City Council - Regular Meeting

In attendance tonight. Thank you for being here, and appreciate if you could join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to 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.

Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll? Present.

JOSHUA Council Member Adler?

JOSHUA Council Member Adler is in the nation's capital representing her employer tonight, and so she is excused.

JOSHUA Thank you, sir. Deputy Mayor Johnson?

JOSHUA Present.

Doesn't look like we have any young people in the crowd tonight, so let's move on to approval of the agenda. Oh, she snuck in on me. We love to recognize our young people coming out to council meetings, the next generation. We need to start grooming them now. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you. So let's go ahead and move on to approval of the agenda. Do I hear a motion? Motion to approve. GREGORY Second. GREGORY Do I hear a second?

GREGORY Second.

GREGORY in favor, please so indicate.

GREGORY Aye.

GREGORY Any opposed? Thank you. We will now consider the minutes of the meeting of 01/27/2026. Do I hear a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. CHRISTIAN Any opposed? Thank you. We will now move on to citizens' comments. Could the city clerk please provide the instructions for public comments?

This part of the meeting is for general citizen comments. Please reserve any public hearing testimony to that section of the agenda. The mayor will call on those who have provided their names in advance. Then the mayor will call for other citizens who wish to speak. For the record, please state your name and address or city council district in which you reside. Please direct your comments to the council as a whole, not individual council members. All comments are limited to three minutes. The clerk will provide verbal notice, but only thirty seconds remain. As a reminder, this portion of the meeting is counsel's opportunity to hear from the community and not a time

to engage in debate.

Lastly, per state law, this public comment period cannot be used to speak in support of or in opposition to a ballot measure or individual candidacy, and no such comments will be allowed.

Thank you. We'll start off with hearing from Penny Thorpe from District 3.

Hello, mayor and city council members. I'm here tonight because I want to thank you. During that January 27 meeting that you just approved the minutes, there was a Black History Month proclamation. And in it, you said the Puyallup City Council is committed to cultivating and fostering a community of diversity and inclusion. I have been in touch with the Puyallup Historical Society.

And we were looking at when different folks arrived to Puyallup. As we know, at the very least, the Puyallup tribe was here about 3,000 BC. Then European settlers came in the 1830s. In the 1860s, Mexican mule packers came in. In 1860s, the Chinese workers were here.

In the 1890s, the Japanese farmers came. And then in the 1960s, the first black family moved in. We, the people of Puyallup, are a wealth of cultures and talents. We are officially asking for this to be placed in the city code as a resolution or an ordinance to remind We The People, we are bonded across our differences. Thank you.

Next, we will hear from John Hopkins.

John Hopkins, District 1. Now, I know all of you like nonprofits. They do a huge amount of positive work for the area. And I'm going to weave my way back to that. At the moment, I'm thinking more about taxes because it's that time of the year where I prepare my taxes.

And I start looking at what on earth can I do to get some deductions for next year? It gets a bit tricky sometimes, especially when the last couple of tax bills that we got from our illustrious president didn't do any favors to nonprofits. Yes, they did up the the allowances, the basic allowance, but to get tax write offs for for nonprofit donations got really tricky, effectively got rid of them, which jeopardizes nonprofits to a certain degree. But there is one thing that people of a certain age, like 70 and above, can do that I want to point out. And that is, at that age, you hear the dreaded words required mandatory distribution.

That is where you have to cough up some money out of your IRA whether you like it or not. And the beauty about it is you've got two choices. You either give half of it to the tax person because you never paid taxes on it to begin with and it's gained all this money from the from the stock market, or if you do it right, you just send it on to, the various nonprofits or your church. You have to be careful how you do it. You can't just take the money out and then say, oh, yeah, I'll send some money to my church.

What you do is you instruct your broker and you say, this is what I'd like you to do And you can do it to anyone you like. You know, if you want to do the church of what's happening now, good luck to you, but you can do that. So you can do it for churches. You can do it for nonprofits. I like arts downtown and foothills rails to trails, but everyone's got their favorite nonprofits and their favorite churches. I recommend for all those out there who are stuck with RMDs, as they're so called, to distribute the money that way, much better than paying the taxes on it. Thanks.

Scanning the audience of all you young people. I think you must be talking to me. We'll hear from Matthew.

Kerris.

Kerris. Matthew Kerris. Thank you. Thank you.

Just give me one second.

Hello. My name is Matthew Harris, a lifelong resident of Puyallup who lives in District 3. Since the summer, others and I have stood outside in solidarity with our family and neighbors. Immigration terror, abuse of power and pedophilia, and scapegoating and discrimination of community members is not just happening in Peoria, but across our nation. That is why we have organized actions and outreach for those in need through food donation drives for families and anyone in need, sack lunches on Sundays for our hungry neighbors, and talking to our immigrant and migrant community members who are facing ICE terror.

Recently, a group of us from both Pierce County and Puyallup helped fundraise a Cumbia night for a local Puyallup family impacted by ICE terror. So what does this have to do with the council? On 01/27/2026, Mayor Whiting read a proclamation expressing the importance of Black History Month and what it means for Peop as the city celebrates its community wide Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. Although this is long overdue, I wonder if this new city council will amend and take accountability for their involvement in changing and amending the comprehensive plan to water down its meaning and message and their lack of swift and authentic action against the racist attacks that are made to the chair of our planning commission.

While subtle changes are being made to the plan from zoning regulations to shifts in language, I wonder who is truly being impacted. In late August, I remember that members on this council described the change amendments as clearing red tape, and we could all agree to disagree. Today, I visited David, a disabled vet and community member. David was making balloons, and he was sitting next to a library by some rocks when he was attacked by a man in his 30s. David has permanent eye damage, and he needed to relocate from his home due to medical bills and rising costs while being out of work.

This begs one question did we treat David with diversity, equity, and inclusion? When having these events, do we have accommodations for those who are disabled? Do we know who is helping when an escalation happens, or when an emergency a medical emergency happens?

ROBERT I have more to say, but I only have so much time. I want to reiterate five demands. We include equity, not equality. We want to provide truthful and accurate

to all tribal history. We want to be upfront about historical and current racism to make real, impactful change. We want to follow state law and keep Washington Working Act and get rid of our flock cameras. We do not trust that our data is protected from their software. And also, we want to re include policy NE-11.6 to include analysis of climate change impacts when conducting environmental review under State Environmental Policy Act. Thank you.

Kathleen McLeod.

Good evening. This is my fourth effort here in front of you to discover and possibly influence the contents of this council's moral center. As humans, our choices to act or to not act are inevitably based upon something that we've always referred to as fight, flight, or fear. Fight says, I know what I know and no one can tell me differently. Fight says, I'm afraid I might be wrong, so it's safer for me to not listen.

Flo says, I'm willing to let go of what I thought I knew. And with that, it allows me to go forward and do better. To apply this to our current situations and decision making issues, we need to connect some dots. Let's start with 1492, the era of Christopher Columbus sailing off to discover something he had no idea what he was doing. But, he came back in 1493 to great applause.

The pope at that time, Alexander the sixth, if you're interested, wrote the doctrine of discovery, which said, and I quote, granting royals full ownership of all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered, and yet to be discovered, and anyone interfering should incur the wrath of the almighty god, which allowed many people to be killed, maimed, their lands confiscated, their peoples imprisoned. Let's check-in three thirty years later, 1823, here in The United States. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, issued a decree that granted the US government, quote, exclusive rights to extinguish the Indians to take title of occupancy either by purchase or by consent. And we all know how that went. Let's fast forward a little bit closer to the Japanese internment camp right here across the street.

And now, now, ice. Many cities across our nation are standing up and saying that you cannot build or buy to build any facility within our city that will house an ICE detention center, because we all know what happens. We all know. This isn't about fight or flight. It's about doing something, acting on what you know.

I'm here tonight to ask all of you to state from this city council that you will not allow an ICE detention center where human beings are traded inhumanly, where people are there who haven't done anything wrong. 47% of the people in the Tacoma ICE detention should not be there, it takes forever to get out. And they don't get their possessions back. Not here, not on your watch, not in our city.

Thank Speakers, we're here

for minutes.

Thank you. Holly Cardy?

Hello. Good evening, city council members. My name is Holly, and I am one of the owners of West Pioneer Grill in Downtown Puyallup. I'm here tonight to express our strong support for keeping the parklets in the downtown area. Over the last several years, the parklets have brought more people, more energy, and more business into the downtown core.

They create foot traffic, visibility, and welcoming atmosphere that supports not only restaurants, but all small businesses around them. In the five years since the program began, West Pioneer has yet to receive a parklet, but we have seen firsthand how valuable they are to others. This year, we are truly hoping for the opportunity to participate in the parklet lottery, being that you guys continue to keep that. We appreciate the city's continued efforts to support local businesses, and we believe keeping the parklets in place is an investment in a thriving, vibrant downtown. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. And I'm not sure this is kosher, but my wife loved your BLTTA today. Mary Anderson, literally.

Good evening. I'm Mary Anderson. I own Wicked Pie Pizza, and I'm also here to speak about the Parklets. I just want everybody to know that all of my customers truly enjoy our parklets. They tell me that they drive, some drive all the way from Seattle because they love to sit outdoors and enjoy all the beautiful views of Downtown Puyallup.

It has increased our revenue by a lot. And also, if it increases my revenue, it also increases Puyallup's tax revenue as well. So I'm hoping I've been fortunate to get a parklet every year. And of course, I'm hoping to get it again this year. And I don't want you to discontinue the parklet use because it really does increase our revenue, and it really makes my customers happy.

And that's all I wanted to say. Oh, I did want to say, also, I understand it could be expensive for the city, and I would not have a problem at all paying the $750 a year to have the opportunity to keep that, if that's what it took. So that's how much I want the parkland. Thank you.

Thank you. Eric, shall we?

Hey, how are all doing? Hold on one second. I've to find the old tab here. Matt used a word previously, so I just want to throw this out there as far as the whole terrorism goes. Yeah, by definition, that's exactly what it is.

Title 18, chapter 113 b, section 2,331, definition five basically states that any domestic terrorism means activities that involve acts that are dangerous to human life, duh, appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, duh, to influence the policy of government, double duh, by intimidation, and to affect the conduct of government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnappings. So it's terrorism. Just thought we'd cover that real quick. Some people get upset when that word's tossed around. You had it right, Matt.

Okay. My name's Eric. I live in the 2nd District. On January 27, the mayor read aloud that Puyallup affirms the importance of black history and honors all individuals who have stood up against prejudice, discrimination, and injustice. That's awesome stuff.

You later went on and said, it's my objective to make up a neighborly community for of this for all, and this proclamation helps us do that. Cool. And then on another day, the mayor said to me personally this is just a couple of days after Renee Good had been murdered. You told me that you wanted to be a uniter and that you wanted to be a consensus builder. I respect that. Last summer, this council, Sans Lindsay, I

believe, ripped language support and a couple

of people didn't vote on it. I apologize. But this is what passed. You guys ripped the language supportive of diversity and equity from the charter that outlines the next twenty years of our city's future. I mean, that's just not like a document that you just wrote and you throw it in the recycling bin later. That's our future. All right? So I'm going to ask tonight that you live by your own proclamation and honor the community members that are here fighting against this council's prejudice, PRESENTER discrimination, and

twenty seconds.

ANDREW

Good evening, council members. My name is Angeline Schuyrdo from Pierce County District 2. I am speaking to you today in regard to a request about another long term issue I've had that, after trying many different ways to recover my online accounts from multinational corporations in our state and elsewhere, I have been unsuccessful in for at least one to three years, dealing with identity theft where it is seen as a too complicated issue in a complex system relying mostly on the victim to pick up the pieces and reset all settings and update security. It has been over 100 accounts on mine that I have lost so far. I think that's even an understatement over these years.

I believe that there should be more services offered to assist identity theft victims to aid us in retrieving all that was stolen from us. The way things are gives the thieves more power over our accounts instead of vice versa. Methods I have tried are phone calls, snail mail, email. Not an option for some email accounts, such as Gmail. They only have a customer service line that just does generalized FAQ answers.

Investigators, law enforcement, governments, federal agencies, such as identitytheft.gov and the Better Business Bureau, etcetera. Your assistance is very much needed and would be appreciated. Any feedback, referrals to agencies, and other ideas are always welcome. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That's the last of our pre signed up citizen comments. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to make public comments at this time? Chris.

Good evening, counsel. Chris Taylor, District two, also with the Puyallup Main Street Association. I'm no longer a board member. I'm a full time volunteer. So that being said, the parklets that are is gonna be, I think, number seven on your agenda tonight. And there's there's always been in the last five, six years, there's a cost to put those parklets out by the city of Puyallup. I think it's $1,500 that they've come up with that figure. But also, understand that the businesses downtown, I think there's, we have seven parklets. There's probably 10 or 12 or maybe 13 businesses that would like parklets. I know West Pioneer Grill has not had one before.

But, the city has also required an insurance policy, and those insurance policies are hundreds, depending if you're off of Meridian, to thousands of dollars if you're on Meridian. That's a cost that they have to incur themselves. Now I hope that the city council tonight will discuss it and hopefully absorb that $1,500 for each each business gonna get it. It's it's all about supporting downtown, and that city council has done a great job. Pellet Main Street has done a great job. The chamber of commerce has done a great job. So let's all work together and make this happen. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there any additional people that would like to comment? Okay. We'll move on to item number three on our agenda, the consent agenda. The consent agenda are items that are non controversial and generally receive 100% support. Is there any item on our consent agenda tonight that a council member would like to remove for further discussion? Hearing none, do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Motion to approve.

Second? The motion has been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please so indicate. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We will now move on to item number four. This is a second reading of an ordinance amending the Puyallup Municipal Code Was senior planner Chris Beale available to answer questions? We heard about this last time. Do any council members have any questions at this time?

Hearing none, guess you're off the hook, Chris. Do I hear a motion to pass second reading of the municipal code 2.54, title thirteen, ninety, eleven, and twenty twelve.

Motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Roll call.

CHRISTIAN Council Member Gilliam. Aye. CHRISTIAN Council Member Kastema. Aye. CHRISTIAN BERNSTEIN: Deputy Mayor Johnson. Aye. CHRISTIAN Member King. Aye. CHRISTIAN Mayor Witty.

Aye. We'll now move on to item 4B, which is another second reading of ordinance approving amendments to the zoning map and Puyallup municipal code twenty point four six and twenty point five one. Do council members have any questions about this ordinance? No. Do I hear a motion to approve this ordinance? Motion to approve. Do I hear a second?

Second.

All in favor, please so indicate. Aye. Any opposed? Roll call.

Council Member Kastema. Aye. Council Member Smolcom. Aye. Deputy Mayor Johnson. Aye. Councilmember King? Aye. Councilmember Gilliam? Aye. Mayor Wenning?

Aye. Okay. We're moving on to resolution 5A, which is a resolution confirming appointments to various citizen volunteer boards and commissions. We had a council subcommittee interview a number of candidates for a variety of commissions and boards. And we have city clerk Dan Bessels BESSELL: here to introduce our resolution.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor Witting. Yes, the ad hoc committee of counsel conducted interviews on Thursday, February 12. I believe the interviews lasted just under four hours. And the committee is putting forth recommendations to the following commissions. What I will do, Mayor Whiting, with your approval is read the Board of Commission and then those individuals that are being nominated.

That'd be fine.

For the Civil Service Commission, they are recommending the appointments of Jim Kelly and AJ Gard.

Just a matter of protocol. We'd like to get to I think my colleagues would like to get to know the members that serve on these boards. So if you're present, I'd love it if you could stand up as he calls your name.

For the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, the recommendations were Renee McLean, Tani Castro, Jason Jesus, Dean Burke, Kim Field, and Marshall Dellinger. The Parks and Recreation Board nomination is Bogdan Tertu. The Planning Commission recommendations are Millard Barney, Mark Crosby, and Diane Washburn. And for the Senior Advisory Board, it is Robert Aline, Steve Shipman, Joel Ricks, and Don Massey.

JOSEPH Thank you. Do I hear a motion to approve these appointments?

Motion to approve.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Motion passes. Moving on to item number six, considerations and requests. This is a budget authorization for an additional payroll specialist position. And finance director Barbara Lopez will introduce the request.

Good evening. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, counsel. Barbara Lopez, finance director. Yes, tonight I'm speaking to you as a request for additional budget authorization for another payroll specialist.

As the city has grown and payroll requirements have become much more complex over the years, it's become increasingly difficult for us to effectively manage all facets of the payroll processing and reporting. We've used strategies of trying to spread certain pieces out to other staff members, which gives us a little bit of relief. However, it also takes up those staff members' time doing that. And so they have less time available to do their regular work. So we did a little bit of research and looking at 10 comparable cities to us.

The average of those 10 cities is that they have one payroll person for about 160 employees.

Excuse me. Do you have that chart that we can throw up on the screen?

No. Sorry, I don't. I didn't bring that, but I can tell you who they are.

Please do.

Okay. So the comparables that I looked at were the city of Lacey, Lynnwood, Bothell, Sumner, Issaquah, Bonney Lake, Tukwila, Des Moines, SeaTac, and Lakewood. Most of those are comparables that we use for a variety of other things. Taking a look at how many payroll folks that they have for their FTEs to do their payroll, the average amongst those 10 is about one payroll person for about 160 employees. At the city of Puyallup, we have three thirty employees, and we have one payroll person.

So we're behind what our other comparable cities are doing. Adding an additional payroll specialist to our group will bring us to about one payroll person for 165 employees, which is very much commiserate or similar to what our others are. It looks like Dan or somebody is bringing that up. No? Maybe not.

Maybe not. Okay. I just saw something flashing over here, and so I took a look. So one of the things that we try to keep in mind is that our payroll is actually pretty complex, too, as we've got six different bargaining units. We have a non representative group.

All of those have different varying rules and pays and all of that. And it does make for a complex payroll. So we are looking to you to get budget authorization to hire an additional payroll specialist. Our plan would be to hire them around the July time frame. So it would be a half a year of budget that we would need, which is about $69,000 About 10% of that would actually get charged to other funds that have payroll, that have staff in them.

But the vast majority of it would be funded by the general fund. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. And I'm yes.

Councilmember Castama. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Barbara, we have had some irregularities on payroll. I've experienced that on dealing with pensions. And also, we have had some complaints. Do you believe that this will address those issues?

JULIE Long term, yes. We are already addressing those issues. We've pulled in additional staff to temporarily help us. We're getting a handle on some challenges that we have with our new payroll system implementation that contributed to that. But yes, long term, do believe that this is the solution that we need to permanently resolve those issues and not have them happen again.

Okay. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Barbara, who requested this?

Who requested the new position? Yeah. That's me.

Okay. So you requested it. What was the purpose of your request? Why why did you feel it was needed? Were you running into some glitches? Were there some We shortfalls? Was there some failures? What what was going on that would trigger this?

We have been having some significant challenges, actually, over the last two years. I've been trying to resolve those within existing staff. But it's not given a permanent type of solution, and it's pulling those staff members away from critical functions that they do as well. So it's been a two year journey that's culminating in this request to you. Okay.

So this is a long, long couple of years of issues you've been trying to scoot around it or try to work around it. But at this point we're realizing, hey, let's just to fund this and get it done to kind of help kind of get this moving forward. I would imagine too that this might empower you a little bit if you had an extra staff member, you wouldn't be certainly relying upon just one individual to carry the whole weight. You can have some leverage to make sure accountability is good and performance is good, rather than just kind of being hijacked by one and you're kind of, you know, concerned about doing anything. So, I see some wisdom in it. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd just like to comment to in my professional career, we as as owner of Print Northwest, we we had a staff of about 200, And I know our payroll person was pretty well tapped out at that level. And we didn't have the number of bargaining units that you have to deal with. And each bargaining unit, I'm sure, brings some complexity and challenges to the to the processing part of the equation since each bargaining unit is going to have different terms. So I strongly support this addition. Question though is, obviously, we've got budget that we approved and this is an overage over our budget.

As the budget person, you can talk to that aspect of it too. Is this going to cause us any problems in other areas?

Definitely not this year. We've already had some stronger than anticipated revenues that can help cover this cost for this year. It will be something that we need to incorporate in the budget moving forward and figure out how to make that work long term. But for this year, there's no issues.

Okay. Any further questions? This is So GREGORY Mr. Mayor?

Yes. Yeah, I would like to move that we authorize the city to add an additional payroll specialist per the request by Barbara Lopez.

Second.

The motion has been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please so indicate. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you.

Thank you. We

will now move on to other business, item 7A. This is one that's near and dear to a number of parts here. It's the Parkland Program. And city clerk Dan Vessels will introduce the Parkland Program discussion.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor Whitting. Come before you tonight to discuss the Parkland Program, which has been going on in a pilot form here in the city since the COVID pandemic era of 2020. Last year, we brought this before counsel, and you asked for a one year extension. During that presentation, additionally, counsel had asked for multiple options to address the cost the city puts out.

Mister Taylor had indicated earlier correctly that the cost is $1,500 per parklet, and we do have seven parklets. I will just note for counsel, according to what I've been told by Scott Hill, our street supervisor, that $1,500 is contingent on all of the parklets being installed on the same day and being picked up on the same day. If we place them out at different times, the cost does increase just because of manpower hours. So what council had authorized last year was the following. The program area for the Parklets would be on South Meridian between Pioneer Way and Stewart Avenue, up to two blocks east and west of Meridian as well.

The duration of the program, it would go from May 1 to October 31. So if that's what council agrees to this year, we would set that, and that would allow us to ensure that $1,500 figure is consistent. Our streets department would be able to install those all on the same day and then pick them up accordingly. Insurance requirements would be with a $2,000,000 limit. And then, as a couple of our folks spoke to tonight, there would be a lottery system to ensure that the parklets go out in a random fashion.

That would be monitored and controlled by my office. And what we have here on the screen before you is just a copy of that agenda bill with the four different options that were presented last year. Option A is to authorize the Parkland program as the annual ongoing program for 2026 and for future years with no fees to the businesses. City would absorb the $1,500 per parklet. Option B, again, authorize it as an annual ongoing program and implement a partial cost recovery at 50%, or in this example, $7.50 per parklet, which would be payable at either the outset of the program.

Or I did confirm last year, we could set this up with our finance department as a payment plan during the months that the parklet program was in service. Option C last year was a recommendation of counsel for a multi year ramp up of the cost. The first year, the businesses would pay $500 Second year, the businesses would pay $1,000 And then in year three and forward, they would pay the full $1,500 per parklet. And then option D, and the recommendation would be to sunset the parklet program going forward. So those are the options that were presented last year. I'm just bringing those back before the council this year because this was a one year pilot. And what I'm looking for this evening is direction from council on the future of the Parkland program.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks, Dan, for the presentation. Thanks for a refresher. I think last year on the options, which one did we choose last year on the options A, B, or C?

Last year, the council chose option a. The only difference was it was another one year extension of the pilot. So the city absorbed the the cost.

Okay. Thank you. I do recall that, but I wasn't sure. So I'd like to voice a couple of things. Number one, I I I would like to support permanent ongoing parklet, no year to year as part of our city, you know, kind of services we provide for our downtown core. So that's that's that. I do believe that we ought to charge the full amount of whatever is costing us. So if it's you know, we're not making a profit on this, we're just breaking even. I do think that the merchant should, I think, absorb that cost. And especially in light of what I've heard tonight where where the owner of Wicked Pie said that this has been very profitable for them.

So I think the cost of the usage of that parklet makes sense for a good return on their investment. And I think any business that would see a return on their investment should be able to pay that $1,500, which is pretty nominal considering that's delivered use of for several months and and pulled aside as quality parklets too. So I think that's a very good return on investment for that. I do want to talk about a couple of things. One is, I don't want to, I just want to throw up for discussion.

I know that over the years that we've done them, our our weather starts taking a turn well before August 31, and I've seen a lot of those parkas look a little vacant, a little bit, you know, kind of unused and and maybe a little bit shady. I'd like to maybe see us look at maybe September 31, maybe one month earlier that gets us to the fair. And I think at that point, there would be not much use in October, considering the weather conditions are probably not ideal. So that would be my suggestion to consider September 31. In terms of the units, how many units do we have?

Seven.

Seven units. Yeah. I'd like to see a priority. I don't I don't know how the lottery system would work, but I'd like to see a priority that the and the priority and in the majority of those units should go along Meridian, which is I think our most accessible and visible small town charm. I'd I'm not opposed to having some that go a few blocks off, but I don't think that that in that lottery system, there should be anywhere close to where they would have a proportion going off of the Meridian and and lose kind of the ambiance of that.

So I'm not sure how we would work that, but I do think that at least the majority of those, you know, say 70% or more should probably be along Meridian. And then if there's some leftover that are available for some of the side businesses, certainly not opposed to that. But yeah, those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear some of my colleagues' thoughts, specifically on the prioritization of being along Meridian, I think that's super helpful. And I've seen a lot of feedback, especially I think was it Main Street that was helpful in some of the planters and the uniform chairs and uniform.

Again, having that up and down our Main Street on Meridian, really, it's got a great little kind of ambiance there. That's why I want to see the priority there. Again, I'm not anti outside of that. I think the majority, at least 70% or more, should be along Meridian. And then if there's some left over and there's needs off of that, I certainly would be open to that.

And then lastly, and this is for this year, I'd like to see some maybe if counsel wishes, some staff presentation on if the need for this is growing and it makes sense, maybe we could talk about how could we build some more and have some more along gradient in some of the side streets as well, if it makes sense. So I wouldn't want to just stick with seven if this is something that's working. We could find some creative ways to fund that even though there was private public partnership. I don't know. But I I think we should look at some other units.

They are nicely nice looking. And I can say one thing too. I can't tell you how many times I've seen those parklets filled in the summertime and walking down there, how much more community spirit is happening. People stop me. Hey, Dean. How you doing? And I'm I'm seeing that. How are you doing? So this sense of community discussions, walking down the sidewalk creates discussions where if you're in the restaurant, which is great, no one's gonna see you and talk. So it does bring a sense of community in the sidewalk area.

So it has a tremendous amount of community discussion and dialogue. And I just think they're hugely valuable, more than just the business profitability, but the community aspect of it. And that's why I think, again, I'm just thinking out loud that the city perhaps funding some budget to build some more, knowing that there's some community benefit, not just business benefit, would be in our best interest to look at that from a holistic standpoint, not just for the business' benefit, but really from the community benefit. So anyway, those are my thoughts, and hoping to hear some council thoughts on that as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Councilmember Castama. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Dan, I thought last year we had amended it so that a minimum of four of the units would be on Meridian. Am I correct? Did we actually amend it last year

Yes,

as such? Okay. I think that that's a good way to prioritize. Just to remind everyone, the parklet concept was a concept that probably came to the city seven, eight years ago. And it was during COVID that we were able to use some of the COVID funds to actually construct, very well construct, these parklets to be inserted.

And it was partly to help restaurants survive through the whole COVID situation, where we had to have more people outside rather than inside an open airspace as opposed to a closed airspace. The Main Street Association has been instrumental in making them very uniform. I think when we first came out with them, you had a variety of different umbrellas, different makeups. And then the Main Street brought in a kind of unifying vision for downtown. And I think has done a very, very good job of that.

However, I do believe that this is something that we should provide without cost, given the actual cost that the merchants have to have for insurance. And the only way we can really do that as a public entity is we have to get a public benefit out of this. And I, Councilmember Johnson, all due respect, you just talked about that public benefit and how that it brings the community together, adds ambiance, slows everything down. I think that is a good investment of funds that we as taxpayers give to provide that for our downtown area. And we have been told that the insurance policy is not 1 but 2,000,000, which does cost the the merchants who utilize these money.

And I would hate to see someone not utilize this because of the cost factor, because of the very, very factors that you talk about as far as enhancing the ambiance in our downtown area. Therefore, I would like to propose that we make this program permanent and that we have no fee associated with it. We keep it the current dates. I don't see a problem with having it longer, Even if it did so happen to rain the last week of two weeks of August, I don't see that as a detriment because we do have Indian summers where people do have they go on. And in fact, that time of the year can be extremely nice to be outside.

So I would like to keep the same dates. I think there is probably a discussion to be had for the future as far as expanding these. I had a merchant approach me and said, he believed there should be 10. We should have more of these downtown. I think let's make the seven permanent.

Let's see how that goes over an extended length of time. And if one of the council members is so moved that we want to put in the budget to build another one, then we'll consider that at that time. I would not, at this point, want to do that. But I think that it's something we may want to consider in the future. So again, my proposal is we make these permanent, no fee, and that we have at least four of them along Meridian. Three of them can be in the outlying areas per the parameter that we set out last year. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, could I have a follow-up to that?

Just a

brief follow-up.

Follow-up question?

Just with customer Kestamer.

Okay, go ahead.

Customer Kestamer, I would support this motion you're doing. Would you consider a five-two on Meridian in support of that?

Let me consider that. Would like to have more input, frankly, from the merchants before I would agree to such an amendment, only because it has worked very well what we did put forward last year.

Let's hear from our other council members. Councilmember MacKillian.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to echo my colleague Castilla's Councilmember Castilla's ideas. I have an opportunity and privilege to serve on the Pellet Main Street Association Board and to hear directly from the merchants talk about how important this really is and the benefit it brings to our community, the benefit it brings to the businesses, and the fact that these parklets are utilized even when there is not a business open. And so it creates space, kind of like literally another park, for people to go and just relax and socialize.

So I'm in full support of option A, making this a permanent thing and at no cost to any of our businesses, considering they're taking on the insurance policies. I also wanted to bring something to our attention in that there was some feedback last year even on considering not putting parklets on the East Side Of Meridian just simply due to the heat in the summer. And the flowers wither up. It's too hot. People won't sit in them unless maybe we provide and maybe we partner with PMSA to provide umbrellas or something so that people would like to sit on that side.

So I don't wanna negate Perry's or any other businesses on the East Side Of Meridian. But I do recognize when they're on the West Side, they're a lot more utilized. I also recognize that Lick and The Rose, those parklets are always full, even off hours of the business. So I do love having parklets on Meridian, but I don't want to neglect where people like to congregate and enjoy good customer service from their local shops. So those are my thoughts. Option A, no cost to the businesses. City absorbs because they're they're taking on the insurance cost. Thank you.

Council member King.

Thank you, mister mayor. I am a huge proponent of the parklets, as you know. And I do believe that the uniformity came from our economic development department. And our previous director there helped with the solidification of the umbrellas and the color coordination so that way everything was more uniform. And then PMSA came in and beautified them with flowers and baskets and all those things.

So that was great. In addition to that, I understand the question and comment regarding the sun on the East Side Of Meridian. I think that there's an easy solution to that by providing some additional shade cover. I have some ideas regarding that that we can implement that wouldn't prohibit businesses like Perry's and others on that side of the street to be able to utilize that. Think it would be an easy addition that's very minimal cost and very effective.

It's kind of like a windscreen. You know what I'm speaking of. But and just attaching two poles and some bungees and really being able to provide that extra shade would be very helpful. I do agree that these would be very beneficial at no cost. And I would also like to propose, even here tonight potentially, get some additional feedback from some of my colleagues here, that we build an additional three to make it an even 10.

And I do hear some of the questions from my colleagues regarding the current seven. I understand that. But I also think that we've done this for a period of time already. I would like to hear some comments from my colleagues regarding an additional three to make it an even 10. And perhaps we can fund this through our health tech dollars. So I would like to bring that to my colleagues. Thanks.

Council member Smolko.

Thank you, mayor Witting. I am also absolutely in support of the parklets, And I agree with much of what my colleagues up here have said tonight. But that said, I do have some tactical questions so that I can better assess these proposed changes. Overall, my big question is, what metrics will trigger continuation versus a rollback of the system that we currently have? So in more detail, what baseline and ongoing metrics are we using to measure effectiveness?

Are we talking to the business owners? What kinds of information are we gathering from them in a more formal manner? So business sales tax receipts by the block, pedestrian counts, dwell time complaints, crashes, permit revenues, things like that. And then what are the methods for us communicating with the businesses to make sure that that feedback loop is ongoing, but also closed when necessary? I do have concerns about potential inequity.

I'm in favor of increasing the number of them. But I do know that they are primarily on the major corridor, which serves specific demographics. And I'm always concerned to make sure that we're being equitable in that kind of opportunity. I'm also curious to learn more about ADA and emergency access risks. So while I am in favor of increasing the program, I would like to ask for a bit of a pilot extension so that we can get some more formal data collected, particularly the communication with business owners. I would really like to see how that is formally done and what those metrics have been and who is verifying them. Thanks.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was going to make a motion, but I'm going to allow Council Member King to make the motion to CT. I was going to make a motion to you brought up. I would second. If you want to make a motion to build three more utilizing the LTAC funds, I would second that if you'd like to do that.

JOSHUA Just for clarity, this would be an amendment?

I don't know if it would be amendment. Think

There isn't a motion on the table at this point. It would be a motion.

JOSHUA Fair enough.

JOSHUA But I've still got some questions of my own. So appreciate a little time for more discussion. Dan, in our auction last year, how many people did we have applying for parklets?

JOSHUA Last year, Mayor Whiting, we had seven individuals enter the parklet lottery. One individual organization withdrew their application due to the insurance costs. And then we had another business step in to take that parklet.

So we had seven applicants and seven parklets. So everybody that wanted one got one last year.

That's correct.

Okay. Pioneer Grill didn't have one last year. And you'd like one this year? There anybody aware of any other businesses that are so interested?

I think a lot

are becoming more interested as you can

see how they're built up.

Okay. Thank you for that perception. Yeah, Okay. So that answers my questions. I'll defer to Council Member King or Council Member Johnson, whoever wants to move.

JOSHUA Well, I'd like to counsel Member King to tee that up since he mentioned it first. And I would like to gladly second that.

JOSHUA Yes. I would like to make a proposal for three additional parklet units to be implemented at no additional charge for all 10 of them. And that is just for the rental regarding the agreement there. All other attributes to the agreement would still remain in effect.

JOSHUA Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor, I don't believe there's a motion. And if so, I will make that motion.

That was my motion.

That's an amendment.

No, it's a motion.

To what?

I just asked if it needed to be an amendment. They said I didn't need to make an amendment. So I'm not making an amendment. I'm making a motion.

Are you

yes? Mr. Attorneys?

JOSHUA Mr. Mayor, with your indulgence, I will respond to the question. I did shake my head that it was not an amendment. It's not an amendment because there's no motion on the floor. So it's on a motion. You may not feel it's

a complete

motion, but it is a primary motion at this point. Why don't I just do this?

Go for it.

DELL: I move that we make the the Parkland program, permanent. And we have no fee. And that we prioritize the number of units under the current scenario of four-three, four along meridian, three in the other designated zone that we already have indicated. And I would like to make that motion. I just need a second.

Second. So

just clarification, how many parklets are we looking at in your motion?

JOSE My motion has seven.

JOSE

And now I would like to make an amendment. So That's a way. I'd like to make an amendment for three additional parklets to be manufactured and made for a total of 10. JOSHUA Second. Okay. There we go.

We have an amendment on the table. Any discussion of the amendment? Mr. Mayor? Council Member Casteman.

JOSHUA Yes. Council Member King, I think you had said specifically that they would be paid for by LTACH funds.

Am I correct?

JOSHUA That is correct.

JOSHUA Okay. I assume that's implicit in the motion then. Fine. No more DELL: questions.

Would you like me to revise that?

GREGORY No. That's why.

GREGORY DELL: Okay. If there's no further discussion, we'll take a vote on the amendment. Oh, Council Member Smallko.

I would like to say that I'm a bit uncomfortable with it being made permanent without any required performance metrics. Again, I am not opposed to the idea, but I do think that anything that requires more costs and influence we've just asked if we've talked to the business owners, and that's a little fuzzy. I think we have. But I would like to do it in a more formal manner to make sure they're all heard and all perspectives are taken into account before we make anything permanent. So my suggestion or request would be that this be done we go to 10, maybe on a trial basis for the season, and then evaluate in a formal way to gather these metrics for ongoing years.

JOSHUA And just for clarification purposes, you mentioned ADA. Was there any other issues that you were concerned about?

I think we need to do a better job or a more thorough job. Or I need to find out what that thorough job has been for communicating with the owners and the businesses and the owners of the businesses with a variety of these questions. How are they measuring their success? Again, how is the city measuring success? How are we as individuals and as a council? And then where is the crossover? And where are there some discrepancies? I'm just a little fuzzy on that still, partly because I'm new. But I want to reiterate huge fan of the program. I think it's awesome. Ever since COVID, I've taken full advantage of them. But I want to make sure that it's fair and balanced and a thorough evaluatory process going forward.

City clerk, have you you're the point of contact on this program. Have you heard anything from the business owners that would be important for us to hear?

Mayor Whiting earlier this evening afforded a citizen comment to counsel from someone that was encouraging counsel to approve. I believe it was up to 10 that had been received by email. Prior to that, I was copied on an email from Puyallup Main Street Association's executive director Julie Dorr to, I believe, every business in downtown, encouraging them to appear tonight at the meeting to discuss and push for additional parklets and a permanent extension of the program. Over the last two years, when I have been involved in this, I have spoken with our former economic development manager, Meredith Neal, about it with her experience. And then personally, I also talked to some of the business owners about the parklets.

And I have yet to hear anything negative about the program, with the exception of the high cost of the insurance. We have had businesses reach out. In fact, the Rose and Lick last year agreed to combine their two parklets to make it safer for the community so there wasn't a parking space in between. I believe that Wicked Pie is probably the busiest parklet that anyone could ever imagine. I don't know that I've ever seen their parklet empty, with the exception of when they're closed.

And these ADA's been raised. These parklets are leveled with the curb.

Yes, JAMES sir. Before any parklet is installed, we do have an application process. The business owners do provide all the necessary paperwork, as well as the licensing agreement. And then I reach out to our development and planning services and permitting services. And one of the engineers reviews and creates a plan. And then our traffic engineers also take a look at that and ensure that all of the parklets are installed in a safe manner. They meet all current ADA standards. And our streets department is very diligent in ensuring that those instructions are followed.

Thank you. Councilmember Smolko, does that satisfy some of your concerns?

Absolutely, yes. Thank you.

Thank you. City manager.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to alert the council on one thing that we're gonna just look at bit more is on LTAC funds. So historically or traditionally, anytime council makes a decision using LTAC funds, that at least has to go to the committee for input. There's a time frame that that has to be done. And so in this context, not telling you not to vote tonight, but just so you're aware, if you do vote as the budget is as the motion is presented, this likely will have to go to LTAC, and they will have to comment on it. And it may need to come back to you, depending on their feedback. So I just want to alert you to that.

Thank you for that clarification. Council Member King.

JAMES Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also just wanted to notify the public that prior to counsel tonight, I did a quick stat poll on my counsel Facebook page regarding the parklets to find out if people were in favor of them, against them, or would like to add more. And although it was a short vote and time was restricted, I did receive 18 votes regarding that. 10 of them were in favor, four of them were against, and four of them were in favor of adding more. So take those metrics as they are, that's what I have. I just wanted to put that on record.

JOSHUA Thank you. I'm not sure that helps my decision making process at all. Any further comments, questions? Then GREGORY let's we've got a motion and a I think we've got a

We have an amendment to vote on.

GREGORY Oh, yeah. We're back to the amendment. Sorry. So all in favor of the amendment?

Aye. GREGORY Aye.

GREGORY DELL:

Any opposed? Okay, now we're back to the original question. I assume still no discussion. All those in favor?

Mayor Wei. May I make one inquiry?

Yes.

Since the amendment has now passed six to zero, that would put us at 10 parklets. The current motion that was proposed by Councilmember Castama was to keep the current parameters, which was four along Meridian and then three, two blocks east west. I believe that that would need to be amended to account for the three new parklets so that we would be able to have that in the program up to where counsel would like those placed.

It's either 7.3 or 6.4.

Can we do research on that before we make a decision tonight? Or does that need to be determined tonight? No. We can do

it later.

I'd like to do some research before and listen, maybe connect with PMSA first before we make that decision. I agree.

Just wanted to make sure that counsel was able to provide direction to staff. So once those are built, we know where you would like those to go.

JAMES Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor. Perhaps we can when it comes back regarding the official resolution of LTAC dollars, we can make that final decision GREENEZ: on what those numbers would look like. Would that be fair? Perfect.

Okay. We have a motion on the floor. All those in favor?

Aye. JOSHUA Any

opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Next, we'll take up item 7B, traffic impact fee discussion. This is a new matter, and we've got city engineer Hans Hunger to give us a presentation.

HONZ Thank you, mayor and fellow council members. Hans Hunger, city engineer. This is our second presentation on traffic impact fees. We did an introductory at the February. So now we get a little more into the details of the traffic impact fee, so the study update.

And tonight, really, what I'm looking for is maybe get some discussion and some input back on some policy choices that we can implement and we can decide on here to move forward in direction. So just the background. Traffic impact fees are a one time charge paid by new development. That's residential and commercial development. Currently, have a rate of $4,500 per new PM peak trip.

And that was set back in 2007. If we adjusted that for inflation, we would be at $7,836 But it is not currently, right now, indexed to any inflation. So it's just still been $4,500 And these can only be used for capacity related projects. So things that are improving the capacity, because that's the nature of the program, is as development adds new trips, then improvements are done on the roads to increase the capacity to accommodate those. And so they can't be used for existing deficiencies, like repairing a road or something like that or maintenance.

This slide is really trying to help you just gauge where our traffic impact fees are to communities around us and stuff. So we're at the left side of that. And these are done in what would a single family residence pay. So a lot of times you think of PM peak trips or the rate per PM peak trips. But a single family residence doesn't generate a full PM peak trip.

They do surveys to see how many they generate. They generate about 0.93. So between the hours of four to six, that's about how many trips a single family raises. So you look at this, and you see where we're falling in the range there. You take our $4,500 rate per PM peak trip for a single family residence.

You multiply it by 0.93, and you get $4,185 is what we're paying there, what a developer pays for each new single family house. And so what we do in order there's a really restricted formula for how the state dictates for how you calculate this. And I find it's a very fair formula and stuff in that you can only pay for capacity projects. So we have a list of projects. Those are anything from active transportation projects, sidewalks, bike trails, and stuff that are adding capacity.

The biggest ones there at $115,000,000 of this project list is the corridors and things of Shaw Road widening, 9th Street widening, 23rd Avenue Southeast. Those are very expensive projects. You're buying land. There's usually a lot of mitigation because you're maybe encroaching into nearby buffers and stuff. So they get to be very expensive.

And they're long standing projects that most people that drive around Puyall are recognizing, yes, we need more capacity on these roadways. And then there's, of course, intersections. They just slowly get clogged up. And we try as best we can to adjust signals and things and move things faster. But sometimes, you just need more capacity at those intersections there.

So in all, we have 152,000,000 worth of projects on this list. But you don't get to charge all that towards traffic impact fees. You first have to deduct out existing deficiencies. So you look at each of these project sites, and you do a calculation to show how much is it already lost capacity there. And then you take that percentage out of the project cost.

And then another big deduction is a lot of these projects are driven by trips that are outside the city. So growth that's happening outside the city is causing trips to come into the city and causing an intersection to clog up. And so you deduct those out because our development shouldn't be paying for that. Development outside the city should be paying for that. And so you end up with this $64,300,000 worth of these project lists that's eligible for traffic impact fees.

JOSHUA Just let me interrupt. In your last presentation, you talked about going after the county for the development that's driving all the traffic coming off of South Hill. Just refresh my memory on where we stand in that process. GREEN: Yes.

There will be presenting an option here for working with the county to come up with what they call reciprocal traffic impact fees that would address that so that then we'd be paying the developer outside the city would be paying traffic impact fees to the city. And it works both ways. Development inside the city that causes trips to go across the border would collect and pay to the county for their projects and stuff. So as I get to the future policy decisions on this, I'll ask for direction on if that's something we should continue to proceed with the county on trying to develop that. And then once we developed it, we would come back.

Okay. And can you want to hold your question?

I can hold it. I want to talk about that subject matter, but we can talk about it later. If you tee it up, was going to comment on that. Okay.

As long as we're on topic, go ahead.

JOSEPH Yeah. I've often felt and I've said this for years, all of the growth out in South Hills specifically coming down Shaw Road that we're paying a price on the clogging of those lanes. And yet, don't believe we've received any traffic impact from the county. I So find it very interesting that I think what I hear is that staff is now beginning to have discussions for some funding from Pierce County. Is that what I understand?

Because I

hadn't heard that before.

Yeah. We've had discussions ever since I've been here with the county about

But has it produced anything?

No. They've been resistant to the idea of reciprocal trafficking fees up to now. But now, through change of leadership, they're more open to it. They're exploring the concept just like we are.

Oh, good. Yeah. So I I definitely think if we can provide data with with some traffic, you know, to show that a majority of those coming from outside and yet our roads are being affected, the bottleneck, gotta get some money from that. There is a little bit of a slippery slope, reciprocal, if if we now find people building here, we got to give some fees to other neighboring towns. That could be a little slippery.

We got be very careful that we, you know, if we could it's clear that Pierce County, a bigger agency, is showing impact by their growth and we haven't received in that, that's one thing. But if we now jump into some plan that says, okay, now our developers develop in downtown or wherever, and then now they're accused of, you know, showing impact fees and edge where we gotta really be careful about that. So I'd be kinda concerned about that two way street. I think a one way street is good. It's a large enough growth out there. I mean, our growth is not anywhere near the growth of Pierce County as a proportion. Any growth that we have, the impact is going be much, much less than what we're seeing in Pierce County. So I think it's a different animal and different discussion. I wouldn't want to have a two way street on that, but a one way street because of the mammoth growth that's coming in. Thank you.

Okay, Proceed.

JOSHUA And so this is just the flow chart that really explains how we come up with the maximum defensible rate for a traffic impact fee using the $64,000,000 after you've deducted out the deficiencies and the growth that's occurring outside the city that's causing the need for these projects. You get down to $64,000,000 And then the number of trips projected over the next ten years is 7,403. And it's just a simple division to come up with a maximum defensible rate of 8,739 Not what has to be adopted, but it's the maximum that could be adopted.

And if we adopted that, then the single family home would be 0.93 of that.

JOSHUA Correct, yes.

JOSHUA Okay.

JOSHUA so just a little bit about just to give full disclosure, what do we use these fees for? So a lot of times, what we're trying to do and when we passed recently a transportation benefit district those fees are going to maintain what we already have. So they're not necessarily going towards improvement projects. We struggle to find a lot of times, it's grant money that we're using for improvement projects like this. And we apply, and we apply for grants.

And sometimes, I'm successful there. But it is ongoing there. But what I find is, the purpose of these fees is really for the development to be able to fund their fair share of those projects. And it really gives us a lot of options for developing phases of a project to get it queued up and ready to be more competitive for grants. So we're never going to be able to fund a Shaw Road or a Knight Street without grants.

But getting some of that preliminary design work done with the traffic impact fees to set ourselves up for knowing exactly what the future costs are, to be able to have more certainty on matches for grants, to take advantage of opportune times for buying a property that might become available in advance of maybe getting a grant for. Those are the kind of things that it gives us a lot more flexibility. Otherwise, I find the schedule for projects really gets delayed because we're waiting for collecting or getting the grant and securing that before we can move forward to the next step. But this will allow us to move some steps steps forward. So here is some options.

And these aren't, by any means, the only options for collecting. I've put three options before you for potential rate for the TIF. And then on the right hand side is the single family, what that would equate to for a single family home. So the first option is, well, you could adopt the maximum defensible rate of the $8,700 The second option, in looking at that chart of where we fall with neighboring jurisdictions, the average there would be around between $6,000 and $6,500 there. So you could adopt that.

And then something that we did during the utility rate study was do almost like a catch up, where we don't go right to the maximum, but we slowly schedule over five years to try to catch up to that amount by increasing each year. And there'll be another slide where I talk about indexing any fee that we adopt to an inflationary figure, like the construction cost index there. But these are just as it would be that first year if we set it. So really looking at those three options, and certainly open to hearing other options there. But at the end of the presentation, we can discuss the feeling on those three options.

And I thought this would be helpful just looking at, what does this bring in if we do that? So currently, this is all based on what do we currently collect on average. And I will say there is a lot of significant variation year to year, depending on the amount of development that's occurring there for how much. But on average, it's about $1,200 per year. So if it was set at the maximum defensible rate, that would be $2,300,000 per year on average.

And then you can see just set between the $6,000 and $6,500 it's that and then the incremental amount. So just kind of by nature, if we had more growth than what we've experienced in the past, these numbers would go up because it's based on growth. And then just as I was iterating before how this allows us to accelerate projects, allows more flexibility on the implementation, And it really allows us to expand partnerships. And what I mean by partnerships is this is a situation like with the hospital expansion. They're going to have some mitigation components of their expansion to mitigate their traffic.

And so one of those, the first tower that's going to be expanded there, is to add a signal at 7th Street Southeast and 23rd Avenue Southeast. But we have a project that goes beyond that intersection for adding sidewalks and bike lanes onto that. So by having some money built up from traffic impact fees, as we see here's private development having to mitigate part of their mitigation. We're going to work with them and add on our project and get them a more complete there. So that's the idea of that flexibility and that partnership, trying to take advantage of that timing.

And then this is just looking at, where are all these projects and stuff? So you can see on the right there, there's a lot of intersection projects there, including the big corridors that look at 9th Street Southwest, Shaw Road going down the hill, 23rd. And then on the left hand side are some of the non motorized improvements, like sidewalks on 11th Street Northwest or bike lanes coming out of our other adopted plans, like the active transportation plan. So some policy choices that I'd like to have maybe some feedback from tonight is the first one is, should this be indexed, just like we do with our system development charges on utility connections, to the ENR Construction Cost Index. So that looks at the inflation for construction each year.

And the project list is the $152,000,000 That's in $20.26 dollars it'll go up each year. So that's one way to kind of just keep up with the cost of projects. Exempting certain land uses so the state allows you to exempt out early learning centers and low income housing. It allows you to exempt up to 80% of those traffic impact fees for those particular land uses. And if you choose to do that, don't collect those fees, you aren't required to backfill that money that's not being collected with any other city funds.

If you go up to 100%, the last 20%, you are having to find other local funds to backfill what's being exempted out. And then the city has the right also to exempt any other land uses it wants to do. But those do require full backfill of that money. So it kind of comes at a cost. You have to identify where that money is going to come from, and it's going to have to be available there.

So right now, our current program doesn't exempt any land uses out currently from it. I will also point out that when a business develops, there's a pretty complicated question that goes on as far as, are there any existing trips that are credited towards their fees? So like if a example here would be Don's Drive In there. It's been closed for several years. And so if somebody comes in and redevelops that, right now they can take credit for the existing trips that Don's Drive In has.

And if they add any more to that because their land use is more intensive, then they pay that difference there. So that's one way that people lower down their traffic impact fees. But there is something on a policy decision of how far back do we look on that? So if a business has been closed right next to Don's Drive In, there used to be, I think, a senior living center that just hasn't been there since I've been here and stuff. Would you want to exempt those out?

So what we typically see is jurisdictions look back three to five years and say, if that business was in existence from three years ago, then we would count those trips and credit those against the new land use there. And then usually what I think of is you've got to have some flexibility in there so that you have, maybe at the director level, some options to maybe extend that. Maybe they got their application in, and it's just going to take them a while to get through the development process. And you don't want to negate their ability to use those credits there. But one thing I wouldn't be in favor of and I don't like is you may have a gas station that hasn't been there for thirty years and using credits on that.

So that's something to weigh in on here. We also have adding truck trip adjustment. Right now, we don't do anything like that. But you think about a truck, and it takes up a lot more space than a car, and it takes a lot longer to get through intersections. And so we've seen with other communities that they'll add an index increase by 60% or something for if those trips that are new in the PM for your business are trucks, And that's all dictated by the ITE manual that they do studies and show, Okay, yes, this is going to generate this many trips and this percentage of them are trucks.

Then you charge more for that because they're obviously they're causing the level of service of your intersections and your corridors to go down faster. And then we talked briefly before about reciprocal traffic impact fees and how those work. If that was something that was interesting and it's not a decision that has to be made tonight and stuff. But what I'd just like to be able to get feedback is, is this something to continue to pursue with the county and then bring back? Because with reciprocal traffic impact fees, you develop interlocal agreements with the adjacent communities.

You develop maps based on studies ahead of time to show development in this particular area right by this border sends this much percentage of trips over the border. And so all that's worked out so that a developer has predictability when they're coming in, knowing if I develop here, I can already know what my calculation will be for traffic impact fees, both for the jurisdiction I'm developing in and the reciprocal traffic impact fees. And you can see that there. Otherwise, without those, you really are just subtracting that amount out of the equation. You're not collecting that either side.

And then those funds have to be come up with elsewhere by each community. And then the last thing would be when the payment's conveyed. This hasn't been an issue because we haven't changed the traffic impact fee since 2007. But as you set a new rate or you set a rate that's incrementally going up, you will have developers interested in, can I pay a little early? After I get my application in, but not when I'm ready to have the permit issued, can I pay early?

Because if I can buy early and not pay the increased fee, I can pay the lower fee. And so I think there's a policy choice there. What we've discussed at staff level is if you did this and implemented that, yeah, you can pay it early, but you're only locked into what you've paid. If something changes in your scope and you have an extra 10 trips later on and the price has gone up, you're paying at the new rate then there. And one thing I should point out on when payments can be made also is right now in our current code, we have that you can defer the payments to occupancy.

So maybe you're not ready to pay it. You don't have the funds right now to pay it when you're getting your permit issued, but you can delay it there. It would be the payment would be still what is the current fee at that point, what is the rate that you're paying against there. But that's currently allowed in state law, and so we also allow it with our code. So with that, I will turn it back over to you, Mayor, to answer questions or have some discussion on these different policy choices that I've put forward GREEN: here and maybe get some thoughts.

Okay. I'm going take mayor's privilege here and comment first on this one. Obviously, this is a pretty complicated issue with a lot of moving pieces. So I'm correct in saying that you're not looking for action tonight, just policy guidance.

JAMES Correct, yes.

JAMES So speaking for myself, indexing seems like a very desirable thing. Doing one of these indexing studies is a time consuming and expensive process. And we haven't done it since 2007 with the result that our impact fees are lagging and we've missed out on some collections there. So I'm a strong proponent of indexing. I'm also a strong proponent of exempting the allowable non backfill land uses that you've identified.

I think we want to encourage those kind of activities in our city. And if we're not having to backfill, then I think that's a desirable benefit that we can offer those institutions within the city. I think we all recognize that a semi with a heavy load is a little bit different than a MINI Cooper. So I think there should be a premium on the heavy truck traffic. And we've talked a little bit about the reciprocal traffic impact.

I'm a big proponent of that. I wish we'd had it for the last twenty years. And with regard to payments, I don't care particularly when payments are made. If somebody wants to advance payment and save themselves an indexing factor, then I'm okay with that. Or if they want to wait till occupancy, I'm fine with that, too.

Those are the policy choices we talked about. But that brings us back to the fundamental issue, where do we peg the impact fees today? And pumping them up to the maximum allowable rate today is going to be a shock to a lot of our developers. I'd like to hear my counsel colleagues' opinion on that one. So that is the limit of my comments. Councilmember Gilliam.

Thank you, Mayor Kastner. Mayor Whiting, my apologies. This is a lot of information at once. And remember our study session and remember that feeling like a fire hose as well. So there's a lot more that I do understand tonight. But actually, walking through your slide, could we go back? I wish I had an identification number for the slide, but the Puals TIF options. Could we show that again? While that's coming back, I do have a quick question regarding the reciprocal impact fees. I like the idea of collecting those.

I'm concerned about the idea of paying those. So if we were to pay reciprocal impact fees, people coming from QL to other communities and our cars causing terror on other people's roads, where would we get those fees?

Those are collected at the time of development, too, paid by the developer, a one time fee. So if you have implemented an interlocal agreement, if a development occurred in Puyallup and usually these are more on the border of Puyallup there we already have established that any development in this is going to generate this much reciprocal traffic impact fees, and we would collect those on top of our TIF. So it's not taken out of our TIF. It's collected on top. And then those are given over to the jurisdiction to implement their projects.

What would be the rough estimate of that, do you think?

Well, I'm not sure. And I don't want to give a number just yet and stuff. But what I've seen in Snohomish County, who's implemented this with many of their jurisdictions, is a lot of times they're looking at 20% here, 18% here, all the way up to like 40% on some ones, that most of this development. We have other areas, like you think of Southern Edgewood, where the only way really for that development and the warehouse that we proposed to go is straight out onto Valley Avenue under our roads. That'd be a much higher percentage just because they don't have roads that connect up to the north there to go, so they have to get out on our roads.

But I will tell you that I think reciprocal traffic impact fees would be much more favorable for the city than for the county, as most people can experience, that that growth in South Hill is pushing more vehicles through the city and on than our vehicles going south I there.

Was just thinking of affordable housing. And then we're tacking on not only adjusting to what we need for our streets and then looking at adjusting for commuters, and that raising the cost of the home, because the contractor has to put all of this in the equation. So I'm on pause on that. I feel like I need to let it sit and contemplate that or try to get some more information, whether I make a decision either way.

And

then thank you for bringing this PowerPoint slide back up. I see I do like the idea of starting at 6500 and the 5% increase annually to 2031. And I'm guessing that will get us where we need to be based on today's numbers. So I'm assuming in 2031, it'll be more than that just due to inflation alone.

JOSHUA Well, we these are numbers just for today. So if we chose this model with indexing, then yes, they continue to go up by inflation. But the 5.5% per year increase for the catch up stops at 2031.

And then we would adjust to whatever current inflation is?

Yep.

I like that idea.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Spalko. Thank you, mayor. I'm in a variety of levels of support on each of these policy change suggestions. But I just have a couple of weird questions because I will always have weird data based or data driven questions. So first is with regard to the heavy truck trip adjustment. I'm in strong support of that. My question is, how will the heavy truck adjustment be calculated to accurately reflect the increased maintenance cost? And will this adjustment apply to both initial GREEN: development and subsequent changes in use? That's my first question.

Okay. So the adjustment will be made up front. We have to So if we justified based on the size ratios and things on a percentage and, say, came up with, is a 50% increase over the regular tiff fee, we would show how those calculations work. And again, this is only a one time charge to the development there. So as they submitted their traffic impact analysis they all have to do that and show how many PM peak trips they're generating.

And then we'd look at the land use and say, of this land use, this percentage of your trips are actually trucks. So then we do the calculation. On those trucks, it's 1.5 times the traffic impact fee. The rest of the vehicles are just 1PM peak trip. Okay.

And then with regard to the reciprocal traffic impact fees, my question is, how will Puyallup handle discrepancies in the TIF methodologies between us and the county, for example, to make sure that fees are spent on projects that actually mitigate the traffic generated by the new development? So do we have those mechanisms in place to mitigate any kind of conflict of interest between different agencies in the area, us and others?

JOSHUA I would say so the reciprocal traffic impact fee that we would collect from a development occurring in the county is based on our own study. So we know where those dollars are going to because we have a And project for anything we collect in the city for a reciprocal traffic impact fee, we can look at the county study and see the projects listed on there and know this money has to go to those projects. Now, we don't have the say on there. We think this particular development needs to go to this particular project on your list county. They get that choice just like we get that choice. But at least from the structure of how a TIFF has to be developed and the study that has to support it, we can look into those details to say, this is where that money would go. Okay.

And I think that was the end of my questions. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

JOSHUA Thank you, mayor. Yeah, I got a lot of loose just the loose thoughts and maybe some questions. I was looking at the numbers in terms of 2,007 numbers versus this proposed 7,800 as kind of a potential benchmark that you initially on the first opening slides. That's a 73% increase. I was kind of thinking from an average person's annual income.

I'm not sure if their income has gone up 73% over the course of years. If it has, I say wonderful, more power to you. But that's a tough, tough increase. Anyway, I'm struggling with that. Let's just say, hypothetically, let's just say the council decided to say, hey, we're going to get caught up and bring this thing all the way up immediately to full industry average of 8,000, whatever, and 4,000 to 8,000.

What would that additional funding buy us or get us that would make a significant improvement for the city of Peelope and infrastructure versus if we just kept it at the rate that it is now? How does that put us behind the ball of really improving infrastructure, roads, sidewalks, lights, that kind of thing? Does it make a difference to jump it up, or does it really make no difference at all to increment this?

JAMES Well, I would say, from my experience implementing projects, it all makes a difference. Right now, we just don't have a funding source for these types of capacity projects with local funding and stuff that's in our control. So we're either robbing from maintenance. They're delaying maintenance projects in order to maybe make a match for something. Right now, we've got Shaw Road, the first phase of it being under design.

But we still have a match required for that. And we'll be trying for other grants. Right now, just this week, we submitted our next build grant at the federal level. But that requires a $3,000,000 match. And if we were to secure that, we would have to find $3,000,000 somewhere in our budgets to be able to fill that, whether that would come out of tier three funding, if that's available or not.

But this collection and the money collected on this slide annually allows us to, once, definitely secure. Because I think one of the challenges we have with securing grants is they want to see that you're committed. You have the money available. You have a game plan to get to the end. And this collection allows us to show that, hey, we've got a reliable source that we're bringing in for implementing these large scale projects.

It doesn't cover them all, but it covers that match. And it lets us have opportunity. If I had a piece of land on Shaw Road that came available I've a willing seller now, and I need part of that land for I can't move on that right now because I have no money to offer them. But this gives us those options to be able to take advantage of willingness of sellers at certain times.

JOSHUA Again, just using the maximum defensible rate, we could go at 87 and we were to initiate that correct right now, or immediately, or whatever, project that out to thirty, thirty one, we'd have quite a bit of potential growth there that would be significant in terms of being able to make some improvements. Would that be correct in thinking so? Rather than kind of incrementing it, it puts us up there right away?

JOSHUA It does. I mean, as I said before, this isn't the only fund to source the source of funds that will be needed for these projects. But it does. I've tried to equate this when I've talked with other staff members is we can all feel like out there driving, we're not keeping up with the growth and the traffic. It's just a feeling that you have as things get more congested.

Part of that reason is because we're not collecting the money needed for the projects as the development occurs. So in that sense but I also realize 8,700 is a large jump. And as Councilmember Gilliam says I've heard this from the developers is this is just going to be passed through to tenants or to buyers. So I mean, definitely comes. There's both sides

of this equation. But growth should pay for growth, right? I mean, you're going to expand, you should pay for growth. I mean, that should be the idea, right?

I have heard of that phrase. And that's how GMA is set up. That's why they allow this.

Yeah. Well, everyone on this council knows I've probably been on the record over the years I've been on probably one of the most anti raising taxes voter. Just have. Just because I look at my own income and realize that my income hasn't increased at the ratio that I've seen some of the things that we're asking our taxpayers to do. So I haven't been a big fan just based off just personal inflection. That being said, I do believe that growth should pay for growth. And if you're going to develop and you count the cost of what that would be, I would entertain looking at the maximum defensible rate immediately and just be done with it. I like to study that. I don't want to be afraid of it. If we're going to do it and it truly does reflect growth paying for growth.

And that's just the cost of doing business and whether we like it or not, that's just kind of how it needs to be. Otherwise, what you end up happening is if you discount it or delay it, now things aren't getting taken care of. And we're, as you mentioned, Robert Peter to pay Paul. Does that do our city any better? Some could question that.

So anyway, those are my thoughts on that. Obviously, it's going take a majority to move that forward. But I just didn't want to be afraid to put that out there, even in light of my stance over the years of really trying to pin that down. And then going back to those policy directions, if you want to flip back that, I'll give you some thoughts Including on an index for inflation, I mean, different. I figure if we kind of go up and just make the big bold, I would say forget the inflation, just be going to do it.

I would say let that be flat for a while. Exempting certain land uses, if we're not doing that now, I wouldn't want to change that now. I'd keep that loan and not exempt any land use, if that's been consistent before. I have no comment on how far to look back, so I'll leave that alone. Adding trip adjustment, absolutely.

Reciprocal traffic impact fees, probably about 60% to 70% in favor of that. Because I do think that there'll be more impact fees coming to us than us going out. So I think our impact is minimal. And when payments can be made, we already have an existing option for folks to make payments upon occupancy, which means once they sell the place, they can collect that and pay it. They don't have tie up their cash. I certainly love continuing that. And I have no comment on if they want to pay him early. I'll leave that alone. So thank you. CHRISTIAN

Councilmember Casteman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, I have no problem going to the high end of the average $6,500 and then indexing it from that point on. I think that's a pretty sane position, considering that we don't want to be less than what the surrounding communities are. And based on that graph, we're really at the low end. And taking that average to 6,500 seems minimum warranted. And then I would index it after that. Grandfathering seems to make sense. Truck traffic seems to make sense. I'd like to see the reciprocal arrangement.

I want it to be somewhat limited, In other words, geographically and also obviously with the county, in those areas that we think that just makes sense that all of the growth, 1,000 homes that are filling in up on the South Hill with that new development, they're going to be impacting Puyall coming through the valley. But again, I want to see that. But in general, I'm Okay with it. Flexible as far as when things are paid. And I think that sums it up.

I'm not seeing any other comments. I'll jump back in. I'd just like to make a couple of observations. We haven't adjusted these impacts fees since 2007. And in the finance world, there's a there's a law of 70.

So if you take the interest rate times the the times number of years. If it reaches 70, then your money doubles. So if we haven't haven't increased our impact fees since 2007, that's virtually twenty years. So if you divide twenty years by 70 by twenty years, you get 3.5%. So has the inflation rate been 3.5%?

If it's been at 3.5%, then the cost of our impact fees has doubled since 2007. So if we were at 4,500, then that would say that the equivalent amount today is 9,000. So that's just a point of reference to look at this. The other aspect of this is, if we're saying the maximum defensible rate is $8,700 and we're proposing less than $8,700 then what are we in effect doing? Somebody's got to pay that for those things.

So who should pay for those? And as has been observed, growth should pay for growth. So basically, if we do less than that amount, then we're saying that we're giving a break to new homeowners, and we're going to be charging our existing taxpayers again for improvements that they've already paid for when their house went in. So it favors the new developments. And I hate the idea of doing anything that's going to increase the cost of housing.

It's already a stretch for everybody. But we've got a lot of seniors in this town that are struggling to make ends meet. And asking them to pay for additional development that they had nothing to do with. They may have been born here and lived in the same house as Mayor Kastema, former Mayor Kastema, councilmember Kastema, has mentioned. You know, because our impact fees have been lagging, he's probably paid for his impact fees multiple times over the years.

So I just want to express that concern. I'm not sure. You know, I hate the idea of raising taxes and impact fees. But my fairness and equity thoughts here argue in favor of pushing the rate up towards that peak amount. And I'm good friends with my master builders associates, and I want to make their lives as easy as I can and streamline development processes.

But this is one where I think I need to diverge and advocate for a higher rate here. So that's my comment. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You prompted me of a story. I remember sitting down many years ago at Giorgio's Cafe, and I was meeting with a major home developer in our area. And I remember hearing about developers and their concerns, complaints, or whatever about costs. And the lights went on one day when he told me this analogy, and I want to repeat it because I think it does give merit to Mayor's perspective on this. And I'm going to paraphrase. He said and again, these are major builders in the area that don't just build ones and twosies. They build developments. He said, Dean, he says, you know, we don't like park impact fees.

We don't like traffic impact fees. We don't like all the permit fees. We don't like that. He goes, but what really kills us is unpredictability and delays. And if we're able to make our efficiency of our permitting and all the inspections and tighten that up, they can factor the permit fees and all these other fees into the cost. Either it's profitable or it's not. What causes them to hemorrhage is cost overruns because of delays due to whatever. So as we are looking as a city to become more efficient, I believe the industry will appreciate that because those are hidden costs that that they can't count on, or they can't anticipate. But when it happens, they're hemorrhaging cash. But these upfront impact fees that they know ahead of time, they pencil that in.

If it makes sense, it's viable market rate, they don't mind paying them. They may not like it, but the market will bear that. So I think the mayor has some merit that growth should pay for growth, and it'll pencil out, and they'll sell it. But I do think that if we could take that in tandem with efficiencies and that industry knew that we were efficient in speeding up and minimizing unexpected delays, that would bring great comfort because the bottom line would be upfront and not unpredictable. So thank you.

JOSHUA Council Member Smalco.

JOSHUA Sure. Thank you. I just wanted to go on record with a summary of my thoughts on the policy choices today. So overall, I would like to ensure growth pays for itself without stifling desired development. Mayor Whiting mentioned equity.

And with that, I do 100% support targeting 80% exemptions for early learning centers, nonprofits, or affordable housing to lower barriers for those community beneficial projects. I agree with Councilmember Castama about increasing the average to 6,500 and indexing it thereafter. I like fees being collected at building permit issuance or, for large projects, staggering those payments to improve developer cash flow while ensuring they are paid before the impact on us occurs. And that's my summary. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Castama.

JAMES Yes, Hans. Could you bring that chart back up as far as where other cities are at and tell me where $8,700 and I believe it was $34 or whatever the defensible rate is, where that would put us?

JOSHUA So where that would put us is just between Federal Way and Edgewood on that. Now, the 8,000 would be about 8,000, I think, 100. So we'd be right about where Federal Way is on that. A third from the right.

GREGORY Oh, see. So the defensible amount was 8,730 whatever it was. And then 0.93 of that is what you're referencing. And that is what this is right here, this chart.

Yeah. This is a better way to be able to look at everybody thinks of, what is it for a single family house? Well, then this is normalized to that.

JOSHUA Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. If you could I assume that you can send these to us. I'd like to review these. If you could be more precise on the numbers, too, I would appreciate it.

JOSHUA Okay.

Councilmember Keene.

JOSHUA Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know that there's been talks about not just these particular fees, but maybe perhaps other fees that would be moved to be paid at the occupancy. Would this qualify to be able to allow the applicant to pay for the traffic impact fees at occupancy to avoid having to perhaps finance those fees into their bankroll, so to speak?

JOSHUA Yes. And that's how we currently do it. So what I'd be proposing with this is just keep with our current system, that you can defer your fees up to occupancy.

JOSHUA And would that change the fee structure if they did that? Meaning if there was a fee at point A, and then by the time they got to the finish line at point B and they went up, would they have to pay the new fee? Or would they be vested in the

GREEN:

fee at the time that they applied?

I'm going to probably want to discuss that a little bit with our legal here to see if there's anything that restricts us to one way or the other. So normally, think of you pay at the fee at the time. But in this case, what you're saying is, hey, I'm getting my permit issued, and the fee is at this rate. Now, if I defer that, am I still paying this rate? I think that's how it would work, that it was at the point of issuance there. But I'll circle back with Joe and discuss that.

JOSHUA Looks like he's ready to discuss it.

JOSHUA I

can answer that. You don't vest to impact fees. It's not part of that type of thing, regulation. So if the fees go up in between the time that you pay them, you're required to pay you do pay them or you're required to pay them, you have to pay the amount that's due. If you wait to pay them, you have to pay the amount that's due at that time if it has gone up in the interim.

JOSHUA Is that a city policy, or is that

law? That's what state law provides because it does invest. The city could have a different rule or policy that officially froze people in, let's say, at a certain point. But we'd have to talk about what that would look like and how it would be written, because I'm not aware that anybody does that. I certainly haven't seen it done. But I don't think there's anything that prohibits the city from saying, you do vest at a certain point.

JOSHUA Okay. And I guess the only reason I bring that up is because if builders or developers need to roll these fees into their loans, so to speak, that not only gets passed along to the end consumer, or if it's a commercial building, their end cost, but it's also going to increase the fee based off of the interest that they're going to accrue on those borrowed monies during that time. And so I guess my suggestion, perhaps, to the council to consider would be to allow for vesting to occur and perhaps maybe implement a date? How many days are they allowed to vest before that has to be paid? So say it's a commercial building.

We'll just throw that out there. And it took two years to build. They have maybe eighteen months to pay that prior to the completion of that building. So it's not forever. And if they don't pay it within that period of time, then they pay the new fee.

So what I'm getting at is I'm allowing the developer or builder to be able to be frozen at that price in regards to this and other things to be able to not accrue any additional interest that they are potentially having to borrow to be able to proceed with these fees. So that's where I'm kind of getting at. I'm just trying to help builders with not having to pass along not only the fee and the interest accrued to it. So that's where I'm coming from. Thank you.

GILLIAM.

Could I ask a question of Councilmember King? So just to clarify, would you be in favor of just jumping up to that 8,000 figure now and then allowing people to vest or lock in when they start their project to be able to pass on not the inflation or whatever. Do you know what I'm trying to say?

JOSHUA To take that five year jump? Jury's still out on that with me. I'm still thinking that over and pondering that. I'm not quite sure. But maybe.

Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. I don't see anybody else queued up. I think we've had a robust conversation. I think we've got a lot to think about and try and bring this back. Maybe we could put this back on our agenda for the not too distant future after we've all had a chance to think about it. So I will move along at this point to our city manager's report.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We might be able to bring that back at your next meeting, just since it's fresh on your mind. And we'll try to put together at least an ordinance for you to for first reading for consideration. So that would be one item. And then the other item is the zoning map amendments as we are continuing through the land use component. So we'll be back discussing some various policy options for our land use map amendments. That is your next meeting, which is on March 10. Thank you.

Council reports? Council Member Kane?

DAY: Nothing to report tonight.

Council Member Smallcoe?

Not a whole lot to report, but I'm super excited about what I am calling my City of Puyallup World Tour, which is going to happen during my spring break coming up here. Thanks to our city manager, I've asked him to give me some behind the scenes field trips, if you will, to different offices within the city so that I can get a better understanding. And then I'm also going to do an official art walk gallery walk, if you will of our sculpture garden with the people who are responsible for all of that. So I'm very excited about spring break now. It was going be boring, and now it's going to be educational and fun. So thanks.

Good. Councilmember Gilliam.

Thank you, Mayor Whiting. So there's a lot going on my head from that last presentation, actually. I'm still stewing on those. I have the honor and joy of being part of the Pianton Main Street Association board. And last night, they had their meeting.

And I kind of wanted to do an update or shout out for some great things that are coming up, especially Meeker days. So for the first time in the history of I've ever lived in Puyallup, it is not going to be on Father's Day weekend. So, oh, whatever, you can still come down. Because the amazing fun that they're bringing into Puyallup, they already have some bands already listed. They're moving the main stage to the rotary stage in Piner Park.

And then if I can pull up my photos on this new iPad that I have, I will read off a list of bands for everybody to get super excited about. But I think while I'm doing this, the thing I'm most excited for is that Meeker Days is unique in the fact that it is a free family event. You don't have to pay to get in. And there is a lot to do for free wandering through our town and enjoying especially the 10 parklets that are going to be. But there's a lot more for family to do and to gather and to come and be, and I'm very excited about that.

And there's my library. Okay. To name some bands. On the main stage, Danny Vernon and the is it the DeVille's? Do you know them, Deputy Mayor Johnson? Okay. Because he's the man that loves music around here, so that's why I deferred. The Broham, Washed in Black, Queen Mother, Groove Nation that's just on Saturday. On Friday, hope I please don't get mad at me for not saying your band names correctly. Po'Ocalia Street Band, Saltwater Sky, Spike and the Impalers.

That sounds intense. And then on Sunday, the Duvanos, '90s Rewind, and Evo Floyd. We're going to bring back some Pink Floyd to close out Meeker days. So that's just on the main stage. On the other stages, they have incredible so anyway, all that to say, they're winding up. It's going to be incredible. Get ready to have a free family fun event come and play in Puyallup.

What dates?

You you would ask me that, and I'll be honest with my brain. Okay, so we have 06/12/1314. Hopefully. I don't know. We'll do some prayers for that one. With that, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to report. And I will turn off my mic.

Council Member Kastema.

I'll pass this evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Well, thank you, Mayor. I don't think I have anything to say other than I do want to give a shout out to Marla, because she's always watching these. So hi, Marla. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. I have a report tonight. I participate on the elected leadership group of the united of the Unified Regional Authority, for Pierce County on on homelessness. And this project has been going on for some time now. We're a little over a year into the process, and we're getting to the point where some consideration and action may be required by the city council.

And just this past week, there was a document distributed that would commit us to doing certain things in support of the Unified Regional Authority on Homelessness. And this is something that I'm bringing back to you for counsel input on. I have not yet distributed it, but I will shoot it out to you tonight. And I would appreciate everybody looking it over and weighing in on it. Basically, the Unified Regional Authority is looking like at this point is two people, a director and one assistant, possibly two, would be embedded in the Pierce County government organization, but would be directed by a separate board made up of elected leaders from around the county.

And the funding for these, it's really a pretty small group, not a whole heck of a lot of overhead. The cost countywide is looking like about $600,000 So, there are two competing proposals on the slate for our board meeting tomorrow, our elected leadership group meeting tomorrow. One is funded entirely by Pierce County and the City Of Tacoma. The other is, spreads the cost over all of the jurisdictions that we're participating, And the proposal is that the amount for Puyallup would be about 18,000 under that option. So, I bring that before you.

I will shoot that out tonight so that you can look it over. And I would appreciate your input as quickly as possible so I can respond to that appropriately. So that is my report. And with that, meeting adjourned.