City Council - Regular Meeting

It's 7 p.m. on Monday, July 6, 2026, and I call this regular city council meeting to order. I want to thank everyone for joining us this evening. Would you please join me for the flag salute? And Councilmember Mounce will lead us today.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, thank you. All right, the next item on the agenda this evening is citizen participation. The purpose of the public comment period at this, I'm sorry. I missed the roll call. I got a call from Council Member Roberts earlier this morning. He was thinking he wasn't gonna be able to join us this evening, so he is asking to be excused. But all council is here other than Council Member Roberts. Would anyone like to make a motion? Yes, Council Member Cedar.

I move to excuse Council Member Roberts.

I second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay, now moving on to citizen participation. The purpose of the public comment period of this meeting is for those wishing to address the Council on any matter. It is not intended for debate and discussion with the public. Please state your name and city for the record. Lastly, we kindly remind you to limit your comments to three minutes. And there are two people signed up this evening. The first is Jackie Strader.

Jackie Strader, Milton, Washington. Good evening, Council and Mayor. I'm here tonight to speak about the Consent Agenda Transaction Item 3165, the Styron Settlement. My moral code won't allow me to sit silently anymore and I hope that someday someone in authority is going to intervene in things that have gone on. So here are the highlights as I understand them. Former Mayor Styron Sherrill's son was hired as a temporary summer worker. And I may have some of these facts wrong. This is what I understand. When that term ended, she hired him as a public works employee, and he was on a probationary term. Prior to the probationary term, he was let go. He hired an attorney, the law firm that had been involved in a claim against the city in the fall of 2025 while his mother was mayor, and tonight council is approving in the consent agenda his $35,000 settlement. But wait, the citizens may be thinking, how could the mayor hire her son? Isn't that nepotism and against the law? Well, Milton has an employee handbook, and the former mayor updated it many, many times during her eight years in office, and it has a section on ethics, but elected officials are exempt, which makes no sense when the mayor is the final authority for all hires in the city. For the purposes of this policy, relationships, may include employees dating each other, the employee's spouse, domestic partner, child, domestic partners, children, mother, father, brother, sister, stepfamily, aunt, uncle, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, and grandparents and grandchildren of the spouse or member of the employee's household. But the mayor could hire every single one of them because in Milton, elected officials are exempt from the nepotism policy in the book. But wait, there's an RCW, 4235, which is the code of ethics for municipal officers. And that seems to apply. Because the hiring does involve a union contract. But how is it enforced? Who decides if it applies? How do you get accountability? Well, I'm starting with a public records request to get as much information as the city is willing to supply. Because I think the citizens of Milton have a right to know the circumstances for the $35,000 leaving our utility funds and going to the former mayor's family. And I'm asking council to direct the administration to plug up this outrageous loophole in the ethics policy that is costing us $35,000, and I will keep researching and publishing what I find, because I won't stand by while Milton is plundered, because this will end.

Thank you, Mrs. Trader. Sorry, we have a slight technical difficulty. Okay, the next speaker this evening is Jacqueline Whalen.

Jacqueline Whalen, Milton Washington. A number of topics, and I'll add on to what I just heard earlier from another citizen. I really think it's time for the city to take a look at its ethics policies, its handbook. It really should apply to electeds. We've obviously got a loophole, and it's on you, council, to direct the administration to address that loophole to the greatest extent possible. I hope you will address that issue in your comments. It's troubling in hearing what was said earlier, and I hope that you can be mobilized to address the issue. That's how we know where the loopholes are, right? So, additionally, I just wanted to note that I was at the celebration that the city provided for the July 4th. I thought the best part was the kids on bicycles and the fashion. It was a really lovely homey event. And finally, I can't wait till our fireworks ordinance goes into effect. There was a lot of craziness going on. And I have to say, it blew my mind to watch people blowing up fireworks in Triangle Park. It just stunned me that people would think that was OK to do. And I did observe a police officer addressing the issue. Thank you for the officers dealing with a lot of tough circumstances. And that's all I had to say. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Whalen. That's the last person that signed up on the list. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to address the Council this evening? OK, seeing none, we will move on to additions and deletions. Are there any requested additions or deletions to the agenda this evening?

No?

Seeing none, we will move on to the Consent Agenda. There will be no separate There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a Councilmember requests in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered immediately following the consent agenda. All items listed are considered routine by the City of Milton City Council and will be enacted in one motion. Can I please get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Councilmember Cedar.

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

It's been moved by Councilmember Cedar and seconded by Councilmember Hall to approve the consent agenda. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. All right, the next item on the agenda is presentations. The first item under presentations is an employee of the month. And this employee of the month is Axel Barajas. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Axel, will you please come forward to the microphone? I am thrilled to announce that you have been selected as the City of Milton's Employee of the Month for July, 2026. This recognition celebrates the colleague who consistently embodies our core values of excellence, integrity, teamwork, and dedicated public service. This month, that standout performer is you. Your colleagues couldn't stop singing your praises. They highlighted how you're always a pleasure to work with greeting every request with a genuine smile and that can-do spirit that instantly brightens the room. Whether it's jumping in to cover phones, processing public records, or tackling whatever comes up, you do it all with calm, positive energy, and without hesitation. One teammate put it perfectly, Axel is a true asset who quietly performs above and beyond. They also noted how eagerly you step up for bigger projects, like scanning those rolled maps behind chambers and diving into public works cell phone upgrades, figuring out compatible models and the right apps to install. Your upbeat attitude and willingness to help make even the toughest tasks feel lighter and more enjoyable for everyone around you. Axel, your reliability, positive presence, and real commitment to doing things right have made a meaningful impact, not just in your department, but for everyone who interacts with the city. You set a high bar and inspire the rest of us to reach for it. As part of this recognition, you will receive a framed employee of the month certificate, a feature on the city's website, newsletter, and social media channels, a reserved parking space for a month. Look, and we even have a sign this time. And you tell us where to install it. Yeah, right here in the back. Lunch with the mayor, and I found out through going last month that it's actually a $3,000 value, not a $2,000. So that's probably one of the most valuable things on the list. And because you've shown up this evening, you'll get your choice of three hours of comp time or three hours of overtime. And please join me in celebrating Axel Barajas. And let's all take a moment and appreciate his contributions and carry that same spirit forward.

Come on, do we want to do this?

All right, the next item is the police officer's recognition and Chief Hernandez will speak and present the awards.

All right, mayors, mayor, members of the city council, distinguished guests, and members of our community, thank you for being here tonight. Tonight is my distinct honor and privilege to recognize two exceptional police officers' actions who exemplified the very highest ideas of courage and selflessness and service. On June 9th, we received a report of a fire, a structured fire in a fully engulfed home. And two of our officers answered the call. And upon their arrival, they witnessed an elderly man standing at the front door And while they were talking to him, there were flames, dark smoke billowing out of the home. And without hesitation, they asked him, is there anybody else in the house? They said, yes, my wife is in the house. So not knowing if she is disoriented or had become rendered unconscious, the officers, without hesitation, ran into the home. Police officers answer calls every day, knowing that each one carries uncertainty. They routinely place themselves in danger and they are sworn to protect those in our community. Throughout their careers, our officers saved lives in countless ways through quick medical intervention, de-escalation, traffic enforcement, and countless acts of compassion that often go unnoticed. But every so often, the incident occurs that rises above even those extraordinary situations. On that day of this incident, Officer Mosa and Officer Jacobo, who sit in the audience today, who will be called up shortly, responded to that residence that was already fully engulfed in flames. As I mentioned earlier, there was a man outside who stated that his wife was still inside the home and remained trapped or disoriented potentially inside. Faced with the environment where every second mattered and every decision carried tremendous personal risks, without hesitation and without regard for their own safety, these officers entered a burning building. to locate and rescue the elderly residents. Through their courage and sound judgment and unwavering commitment to their oath, they successfully brought her out to safety. Their actions unquestionably saved their life. The fire service personnel who responded alongside her officers praised their bravery and professionalism. And you'll get to hear from them in a minute. The actions reflect the highest standards of teamwork and public service. demonstrating what can be accomplished when first responders unite with a singular purpose, to save a life. As chief of police, I cannot adequately express how proud I am to lead a department filled with men and women of such exceptional character. Every day our officers answer the calls to serve, often placing the needs of safety of others before their own. They do this without seeking recognition or praise. Yet there are moments that deserve to be remembered, celebrated, and honored because they represent the very best of our profession. This rescue was one of those moments, and Officer Mosa and Officer Jacobo demonstrate extraordinary bravery, decisiveness, action under extreme conditions, and unwavering commitment to protecting human life. Their actions embody the values of the Milton Police Department and bring great honor to this profession and to the city of Milton. For their heroic actions and conspicuous courage in the face of imminent danger, the Medal of Bravery, which is the second highest award in the Milton Police Department, will be given to these officers tonight. And that is why it is my great privilege to present Officer Mosa and Officer Jacobo with the Milton Police Department this Medal of Bravery. So please join me in congratulating these remarkable officers for their heroic service and extraordinary dedication to our community.

Come on up.

We only have one medal tonight. It doesn't happen very often, but Dave will be receiving the Medal of Honor for bravery. with the ribbon that they can adorn on their uniform when they're out in public so that people know that these officers went above and beyond. So tonight, you guys can share it, or you can fight about it afterwards. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you for your service. And if council wants to come up, we can shelter in the front real quick.

Well, actually, let the fire department go next.

And then we can take a picture for a minute.

Thanks, Chief. You can hang out. That's a hard act to follow. Well said. So we had this incident. Obviously, you guys acted heroically. Chief Sternberg was actually the incident commander on the call, so I asked him to be here as well. But we have an accommodation for you, and the fire chief wanted me to give you some points, so I'll turn it over to Troy here.

Yeah, not to reiterate what Chief Fernandez said, but on June 9th, our fire department was dispatched to a fire in Milton. Our first-in-engine company officer reported that he had heavy fire and smoke coming from the second story of a split-level home, and there were still victims that were in the house that would not leave. By the time our crews got there, got some water on the fire, Officer Mosa and Jacobo had removed both of the occupants, not only from the front porch, but from inside the home looking for a family pet. And if it were not for their bravery and their action, the outcome would have significantly been a lot worse. I am very confident with the soot stains around the faces of both occupants that they would have succumbed. if it wouldn't have been for the bravery of these two officers. So on behalf of East Pierce Fire and Rescue, we are very grateful and thank you for your heroism and service and the partnership that we have with both agencies. So we have a plaque on here. I'm going to have to get my... You made me read it. In recognition of your extraordinary bravery and meritorious action on June 9th, 2026, in aiding the safe removal of the residents from the burning home at 313 17th Avenue Court Milton, under rapid deteriorating conditions, your courage, quick action, and selfless concern for others exemplifies the highest ideal of community service. Thank you for your service.

All right. Three, two, one. One more. Got it. Thank you.

Thank you.

And you guys don't have to stay for the whole meeting because it'll be ours. So if you want to leave, go out with your families. You can do that. Thank you.

That's fire's cue.

Can we just leave now?

Their usual crowd. For those in the audience wishing to have a better seat, there seems to be some openings. We're now moving on to the regular agenda. And there's only one item on the regular agenda this evening. It's the Framework Agreement Amendment Number One. It's on page 43 of your packet. And Planning Manager Stalnicker will be introducing this item.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. So yes, this was carried over from the last meeting. There was a lot of questions and some background information that was requested. And so hopefully I will be able to provide that tonight. The specific amendment is for $280,000. It is done as an amendment to the agreement with framework. It is to complete the resiliency sub-element, greenhouse gas emission reduction sub-element, which in total will be the required climate element to the comprehensive plan. So I just wanted to, some of the questions had to do with purchasing policy, and so I'm going to give some background. Obviously, Finance Director Roebuck is here, who is much more informed on all of that, but this is, the information that we put together. And so if you start, so on page 59, there is a copy of the section of the personnel policies that we all work with in the city. And those are based on what the state law allows us to do. And you will see that 2.7C1, it breaks down what is required when you're dealing with basically personal services and that for something over 40,000, it does have to be authorized by the department director, the mayor, and the city council, and it does have to be tied to the budget. When we did the grant, the amount was part of that. And so then we go into what's personal services. And both MRSC, which is the Municipal Research Services and the Washington State auditors in their buying and bidding document, which is on page 52, identify that consultant services are personal services, professional, technical, specific study, task, scope of work. The MRSE specifically talks about comprehensive plans, economic studies, and such. And it goes on, this is from, again, the state auditors, their guidelines. Most of the time, you're not required to competitively solicit personal services with the following exceptions. And none of those exceptions apply to the city. It's federal funds, ports, and public facility districts, none of which we are. So that sort of wraps up the purchasing policy thing. I also will point out that when we do a contract, I am not a contract expert. So kind of the process is I do consult with finance director Roback on our process. I do consult with our public works administrative assistant, Ken Foucher. He actually does most of the contract putting together for both Public Works and the Community Development Departments. And that's one of his responsibilities. I think he's been doing that probably for 20 or 30 years. So that's where I go with that. And then the packet is reviewed by legal counsel. All the templates we use for these contracts and amendments were all reviewed and approved by legal. So we're using all of those instruments. So then talking about the grant funding, so the $280,000 for this amendment is being funded by the Department of Commerce grant. That was approved by council on May 11th on page 45 um oh sorry nope on page 53 it has that staff report in that it does call out that we would be using the on-call planning consultant framework and our on-call transportation consultant transpo to do that work and so it was identified back there when the Council approved that. And then the difference, there is a difference in amount. Again, the grant is for $334,431.89, and we're asking $280,000 for this contract. And the difference is the remaining balance is for the city's work processing this. It does have a process of going through Planning Commission and Council and advertising and all of that, as well as the urban forest section is not included in this contract. I also will kind of, again, talking about the grant funding, we were the last city to receive grant funding. That's why it's such an odd little, an 89 cents that basically the legislature passes these kind of state mandates. And in this case that we have to have a climate element by 2029, and then they try to provide funding. And so, We applied along with a lot of other cities. This was, I think, their second round of funding. And initially, they said they didn't have enough funding. And then they got back to us and said they did. So that's why it's such the odd amount. She said the rest, you know, this is the amount you get. And then their funding works on a two-year cycle. So we have to have this work done by the end of their two, by their two-year cycle, which would be June of 2027. At that point, there may or may not be additional funding for a grant, and so it seemed to make sense to get this grant funding at this time to get this work done. The grant itself, there were some questions on that. This grant contract is the standard language for the Department of Commerce GMA grants. It's the same language we used for the two previous grants that helped fund our comprehensive plan that was handled by framework. And then Commerce, What Commerce does is they don't require prior written approval, but they are aware that we're using consultants. And for Commerce, for these type of planning grants, they basically, they provide us an Excel spreadsheet where we have to document when we submit each one who worked on that. And so we do that, and that's how, again, same process we've used for the last several grants tied to this. And I did confirm this with the Department of Commerce. And then finally, I guess the question is, why are we choosing not to go out for sort of a competitive request for proposals and why is the city recommending just going with framework? And there's a couple of reasons. The biggest is there's a continuity for it. Framework did do our comprehensive plan. They know the city. They have all the data. They have all the background. They've worked with us. I find them to be great to work with, both in quality and interaction. They have the experience that we need. I trust them to make sure we have the state requirements. If you do go out for request of proposals, there is a cost and a time for the city. There's also a cost and a time for anyone who responds. And so if you are 99% sure you're gonna go with a company because it makes sense for you for this project, it's almost a disservice to the city. have people go through work when you really don't have any intention of doing that. And like I said, in this case, for all these reasons, it makes perfect sense for us to use framework. We have a short timeframe. It's a continuation of work they've already done. And so this is, and then they are, the question was asked of me of, you know, are they working on any others? They are working on the climate element for the city of Sammamish. They are working on the full comprehensive plan for PASCO. PASCO is in a different, the state GMA has certain year marks that you have to have certain things done. PASCO is in a later one. So they are required to do their climate as part of their comp plan. So they are doing the climate work for PASCO as well. And it's very prescriptive either way. The state basically gives you lots of handbooks that say, this is what we want in it. This is what we want it to look like. And so... That's sort of hopefully that addresses most of the questions. If you have others, we are always happy to try to explain why we're doing things, how we're doing them. What did I figure between the four of us? There's 90 plus years of local and state experience. We're happy to answer those. And then I guess one last thing is local government, local contracts. We're controlled by the state. It is different than what you can do a lot of times in the private sector. Also very different than if federal money gets involved, it's a different process as well. So we try to make sure we do all that. So at that point, I will turn it over to the mayor for whatever step he would like to do next.

All right, thank you, Planning Manager Stalnicker. I would entertain a motion at this time. Council Member Cedar.

Thank you. I move to authorize the mayor to execute amendment number one to the agreement with framework in an amount not to exceed $280,000. Second.

Council Member Cedar, would you like to speak to your motion?

Yeah, I think most people have talked to me about what it's like to be on council. One of the refrains I always come back to is we conduct the business of the city. And the city makes smart choices when it saves time and resources and goes with a known asset like framework. They did an exceptional job on our comp plan. I see this as an extension of the comp plan. This makes sense to me, both practically and legally. I appreciate the work and the conversation we had about it. My own research on MSRC primarily supports that this is a perfectly fine way to go forward. I see no reason not to approve this. Sure, we can idealize some other process or method, but frankly, we just create more work and more headache when we have a perfectly acceptable solution to move forward and get the city back onto doing other important work. So thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hall, would you like to speak to your second?

I'm not sure I could do any better than that. But because I've followed the city with city meetings for the last 12 years, I have your full respect and understand you go through the processes. I'm glad that new council members come in and ask questions. But yes, I do agree with this. Framework is perfect for what we need. Thank you.

All right, any further discussion? Yes, Councilmember McNally-Martinez.

First, I want to thank Angela. I had emailed and called because obviously being new to Council, this is very new to me. So I had a lot of background research to do. And she answered the majority of my questions. I was concerned about the stewardship of government funds on how we're spending these funds. And after talking to you today, I wanted to just kind of ask a little bit, did staff determine that the $319,000 was a reasonable price? For what they're doing and that was kind of I don't know we didn't really get into it too much I don't know if you want to answer that because I was kind of thinking We kind of need to have you seen the proposed hours of the task and hourly rates I understand that there was a grant, but I'm hoping that The contracts not based on what the grant gave us, but based on the actual work. They're doing and I just want to be assured of that Yeah, so the

So, yeah, so the, I mean, when we proposed the grant, it was like, these are the things we're going to do. This is how much we think we need to allocate. And the state approved that. So that's, in essence, what we sort of mimicked. It's sort of summarized with framework. But we can, I was talking to framework today because I was trying to remember, I knew they were working with other cities and I couldn't remember. And, you know, he said he's perfectly happy to, you know, we can provide a more detailed process of all the steps that they're gonna be doing and we're gonna be doing. And again, this includes engaging with the public. It will go through Planning Commission. It'll go through the City Council, finally. So we can provide a much more thorough, and I'm not sure I'd call it scope of work, because we have that, but a much more detailed of what those steps are. So if that helps.

Yeah, I think probably the biggest flag was being that it was an amendment to an existing, very vague contract. I think we had a copy of it today. So I think if it would have been just presented, I think we talked about this as just a contract itself, it would have been much easier for us. And so that was where my questions came from. And I appreciate you clarifying.

We could have, and it may make sense in the future to have done it. There's no reason I couldn't have done it as a separate contract. It just was the process we chose. So I appreciate that comment.

Yes, Council Member Mounts.

Thank you again for responding to our comments from before, appreciate that. I also, I have four or five questions. To piggyback on Councilmember McNally-Martinez, I'm really concerned about the reasonable cost and how that's demonstrated. And an example in tonight's packet on page 12 is that there's a professional services report in the amount of $7,097. That seems reasonable. for a report but to take the existing contract of 39,000 and add it 700% or seven times the original contract amount one of the two is unreasonable. Either the 39,000 wasn't enough or the 280 is too much. And so I just wanted to piggyback on the cost reasonableness of this. This is, yes, it's a grant, but it's taxpayer money. And we are stewards of taxpayer money. And since the council is being asked to authorize the obligation of these funds, We need to ask these difficult questions. I also noticed that the base contract to the 39,000 was just below the threshold that required city council approval where forty thousand is required so the initial contract is only thirty nine thousand so that contract in itself didn't receive council approval didn't need it but it's kind of questionable as to why it would come in just under that. And I did review that initial $39,000 contract today and the contractor's hourly rates are in there. I would like to see some kind of correlation between their hourly rate that's anticipated for each of these reports so that we get some kind of a general cost basis on that because at their highest hourly rate just under 300 an hour i come up with 913 hours labor hours for professional services and as you mentioned just a minute ago they've done this already for other cities so it's probably a boilerplate you just change a few facts and I just don't know that the value is there, and also in your proposal you state that it's necessary for completing the climate element. I don't see $280,000 being necessary. We might be able to get it done for a lot less, and I don't know what would happen to those funds if we didn't use them all, but it would be something that would... Would be nice to know, will they go back to the general fund? Could we do more work instead of just what's here? Yeah, and then finally, because city council is being asked to serve as a contracting or warrant officer, what safeguards are in place to ensure that the funds are reasonable, allocable, and allowable, that they can be tracked and used for their intended purpose? I noted on the original $39,000 contract, there is some invoice review prior to. I don't know, is the contractor receiving a monthly draw or are they being paid after they submit hourly invoices? So there's just a lot of questions and it looks really, really questionable to me. I would like to see maybe having this discussion at next week's joint study session with the Planning Commission and maybe diving down just a little bit further. There might be a way to salvage this without going out for RFP, because I know that process takes some time, but I just don't think we have enough information to support such a large amendment on such a small contract without showing a necessity and a reasonable cost. Thank you.

To answer a couple of your questions, the on-call contract is set up to basically, again, it was originally set up just for sort of small things. We had a prior on-call planning service so that if whether it was I just needed another party to review something or discuss it with me or discuss with that, they had previously provided services for the city of Milton and in the Last couple years that we had them on contract, they were unresponsive. They did not get back to us on phone calls, did not get back to emails. Public Works Director Madden had requested a proposal from them. They'd agreed to it, never provided it. So we were in need of somebody to fill that role. It doesn't, again, it's a simple kind of task-based process. So it's a sort of a small amount because it's not intended to, it's sort of intended to be small little things. Again, you know, in the future it might make more sense to have made this an independent contract. That would be fine. They do invoice us. It's a monthly invoice. They do the work and then they provide the invoice. And then again, it's a grant that specifically identifies what we have to spend it on. So I would assume if we don't spend it all, it would go back to the state. And I guess, yeah, I mean, at this point, this is, yeah, they bill hourly and this is our, I guess staff's recommendation is for this, so.

Any further questions or discussion? Seeing none, this is an action item. Is there any comments from the audience? Yes, please come forward.

Jacqueline Whalen, Milton Washington Council and esteemed audience. I just want to say thank you to Council for delving into the details. I recognize the fact that it's an uncomfortable seat to be in when you want to have things move smoothly. We are, as a citizenry, counting on you to be part of the checks and balances. So thank you for being careful about things and setting a new course for the way things are done in the city, for increasing the clarity. Different administrations do things differently, and this is a brand-new administration. There's just a lot to take care of, residual, and chart new course for the future. I did try to remember how much our comprehensive plan cost with framework, and I was hoping that that might just shine a light on how incredibly expensive this kind of stuff is, and I am very grateful that there is grant funding to be able to cover these city expenses. This is a big deal. But if we could get a comment on that. I can't remember what our seven elements cost as we did such a big review. And I want to express my appreciation to staff for being readily available to answer detailed questions. And thank you very much for that. And it's a very helpful packet this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Whalen. There is one other person in the audience. Would you be interested? Okay, all right. It's been moved by Councilmember Cedar and seconded by Councilmember Hall to authorize the mayor to execute amendment number one to the agreement with framework in the amount not to exceed $280,000. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Opposed, nay.

Okay, motion passes six to one.

Thank you.

All right.

Five to one. Five to one.

Sorry? Five to one. Oh, five to one. We're missing one. Sorry. Okay, moving on to council reports. Let's start with Council Member Ternes today.

Did I skip something?

I don't think so.

The change in the amount of.

That was on the consent agenda.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Welcome to the new council member, Jill McNally Martinez. I was recently at the AWC conference in Spokane and just was able to glean a lot of information. It was a great time to just see what is going on with other cities. Of course, there's a lot of AI things that are going on, both positive and negative, but it was interesting to sit and listen to how other cities are navigating you know, kind of a change in the trajectory of how a city is run. There was a lot of just different talking about budgets and financing and I'm thankful that Milton is a relatively small community without, we still have things that are, that happened along with the big cities, but just not on that scale. So it was really phenomenal to be able to be in the rooms and listen as a new council member myself, just to be able to glean all that I was able to. And thank you, Jackie Strader, for just highlighting some thoughts that I've had as well. So I'll just not say anymore. Thank you.

Council Member Mounts.

I'll say thank you to that too and look into the process for making maybe some, closing some loopholes in our ethics policy. Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Cedar.

I just wanted to note that I was unable to attend the July 4th celebration, regrettably. I was out of town already. But I had great things from the community. I talked to several members who attended the Kids Bike Parade. I think there was a comment tonight earlier. Huge hit. So kudos to the administration and the Parks Events Committee for getting that on. I love that stuff. So great for Milton. Thanks to the police, thanks to the staff. I've been very happy with all the response and discussion we've had, so thank you.

House Member Ford.

Thank you, Mayor. I got to attend the July 4th celebration and my kids had a great time at it and just wanted to shout out the Events Committee and say thank you for putting on such a wonderful event for our community. And I know Francis' fur babies also had a good time. They were extremely cute. And anyway, thank you. Council Member Hall.

Yes, thank you, Events Committee. Excellent job. They were already trying to figure out how they could do it better. Kudos for first event for our new committee. They did a wonderful job. I appreciate it. Thank you, our police department. I actually ran into Officer Mosa the day after it had happened, and he was still feeling the effects of the smoke, and he was still a little bit You could tell he was still feeling it. But he was incredibly proud. And that passion, you can't bring that into somebody. They have to come with it. So kudos for Chief, for our staff. Also, yes, I do think we need to look at ethics. I think we do need to look at hiring. staff needs to look at it first. Same thing with council. Is it really prudent to have council members that are related? There was a lot of talk about that a few months ago. No reflection on anybody that had applied. It's just a concern that I've heard from other residents.

Councillor McNally-Martinez.

I'm very new here, but I want to thank the city staff, how quickly they got me set up with a computer and email. Thanks, Bruce and Angela, for all the questions that I've had this past week. I appreciate it, and Trish. So it's an honor to be here, and lots of research to do, but thank you very much.

All right, moving on to Director Reports, Planning Manager Stallnecker.

Just a comment on Axel, who got his award tonight. When we hired him, it's one of those positions that we can only give so much support because it's so specialized, and he has just jumped in with... whatever he needs, he's done the training. I can do some of the mapping stuff, but I'm just like a real niche, and he's always happy to come over, help me expand, help us figure stuff out. So he's been a great hire and a great asset, and I'm really happy that he got recognized tonight.

Public Works Director Madden. Thank you.

And then just to echo Angeli, Axel is an amazing contributor to our team. And what we didn't really highlight today is he's the point person for the city in updating and bringing all of our asset inventory into a digital realm. And so from an asset management perspective, I have just seen him jump in with both feet. And so he is working with all the different teams, the different utilities. We are increasing our maps. As far as what we have mapped out, we're also consolidating old maps and we're verifying them. And so I'm very happy with our team that we have. And we're moving into the next realm and we are looking at AI a little bit. And so he will be my point person on AI too.

Thank you. Finance Director Robach. No comment. And Police Chief Hernandez. If you see something, say something.

Wow.

Taken aback. All right. As you... Oh. Says I need to mention an opening on the Public Safety Committee. So if there's anyone out in the community that would be interested. Oh, that is right. There is an opening on the Council Public Safety Committee because of the retirement of Council Member Whalen. So is there anyone currently here that would be interested in joining the Public Safety Committee?

I can do it.

Would you?

Yeah.

OK. Congratulations.

I guess I should have asked, what does that pertain to?

You're about to find out. All right. As I've been mentioned a couple times before, I attended the July 4th America 250 event. Kudos to the events committee. They put me in front of the bike parade and put me in an Uncle Sam costume. And I think I pulled it off. And I was pleasantly surprised at the number of kids that were involved in the parade. It looked like it was going to be scantily attended at first, but I think we got about 40, 45 kids that ended up participating. And I was able to help some kids really decorate their bikes. And I also handed out a lot of popsicles. So, and like Council Member Hall mentioned, the Events Committee is already talking about how they can do a better job next time. So, it will only get better. And that's all I have.

Is there anything else this evening from anyone on Council? All right.

Seeing that the agenda items have been concluded, I adjourn the meeting at 7.53 p.m.