City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everyone. We have made it to Tuesday, June 6th, 2026, just in case you're curious about the year. Meeting is now called to order. We're going to start with roll call. I see Joan Caffey and Peter Agave. Lovely to see you both on the screen. We have Councilmember Jefferson, Councilmember Whedon, Councilmember Sullivan, Councilmember, and they are, for them, Von Holtz, Councilmember I.A. Whedon-Swarthouse, We're also going to have staff just do an intro just so that everyone knows who's here. So those who are watching virtually at another time know who's in the room. We're going to start over with Karen and go that way.

Kelly Adams, Assistant City Administrator.

Dan Spence, Water Resources and Sustainability Director. Brian Hurley, Fire Chief.

Santa Barbara's Associate Planner.

You're a lot of things, Brian.

Patrick Long, PK, Code Enforcement. And I'm Paul Simmons, the City Administrator.

Thank you, everyone. Moving on to item number three, everyone's hot topic these days, it seems, battery energy storage systems briefing. Dana, what do you have for us today?

Well, thank you so much, Mayor, and good evening, Council Members. I'm Dana Bowers, Associate Planner. As I introduced myself earlier, but for the record, battery energy storage systems are something we wanted to bring to the Council because they are important to our community, and we also want to consider what they mean in our community. in terms of how we can regulate them and make sure that they are a good fit for us.

So, next slide, please.

Oh, great. I can do it myself. Thank you so much, Michelle.

Perfect.

All right. So, just a quick definition. Battery energy storage systems are what they sound like in that they are energy solution that stores energy. It does not create energy. And they do so using batteries at various sizes. And so they provide an opportunity to manage power demand. So that's really the heart and soul of why we would consider them for our community, because we have peak demand times that really draw a lot of energy. To manage that means that we would have less brownouts potentially and not move into a blackout kind of territory for our community and that we would just have energy available. The source of the energy in a battery energy storage system does not necessarily have to be associated with a renewable source. So it can be anything coming off the grid and there's not really like any dividing point on that. So just to clear that up. This is one of the solutions to shift from a fossil fuel demand just because so many of our renewable sources are intermittent or come in different times of the day when we might not need them. So you would need to store them. So for example, solar power is really valuable when the sun is out, yet we use a lot of power when the sun goes down. So a battery would help store the energy from the sun and then use it at different times. Dana, I've got a question for you.

So is this just for tomorrow, just for our city?

What I'm talking about tonight is just for our city. Yeah. So just moving on to the focus of this meeting, we really wanted to come to you very preliminarily with some thoughts and concepts. that this is not code, that we're not presenting at that level to you. And even any of the details that we presented aren't fully vetted yet, that we really need to run those to ground. So I'd rather not get into that level of detail. And then really the question before you is whether you want us to go and run those to ground or not, or whether you would like to keep with our current code. So just to be very clear, our current code does not allow battery energy storage systems in Tumwater. However, there is a state pathway that would allow the battery energy storage systems to be placed in Tumwater through state approval and using state code. So I'll get into what that looks like, and that's the A and B that we see throughout the rest of the slide. So I'm going to kind of breeze through a few of the preliminary ones because I know that's what you're really looking after. So right off the bat, one of the major concerns is risk. We had the Planning Commission really wanted to see a little bit more information about what does this look like. And one of the things we want to highlight is that the research that we found when we're looking into this a little bit more was third party research that was publicly available and that's difficult to find in a private market. And so the publicly available information is any of those news stories that have been published. So if you're scrolling and you see anything on a news feed, that is in this research. So there's a couple of the points I wanted to highlight are that when we have a new technology, we see more incidents and less, how do we call that? Less used, I guess, or like it's not as prevalent at the beginning, right, when it's new. And then as we learn lessons and as we develop, so this is starting in 2018 when these systems are starting to be deployed, then in communities across the world, and these stats are global, most of them, when it's U.S.-focused, I will specify. But when these are deployed, not high in number, but higher incidence. And now that we have learned lessons and have more technology, more safety standards, then the number of deployments have increased, and in fact, almost exponentially, and the number of incidents has decreased. So just keeping that kind of flux in mind that this is by the gigawatt hour for deployment. We are talking at levels at the kilowatt hour. So we have kilowatt hour, gigawatt hour, or kilowatt hour, megawatt hour, and then gigawatt hour. So that is that much more potent or more energy, if that makes sense. OK. So just wanting to move forward and get to the heart of the information, I want to list out all the federal guidelines, all of the pieces of code that go into making these systems currently. These are all current codes. Underwriter Laboratories, American National Standards Institute, that's on the products themselves, and the rest of them are on the implementation. Washington code, fire code, building code, energy code, they're all part of it. We have neighboring jurisdictions also looking into this. Thurston County has a model code that they are still working with the fire chiefs in the area to establish. And then some of the things that they're still contemplating is whether they're going to tier and what tiering level is appropriate at the county scale. Their permit pathway, which side needs permits, which side is they're going to let the state.

Is that what you're asking? Because you're seeing all the. Yeah. Okay.

And then the zoning districts and then the setbacks and other safety parameters. So in Tumwater, this aligns with our comprehensive plan of having parameters for best and allowing it within our community under our provisions and regulations, aligns with the climate element, it aligns with utility elements. So in Tumwater, we wanna consider that energy storage capacity is something that will become more of an issue as we grow. growth curve. The physical scale is very important because of the land that we have in Tumwater and how developable our land is currently, and some of our land is less developable than other land. It has constraints on it with different factors, geography, sensitivities. And then whether or not this use is going to be accessory or primary is another factor. We also want to, I think, I think that's a little repetitive. Apologies.

We don't apologize.

Oh.

I have a mic right there. It's not clicking. Oh, there we go.

So just to think about what we, I just want to get a couple definitions out of the way. These are our local definitions. This is not defined other places. And where it is, I will let you know. So storage capacity zero to 80 kilowatt hours is something that fits on the wall, either inside or outside your home. It could be as big as a refrigerator. It could be as small as a gym bag. Washington Fire Code has restrictions for this use. They have three foot set apart for each unit. They have how many units you can have in certain places. So Washington Fire Code already lines this out. We also have the electrical, what is that? Fire code for electricity. And that, so they're in two different places really. And so that one outlines how labor and industries install these units, okay? This is happening in our community now. If someone has a electric car that has a fast charger, it has a battery in it, okay? Medium scale systems. These systems are 80 to 600 kilowatt hours. That's what we're calling medium scale. These can be from refrigerator up to shipping container. Capable of serving small businesses and community hubs, something like a library or a fire department or a community center. These are allowed currently under Washington state codes for non-residential uses. Utility scale, anything we're calling that, anything greater than 600 kilowatt hours, because at 600 kilowatt hours, the state codes change and they have much more requirements going further than that. So we drew a line where the state's drawing a line. State allows and has codes up to here once you get that line. You need to have fire department review. You need to have a decommissioning plan. You need all these further documents and further studies. All right, so going back to our options, we have option A, which is direct the staff to run to ground the information that's presented in the rest of the presentation in the staff report. What kind of setbacks do you want? What kind of zoning requirements do you want? What kind of permitting do you want? Option A is running those to ground. What I'm presenting isn't vetted. All right, option B is don't prepare any code. And we're keeping things as they are. And we will allow the state to regulate and place us in our community without our, we will have representation, but not ultimate authority. All right, so option A for zoning districts and setbacks. Within Tumwater, we would limit those zones as it is appropriate, depending on the scale. So that's why we have the tier A, tier B, tier C. Or rather, one, two, and three. Oh, gosh. Just a second. Tier one, two, and three. That's the one. And the setbacks also can be tailored, depending on that scale. At option B, there aren't zone considerations in the state code currently. There are also no setbacks appropriated at, excuse me, the setbacks are standardized, I should say. Setbacks are standardized. They're at 10 feet in most cases, so just 10 feet setbacks from.

And I believe that's a vegetative clearing.

So let me also be clear. The setbacks are not codified. But as, you know, what I said about that 600 kilowatt hour and they have to do a fire district plan and they have to do all these things, those plans do specify what each of those larger utility-based systems at the state would cover. So I don't want to misrepresent and say the state doesn't have any setbacks. Hopefully that's clear. All right.

Can you go on? Because you had it on there.

Yes.

It has noise on there and then straight lines, emergency access. How much noise are these actually putting off? Are they loud, like extremely loud?

The noise that we have seen in studies from these units is lower than the decibel range that we already currently allow. So that's one of the reasons that our proposal and recommendation is to just continue with our current noise ordinance and not change it because it's already covered. Anything that would be louder than that. Thank you. And I think that was done on a two megawatt system. Or no, two megawatt system.

So that is a different scale.

So proposed fire safety regulations. So option A would be what we have already discussed with the other departments, including the fire chief. And so prohibiting battery storage systems in basements was very important to us. But option B does not have that. It allows battery storage systems in basements. That being that it's an entrapment issue for fire department professionals or first responders. So then we also have the residential scale. We would allow to be, continue to be permitted with labor and industry permits, and that would continue as it has, as we have systems. But they would also have to recognize that they're not allowed to be placed in basements.

So they'd have to follow that code.

The medium scale, we would have an additional requirement that the farmer shall or designee review and approve, which isn't currently what we would get if the state approved a system. And then at utility scale, Some of the things that we would propose to include would be emergency management plan with the fire department. Right now it's an emergency management plan, but not necessarily with their review. And then our fire marshal, our designee, would review each of the projects. And right now it's just that it would be the state.

It would be their review only.

All right. So proposed screening and fencing. So in A, we would have screening and fencing scaled for each tier. So each tier would have a different level. And then we would align the existing requirements with the citywide design guidelines. So we already have a document that says what we want to have for mechanical screening on buildings. So then it would already align with what we've had and not have additional kind of strain on these units. And then the option B, fencing is only required for the utility scale over and above that 600 kilowatt hour size. And then screening is not required for that scale or any scale unless it's in one of those plans and is specifically lined out by the developer. All right, so decommissioning and ownership changes. At residential scale, there would be no decommissioning standards. We're proposing no decommissioning standards option that is aligned with the state standards. So the medium scale, we would add on that we're requiring recycling of electronic equipment. So that just helps keep those extra parts, those waste parts out of our waste system. And then at the utility scale, requiring a decommissioning plan is aligned with the state code. The bond is not required at the state level, so making sure that money is set aside, that that can be taken care of properly after it's decommissioned. We all know about brownfields, and we want to avoid those in the future. It would add electronic recycling, and it would also add an ownership change requirement so that as that system changes to a new owner, the responsibility passes to the new owner by contract. All right, so those, hopefully I outlined clearly which ones would not be at state level. All right, so with those things in mind, those kind of brief concepts of what we would continue to run to ground in and to do more research on, I'd like to ask tonight if you could let me know whether you would prefer and direct staff to prepare an ordinance to bring through the Planning Commission and then get their recommendation, and then to you for approval and adoption.

And a great presentation. We're going to start with Eileen, since she's our climate guru. Just your overall thoughts. Like, this has been in a lot of discussions. Like, what's your temperature check?

I did some homework before. What? Pros and cons of installing these. And so... Really, there's a lot of pros to it. And then you've covered a lot of the things that were concerns that have been outlined with some of the articles that I read. So it looks like what we've built into it has already been addressed. One of the biggest things that came out is that to look into the out-of-town corporate ownership, potential impact on property values. That was something that came out of the articles I read. So I guess it just depends. They're concerned about putting it in places like farmland. They say farmland that could be used for farming rather than putting it in a battery store. If I'm not sure where these would go, what are we looking for?

Are you looking for option A or option B? A.

Okay.

It's not going to be valid questions, right? Yes, option A. We're going to go to Joan Cathy, who's our other climate guru. Joan Cathy, what are your thoughts?

Well, one of the thoughts was, one of the questions that I got was, as a city or anybody continues to add, what about the noise value? It was what you were saying and what has been put forth just for one unit. And how much does that increase as a system grows?

I will be glad to grab that information for you and bring it back when we discuss it with the Planning Commission, Commissioner Councilman Kathy.

OK, so we don't know. We don't know that at this point.

Nope, that's part of the information we haven't run to ground yet.

Okay, okay. That was that was one of the main questions that that that I was asked and and what size or what whatever is this able to be put into a community, you know, close, you know, house by house, street by street. Is there any restricted?

Well, the sizes vary. And currently, we are deciding what those tiers look like. And that's part of the information that we're going to do further research on and bring back to you.

Thank you. Very good. Those were the two main things that were asked of me.

All right. So, Joan, you're leaning towards option A, more Tumwater influence.

Yeah, more clarity. And it Yes. And answers to those questions. And also, is there other cities like us? They're not necessarily the same size, but just how, are there any city examples, you know, both positive and negative, I guess. People just want to know what, you know, this sounds new. And has anybody else tried it kind of thing? In a city.

Perfect. Yes, perfect, John. Thank you. Great feedback. Angela, who are you leaning towards? What option are you leaning towards?

Option A. But my question is, what is PSC's role in this? And what are the benefits of us taking the lead or waiting on the state? What are the benefits? Because If the state does it, are they going to require us to make the changes if we started making those changes?

Are you working with the states or other cities doing this? Can I go back to the slides? We have more restrictions on the size that's tailored to Tumwater versus the state, which would be, right? We're going to add more equity elements if they have an equality approach.

Just more of those details. Okay. Thank you, Angela.

Mayor Pro Tem Von Holtz, A or B? A, because I like that we're guiding our own ship instead of being led by someone.

I'm like, yeah. I'm really true. Perfect. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Peter Agave, are you leaning towards option A or option B?

Well, I am leaning toward option A. That is because I wanted to go back to the young carbide explosion in India back in the early 90s and then the explosion at Longview not too long ago. Whenever we dabble into this kind of adventure, something always happens. At this point in time, I barely find enough literature about... and what failures are involved in this energy storage facility. But it does say that over the years, there have been about 99% improvement done. So for that same reason, I think option A will be best for us to look into so that we can have our own rules and regulations in place in case it does happen.

Great feedback, Peter. Thank you. Megan, option A or option B?

Like everyone before me, I support option A. I think that gives us more of an opportunity to tailor to the city's needs at the center, you know, equity and public health. I like the opportunity for putting in our own guidelines around, like, fencing and you know, screening and doing more like fire coordination, fire planning, fire marshal review in certain cases. So that should one of those sites be the cause of a fire, there is much more knowledge about what is there and how it works. Not that our fire department does not know, but having that relationship would be really important and supporting that structurally by policies. That's a great idea. I also appreciated the required recycling suggestion, because I think that's in keeping with our environmental goals for our community. Great points, Megan.

Brian, A or B?

A. I'm just going to say, it was everything that Megan said. It will be nice to see us as a city have more control and more say in ways in which we continue to develop, and that way we're hearing directly from our about what we would like, what they would like moving forward instead of just relying on takeover. So option A.

Okay. So, Dana, you got your feedback. And reminder, nothing's set in stone. This gives direction to staff to then gather all questions you have to present again. Before, Dana, you are done, Chief Hurley, do you want to contribute anything to this discussion?

Sure. You know, I thank Dana for, you know, bringing us into the discussion. And I've been reading a lot about these systems and different ordinances out there. You know, obviously fire safety, the emergency plan, you know, water availability, access, setbacks. These are all important topics I think we'll need a little bit more time to dig into because there are wide-ranging ordinances that exist out there right now. So we need to figure out what best practices are and really what does the data –

And do you need anything else from council?

No, thank you.

Anything else for Dana or Chief? Megan?

One of the questions, which I don't need an answer for now, but then I can go to the question list, is if we were to pass policy locally in our ordinances about requiring recycling, how would that be tracked or managed or enforced? Would that be on the honor system? What if someone violated and didn't recycle? You know, is it a fine? I'm just curious.

Thank you.

Anything else? Just like along with that, the rules, do we, what are the current rules and like when you go to the dump, you can't just take your battery, right?

I think everyone would like more information about some of the options.

I want to reiterate, this is the start of the conversation. This is the very, very beginning of the conversation. So please, if you have questions, open door. And we want to make sure that as you read things and as you hear things, and especially as other constituents start talking to you, let's continue the conversation. And I also want to acknowledge Alyssa Jones-Wood, who did a lot of preliminary work on this and also worked extensively with Chief Relief and the local jurisdictions with Thurston County.

Thank you.

Thank you very, very quickly.

I wanted to say that one other thing that I heard several times was the use of water. So that was or how that impacts our lottery.

Yeah. No, Dan is writing it down. Thank you.

Thank you.

We're moving on, and people are moving, shuffling around. Where's the music? We are now on to Code Enforcement Presentation, and there are handouts. Kelly Adams, is this what I already have that you gave me?

Yes.

Reminder, no action requested on this. This is an opportunity for discussion on this topic. You see a lot of people in the room. They are here to answer your questions, so I would love... for council to really take some time on this topic and share your thoughts about how we move forward and set expectations on code.

All right. Thank you, Mayor Dalhousie. For the record, Paul Simmons, city administrator, and for the presentation tonight, Kelly Adams, our assistant city administrator, and I are going to do the presentation to start. And then we also have, as we get into discussion on this topic, we have department directors and support staff here available to answer questions if we do a deeper dive specifics. But it will be Kelly and I to start. I'll just say, as city administrator, I get the opportunity to talk to a lot of people, both internal, staff, elected officials, community members. The bulk of feedback I hear, the... one of the biggest areas of concern uh always sorry i'm not articulating that great i get a lot of i hear a lot of concerns and feedbacks that have a nexus to code enforcement in fact prior to probably more than half if not two-thirds of the feedback i get is related to code enforcement issues um in fact this presentation tonight was partially sparked from a request from councilmember wheaton uh who reached out a month or so ago related to a variety of issues on this topic. We have a long history of working with code enforcement in the city and we've had some successes and we've had some challenges. It's a significant undertaking. The mayor recently made a Facebook post about code enforcement and I just, I kind of wanted to, I'm going to quote her or read some of that. She said, if something would be unacceptable for you to live next to, you should not expect your neighbors to expect it either. We have standards for a reason, public safety, health, sanitation, property values, and quality of life. And I think that really sums up why we do code enforcement and the sort of things that we're addressing with these efforts. So with that, I am going to kick it over to Kelly. Tonight's presentation is really going to focus on our current status of how we're currently managing enforcement and we're going to talk about how that's working, how that's functioning in our areas of focus. And then we're also going to evolve and talk about perhaps how we want to evolve that in the future. With that, Kayla.

Thank you, Paul. So this is part of being responsive to your request of the council retreat to put ideas in the slow cooker. Start by zooming all the way out and taking a very broad view of the topic and giving you time to really churn and think about that topic. We as staff, we have 40 slides of analysis and data, but that wasn't the right way to start the conversation in the slow cooker. So we look forward to coming back to you with more details. I know we have Dr. Bowers and PK here. We have Dan Smith representing water resources. Brian, we have deputy chief here. So we're excited to come to you as a team and talk about this very sensitive and hot topic. So code enforcement is basically our process for ensuring compliance with our laws, with our regulations. And we really want to promote public health, safety and quality of life for the residents of Tumwater. And so our approach is centered in outreach and education and voluntary compliance. Enforcement actions are a last result. We do not want to have to pursue enforcement actions if there is a public education and outreach pathway.

I have a question.

Yes, counsel.

How is voluntary compliance working out? Is it working? Does it work 90% of the time?

I think that's a great question for the panel.

PK, I'll let you jump in, but I think most of the time when we reach out initially, the code violations get fixed fairly quickly.

Yeah, and I go, let's say, 80 plus percent of those cases that we send a letter out to the property owner get resolved at that courtesy letter stage, which is the very first step in our process.

Occasionally with absent property owners, we might get to that NOV stage, notice of violation stage.

But the vast majority of people get that letter in the mail if I'm unable to contact them directly. And the conversation usually is, what is this about? And then we have a discussion about what the violation is and then ways to correct it. And honestly, if they say, I need more time, you know, that's fine. As long as you keep the door open, communicate, that's our preferred method is to just work through the process with them and not get to that notice violation. So 80%. Anecdotally, 80%. I would say a fair number, more than not. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Council member of Gabi and Council member Kathy can you hear everything OK. No I can't hear you.

I can hear you.

Wonderful. All right. So our system it's really important to note and most cities and Washington's our systems are complaint based. That means that we are not out looking for code violations. Because Washington State recognizes that cities do not have the resources to do that. And so we receive complaints in quite a few ways. So we can receive those from the public by email, letters, calls. If our folks are out like cleaning up a right-of-way or doing out and about doing their regular role, if they see something, they can say something and we can receive a complaint that way. We can also receive an agency referral from WDFW or ORCA or any of our partner agencies. We route that and that can be received by anybody at the city. So any staff member can receive those complaints. They route those to the appropriate staff. And the most important part is right in the middle. Is there even a code violation here? Or is this just an uncomfortable situation and maybe a misunderstanding? And so staff do spend a good amount of time sorting that out and doing an education piece right there at the verify step. And then, like I said, we want to educate. And for departments that are dealing with these complaints, we're still doing a department-level tracking at this point. But once we hit the escalation stage, that is being recorded by the police department and CitizenServe. And I don't know if you want to speak to that workload. That's a management workload.

Yeah. Record supervisor handles most of the stuff in CitizenServe along with PK and Ashley. They do most of that stuff, but that all runs through our records division through CitizenServe.

And all these complaints, sorry to interrupt you, but are they anonymous or do they have to say exactly who they are and who they're complaining against? If it is like a neighbor or somebody in the community.

We'll take a complaint from anonymous or not. We'll still look into it.

Kelly, are you going to show us the number of complaints that we're getting? And is it time for a code enforcement officer to do this full time?

I wish I could answer that question. Because any staff member can receive complaints. And because complaints are tracked on a department level, it can be as simple as a phone call and educating the person that maybe that's not a code enforcement. issue, right, as we're trying to de-escalate situations. So, that is a future improvement that could be pursued.

I can add some context there too. As Kelly said, when we first put together this presentation, it was over 40 slides and there were data and details and it would have been too much for this work session. So, I think if there's a, if you want to see a presentation on data or if there's certain areas of the presentation tonight that you want a deeper dive in, we can always circle back with those things or we can follow up with staff. But just know that this presentation tonight is intentionally intended to be very high level of the start of the conversation.

So speaking to our staff, we have an amazing staff of folks, many who have been here for quite a while who have a very wonderful historic memory. They have seen complex code enforcement issues and how those have affected the city and cost the city over time. And so this right now, you see there is a variety of departments, a variety of roles. And for some of these folks, code enforcement is not their primary function. It's an additional duty.

Do you think it's time for a primary function code enforcement officer? That's my question.

We already have a question.

They do have time. We have two full-time code enforcement officers that also provide police transport services, so they have .

Is there enough work for that one FTE? Are they overwhelmed?

At the end of this, you'll see a recommendation for an additional budget enhancement for additional code enforcement.

But let's save that question and ask it of everyone on the panel. I think that's a great first question for everyone is what do they think about staffing and workload? And so this is a sample. This is not, I have actually provided you a handout and I emailed a handout out to council members earlier today for anyone participating remotely. The table handout that I have provided has a more comprehensive digestible crosswalk of the departments who are really focused on code enforcement and the different codes that they are focused on. But this is just a sample of how, in theory, code enforcement is simple. Someone does something wrong and we send out a code enforcement officer and it's based on their assignment, their specialty, their technical specialty. But humans are not that simple. In practice cases are complex and they involve several departments and they involve a heavy amount of collaboration. And where it really brings the resources of the city is in the legal fees and the abatement fees. And so if the city does not have sufficient legal capacity and sufficient abatement capacity, our options tend to narrow. And so, Paul, I'm going to hand the baton over to you.

Yeah, and just so to answer your questions, Councilmember Jefferson, what we're recommending and have started some preliminary work on should council support us and moving forward with this is we would like to come back with a budget amendment that would increase resources for both legal fees and abatement costs. related to code enforcement. That's something we're hoping to do within the next month or two, so that's in the immediate future, which will allow us to operate more proactively than we historically have, particularly related to some of our chronic and historic code violators. The other action item that we would like to begin working on is a budget enhancement that you would see as part of the biannual budget process. And if this is approved, what we would like to do is centralize the leadership of code enforcement, which would require adding likely a program manager level staff and then also probably an additional support staff and models and other organizations that have worked in a situation where we have the centralized code enforcement support system where, you know, perhaps that's working under the assistant city administrator for an example. And that's where code enforcement is the leadership of it exists. And then within the departments, you still have code enforcement staff and they have a, you know, they have a direct authority line to their department director, but then they also have a dotted line authority to the leadership of code enforcement as it relates to that area. And so it, this model would really centralize, it would take what we have right now, which is a very decentralized approach and it's very, people who have subject matter experts that are making decisions. And this moves us to more of a centralized leadership approach so that we're hopefully more coordinated. We can do a better job of tracking data across departments.

And if I can add to it, as these issues get more complex and these sites get more complex, these are problems that affect everyone but don't necessarily belong to any one department. And so adding staff and having more of a case management approach can help to free up other staff to actually focus on the problems at hand.

I know what legal fees are. What are, what's the abatement? What's the abatement?

Great question. It requires cleanup or restoration. There's often costs associated with that. Many of those things we don't have. We're not resourced to do in-house. And so we would contract out, especially in some of the extreme cases. So it provides resources to clean up and restore properties that have been degraded due to code violations.

One important part about that, Frank's property is probably a very good example of the debatement that the city undertook. In that particular case, the property owner didn't have the resources or the capability to do the cleanup, and it was ultimately up to the city to step in and to do that. There are going to be cases where the property owner does have the capability and the financial needs and all that kind of stuff to resolve the issues, but there's also going to be the other ones.

I've got two hands up on the screen. I don't know who is first, so you two decide. Joan's unmuted, so Joan will go first.

Thank you. Well, they're going to be different. Most of when we talk... Let me start over. I'm trying to figure out how... So most of the time when we talk about this, and this has been over the years, this kind of thing has to do with... houses and land sort of thing, just like Brad was saying. If we go to something like this and we now have a forester and hopefully we're going to get our tree ordinance done and Are we going to focus on some other things in the city where we have need for code enforcement? I mean, it's not just abandoned houses or houses that are terrible like we've been working on, but are we looking at something broader than that as far as code enforcement is concerned?

That's a good question. I think right now we're very complaint-based, so when we receive a complaint, we respond to it. If we have additional resources, I don't know if that means we'll be able to all of a sudden go out and find every code enforcement violation across the city, but we will definitely be able to improve from our current resources and our current capacity.

That would be on the list, Joe. What you're talking about would be on the list because that's been on our list. Since you started council.

So, yes. That's why. So, folks, see how long it takes to do some things, you know.

Yes, that is one of the goals, right? How we set expectations in the city of Tomahawker. Every aspect of how you go through your day. So, what you're talking about, I am picking up what you are throwing down.

Oh, then that's good. That means that you'll pick it up somewhere along the line and something.

I'm going to pick it up and circle back. That's what I'm going to do.

Oh, the circle thing. Okay, good. Now I've got it. I'm with it.

Thank you, Joan. Yes.

Great point. It gives me hope.

It goes along with just overall conversations with Dan Smith and his department as well about the environmental issue. So, yes.

Yeah.

That has been neglected for far too long. not because it wasn't a priority for us.

That's right.

Thank you, Joan. Peter.

So my question is to Pat. Do we have a database of where we log in complaint for violation? That's one. And then two, if we do, I think I hear saying that we need at least one FTE for code enforcement because we don't want to have a scattershot approach to do enforcement issues. We want to specifically target the most egregious part of that enforcement issue that we're trying to look at. so that that way we're not running after every single thing that happened in the city. Say, for example, somebody parked a vehicle for two, three, five days and they're getting the ticket for living in there for two, three, five days. So if we have a database, that would be a place to start from.

Great question, Peter. Deputy Chief?

PK, do you want to talk about what's tracked and stored in Citizens Service?

And Dr. Bowers, do you want to come closer so that those online actually retrace that? Please join us at the table so you can use the microphone.

So everything we do, any complaint that we receive, we log into CitizenSearch. And we'll even log what I call the negatives, so something that ends up being not a code violation. And so there are times when I've missed tracking something that just happens. But the vast majority of complaints I receive get put into CitizenServe, which does have a multitude of different ways that we can pull data, track data. And so kind of our top six complaints, by far, overgrown vegetation is our biggest. And that's cyclical. You know, the middle of November, nobody's outside. And so they don't notice that their neighbor's Blackberry bushes have gone over their fence or over the sidewalk or whatnot. So springtime, we'll get a lot of overgrown vegetation complaints. The other kind of hot one is parking of inoperable vehicles on private property. And when we look at that, we're allowed in code to have one technically inoperable vehicle on a property with certain caveats. We usually will get the ones that have four, five, six. cars on blocks, engines out, wrecked, whatever the case might be. The other item that's pretty hot is we get storing trash and household goods outside. I try to get away from the trash. Having communicated with a couple of people who live with hoarding disorders, it's not trash to them. So I have shifted to kind of saying more household items. I like that. Yeah, it's kind of what it is. It's household items. And so that's another kind of hot topic, if you will. Lower down on the list, we've got living in a vehicle or tent on private property, more of a long term. Again, allowed in code is grandparents come for graduation. We get that this time of year. You know, they've been on the street or they've been on the side yard for three days. That's OK. You know, it's not a permanent situation. The bane of my existence, which comes and goes, is the sign ordinance feather flag.

What?

I know, right?

Where's Pete Comet?

Right? So we will get, you know, feather flags come and go. I don't know about feather flags. Crap. Keep going.

No, I'm not. I'm not.

I take it back. I take it back.

So we'll see that.

We allow them, though, for, like, when you're opening your business, though, right?

Feather flags come. No, not at all. Yeah, not at all. The problem with those and what you'll see is the way that our process goes, they technically have up to 90 days to come into compliance before fines would start. And so that's what we see is we may have a talk with the business owner.

Why would they know?

Right.

Exactly.

And so we may have that conversation or, you know, we go in there and the owner is up in Seattle, then I may send a letter and that will start that discussion. But again, by the time the newness is established with that business, then they naturally take that feather flag down anyway. And then covering structures or vehicles with temporary tarps. That one is on the low end of our know kind of six top topics um and those technically um i don't know i've talked to people who are storm damage and they're waiting forever for insurance companies to do their thing i'm not going to penalize somebody that's living with this traumatic situation and now they're having to try and navigate through the insurance companies um so you know there's there's always a why And so we want to get into that why.

Kelly has been doing something with her finger inside out. I don't know who she is.

Brad's blocking, so I missed all that.

She's tracking me. I think she wants to ask you a question. I like what you just said.

Like, I feel in many, not all, but in many of these situations, this is a symptom of something else. Yep. Paying attention to what's going on in our community gives us an indication of some underlying things. And I gave this example, I don't know, was it a year ago? Was it two years ago? My great-aunt Mimi, her husband died. She had a disability because she had polio. And once her husband died, she couldn't get out. She couldn't take care of the yard. And they had all these vehicles because he liked cars. And the city finally, the neighbors had enough. The city came in. We'll come to find out these vehicles were worth a lot of money, even though they were arrested and beat up. So the city actually ended up getting her in touch with somebody where she got a nice check and also helped her clean up her yard. And it was just a symptom of she just couldn't keep up with it. She didn't have anybody. I guess I wasn't a very good question. I didn't want to bring that up. I know. I was like 12, so.

It's a great example, though. I mean, it's not an uncommon story. Yeah. Is that, you know, on the surface, you're driving by, you know, whatever street, and you see this overgrown property, and your initial response is, that's not acceptable. That's kind of ucky. Well, there's likely a reason why that is. And sometimes it's, I mean, fill in the blank. You know, it could be a multitude of different reasons. I don't know. So.

This goes into a larger issue as well as the calls that I have been receiving are from Homeowners Association. Oh boy. So, and that, I have four different requests from four different areas in Tumwater to go visit and talk. I'm wondering like with you and Dr. Bowers and this stuff, can that be in this discussion as well as those expectations with CC&Rs and law enforcement and code enforcement with the city? Because the calls I'm getting is about like, You know, I'm not going to go into specifics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what I'm talking about. Like, how do we set those expectations?

One conversation that I'll have with some HOAs is just because we can doesn't mean we should. You know, and so one of my things that I, one example that I always use is we're friends, okay? We like to vacation together. I am coming over to your house. We're going to carpool up to the airport. I'm going to park my car in front of your house or around the corner or whatnot, and we're gone for two weeks. Is it a reasonable expectation for me to come back from vacation and my car still be there? Yes. So the example that I'll give is if the car is legally parked, mostly, is in reasonable condition, currently registered, looks like a car that could leave right away, I'm not going to mess with it. But if I get there, there's mold on the inside, there's moss on the windshield wipers, there's, you know, growing things underneath the car. That's a different story. Expired registration. There's a story there and it's not you and I are going on vacation and I've left my car here. That sometimes is a difficult conversation to have with some HOAs because their CC&Rs may say no car may be parked on the roadway for X amount of hours. And so their expectation is maybe at that 25th hour, I want this car gone. And that's not reasonable because now that car owner is going to come back and their car's gone. And I verified that this week, actually, it's between $800 to $1,000 to start when you go to the tow company and say, I'd like my car back. So is that reasonable to start to impose that upon people?

It goes back to Peter's comment of how we prioritize. For me, I feel like I have been doing that as well, is that larger parcels that have been going on for a few decades, expanding, escalating, are more of a priority for me than someone's door color or paint color of their house. Okay.

I think there's also an important distinction between what the city regulations say what homeowners association yeah right and because example of working with the neighborhoods and talking with them about this is how you may want to deal with it, but this isn't necessarily something that we would get a lot of support.

It's like a job.

Thank you. I have a question about, remember we've had discussions about it before, parking your car on the grass, on your lawn. Is that a code violation?

I just parked on the grass. TK, what are your thoughts about parking on your yard?

Brad probably can help me out with that one. I mean, it's not... In my mind, as simple as yes, no. Brad can explain why.

The expectation is if there's a dedicated parking space or other that you would park there first. Obviously, there are going to be situations where you're going to want to park on the lawn, washing your car or other things. But a longer time using that as a parking space does become more of a zoning problem.

John, is that what you're getting at? Like someone is just like leaving their car in their yard?

Yeah, their car, they have a parking car, and now it's, I think, cars. And it's permanent, and the cars aren't all in great shape. They're not, you know, bad, bad. And, you know, they've started covering one of them up and whatever, and I just see it often. It's close there in my neighborhood, and I didn't know if that was still... unacceptable to park cars permanently on your lawn or if we just for a while there we were people about it.

I wish we had clear language. Yeah. Yeah.

I think the other issue is we run it. This is where we start to run into complications with multiple codes and other things. So for example, parking your car on the lawn to wash your car. Yeah, that's a great idea. Perhaps the parking your car permanently and having the oil go into that and stormwater and all of that that kicks us into a whole other situation and that's where we start to get the layering and the the I don't want to say confusion but it becomes multiple departments trying to figure out how do we deal with this.

Yeah I remember talking about it some years ago and and uh idea behind having that rule of permanently parking your car on the grass or always coming home from wherever and pulling up and parking on the grass is all of the things that leach out of your car or whatever into the ground and so forth was one of the things. And the other was to park a car that was not operable permanently on your grass, which could be next to a neighbor, on and on, that kind of thing. So I've always had in my mind that parking on the grass is not something you do in Tumwater unless you're washing your car so it doesn't wash down the drains. And it just happens that I see these cars quite often, and I just thought I'd bring it up and see where we were on that.

Good question, John. I want to do a temperature check with all of council. So we're going to start with Brandon Wheaton.

New council, and I've gone around, spoken to many different heads, and it seems like this has all been a topic that has come up. Somehow it circled around and got to code enforcement. I was talking to Dan, and code enforcement came up when I first met Chuck. It came up. So going forward, how we'll change it, I don't know. It doesn't seem like what we have currently works. It seems it's expensive, and we have people that aren't in code enforcement that maybe their role currently is code enforcement, that they're trying to navigate it. So how that looks, I don't know exactly. Is it the best thing to do to continue to have it be with our police force? That's another question, right? Nothing wrong with the liquor police department. You guys are doing great. But arguably, there is a connotation that happens when a person with a badge shows up, you know, in uniform and everything, and it sends your people defensive right away, you know. And that's how we want to present. And going forward, I don't know, but I would be interested in talking with staff and figuring out what your thoughts are, how you would want it to work, what's the ideal situation. IN WHICH CODE ENFORCEMENT COULD WORK BEST FOR US AS A CITY AND FOR THE COMMUNITY.

SO... CHANCELLOR GAUDE, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

I GOT NOTHING.

NO THOUGHTS? WE'LL GO BACK TO YOUR INITIAL THOUGHT ABOUT THE HIERARCHY AND WHAT THE ADDITIONAL RESOURCES LOOK LIKE. SO THAT'S GOOD. THANK YOU, PETER.

THANK YOU.

Thank you. Kelly. I have many thoughts. I like that. We'll get extra time because Peter didn't take it. Okay. I would say Peter.

I like that we're having this discussion. I like that there's forward momentum happening. I like that people that were getting emails, people are talking about it because I think it's, many different things. I think it's very layered as much as it is throughout the city of how many people touch on code enforcement. And so I think this is going to help us get a temperature check on some of the underlying symptoms that are happening and also take care of some of the, you know, I think there's also people who have property that have just kind of forgotten maybe that they own property in Tumwater. I don't know. And so we can start addressing that. So I'm happy that we're having this big discussion.

Angela.

Yes. I would just like to know what is the process for those 20% for ignoring the rules and as it relates to, okay, residents, this is our process and this is going to occur I'm hearing about fires, I'm hearing, you know, public health and safety, which is not good. So what is that firm process to let these 20% ignoring the rules know, okay, this is a process and this is what will occur. I think we just need to start fighting.

Thank you.

Love that.

We're concerned about the health implications.

We appreciate the thought. What I'm hearing from Angela is setting our expectations and sharing that with the community. Thank you.

Eileen. We've been on this for a while. It's interesting how people don't get the process and how there's always a why and how long it takes to resolve things.

I think about the

those on Council on the last Avenue. Yeah, that one forever and people just people seem to think that the city has the ability to just go in and take someone's property. And so you don't have that ability to do that. And so it took a long time. It took a lot of work from our our attorney working on that project to bail and figure out who even owns the property. So anyway, it's just just being aware of how difficult it is. And it's just not something that's solved right away. I really appreciate the now the spotlight that's on the property that we're now comfortable. I really do appreciate that. If something really does need to be done and those kinds of situations that and the other things that we talked about that it's kind of the thing in my head, it's, you know, take town water back. And I have this little thing in my head that I keep thinking about that about take some water back. And it's just even like, when you come off the exit ramp, can we start picking up garbage again? And things like that. It's just like, what do we look like when we come into the town? So what's, anyway, so I've been kind of about that take. Thank you.

Megan.

Lots of good thoughts shared. I took a lot of notes. I just, I think in summary, what I would say about it is I appreciate the shared opportunity to have conversation and the wisdom that people have shared and that we are Coalescing behind being more strategic in our response One of the notes that I wrote earlier was like what is the cost economic health of not taking a proactive approach? I think that's kind of what it sounds like we're pointing to here and I'm looking forward to seeing how we can make some structural changes to direct resources to things like foot enforcement abatement legal so that we can manage expectations and create the kind of community that we would like to see and that we want to live in so that some of our neighbors don't have to tolerate property conditions and neighborhood conditions. Yeah, final thoughts.

Are we responding to what we put up as a There's a conversation for tonight about this. At the very beginning.

Pardon? You can. It's just the overall, like, the approach. Like, I know the environmental aspect has not had as many resources, right? So just the overall approach in your vision of code enforcement in Tumwater.

Well... What the city administrator talked about at the beginning, you know, adding some language and some funds and so forth and kind of redesigning this about how we're going to do it so we can emphasize or pay attention to certain areas where we're getting the most, we have the most concern and As we make rules and codes, we know where they fit in something. I just think that this has been kind of a scattery and waiting for something here or there or whatever. And so this is going to take both organization and money. and for the council to understand exactly what we're doing and where we're going to emphasize some, and not just emphasize, but where we're going to respond to certain of the needs in the city. Because we're good at making lists here of things, but I don't know.

Yes, thank you, John. Well said. Dan, what are your thoughts about all of this in all your peeps?

You know, there's a lot of stuff, you know, water resources have been kind of doing it or public works prior to water resources have been doing code enforcement stuff programmatically. There's things that we're required to do through stormwater permitting for the city's permit. And then there's kind of the non-routine stuff. So we do a lot of construction inspections and that's where a lot of our code enforcement activities take place. The non-routine stuff, spills, dumping, You know, even camping. There are some areas within there that we could probably look at centralizing, you know, some of those places where there's expertise and looking at community needs. And so, you know, looking at that whole package, where are some of those things aligned better with a regional kind of a centralized approach versus subject matter expertise pieces that are part of our programs, you know, retaining those, but looking at that program holistically. And I would say, you know, for us, for what we do, The same thing that you've heard reiterated, that personal connection really, you know, does a lot of that work at resolving a lot of these problems before they become issues. Probably over the last 15 years, I'd say, we've had maybe three cases that I've had to go to, you know, a full compliance place. And we do, in some years, 150 compliance actions where we have to track and note, you know, through our inspection programs, whether it's for stormwater, whether it's for wellhead protection, or other aspects of the company.

Peter, you had your chance, and you had nothing to say. Why is your hand up?

Well, because as I was thinking, it dawned on me that I should have said something. So I think about two and a half years ago, I worked with Officer Peter Navarro, and we turned off, I believe, Kenwood. So Little Rock Road, where the new development is taking place, the Chipotle, the new hotel, and then the Kenwood apartment block. So somewhere in there, there's a side street that would turn into, there were a bunch of trash and a bunch of garbage thrown around. And they mentioned to me that that was an ongoing problem. And now, this is before we started having this development in that area. So I want our police officers to do a more thorough job of catching areas like that, more so as we want to beautify that place and have all these new businesses here in Turnwater. So with our code enforcement officer, with the police officers, and with the new personnel that's going to be doing whatever, we should be able to make our city more beautiful and a better place to live.

I didn't think that would be more proactive in communicating and not popping back at police because they're doing a great job. So great feedback, Peter.

Thank you. And they are doing a great job. So they are doing a very good job.

That's better. Thank you. PK is right here in the room, Peter.

And I think I know which property he's talking about. It's the one I'm thinking of based off of the description that's been resolved.

You hear that, Peter? It's been resolved.

If it's the one I'm thinking about. Yes.

Great feedback, Peter. Thank you. Chief Hurley, do you want to contribute to anything with credit enforcement?

You know, I would just add that really, you know, we have a fire prevention officer who does code inspections. So those aren't really complaints. We just work with businesses. Probably for us, it's 911 calls for illegal burning, smoke violations. And a lot of times that's in That's ORCA issues. We go out sometimes with the assistance of PD. Many times it's somebody who just moved to town and they didn't know the regulations. They put it out and we're all good. There are others that are more repeat violators. Oftentimes they show up, there's nobody there. Put the fire out and we leave. So it's more difficult. Most of our complaints are really people calling 911 about illegal burning or something.

Thank you, Chief. We have Dr. Bowers here. I know a lot of council members love data, and that's why Dr. Bowers is here. All your eyes just lit up. Data, data. Dr. Bowers, hearing all of this and knowing what you see and all the touch points you have, what are your overall facets to share with council?

How long do I have? I think we've covered a lot of the significant factors. What I think I am most mindful of is there is not like a catch-all to this. This is a multidisciplinary approach, but it requires the expertise of the different partners, different divisions, everyone. But it's that idea of everyone has to be coming together to the same goal. But also, I think it's about understanding the almost like the dichotomy of PK says in excess of 80% can be dealt with in that one go. I would say based on the data, He's accurate. I'm more accurate. I would say it's closer to 90% typically, which is honestly a really big deal. But I think the thing that I am most mindful of is with the people of Tumwater as they are, I think a lot of complaints can be addressed and dealt with, with education, engagement, and possibly helping through, you know, some personal issues or some understanding or kind of like helping work through things. Then you get the flip side of our problem properties are the ones that cause significant resource strain on the entire city, the PD, especially by everyone else. Those are different things. So I think what I'm most mindful of is there's not one solution that deals with everything. It's almost about determining, okay, this is not, you know, This is a problem that we can deal with. This is a problem that's going to require substantial intervention and engagement. We know those properties, but that's a different approach, and I think we have to be very, very mindful of charting that line between them.

Well said, Dr. Barrows, and a great summary to wrap up our new series of code enforcement. We're going to move on to our Mayor-City Administrator's Report. All submits.

Yeah, just one item, and this is mostly for Councilmember Agave and Councilmember Cathy. You received an email about the 4th of July parade. The reason it's not for the others is because I've had a chance to talk or we've heard confirmation from the others already. But if you're going to be in the parade, if you could let us know and then we have a form to fill out. If you're not going to be in the parade, just maybe let us know and then we won't worry about you. Because we do have a limited amount of space on the vehicle dedicated to council members. And so we want to make sure that if you're not on there, someone else is.

Peter, is that a thumbs up? You're going to be in the parade or you're not going to be in the parade?

I'm just a tenant in this household. I have to ask my landlord and see what they want to do. Oh, somebody is saying yes. I guess that's yes.

Oh, you're white. Got it. Understood. I was like, what is happening here? Got it. All right. So, Peter, we need you to fill out that form so you can write with us.

Thank you.

Sorry.

I'm waiting.

Don't apologize.

I'm waiting for the convertible.

Oh.

No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Maybe we can work on that.

I can't answer that right now.

Okay, you're good. Anything else? We'll go to the order. Pardon? Meeting adjourned 7-15.

Goodbye.