The the the police department here in Olympia. I mean, all these people and those that aren't here. I mean, if it's the only thing that they have, it's their home that keeps them alive, that keeps them going. I mean and you guys take it away from them, the police force, brutally, however they do it with no just cause, and it's the only thing they can afford, and it's the only thing keeping up going.

Who's to say he's not gonna end up to where they kill themselves? And if that's the case because it's only thing keeping them going, then, you know, you guys are gonna have blood on hands like me. I was a DV survivor. I chose to live in my home because at least I know if I'm hunted down, I have a way of getting out. And to take that away from people like me and other people, that's just wrong, and you guys aren't doing anything about it. And I'm ashamed that you guys are even hold fence on the council because the council doesn't care about those people. So what are you gonna do about it? Thank you.

There will be thank you, Jennifer. There will be an opportunity for the council to respond after public comment. We only have a few more public commenters. So with that, Alexandravik

Gar.

Hello, everyone. My name is Alexander. I just moved to Olympia, and I wanted to introduce myself. I hope to be an active member of this community, and I look forward to getting to know you all. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll go ahead and move to online public comment where we have two folks signed up. Just give staff a moment. Are we able to pull up the virtual public comment? Sybil is pulled over, and I'm, waiting for them to speak.

Oh, okay. Can you hear me?

Oh, yes. We can. Go ahead. Sorry.

I wasn't I wasn't aware. Okay. My name is Sybil. I am a trans resident who has been living in Olympia for two years now. I am here to speak in solidarity with my own house neighbors.

I watched the meeting a couple weeks ago and noticed that the the mayor asserted that the police are here to keep us safe and serve the community. In response to that, I would say that, first and foremost, the police uphold laws even if those laws are dehumanizing, unconstitutional, and protect private property over people. The police are the ones who are initiating sweeps, finding homeless people for resting on the sidewalk, and overall just criminalizing them for having basic human needs. Police are the ones enforcing the law that makes it so CeCe must move her home every day or otherwise risk losing it. It is not uncommon for an unhoused person to seek help through the police and then wind up criminalized themselves.

It's unrealistic to ask folks experiencing homelessness to put their faith and trust in the police. It's more real realistic and compassionate to decriminalize behavior associated with lack of housing and to fund alternative sort solutions. I recently reviewed the Olympia comprehensive plan, the one community plan, and both of them recognize the need for alternative solutions and also provided loose time line of, like, the steps that need to be taken. But it feels like the actions of the council and the current ordinances in fact effect directly contradict these plans. Houseless people need more support.

There are rarely more shelter bed. There are housing units available, and spaces that provide vital community resources, like the clerk's office and public libraries, are also under threat. So we have lots of words of heartfelt commitment from the city, but actions speak louder than words. And to me, current actions are showing that city is fine with letting the people that they serve be exposed to the physical, emotional, and psychological instability of living on the street. We need more tangible protections and support put in place for our unhoused neighbors, especially those dealing with intersectional oppression. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Next, we'll move to Crystal Snare.

Crystal is available. Crystal, can you hear me?

Oh, yes. We can. Go ahead and begin when you're ready.

Sounds good. Thank you for hearing me on this. I'm sorry I'm not there in person to support Cece, who is my neighbor. And I'm also supporting our other unhoused neighbors, especially folks who are under are under attack by lawmakers and activists in our state. And specifically, I'm talking about those Haywood bills, and that they encourage hateful behavior and make everyone in our community less safe.

I know that the the city council can't change those, but I mention them because they encourage hate crimes and decrease safety for everyone in our community. I just wanted to say I was one of CeCe's neighbors, and I'm here to speak to her support and talk about how she's contributed to our neighborhood. I often see her when I'm working in the garden, and I enjoy chatting with her in the summer often daily. She really personifies mister Rogers' neighborliness, and I'm going to miss chatting with her about the new solar power power and gardening. And I think this situation really illustrates the lack of safe housing.

This isn't a one person issue. It's our community falling down on the job. We spend a lot of money on our police department, but they haven't stopped these hate crimes, and they can't solve housing shortage. I wanted to recognize Cece because she's really ambassador for housing creativity in our community. Specifically, I would say ask her about her solar setup, it's awesome.

And she's a spectacular ambassador for that sort of a situation, for using solar on a small scale. And I really challenge our Olympia leadership to show similar determination and creativity in building, like, real affordable community housing, not discount market rate and, you know, really legitimately unaffordable housing. So thank you.

Thank you, Crystal. So that concludes in person and virtual public comment, and we'll turn it over to the mayor.

Thank you, mayor pro tem. Comments, from the council. Councilmember Barront, followed by mayor pro tem Nguyen, followed by councilmember Gilman, followed by councilmember Vanderpool.

Thank you so much, mayor. And thank you to all of the people who have come and, given public testimony this evening, particularly all of the members in support of CC and the and the trans community. I think the trans community is under under attack in a in a public way. There there are two initiatives on the ballot aimed directly at at at them. I think that we have to be diligent in in acting on our values in in Olympia.

I I do believe that the thing we can do is continue to work on housing availability to address these issues. We need more shelters. We need more tiny homes, and we need just more low income housing. And I just commit to you as a council member that that that we will continue to work on developing those options. Developing new housing overnight is not easy.

I also just wanna acknowledge and thank the library for showing up and and giving their report. This is really important to the community, and I just thank you for the report on the fact that many of the laid off employees have been brought back, and there's some stability going on in in the library, which is so critical. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, council member Barron. Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Yeah. I just echo a little bit of what council member Barron had said. As far as everyone that came out, whether it's online or in person tonight to talk about the houseless community members or trans and houseless community members. I'm listening. I am interested, and I mean that genuinely.

I'm not yeah. I I I'm just I'm thinking about everything that I Olympia has as far as housing and homelessness, and then our work to reimagine public safety, which, you know, sounds like just this fluffy thing, but it's been real, sometimes painstaking work over years to ensure that, or to help ensure that we're having a human compassionate and responsible response when issues come up, not just issues of house lessness, but in general for public safety issues. So I'm just thinking about all those things. And also, I think this was said a couple of times by folks is that everyone's situation is different and unique. And so that definitely plays a role in it as well.

And so while I am for what it is worth, I do believe that our counsel and many of our housing staff that work in these roles, and I would say even public safety, are committed to finding what that right balance is. It is clear to me that we haven't found a balance for everyone tonight. Right? Otherwise, you wouldn't be here. And so there there's just more that I need to know about this.

So I'll be talking with our with our staff and council colleagues and figure out if there are I do appreciate the I think maybe a couple of people said this, but the encouragement to try to find creative solutions. So, I'm not sure if we'll get to two creative solutions or what that will look like right now. And I don't want to assume, but it's just I'm listening and I'm thinking about it and I know I need to learn more. And it is clear that I know there's there's others that were spoken about or spoken on behalf of tonight, but it is clear that Cece, you are much beloved by many of your neighbors. So it's heartening to hear hear those stories about just neighbors having a chat over the garden.

You know, those are very, very regular things, and those are really cherished moments. So it's not lost on me. I do shifting to the library. Victoria, I've actually gotten a lot of questions. I know this is not the format. I'm always reminded this is not the format for a conversation, unfortunately, though. I did really appreciate your share with us tonight. And I did I do frequently get questions about why the library is closed on Sundays. So maybe I can just reach out to you, so I can have a better understanding about that. And then, Anne, just want to say that I appreciate all of your work.

Don't want to judge up what's already out there. But it's libraries are you know, I'm preaching to the choir here, libraries are so important. And I'm glad that you're at Timberland. And, yeah, and I'm glad that there was some compromise. It sounds like maybe, hopefully, things are on the up and up. It's a very, very cherished public service. Okay. And then, this is unique one for me, Alexandrovic Gar. Hopefully, I nailed that with the pronunciation that you provided. So, thank you.

We don't get a lot of people that come to say hello. So, hello back, and welcome to the community, because I think it sounds like you just moved here. And there are a lot of ways to be actively involved in the community that has nothing to do with government. Although, one should always exercise the right to vote if that is a privilege that one has. Though, there are so many ways to get involved with our City of Olympia government at a lot of different scales.

It could be, know, maybe you don't have a lot of time, or maybe you have so much time you don't know what to do with it. So, at all scales and different topics too. So, I just really encourage you to take a look at our City of Olympia website. We have lots of volunteer opportunities. We have, different, advisory bodies that we do. So just a lot of different levels. And we also have tons of partnerships. And if you don't remember, what I said, you can just reach out to me too. So happy to share. Thanks for coming out tonight. Thanks, mayor.

Thank you. Council member Gilman.

Yeah. I'll second the welcome to Olympia. Yeah. Well, I I hear that we need more to build more shelters, more low income homes, but I also know that we made a promise that we would stop and take a look at the one community plan and and reassess. And it's I I think that housing is a human right and that it's possible that we need to shift our understanding about what is acceptable about housing, how we consider belonging in the community, and how we share resources in the community.

That that this could be a moment rather than trying to figure out how to raise money to convert one more motel. Maybe this is about thinking what kinds of more modest structures and what kinds of sharing space might accommodate more folks. And, to Cece, my friend, my sister, I love you, and I believe you. I I hope you know that. Yeah.

Some of some of what's come from folks is is new information, and it's different from what I've been hearing in my time downtown about sweeps, harassment, people being arrested on the sidewalk. So I wanna learn more about that because that is a place where we had been, but that's not been my understanding, at least in the part of downtown I've been hanging out, and not with the the folks I've been interacting with. So I wanna learn more about that. Because I I think it's it's just absolutely essential that we're not criminalizing poverty, that we call it all other kinds of names like the mess somebody makes on the sidewalk or whatever else. But but, really, the issue is that the people are poor.

That's that's why they're frustrating to other folks. And and as a city, we're not gonna change that inequality of wealth, but we can certainly figure out better ways to share to share our our shared resources and to share our space. So I I I hope, Cece, that you and I can take a roll up and down the sidewalk or something and and help me learn more about what you've been learning as as you've built this community around you right now. Because I I I wanna learn more, and and I'm just gonna close just briefly. The the library has been, like, in the news.

Right? And it's and it's heartbreaking that we're reducing the the mall library's hours. But I also wanna shout out that I've been so proud over this last decade of the evolution of the library, the space in the mall, the library the library of things that they've been checking out, the number of evening and special events that have been hosted by the library. So I think Timberland Library is doing really amazing work, and I I hope that they find a path through this this budget and staffing crisis right now. But I I I don't wanna throw shade on the library itself or the operation.

I think we have amazing people delivering really incredible services, and it's it's it's a place that I treasure. So I wanted to add that. So you gave me a lot to think about tonight, folks. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Council member Vanderpool.

It's always incredibly sobering as a council member and as a policymaker when people come to us and they present real world problems that they experience each and every day. It's easy for us to get caught up in the work and not think about that. And I I always appreciate when people come and because it's not easy to come to come here and talk about these things, especially if there's a hate crime. Right? Or there's discrimination.

I'm gonna be meeting with you cc soon. Like, next week we're scheduled. I would encourage my councilmates to do the same. You know, I am encouraged by the idea of us working towards policies by hearing your experience and hearing other folks' experiences and allowing that to guide us forward. You know, as my councilmate Gilman had just mentioned, you know, it is, you know, it is not lost on me that this is, you know, the crimes against poverty at the intersectionality of gender.

Right? Where you're or, you know, it's you're already in one boat. Right? Where you have a society that has a long history of discrimination and then the poverty hits you at the other angle. Right? That's not lost on me at all. Right? This is this is extremely common in this country and unfortunate. But with us, as a city, have we have a responsibility to respond to that and make changes. We as a city came up with the idea of the crisis response unit and responded to issues like this.

So as a city, we have to continue to think about how do we meet the needs of the community. Does it mean, as my Councilmate Clark Gilman just mentioned, where we reconsider what do we consider a shelter and support for folks. But I'm I'm interested in learning. I'm interested in finding solutions. So thank you for coming out.

Thank you, council member Vanderpool. I again, I wanna start by saying, like I I said to you the last time, Cece, I'm sorry that this is your experience, and I'm sorry that we're not doing enough fast enough. We, at the city, understand this, because we are constantly, up against the limitations that we have whenever we're trying to do more, whether it's through a lack of funding or lack of of maybe we didn't get a a certain grant, and that was a missed opportunity for us. There are ways that we see that things really come to a halt or delay. And and I know that that is upsetting to you and many other people in our community who don't always see, those behind the scenes occurrences that are happening that are real barriers to us moving quickly.

It was mentioned our one community plan, and our comprehensive plan and public comment as guides for this work and what we do in terms of developing affordable housing and shelter space and permanent supportive housing. Those particular plans speak about balancing compassion and accountability. And whenever I see that, it makes me think about all of the people who live in the city of Olympia. And that includes our houseless neighbors and includes people who are marginalized, but it also includes people who are not. And so when we are having to act on certain policies, sometimes they are policies that lean towards the compassionate side, and sometimes there are policies that lean towards the accountability side.

And each time that we do that, each time that we act, we get people who show up. We get community members who come into the chambers, and they tell us what they're not happy with and what we could do better at. And and we listen, and we do our best to try to strike that balance. And I think it was the mayor pro tem who said it earlier that, you know, obviously, you wouldn't be here if you felt that things weren't leaning hard one way or another. But I do have to say that we hear you, and we also hear the community members who are concerned about the presence of houseless neighbors neighbors on our streets.

We should always be aiming towards housing people, which is what this council has tried to do. We have always had our eyes on the prize, on that goal of housing people, which is why we haven't just passed policies that say get out of our city like so many other communities have done. And we have instead, you know, to the frustration of many of our residents, chosen not to criminalize poverty in so many of these terrible ways that so many other communities across our nation have. And I think that that's the right thing to do. And so when I see you here today, all I can promise is that we'll keep listening.

I I hear that there are calls perhaps for coming up with some new innovative solutions, both on council and off, and I am certainly open to that. But I feel personally that it is my job to listen to everyone who lives in this community. And so I will be doing my best to represent those voices with a balance during my time on the city council. But I'm I'm open to hearing more and learning more from your experience. Alexandrovic, welcome to the city of Olympia.

You're just being I guess this is what? Baptism by fire. Welcome. There is a lot of issues here in this community that people are very passionate about. We are a very caring community, and I hope that is coming through tonight.

The people who serve on this council care very deeply about the people who live in this community. And and I'm so impressed each day with all the people that I work with, that I serve with, who do our very best to try to listen to the voices that come into this room. And it's not an easy job. But we certainly have become a better community because we are, as a body, listening to the people who come into this room. That's how we have done things that are so unique to this community that you will soon come to learn over time hasn't happened anywhere else.

Olympia is really one of a kind. And I am always, grateful for the perspective that so many people have in this community to really remind me of why I even chose to live here. And so I am more than happy to meet with you or show you around town or answer any questions you might have about the history of the city because it is really special that someone such as yourself would come here to say hello. I'm new to town. That's almost never happens.

So that's pretty exciting. So welcome to Olympia. And as for our the comments around the library, thank you so much for coming and and speaking to the issue and letting us know that the West Side site will be now closed on Sundays. That's good to know because sometimes I'm running in there, and then it's good to know that it'll be closed on Sundays. But, and, obviously, I imagine that's due to unfortunate circumstances.

We care very deeply about, the future of the library and, the city manager and I as well as our council colleagues. My council colleagues have been, in several discussions, about, you know, the library needing a new space. And so, obviously, we have, these additional concerns in addition to that that we wanna make sure we're we're thinking about along the way as well. So thank you so much for coming tonight and sharing that information. And and just really quickly back to all of you who are here tonight.

I understand that there's not anything that I'm gonna say that's gonna magically fix it all, but I hope you can see that I am truly sincere when I say that I do care about every single person regardless of their income level who lives in this community. And it's not my intention at all to disregard anyone's experience, but simply to represent 58,000 plus people. So thank you. Alright. So that concludes, public comment for tonight. Thank you all very much. We are gonna move on to adoption of the consent calendar, so I need a motion and a second.

So moved.

Second. Alright.

We have a motion and a second. Is there any request for polls for questions or comments on the consent calendar? Alright. Seeing that, all those in favor of adopting cons the consent calendar is published, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Alright. Consent calendar is adopted. So that takes us to our only business item for tonight, which is item six a on our agenda, which is, a report on the new format of the monthly financial report and to discuss the 2027 budget calendar, and I'm inviting up city manager Jay Bernie for comments to introduce our finance director.

Good evening, mayor, council members again. For the record, Jay Bernie, city manager. I'm excited to be here tonight as the finance team rolls out a new tool that will help me, the council, and the community track our financial stability throughout the year. One of the most important jobs I have as city manager is working with the council to develop our annual budget and then working with the department directors and the finance team to track our progress and ensure that we end the year balanced and not in a deficit. It's also important that I'm tracking our progress along the way to avoid significant issues sneaking up on us out of nowhere so that we're all fully informed.

I do that work in a lot of different ways. And I have certain key indicators that I monitor monthly and through updates the finance team provides me and the department directors quarterly. If any one of those indicators is not tracking to budget, it does not necessarily mean we need to make immediate need to take immediate actions. But when one or more of them is not tracking to our expected budgets, that is usually the time when we do things like spending freezes or hiring freezes, which we've had to do the past couple of years due to a lot of uncertainty around budgets, which a lot of municipalities are facing. Since the implementation of Workday, we've been working on a new dynamic tool to both monitor our budget and provide an improved level of transparency to the community.

Tonight, finance director Mike Gibbons is going to roll out to you a new tool. And having previewed it, I'm happy to be here tonight to share it with all of you. As you know, over the past month, we have also rolled out a revamped budget and performance page with links to our priority based budgeting dashboard. This financial reporting tool is the next important piece we are launching to connect our community better to the budget, the work it supports, and how we are moving our community priorities forward and staying within our budget. With that, I will turn it over to finance director Mike Gibbons to preview the tool and the upcoming budget calendar. And then I'll stick around over here to help him answer any questions you might have.

Thank Thank you, city manager Bernie, and council members. For the record, Mike Githens, finance director. I'm really excited to be here tonight to show you this new tool. We demonstrated it with finance committee last week, and so we're ready to roll it out. It's been on the website now for about a week.

I did wanna begin with just, answering a couple of questions that council member Barron brought up, a couple of weeks ago and just talk a little bit about how we monitor the city's finances leading into this presentation. As city manager Bernie mentioned, we're monitoring a lot of factors. I know many of you have served on council for a number of years. I just want to reiterate what we do behind the scenes because we have a very talented finance team that monitors lots of different sections on a daily basis. So I think some of the questions that were asked were, know, could the city's balance sheet, we we can refer to that as our cash flow, in trouble without us maybe noticing it.

And I can assure you that I'm watching it daily. We have really three divisions in finance. If I can just kind of simplify it that way, we have the team you're very familiar with, our budget team. That team works closely with departments and others monitoring the revenues, the expenditures to budget. That's this report we're gonna talk about that was created.

We have our cash management team that is monitoring really the city's checking account on a daily basis to make sure that we can meet payroll, to make sure that our investments are flowing carefully. And then we have our utility billing, tax and review manager and team. All of these talented staff members are monitoring the city's finances carefully. If we notice something early on before this report is even developed, I'm gonna be talking with the city manager who's going to be communicating with you. As we mentioned as he mentioned, we've put into place some stop gaps when we have to.

We've frozen spending. We've frozen hiring. There's tools in our tool belt that we can enact to take some steps so that we're not in an immediate place to make reductions. That doesn't mean we might not have to consider it at some point should economic conditions change, but we're laser focused on it. So I just wanted to make those comments to to just help answer some of those questions that council member Barron brought up, and and hopefully, that put some concerns at rest.

We're laser focused on it. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not looking at those finances very carefully as well as the whole team. So with that, let me move us into this great tool we have. What you're seeing now is the website, the budget and performance page. Let me bring it back.

So down here towards the middle, we've talked about the priority based budget. That page lands you here. A lot of people have been looking at this. When, we developed the monthly financial report, we really strive to create something that would be similar so that as folks are using this, they see something similar. So back to the website, down here is the monthly financial report.

We'll be preparing this and rolling it out towards the middle of each month. We have to have the prior month closed in order to complete this. So by the middle of the month, we'll get this out, and it'll be live on the Citi website. So a couple of things about this report that the finance team worked really hard on for council, as a reminder, and the community. Prior to, Workday, we had a product that we paid money for, that allowed citizens, anyone to drill into the budget, look at expenses with some detail.

As the budget process was, going on last fall, I heard from some citizens how they missed that. So it was really tasked with finance to come up with something that we could allow people really to look at in a more dynamic fashion. As a reminder, we created a monthly financial report, but it was a static well, it was exciting to some of us to read, a 72 page monthly financial report. I admit it wasn't necessarily as user friendly as everyone really can can adhere to. So this report is really a great effort on the finance department.

You know, it took a lot of, the finance team's time to create that static report as well as we're not relying on a third party vendor at several thousand dollars for a product. We're saving that money. So this is the product. Up here in the top right hand corner, we'll, note the month that we're in. So this is kind of a nice one to roll out to you because it's a quarter of the year.

It's a nice time to look at the finances because it divides kind of evenly a quarter of the year along. We have some notes over here on the left hand side of the screen where we're just kind of introducing the topics are numbers over here. As you can tell, we tried to use really plain, easy to understand colors. Green means things are looking good. Yellow means we're we're watching it.

Red means maybe there's something going on that we need to look at with a little bit, of a more careful eye. It doesn't mean that there's something that's in dire straits. It just means that according to budget at this point in the year, there's something that we're monitoring. And so we've added notes here to make sure that we can explain things in a little bit more detail So that, for instance, if the revenues don't look quite like what we wanna see in March, that's because $17,000,000 of our revenue comes from property taxes and the first half payments aren't in. So we've explained that.

So that landing page takes people kind of through where they are. I wanna tell you also, it's not intuitive necessarily, and we know that how to get to everything, and we're going to work on a video that it kind of takes people through very quickly. How can you get to the things that I'm doing here and dig into the details a bit more? So you you have buttons along the bottom here that take you to places, or you can scroll. I'm gonna go to the watch list.

So city manager Bernie talked about some of the things that we're briefing him on regularly, that he's watching, that we're watching in finance. They're the kinds of things that you adopted in the annual budget that you know about and that we're we're watching carefully. B and O tax collections, as you know, we made some changes to that revenue source, so we're watching it as this year goes on. That's on the watch list. Police department overtime versus budget and fire department overtime versus prior year.

So we're looking at those things. The jail contract, where is it at at this point? I wanna show you also if you hover over question marks, we've added some notes for folks. And again, we'll explain this in the video we create. You can go to Page two.

That's the second page of the watch list about, public defense costs, basic life support revenues and then the commercial development permit plan and review fees. So we'll update that month, every month with new information. I'm gonna take you to just a couple of other places on this. The general fund. So this is a pretty cool let me let me hide the notes. I had them open. So this is a pretty cool place to just really dig into the funds. At the bottom of the page here, we put the most do I say popular funds? The most thought of funds. How's that?

First. And then I'll show you where you can go to all of the others. But on the general fund, you'll notice we have the graphs over here. And if you hover over the month, it brings up the budget and then the revenue at that point. You can go back. So you'll notice we have the March financial report up there, but you can go back to February and see where it was at that point. And then again, back to January and see where it is. The same with expenditures down here. If I put the notes back on, we've just added some clarification. That point I made about the property taxes, for instance.

If we were to look at this for June, which I think we will, you'll see that that's now 50% or a little more once that first half property tax payments come in. And, again, we've made some notes over here. What's this compared to budget? We did a trend over five years to say where was the budget over that time so that we could make some comparisons. One of the things that I think people definitely like to dig into if if you if you like this kind of information is the details.

So you can expand this and see on the revenue sources where are taxes. So that amount I mentioned with property tax, you can see here the budget is $17,000,000 Through March, we've only received $05,000,000 So that's why right now we're saying it's down, but it's not a concern. At this point, we know we're gonna receive half of that amount later this month, Thursday. Well, technically, next month. But, anyway, same thing you can do with expenses.

This, I think, is an area that, I heard from some community members who wanted to see more detail. They could can dig into this now and get that detail. And we'll be open to, I think, as folks are able to use this, including you, where can we maybe make some changes? We'll see what we can do. But I'm very proud of the finance team that developed this.

They've done a great job. We're able to really allow our community to look at our expenses and our revenues, our finances with specificity and detail. I mentioned the other funds. You can look that's the development fee fund, so you can look at that, if you're not sure what the fund is because I know those of us I even as I first started and finance team would roll off fund five zero two, and we've labeled it. So if you don't know what number it is, you're all good.

The other funds are listed here. So we we didn't hold out any Citi fund. You can look at absolutely everything. The rest of them that aren't highlighted are all along here. You can dig into them, including there's, OMPD and take a look at that.

So that's the monthly financial report. The other part of this I wanted to mention that I think is important, city manager Bernie forwarded this, to council recently, and that's what the revenue team takes a look at with our non departmental revenues, the projection to budget, and then our sales tax. They do an incredibly deep dive into really where is our revenue at, where is our sales tax in relation to maybe last year, the trend for five years. They dig into the different categories to really again, I hope this gives you confidence in how we monitor, how carefully we monitor the revenues so that we're really seeing is something off on these major revenue sources. This is, we'll get this online also.

I'm pulling this up from the finance committee's packet, but this is the first page where it, really details all of those nondepartmental revenues, where they're at with the comparison. And then this is the part that for those of us who really love to dig into sales tax, this is your ticket because it goes into a lot of detail. And, again, really proud of the revenue team that presents this because prepares this and presents it to everyone because for you, for staff, for the community, I think it, again, shows our transparency and laser focus on our finances. So that's the financial report. I'll stop there in case you have any questions before we move on to just a brief overview of the upcoming budget calendar.

Alright. Thank you very much, Mike. Any questions from the council? Council member Gilman, and followed by mayor pro tem Wynn. And please let me know if council member Barrett, has a question. I can't see him.

Yeah. Right. Mike, I I may have missed this along the way, but did you speak to the fact that this tool was developed in house by the the same folks who created our priority based budget team so that or screens. So that makes it quite nimble, gives us the ability to to, anyhow, just give a little credit there.

That was that was amazing.

It was all developed by the finance team. So, really led by, Joan Lutz, the our budget manager. Her team really dug in to create that priority based budgeting landing page. And in doing so, really found that the tool could lead us to this. And that's really what kind of got us to this place where I think in part, the promise to get something more transparent was made. We needed to deliver. It took us a couple of months. We didn't have this financial report out until this first quarter, but it was absolutely developed in house using the resources that the city is able to provide.

Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Yeah. Just brief comments of gratitude. Mike, I think someone is very much delivering, and that's you, sir, and your team. I mean, I remember the comments that you had said to us we had, well, I guess a few times, but we have had some study sessions. You were at the retreat and there was a clear desire for more, just more information about finance, right, for folks, especially for not every council member is on the finance committee, right, and so wanting to be able to dig in should they so choose, and then also members of the public, because we do have community members that will dig in.

I'm thinking of a few of them right now. So, yeah, I think this is tremendous. I really look forward to the videos. Was actually kind of surprised that you didn't just play it, but it's fine. I'll do it on my own time. Yeah, this is, I'm not quite sure I don't think I've ever heard of a city doing something like this. I think it's very, very cool. So, yeah. I'm really looking forward to it. Just much appreciation to you and your team, and I love that you are excited about it too.

Yeah, it is really cool, and I will pass that on. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks.

Thank you. Additional comments? Councilmember Barrett.

Thank thank thank you, mayor. I I just want to thank you so so much for this excellent presentation. I I took the opportunity to really dive into all of these reports looking at the agenda packet in preparation for this meeting. And I per it it personally provided comprehensively the information I was looking for personally, but I I just think it's such a wonderful, powerful tool of transparency for the public, which builds confidence in our city and and all that we're doing. And just gratitude to Mike, to you and your staff, and and and everyone who is involved in this.

This I raised this issue about having the data to make good decisions, and I I think this is really what I was looking for personally. So thank you. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, council member Barron. Mike, thank you. Thank you to you and your team so much. This is a incredible tool. I do wanna say, I believe we have played the video before.

So check it out if you haven't seen it. But it is, I think, great for us to provide that transparency to the community. But then, also, this is a way of the way I see it is is, if if people have questions about the decisions we make around the budget, if they think we should pivot or do something differently, then we have, a basis of which they are coming with that request, and they can point to where exactly they see this as an as a source. And I think that that's so great for our community because the best ideas, the best decisions don't always necessarily come from inside. And so sometimes the people might see something that we need to adjust.

And so I really appreciate everybody's willingness to participate in that process of of having a more transparent budgeting process. And I think that this the website, the the calendar, all of it, I think, is pulling us into that space of where we're looking for more participation from the public in terms of what they think are priorities or where we should focus, not only with surveys or things like that, but by being able to utilize this tool in a way that just many communities don't. And that that's thanks to you and your team and the work that you've put into this. And, frankly, I'm gonna say it seems to me how fast you were able to do it. It seems like this all happened very quickly, and I think that that's just thanks to your efficiency and dedication to making sure that people can see what we're doing in a way that's much easier to digest than just looking at a a line item budget.

So thank you. Yes. Councilmember Green.

Thank you, mayor. Mike, can you confirm for me? Because I think I heard something different than my colleagues. Does a video about this tool exist yet, or did the video that you show, is that the priority based budgeting one?

So there's a video on the landing the budget and performance page about priority based budgeting. I encourage everyone to watch it. It's a great video. But we're going to develop a how to use the monthly financial report video. I apologize for not being more clear on that. Just to so that those who wanna use it can get to some of those features that I showed. So we'll make it short and sweet, but to the point. So look forward to that video coming out. Thank you.

Great question and clarification. Yes. And, Mike, you have more. Right? You're gonna get to okay.

So we wanted to just talk about because it's never too early to talk about the next year's budget development calendar. So here we go into thinking about 2027 budget. So we're going to, we had on here to discuss some early forecasting and, kind of our year end. That's gonna be rolled out to finance committee next month. I know city manager Bernie will be talking with you all kind of about where we're estimating because we're working on that as we bring that annual comprehensive financial report into balance.

We'll have that more firm number next month. But moving into really focusing on the 2027 budget, and I wanna assure you the finance team again is working hard to get that background work put in. We start pretty early on this process to make sure all of the data is accurate and in there. But we'll be meeting with you in some study sessions. We'll have the capital facilities plan presented in August.

You know, a lot of the work we're doing to get it ready for you is with staff. We're we met, as, with the city manager and finance budget team to really talk about how can we rethink this. The executive team had a retreat, as you know, gave some valuable input. And so we've really thought about what can this process that the staff develops, how can it change to really be more dynamic, insightful, involve folks. And so city manager, Bernie, was really open to some changes, so we're going to look at that this year.

I think it'll be a great process. I think it'll involve more people. I think more of the executive team will really get their feet wet with the budget and understand it. And that's important, in kind of some of those decisions that are made because we move really quickly through that later part of the summer to get a balanced budget to you all. And sometimes, you know, it's hard to get all those communications out.

So one of my goals is to make sure we do a good job of that this year and I think this calendar reflects that. As we move through, some of the study sessions with you, this is a different year. Last year, we were looking at a couple of revenue options. So we had some very dedicated time throughout the summer and early fall to get more information to you, to respond to requests that you had. This is a different kind of a look at this.

Will we need all of those study sessions? I don't know, but we wanted to make sure we have them on here so that we get you and the community the information as this it's always a developing story when the budget is presented, but it moves it all the way down then to where you can see in December where you're adopting the 2027 budget. I do wanna assure you though, we're building in adequate staff time to get us the information, time for city manager Bernie to make considerations on requests and really take a good look at where our estimates are. That's really a lot of the work that finance is doing is estimating where our revenue is going to be with as much data as we have at the time, what's, you know, the CPI looking like, what are our estimates on our benefits, some of those largest cost drivers. That's the work that's being done now to lead into this.

So that's a look at the 2027 budget calendar and really the date. There's many more dates. We didn't wanna take you through eight pages, but lots of staff involvement to get this going. And by that, I mean way beyond the finance staff. It's every department's involved in submitting their requests, getting all of this put together. This is a herculean effort on the part of the city to get this important policy document ready. That's Beth, do you wanna

I just wanna add one thing as as we wrap up here. Mike's been here less than a year. And how far we've come in terms of our budget and performance and it's a team effort. It's Mike's team. It's a lot of work that you've seen Assistant City Manager Sullivan do. The departments have put a lot of time into priority based budgeting. We now have tools so the community can see how and where we spend our money. And now we have a tool where they can track how we're performing to our budget in terms of what we adopted at year end and then how we're progressing through the year. And we've done that in a very short amount of time from the time we started this conversation. So I just want to give credit to a lot of teams here.

But Mike's leadership and his finance team's ability to stand up and raise a hand and say, hey, let me experiment with Power BI. And let me experiment with this and see if we can get at a different way without hiring consultants to help us do the work. And we can make it easier for the community to connect with it. And he's really empowered them to do that work. And on the other side of this, we have these amazing tools.

So that's my way of just praising Mike for how far we've come in such a short period of time of him being here. And it doesn't even count I can't even count the ways that Mike has given input already to our existing processes around budget, and how he's rallying the team up to meet different needs, and to respond to some of the feedback coming from department directors and what he witnessed in terms of the conversation with counsel last year to suggest improvements to our process. So I just want to thank Mike for all that he's done in the very short amount of time he's been here. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our presentation.

Alright. Thank you, Mike. Are there any additional questions or comments from counsel? Alright. So far seeing none. And just waiting for council member Barrett to come on back up. There we go. K. No questions, it looks like, you're saying, council member Barron.

No. Alright. You.

Well, thank you so much, Mike. Gratitude to you again, to your team, to assistant city manager Sullivan. Thank you for your work on this as well. I I think it's been very impressive what you've been able to do within this last year, especially of the things that this council has requested, which was that, we start talking about the budget much earlier. We saw that last year, and we're seeing it now.

And I just wanna say thank you, for that because I think it's it's doing, us a real service, to be talking about the budget this early on and to be looking ahead and to be able to see where we are, in such a transparent way. So thank you again.

Thank you. And I I just wanna say I work with an amazing team of people, and it takes all of us. So thank you. Of course.

Alright. So that concludes our business for tonight. Gonna turn it start with reports, and I have nothing to report. So I will start to my left with councilmember Barrant.

Thank you. No report.

Thank you. Councilmember Green. Thank you, mayor Payne.

I have nothing to report.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Temguin.

I just have one item quickly. Just yesterday morning, myself, city manager Bernie, and assistant city manager Sullivan had the great honor of representing the city of Olympia at the Washington Indian Gaming Association or WIGA's opening ceremony to raise their flag pavilion for the first time. And so, as all of the 29 recognized tribes in Washington State, and I think they might have a couple of additional flags as well. And, there was a representative, my understanding was from each tribe. So, you will see that sort of in the downtown area.

So, just invite everyone to check it out. It's pretty unique. And then also, I was talking to Rebecca, the executive director, and she was telling me how helpful the city staff were in getting the, I guess, the coding, permitting, all of the logistics that have to do with them even building that flag pavilion. And so, that was also really good to hear. So some of our you know, we're being there to represent the city, but then also on the back end getting it to happen and the customer service that they received. So really cool stuff.

Yeah. I was originally invited to attend that event, the mayor pro tem attended on my behalf. So thank you for doing that. And I'm and I'm sad I missed it.

Council member Gilman. On, 04/20, finance committee had a very sober meeting.

Right. Okay.

Wish yeah. Tongue and thumb. We besides having the opportunity to preview the budget tool that we all just looked at, we had reports about both fleet and facilities, buildings. Two two pieces that staff have done a pretty deep dive to look at let's let's look again at what's the total cost over the next fifteen years or so for fleet replacement and for bringing up the building condition on our existing structures. And then they did a second look at if we were to meet our climate goals and by 2040 be net zero and decarbonized, what might that cost, with current dollars and current technology?

And it's it's a pretty penny. It's gonna cost a little bit. So it this this really tags on to our study session last week where we looked at waste resources, the facility needs, the size of the operation as the city's grown. But just to give you the thumbnail, for our facilities to bring up our building condition, it would be the the estimate for across all of the city owned buildings is about $61,000,000 over the next thirteen years. And we'd be looking at another 37,000,000 if we were to meet our climate goals and electrify and decarbonize those buildings.

So it'd be about 3,000,000 additional expenditure for each of the next fifteen years to get there by 2040 according to our our best estimate right now. Similarly, the fleet to put in charging infrastructure and and bring in the utilities for that, we're looking at, about 10,000,000 for the charging infrastructure and and about 26,000,000 on top of regular replacement cost to buy electric vehicles for at least for the three quarters of the fleet that's that has currently has EV options available. And that's that's also about $3,000,000 a year. So if we were gonna get on track with our reaching our twenty forty goals for our own operations internally, not necessarily for Thurston County, but for the city operations, we would be looking to find about $6,000,000 a year to invest starting yesterday. So in in terms of big you know, is it time to pivot?

Would we consider adding taxes, additional revenue, or reducing services to meet our climate goals. I just wanted to to frame that, that that's something we'll begin discussing and considering because, it's a it's a different converse we talked about the relative power and importance of resolutions and proclamations. So we have a resolution, and now this is the kind of budget and policy work that it would take to implement it. And it's it's big. So I I just wanted to give a an initial look at that, and I I look forward to our our having conversations about, reaching for that clinical.

Thanks. Any questions or comments for councilmember Gilman? Alright. Seeing none. Councilmember Vanderpool.

I have a few items here. So, Interstate Transit met since our last meeting, and, I asked to put it on the agenda, at the beginning as it, to have a conversation about the 41, which is something that we've all gotten emails about, the bus 41 and the change in the system. And I asked to put this on here because I wanted to have public more of a public facing conversation in a meeting so that folks and, you know, Ralph from was there and just make sure that we go through all of the options in front of the public. Right? You know, what happens if we take the 41 out of the system and run it by itself?

What if we do the 41 on top of the new number? Right? All of these different scenarios, they don't have enough buses to switch just that one route. We don't because it becomes a different route at one point after it goes to the mall. Right? And so because of the inner lining of it, we can't bring that 41. Right? Because the rest of the system relies on it becoming a different bus at one point. But in September, we will be finalizing the designs of the routes. Right?

And I've asked staff at Interstate Transit to give us options and continue to do feedback from the public around these changes and make sure that we're doing the right thing. Because, you know, it is a I don't I I realize that there'll be people that'll have concerns with the routes all over the system as the change. It's been it's been years since there's been a change. But '41, I've never seen so much comment on it. People bought homes and cannot drive and live right off 41 off of Division.

I live off of Division. I know tons of people that are there and they know I live there. So this is so I'll continue to hear about it. And it's not just Evergreen students, it's people that live in the neighborhoods, right, that rely on that system. But the system will be hubbing to the to the mall and then going downtown as the 9x. Right? So there is that it will eventually come downtown. It's not like it will will not go to downtown. It'll just go right and and then go to the mall and then go downtown. But we had that conversation, so I wanted to bring it to my council mates.

So if if as they continue to have conversations about this, let let folks know as you run into them that we're you know, we went through all the options. I talked with their planning staff and just went through every option publicly just to make sure that what else can we do? Right? Regional housing council met. We're moving along. You know, we approved several several funding prod projects going forward. Several of you got emails about that. I believe everyone got emails about updates about about some of our projects and ensuring they're going forward. But and we've forwarded the email to the mayors. I'm sure you you you Dante, you probably have received it.

So we're continuing to fund our current services, which was the ask, right, to ensure that we have stability as we go through these times going forward. And I'm going keep trying to go move that ship in that direction. Right? It is a huge contrast because as we know from tonight, there's a huge demand, and the demand is not going away, and we have to keep pushing. We have to keep asking the state to continue to help us. We have to keep asking what else can we be doing. And so I'm doing both. I'm trying my best. So land use met since the last time we met, and we had we looked at the downtown commercial vacancy study. This was a very robust conversation.

You know, it came down to talking about the downtown plans. It's been a decade since we looked at the downtown plan. Right? We asked a variety of things. I'm not gonna go through the huge list of things that we talked about, but some of the things were, like, including residents in that study rather than just the businesses because downtown people living downtown has changed since 2016.

Right? Looking at the way we have our coupling of our one ways, right, if we're gonna be changing our streets in the future, what happens if we decouple it and make it both two way on some of our streets? Pedestrian streets, bringing back the parklets, which were those cafe on the street, thinking about those programs. There was a variety of options in front of us, looking at all of our options going forward. And so it's good to see that that we made progress towards thinking about the entirety of downtown, not just the vacancy part of it, and continuing that work.

We also had our conversation about the affordable housing emergency declaration. We moved to renew it for two years. It will be coming to us as a council. I will tell you one success story from that. You know the Republic Building?

I forget what the new name is going to be called, but the Republic Building over on Union used to be an office building. I think DCYF operated out there at one point, it was a red building. It's under construction right now. It was originally going to be market rate housing, but because of the affordability emergency, the developer who is a private developer who usually does market rate housing is going to take so far the covenant, the twenty five year cap covenant and do 80% income and cap, meaning it's going to move towards affordable housing. Right?

This is amazing work because this means that for market developers are going to consider doing affordable housing projects in the community, which is what we need. We need that stability. So that's an excellent thing that's going forward. I mentioned off the top when we were talking about bicycle month, the transportation calming needs. I met with the East Bay Neighborhood Association, they have a little subcommittee on traffic.

They have been working on this for years. I said to them that I would mention this in my council reports, if anyone wants to go talk with them. They have gone through the studies, they look at all of the speeding that comes from Boston Harbor back into town. It is supposed to be 25 through there, but they're seeing speeds way beyond that. Right?

And trying to ask for reasonable things. They realize that the redesign is years away, so they're asking how can we as a city in the meantime work on these things? And this is something that I'm gonna be having conversations with my councilmate Gilman about what are we gonna do going forward about this because I guess the example I think of is, you know, public works if if if, you know, a water valve bust and there's a leak, weekend we'll go out and fix it. But we don't have anything in response to crashes in the community or accidents. Right?

If there's a major accident in the community, we don't have a way to deploy temporary infrastructure to make the area safer. Right? Like a lot of other cities are are starting to look more into. Right? That temporary stuff. So that's something I'm having a conversation about. Like, could we have funding for that? I mean, I had another conversation I had as I talked to two folks that live at the Views On 5th this this last weekend and they were they witnessed that incident at Lake Fair couple last year when that car went up on the curb and killed those two people. And they were talking to me, what can we do? Right?

I told them, you know, the bridge is gonna get redesigned in the future, right, with the estuary. But they're like, what can we do now? It's like, it's something I continue to hear from people in the community, and you know, we have a lot of streets. It seems to be systemic. How can we do stuff now with what we have? Right? Is is a question that we're thinking about. And then lastly, Friday is is May Day, and they're gonna be there's gonna be event at the Sylvester Park from one to three. So, anyway, that's it.

Thank you. Questions for council member Vanderpool, council member Gilman.

Council member Vanderpool, did you wanna shout out that if somebody really loves the 41, there's gonna be a gathering at the library loop at Evergreen at 3PM on Saturday to celebrate for a little bit, reminisce, and then take a last ride on the 41 down to the transit center?

Yes. And the information on that is on their Instagram. They have an Instagram just for the '41. Very fun stuff. I, it'll be missed, and I'm you know, I believe, you know, the new system's gonna do a lot of good work for folks, but, I also wanna shout out to the folks that are concerned, and they're trying to meet the community needs.

Thank you both. City manager, Bernie.

Thank you, mister mayor. Just two items. One is, council member Vandervoel mentioned the the downtown vacancy study. That's actually coming to council next week. So you'll get, a similar preview to land use, and then what we'll staff will incorporate into that presentation is kind of some of the feedback they heard from land use and then get some additional feedback from council as well. So I'm excited for you to see that work. And then second, just, some recognition. Another just beautiful beautiful Arts Walk weekend we had last weekend. The weather cooperated, and I just want to take a moment to thank our park staff and all city staff who had a hand in all the planning and preparation. I know you all feel the same way.

It's one of my absolute favorite things I get to do and spend time with community on. And when the weather cooperates, it's even so much better. So just a shout out to staff and just a thank you to all the community members who showed up and made another spring arts walk just memorable. Thank you.

Thanks, Jay. Council member Vanderpool, you have a question?

Yeah. This is kind of an open question. People ask me this every year. Why does an arts block run till Sunday? Anyone know? I hear I hear that all the time from people. Anyone know? I wish I could tell you I

have a definitive answer to that, but I don't know that I

do, but I'll I'll get it for you. Okay. I'm interested.

I mean, I'll just say a lot of it has to do with I would just say in terms of work life harmony for staff, it's a very staff intensive weekend. And so not having it run on Sunday does give staff a day to kind of recharge before coming back to work the next week. So I'll give you that bit, but I'll get some more definitive answers from staff. I'm sure there's data behind it too.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jay. Any additional questions or comments for the city manager? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

It's for the city manager, but it's also for our council. The group that puts on the procession of the species, they continue to have space needs. And so I hope that now that ArtsWalk and procession has concluded for the spring that we can talk amongst each other and city staff to see what we can do.

Agreed. I was actually going to mention that I, just before we kicked off the weekend, I went across the street there to their site to to visit and see, you know, all the volunteers that were there that were helping, and it was just really cool to see people come together and and be excited. It almost felt like a it felt like a holiday, you know, just watching everybody be excited about it and help out. And so, yeah, I second everything the city manager said. Thank you to all the city staff, and and thank you to our community members who really made downtown just come alive this weekend.

So Olympia's thriving, and it's because of you. So with no further business before the Olympia City Council, we're adjourned.