City Council - Regular Meeting

And, you know, they get here at 9 a.m. for a Saturday game, and it just takes time to set up, and they put a lot of effort into it, and there's a reason it looks as good as it does.

Scott goes, Scott goes, going to go up, get down!

A live broadcast is just a lot of teamwork between a whole bunch of different people. We have our announcers who will announce the game and try and fill the dead spaces. And then that can't be done without our amazing camera operators who get every single shot and instinctively know what we want to see. And then our directors and graphics, they know what to expect from those camera operators.

just the replay guys who know what they're doing every time i put on the headset i'm trying to make it an understandable broadcast i'm trying to speak clearly and but that's the game and he's pulled by horn event up ahead to woodard to edwards back to woodard woodard puts up a three yes

I'm really proud of it. I really love that I get to do this. You know, I never thought I was going to be able to do this. When I was in eighth grade, you could ask me and I would have thought I would have been in the student section every game, you know. But this is a different type of help, like cheering on my team to me. I feel like, you know, I get to show what the Bombers are doing to everyone.

Oh, so proud. We hold ourselves to a high esteem.

standard here to try and give the best quality we can i'm extremely proud we have thousands of people tuning in for each uh game and it's just like they wouldn't be doing that if we weren't putting out a good product so we're all very proud of the hard work that we have

I'll have many people come up to me after basketball or football games and be like, love what you do and it just helps out everybody. I've had people tell me that they have family members who live in Arizona and can't watch it, but Atomic TV gives them the ability to watch their family members compete and let's say the band or the student section kind of see them.

What if the experience of downtown Richland was safer, simpler, and more enjoyable? That's the vision behind the Downtown Loop, a project that will reconfigure George Washington Way and Jadwin Avenue into a one-way couplet between Jadwin Avenue and Simon Street. The downtown loop includes barrier-separated two-way bike lanes, wider sidewalks, on-street parking, upgraded lighting, and improved pedestrian crossings, all designed to protect and enhance your downtown travel experience. But it's more than just transportation. The Downtown Loop will create a more vibrant, welcoming place that supports local businesses and encourages people to connect. The Downtown Loop is the result of years of planning, research and community conversations. By making the area more accessible and inviting, we're investing in a safe, integrated community and a strong local economy. Step into the future of Richland today. Stay up to date, explore resources and get the scoop on the loop at the downtown loop dot com.

Hi, I'm Carlo D'Alessandro, Public Works Director for the City of Richland. I'd like to give you a quick update on the transportation improvements underway in the Queensgate and Dupertale Street area, one of the City's busiest and fastest growing commercial corridors. We've had long-term plans to make several key upgrades in this area. With the continued growth in the Queensgate District and new commercial developments like Costco, the need for these improvements has become more pressing. As part of that growth, when Cosco submitted its permit and paid the required transportation impact fees, it kicked off the funding process for this project. We moved quickly to secure an additional $5 million to fully fund the project in less than a year. The city began design in spring of 2025. This $5.2 million construction project includes intersection improvements and traffic flow upgrades to support both current and future volumes in this area. Our goal is to reduce congestion, improve safety, and support business access as development continues. Improvements include roundabouts at the Dupertale-Kennedy intersection, Dupertale-Vintner Square driveway intersection, widening of the Queensgate and Dupertale intersection, and a median to control access between Kingsgate and...

welcome everyone to the regular city council meeting may 5th 2026 tonight we have a prepared agenda but we're also going to have a lot of fun so appreciate everybody being here it's a beautiful evening and you've taken time to be with us and we are appreciative of that so first off could we have a roll call

We'll begin with Mayor Richardson. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke. Present. Council Member Holton. Here. Council Member Jones. Here. Council Member Meyer.

Here.

Council Member Samuel.

Here.

Council Member Whitten.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you. And I've asked Council Member Samuel to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. The first item on our agenda is a presentation with the Hanford High School Cheer Team, 2026 USA Spirit National Champions, and reading a proclamation. But before I do that, they will come forward and show us what they do.

Hey, all you fucker fans, let me see you fucker fans, pop them, pop them. Now that you got the deep, let me see you suck your feet, pop them, pop them. Now that you got the groove, let me see your body move, ha-oo-ha, ha-ha, ha-oo-ha, ha-ha. Hey, all you fucker fans, let me see you fucker fans, pop them, pop them. Now that you've got that beat, let me hear you stomp your feet. Stomp them. Stomp them. Now that you've got that groove, let me see your body move.

Ah-woo-ah, ah-ah, ah-woo-ah, ah-ah.

Yes, please stay up here and we'll go through the proclamation. How much fun, you guys. See, already you've added a lot to our meeting tonight. Let's face the crowd going this way. And Coach, could I call you forward too? Kim Mayer, how long have you been coaching these gals?

I'm embarrassed to say. I've been coaching almost 40 years.

What? Yeah, I know. You don't look that old. No, you must have started when you were 12 or 10 years old. Yes. Oh, 13. Okay, got it. Well, I've asked if you would be our spokesperson to just give us an idea of what it took to get there to be national champions. Could you share a little bit? I'd love to.

Okay, so, oh, I had that coach's voice. First of all, thank you so much for having us, to everyone for having us. It's such an honor and it's such a privilege and I'm so happy for these girls who deserve all these accolades because they work so hard. Our school, especially our cheer team, is rich with tradition and legacy and so these girls understand the legacy and they pick that torch up every year and they carry it with pride. Pressure is a privilege and they understand that. So this is our fifth national title since I've been at Hanford, well, in Hanford's history. And we've won 16 state titles and one world title. And these girls in particular have worked so hard. And like every team, they have adversity and they have to overcome illnesses and injuries and everything else. But we are that team that doesn't make excuses. We just say, so what now what? And so these girls have worked so hard. We had to change so many things before we went to nationals. And the one that we worked the hardest on with the most changes is the one that we won the national title with, which is kind of ironic. So these are amazing girls. We practice year round. I think we get a few weeks off. We just had tryouts again. And they practice every day. We cheer Friday and Saturday nights during basketball. We cheer Friday nights. We cheer all home and away basketball and football. But these are probably, in my opinion, the best athletes ever. dedicated, committed, gritty. They are amazing young ladies. And the best thing is when they leave our program, they'll leave with a whole lot more than just some sideline cheers. They'll leave with a lot of confidence, with leadership skills, with knowing how to deal with adversity, and they'll be incredibly resilient. So we're sending seven of our seniors off to college next year, and we're super proud of them. And then the rest of them will be returning for next year in hopes that we might be back. But anyway, so yeah, it's an amazing team. And parents.

Yes, parents who have dedicated years of time and practicing with everybody. And you guys are amazing athletes, and you don't get all that recognition all the time, but it's there, and you're learning some great life skills. So with all that, I'd like to read this proclamation, and then I'll hand it off to the coach to have. So this is our privilege to have you guys here tonight. Whereas the Hanford High School cheer team achieved national recognition by earning a USA Spirit National Championship title in the game day fight song medium category, and whereas the team competed against 11 teams from across the nation and earned an outstanding final score of 96.9, demonstrating exceptional precision, energy, and teamwork. And whereas, in addition to securing a national championship title, the team achieved a fourth place finish in multiple categories, including game day chant, band chant, varsity show cheer advanced non-tumbling, and game day situational sideline cheer. And whereas the competition took place in Anaheim, California, where the student athletes proudly represented the Richland community with excellence, discipline, sportsmanship, and incredible athleticism. And whereas accomplishments of the Hanford High School Cheer Team reflects countless hours of dedication, strong leadership, and commitment to teamwork and performance. And whereas the City of Richland recognizes the importance of celebrating the achievements of youth in a positive example they set for the community. I now, Teresa Richardson, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Richland, Washington, do hereby recognize and celebrate the Hanford High School cheer team for their outstanding achievement in winning a USA Spirit National Championship and commend the student athletes, coaches, and supporters for bringing pride and distinction to the city of Richland. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll get a picture of this.

You guys want to come in? Yeah. Scooch in.

Can you fit us all in? I've never been in the picture.

Is that right? It's not my thing. It's 40 years. Yeah, I know.

Thank you so much. One more picture. Oh, sorry. One more picture of Grandpa.

Your paparazzi. We couldn't do it without them. Yeah.

Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you for all being here. And now it's time to introduce the video narrated by Human Resources Director Lacey Paulson.

We would like to recognize our new employees that were hired during April. On April 15th, Samantha Sainz-Ramigue was hired as a Customer Service Associate with the Solid Waste Disposal Division. On April 27th, we had two new hires. Guillermo Correa-Plata was hired as a Utility Crafts Worker with the Water Maintenance Division, and Katie Eli was hired as a Customer Service Representative with the Customer Service Division. Welcome new hires to the city of Richland. We have one service retirement to recognize this evening. On April 8th, Fire Battalion Chief Brenda Rogers retired after 34 years of service with the city. Congratulations on your retirement and thank you for your many years of public service.

That's a nice picture of Brenda Rogers, and I know that she's out golfing a lot already, so good for her. We don't have anything for public hearing at this time, but we are open for public comments. Clerk Rogers, would you read the script?

The purpose of a public comment period is to give the audience an opportunity to provide comments to City Council regarding agenda items or other topics. This process is an official on-the-record communication intended to provide City Council with information and opinions to consider in its decision-making process. While Council welcomes hearing from you, please know that the public comment process is not designed for interactive dialogue with Council members or for posing questions expecting an immediate response. Many questions require an opportunity for research and deliberation. For this reason, council will not provide immediate responses to comments, questions, or concerns. To provide an orderly process, audience members who wish to speak should raise your hand and wait to be acknowledged by the mayor, approach the lectern when invited to do so, begin by clearly stating your name and the city you reside in before speaking, and after speaking, please write your name and address on the speaker sign-in sheet. To ensure every participant an opportunity to be heard, each speaker will be limited to two minutes to present their comments. The time prompter placed on the lectern will alert each speaker with an amber light when 15 seconds remain. To signal the end of a speaker's time to speak, a red light will flash and a buzzer will sound. In the interest of running an orderly meeting, Council asks that you do not duplicate comments made by a previous speaker. Instead, please confirm your agreement with statements previously made. And please note that if a speaker intends to give Council members records of any kind as part of a presentation, the records must be submitted to the City Clerk for distribution. When appropriate, the Mayor may refer topics identified to the City Manager for further action. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak? Please raise your hand, and I'll call on you. There's someone in the back row with the hat on, please. Come forward. Thank you. At the microphone.

Okay, so what, start now?

Yes, start with your name and if you're a Richland resident.

Yeah, my name's Johnny Epperson. I live in Richland. I came here to complain about the one-way street that you're talking about building. I think it's a stupid idea because I think one-way streets, you know, they make traffic go faster. If you want to make traffic go slower, it just doesn't make any sense. It's going to hurt the businesses there. Because one-way streets, they're pretty much just an express lane through one part of the city that nobody really wants to stop at. And I heard from one of you guys just now that you're going to be paying money to some of these businesses to compensate them in case their business does do worse, which is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. And it's going to cost $25 million. You can spend that on something better. You know, I like it when I see new streets. I like it when I see new apartment buildings. And I like to see the city expanding. I want to see new stuff. I don't want to see stuff that's already there being sabotaged. And I heard you were fiscally responsible. I don't think this is fiscally responsible at all. I think this is going back on... on that idea if that's what you guys are really about. And I hear a lot of, you know, and one of you guys said it's about identity. I don't even know what that means. It sounds like a teenager going through a goth phase or something. I want real substantial objective things to be on the budget. I don't want these weird ideas about identity. And It just goes back to the government doesn't have to make sense, so we're going to have to make it make sense. This is just Hamlin's razor. I heard a lot of weird conspiracy theories about why you guys are doing this. It just shows that it doesn't make any sense. You're just doing something that just doesn't make any sense.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Yes, right there on the side.

Hello. My name is Jamie, and I am a Richland resident. Today, I am here requesting transparency with the several proposed data center projects in Richland. Jamie, would you mind sharing your last name, please? Oh, Stay Rook. There is virtually no clarity on how, why, and when the zoning changed to allow for data centers in this area. My fear is that we will be stuck in... that these will be snuck in before residents are aware of the many downsides. Data centers are gluttons for water and electricity. It is a very high probability the proposed data centers will consume more than the entire city itself. How will we ensure that we have enough water? Will Richland residents be paying for the infrastructure upgrades that will be needed to keep up with this consumption? More important than money is the physical well-being of the Richland residents whom you were sworn in to protect. Have you asked for our input? Why wasn't this put on a ballot? An older-style metadata center in Georgia has left its neighbors with brown water. The new closed-loop system also has risks, as we have noted in Boardman, Oregon. Per Caleb Lay of Oregon Rural Action, a data center uses water to cool electronics. The hot water is left to further cool in piping. This system further concentrates contaminants in the water. Specific to Morrill County, the water was piped into a local facility for treatment, but obviously it seeped into the ground, hence the lawsuit. How can Richland avoid the same poisoning? What would our plan be for treatment of dirty data center water? full of anti-scaling agents, anti-corrosives, and biocides. Is the plan to dump the dirty water into the river as the EPA allows in Ohio? Will it be piped to our local facilities for treatment? How will we keep up and how will we ensure in 10 to 20 years these chemicals will not make us all sick? Before these projects move any further, Richland residents deserve the following. Long-term environmental assessments and health impact assessments done by a third party, not like in Quincy where their air quality assessment was paid for and conducted by Microsoft. That is like giving a child an eraser to grade their own final exam. Thank you.

Thank you, Jamie. Anyone else desiring to speak tonight? Yes, Mr. Muniz.

Good evening. My name's Edward Munoz. I live in Richland. And I just wanted to remind the council about the house on Poland. I know there's a bunch of stuff going on in the background that most people don't see, but that place has become a fire hazard, a health hazard. It's encroaching. The mess is encroaching on the neighbor's property and the sidewalk and the street. I just drove by there the other day and there's actually pallets of garbage ending up on the roadway. So I wanted to remind you all that that needs to be dealt with. One of my neighbors had a dilapidated car sitting next to his house and the Code enforcement came out and forced him to remove the car. It's one car. It's not eight cars and four motorhomes and four boats and 50 pallets worth of garbage in his yard. It was one car. And they forced him to remove it under threat of fines. And I don't understand what's happening there. That property needs to be cleaned up. I don't know what you need to do to make that happen, but it's becoming an eyesore and a So please do something about that. That's really getting to be an issue that people are looking at the city and going, well, what the hell is going on here? Why isn't that being dealt with? So I know there's stuff happening in the background. There's lawsuits, there's other stuff happening, but this needs to happen soon because it's becoming a problem. There's rats, there's other issues happening there. And as citizens here that we pay taxes, we want that dealt with, okay? Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? I don't see any further comments. So, Clerk Rogers, would you please read the consent calendar?

Items on the consent calendar have been distributed to the City Council in advance for reading and study, are considered to be routine, and will be enacted by one motion of the Council with no discussion. Council members may transfer individual items to items of business for deliberation before voting. Starting with the minutes, we have the approval of the April 21, 2026 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes and the April 28, 2026 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes. There are no ordinances for first reading on tonight's agenda. Ordinances for second reading and passage include Ordinance No. 202610, amending Chapter 2.04 of the Richland Municipal Code related to the Administrative Code. Under Resolutions for Adoption, we have Resolution No. 202662, authorizing a First Amendment to the Infrastructure Agreement with Tap-Till Properties, LLC, related to stormwater conveyance. Resolution number 202663, authorizing a consultant agreement with Control Systems Northwest LLC for the Water and Wastewater Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System Replacement Project. Resolution number 202664, authorizing change order number 5 with Ellison Earthworks LLC for the South George Washington Way Intersection Improvements Project. Resolution number 202665, authorizing a purchase and sale agreement for 1300 George Washington Way in support of the Downtown Connectivity Improvements Project. Resolution number 202666, authorizing a consultant agreement with Control Systems Northwest LLC for on-call SCADA system services and operational technology cybersecurity support. Resolution number 202667, awarding a construction contract to Granite Construction Company for the 2025 overlay project. And then lastly, under items for approval, we have the appointment of Ken Buechler to the Board of Adjustment. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmembers, is there any item that you would like to pull for further discussion? Seeing none, could I have a motion and a second to approve this consent calendar? I so move.

Seconded.

Thank you. And a roll call vote is required.

Mayor Richardson. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke. Aye. Council Member Holton. Aye. Council Member Jones. Yes. Council Member Meyer.

Aye.

Council Member Samuel. Aye. Council Member Winton. Aye. Thank you.

Thank you. And the vote passes unanimously. Thank you, and the vote passes unanimously. Next is item of business, Richland Police Department Annual Report, presented by our Chief Pilcher.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Council. I'm Marty Pilcher, Richmond Police. Thank you for the opportunity to present the Richmond Police 2025 Annual Report. I will be providing information on RPD's activities in 2025 and conclude with a 2026 update on some current projects. Before I go further, I did want to thank whoever finalized the agenda tonight. Originally, I was scheduled to follow immediately after the cheer squad, and as being a less than scintillating speaker, I thought that would be a very difficult act to follow, so I appreciate the change.

Chief, as you're getting ready to present here, may I ask, do you want to receive questions as you're presenting, or would you rather that we waited until the very end?

I appreciate it either way, but as I proceed, that allows me to stay more focused on which slide I'm on and everything. So however council members would like to address it.

All right, thank you.

The structure of RPD has remained mostly unchanged during 2025, with the organization continuing to be separated into three primary divisions, as you can see on the slide. These are investigations, operations, and professional staff. The only changes were the movement of the traffic unit to operations and the SROs school resource officers to investigations. In my experience both units are closely aligned with the responsibilities of the divisions to which they are now assigned. staffing. In 2025, we were able to improve our sworn staffing by two officers, that is filling vacant positions, offsetting those lost due to retirement or other separations from the organizations. We did maintain full staffing of non-sworn positions. Further, the Richland Police Department did promote two lieutenants to fill vacant positions within the command staff and promoted sergeants to fill those resultant vacancies. Calls for service. It is the Richland Police Department's primary responsibility to provide service to the residents of Richland. One way we document this is by tracking our calls for service. Two-thirds of those incidents come through calls to CCOM from citizens. Approximately 25% are self-initiated by officers, with a smaller percentage coming through various referrals, often from other governmental agencies. In 2025, we saw a slight increase in calls for service, with Richmond Police Department averaging 120 calls for service a day. Use of force. The law enforcement use of force is one of the most profound examples of governmental authority. As such, it is imperative that RPD track and evaluate every use of force by our personnel. This is done not only for internal use within the agency, but also to comply with mandated state and federal reporting. In 2025, the Richmond Police Department arrested 2,236 individuals. As a result of those arrests, force was used 59 times, or slightly less than 3% of those arrests. In fact, the incidence of use of force per arrest is less than that. Multiple types of force may be used to take a subject into custody as officers escalate or de-escalate the use of force as the incident demands. An example of such an arrest would be when one officer was to point a firearm at a suspect, but then another officer uses a taser, for instance, to take the person into custody. That would be one arrest, but two uses of force. Included in the slide is a graph depicting the various types of force used in 2025 and a list of resulting injuries. Chief, what is a deuce on the graph there? That's some of our shorthand. I apologize for us using some police lingo. That is a direct impact, less lethal weapon that we use. We have two of those. One's Pepperball and one is called that. And it is a solid rubber projectile that is used to strike an individual and to get them to comply.

Okay, thank you.

NIBRS offense summary. NIBRS is the National Incident-Based Reporting System, which is an FBI-managed program that collects detailed data on each single crime occurrence, covering a wide variety of offenses, and gathers contextual information like victim-offender relationships, property loss, and location of crimes. In 2025, violent offenses dropped, while property crime did increase, with a notable exception of vehicle theft. While we saw drops in some of the all other offenses categories, we did observe some increases. Some of these categories have such small total numbers that the percent increase or decrease appears significant while the total number of incidents remains low. However, court order violations saw a 50% increase along with a significant total number of offenses. Traffic enforcement. In 2025, the Richmond Police Department conducted 7,543 traffic stops and issued 3,236 infraction citations, which was a 4% increase from 2024. On the right of the slide, you can see the breakdown in the types of citations issued, with the most common being issued for speeding. In 2025, the Richmond Police Department officers made 190 DUI arrests. RPD continues to participate in the Washington Traffic Safety Commission high visibility enforcement programming, conducting targeted enforcement for DUI, seatbelt, distracted driving, and speed violations. Collisions. While total traffic collisions increased in 2025, the number of injury collisions stayed flat. However, we had four traffic fatalities in 2025. One of these was a car striking a pedestrian. Another was a car striking a motorcycle. This collision was actually outside of our jurisdiction, but we took it on after a mutual assist request was made by WSP. Another was a car striking a bicyclist, and the fourth was a solo collision. Total traffic numbers continue to increase in the city, and the most common areas for collisions continue to be the most traveled roadways and intersections. At RPD's request, Public Works has installed auxiliary blue lights at a limited number of intersections that do assist officers conduct red light infraction enforcement at very busy intersections. Operations divisions. The operations division is supervised by Commander Chris Mason and comprises the units listed. patrol. Like any law enforcement agency, particularly municipal law enforcement agency, the patrol is the backbone of any police department. These are the individuals who, if you call on a Wednesday afternoon, they respond. Or if you call on Christmas morning, they respond. They are on duty 24-7 and respond to every call we get. that is our primary and initial response vehicle and patrol personnel continue to work on one of four teams on a rotating 12-hour shift. The Tri-City Regional SWAT Team. The SWAT Team includes personnel from many surrounding agencies, including the Richland Police Department, but also Kennewick PD, Pascoe PD, Benton County Sheriff, and others. The team's personnel responded to a total of 106 incidents, either as a full team call out, a limited call out, or just calling those personnel who were on duty at that time. Small unmanned aerial systems continues to be a very effective tool for RPD. The team's FAA licensed pilots fulfilled a wide variety of roles from assisting in the apprehension of wanted subjects and the documentation of crime and collision scenes and supporting RPD and the city of Richland in safely hosting the Ironman event. traffic unit. At times during 2025, the traffic unit was limited to only two officers from a full staffing of one sergeant and three officers. This, along with one complex collision investigation, did reduce overall enforcement activity for the unit. However, I am pleased to state that in 2026 the unit is now fully staffed. The Investigation Division is supervised by Commander Damon Jansen and is comprised of the listed units. Criminal Investigation Division, your detectives. The Criminal Investigation Division conducts follow-up on a wide range of criminal investigations from serious misdemeanors to felonies. In 2025, the unit was staffed with one sergeant and five detectives, with a sixth detective added just last month. The slide depicts the number of cases assigned, 259, the clearance rate of slightly more than 75%, and the number of search warrants authored by detectives and interviews conducted by those same detectives. Street Crimes Unit. The Street Crimes Unit is a flexible team that can direct its efforts to emerging investigations or long-standing issues. It was staffed with one sergeant and two detectives in 2025, with a third detective added just last month. The slide lists just a few of the cases SCU detectives worked or with which the unit assisted. These include gang-related criminal activity and firearms violations. School resource officers. The SRO program is a prime example of community policing. By having an officer permanently assigned to a school, the SRO develops relationships with students, faculty, parents, and neighbors. This not only assists with issues that occur within the school, but also with those issues that occur outside of the school, but have an impact on the school's daily activities. The SROs responded to over 1,300 calls for service, took over 250 reports, and provided extra security at school events, and provided specialized training to students and staff. The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is a cooperative effort between local law enforcement and federal agencies. to combat online child exploitation, including child sex abuse material, grooming, and trafficking. The task force includes one sergeant and one detective from the Richland Police Department, along with personnel from Kennewick Police Department, Benton County Sheriff, and Homeland Security. The slide indicates the number of cases investigated, 107, and the arrests that resulted from that, 38. and also lists some of the prosecutorial and I'll say just some of the prosecutorial successes the team achieved in 2025. The Professional Staff Service Division is supervised by Professional Staff Manager Christy Carper and includes a group of units that address a wide variety of responsibilities. public records. As you know, the Washington Public Records Act requires local agencies to make available a wide variety of information to the public for review. In 2025, the unit was staffed with one supervisor and two public record specialists. With the advent and incorporation of new technology, these requests have become more complex and time consuming. Further, we have seen a continued increase in the number of requests. As a result, in 2026, the unit has added one more full-time public records specialist. Police records. No matter what the Richland Police Department personnel do, those actions must be properly documented and made accessible to agencies involved in the criminal justice system, as well as other interested parties. Our police records unit fulfills this role without fail. With one supervisor and seven police records specialists, the unit produced the listed results, all the while interacting and assisting the public at RPD's service counter. Code enforcement. The code enforcement unit continues to be very active in addressing quality of life issues throughout Richland. We continue to have a very high rate of compliance with either proactive issues identified by our code enforcement officers or those issues brought to our attention by our fellow citizens. In 2025, we did observe a drop in citizen-initiated complaints and also saw a drop in our proactive cases. The change in proactive cases is attributed to the daily, focused work the officers have expended at two specific properties in Richland, one of which I am pleased to say has recently sold and is in the process of being addressed. Community relations. The ability for RPD staff, particularly sworn personnel, to interact with citizens in a non-enforcement environment is very important for both the citizens and the officers. Our community relations specialist facilitates and coordinates numerous such activities throughout the year. She also oversees the RPD social media accounts that help the Richland Police Department inform those we serve on important events and provide vital information. In 2025, RPD staff attended 68 separate events, with 21 of those being a collaboration with community groups or other organizations. As you can see on the slide, throughout the year, RPD staff, including volunteers, participate in a wide variety of events. These include the Polar Plunge, National Ride Out, the Bike Rodeo, and Shop with a Cop, and numerous others, and some that are not even listed there. In 2025, the Richland Police Department set several goals and I wanted to take an opportunity to update you on our progress in 2026. We continue to make progress on our real-time information center and drone as first responder program. We expect the drone as first responder to be installed in the coming weeks and we'll begin to test that tool as well as the real-time information center with existing staff with the intention of operating a partial schedule late in 2026 or early 2027. staffing. We currently have five officers attending the Pasco Police Academy and they are scheduled to graduate in June. This leaves RPD with five sworn openings, two of which I'm happy to say will be filled by new officers starting next Monday. We also have two more candidates in background and if all goes well with that process they should be hired in the next month. I'm scared to say it but that would leave us with one sworn opening. I hope that does not jinx it. Further, our first Citizens Academy in several years will conclude this Saturday. This coincides with our first annual Community Day open house, which will occur from noon to 3 on Saturday. I invite everybody listening and who's interested to come out. It will be more than just the police department. We will be joined by our brethren from the fire service. We'll also have numerous other organizations there. There'll be demonstrations and other things for people to do. There'll be free food and guided tours of the police facility. In 2025, we identified an officer to be our new canine handler. Officer Smith, you can see on the slide, met his new partner Cody, who you can also see on the slide, in early 2026, and the team will conclude their training and certification process in the coming weeks. As staffing allows, we intend to rejoin the Metro Drug Task Force later in 2026. And finally, in 2025, staff work diligently on the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chief accreditation process. And I am proud to state that next week at the Spring WASPIC Conference, RPD will receive its accreditation certification. And lastly, I'd just like to say thank you to Courtney Allen Grant, our crime analyst, for helping me put this together. She did most of the heavy lifting. And to all of the staff who make all of this possible. And so any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer.

What a great presentation. Thank you, Chief. The only question I had was the definition of deuce. So I'd like to open it up to the other council members for questions or comments. And I see Councilmember Holton first.

Yes, my neighbor was burglarized this past week and wondered, Is there, do they try and track these down or is this kind of a thing that is not profitable to deal with?

It depends on the other cases that the detectives are working on. If they have a high load of those that are have to do with violent criminals, those will take precedent. We do prioritize those things. On the other hand, depending on the information that can be gathered from that location, including physical evidence there or evidence of what was taken, and we can locate that, we will pursue that and make an arrest in those cases.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Jones.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I'm actually pretty impressed. This is probably the first time I've seen a presentation with a lot more data than we have seen in the past. So thank you for doing that. I think it helps us start to create a benchmark when you compare the previous years to the current year as to what has happened. Is our crime increasing or decreasing? and also to show the community how those dollars are impacting them at the end of the day because this work translates into how much they're paying into the coffers in order to keep us safe. So that's one thing I wanted to mention. The second is I was expecting to see the canine here today as an introduction, but I guess she's not quite there yet. She's not camera ready maybe.

camera ready, but we're not quite there. We were hoping for it both today and for this weekend, but truthfully, our new canine broke a tooth and had to slow the dog's training because part of that was the chew toy, and we couldn't do the training because part of that reward is the chew toy, and as Cody recovered, it wasn't able to do that, so it slowed the training just a little bit. Awesome.

And the next question, I think, at my address at the next presentation, because it tied to both of these presentations, so I think I'm going to save my other questions for that. Next.

Okay, thank you. I hope Cody is welcome to come at a later point.

Yes, everybody's excited to have him. People like the dog more than they like me, so I'm happy to have him come to these events. Thank you very much.

We thank you for all you do in our community in keeping us safe, so thank you very much. Next, we have a presentation by Chief Ost, Richland Fire and Emergency Services Annual Report.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to present the 2025 Annual Report for Richland Fire and Emergency Services. Excuse me. 2025 was a year of intentional internal investment. We prepared for a significant leadership transition across the entire organization. But what I'm most proud of is while we were doing a lot of work behind the scenes, our members never lost sight of their purpose, and that is to protect and enhance the quality of life of our community. Every decision that we made, every investment that we prioritized, every response that was delivered was centered around improving outcomes in our community. And hopefully that's what you'll see tonight reflected in this report. Throughout the year, we remained focused on five big key areas, staying connected with our community, investing in our people, enhancing service delivery, advancing community risk reduction efforts, and doing all that while remaining fiscally responsible and building long-term sustainability. This vision roadmap guided our work in 2025. One of the things we've worked to improve on is not just what we do, but how clearly we communicate. The roadmap gives us a shared framework for communication, whether we're talking internally, or if we're talking with you as council, we're all aligned on what success looks like. While aligning with the City of Richland strategic plan, it answers four simple questions for us. Where are we going? What are our priorities? What does success look like? And how do we measure that? We'll touch on all of that tonight. So we'll start with organizational sustainability and resiliency. We continue to refine our budgetary process each and every year with the focus on transparency and long-term planning. The 2025 budget increased by just 3.5%. This includes the first full year of implementing our 60-40 split with the general fund and the medical utility fund, which all of our operations personnel were split with the 60-40 split. We also saw reduced costs in the general fund, largely due to the hiring of fewer individuals than in 2024. We continue to pursue outside funding opportunities as well. In 2025, we applied for six grants and we were awarded three of them, totaling roughly $25,000. This translated into new rescue tools and transportation support bus passes for some of our more vulnerable community members. A small investment that had significant real impact in our community. We'll continue to pursue these opportunities moving forward, but we're gonna be very intentional about targeting grants that help us reach our vision. One of the more impactful behind the scene efforts was a medical utility billing audit. With the help of City of Richland customer service, we identified 189 properties throughout the city that were not being billed correctly. That represented about $133,000. That's not new revenue, it's captured revenue. Efforts like this don't always get a lot of attention, but we feel that they're critical to maintaining a sustainable long-term system. Now we'll jump into service delivery. This map just shows the location of our six fire stations and the rough geographical area that they cover. In 2025, our total call volume decreased slightly by about 2.7%, but the overall story really hasn't changed. EMS continues to drive a majority of our workload. While the decrease is modest, what's important is the consistency of demand, particularly on the EMS side. This sustained demand is what drives our system design and helps us plan for the future. As you can see, 72% of our calls for service were EMS related. This heat map shows where the incidents are concentrated within the city of Richland. The larger, darker red circles indicate where a majority of the calls were located. The highest activity is around the assisted living and retirement facilities within our community. Again, this isn't just data, it's really direction. Knowing this information allows us to be better prepared as additional facilities such as these are being planned in our community. Council adopted or updated our response standards at the end of 2025. If you remember, Chief Huntington snuck in one last presentation before he retired. The previous standards, which were adopted in 2009, didn't fully reflect today's call types or our system. So this is a much better reflection of what we're trying to measure. It really gives us a more holistic view and a better foundation for decision-making. The dotted lines there represent the 90th percentile. This is what we are aiming for. This is the updated standard that the council adopted. The blue and red lines represent the median times and the gray lines represent actual 2025 numbers. As you can see, we still have some room to improve. That being said, there are some real challenges associated with this, such as increased call volume at certain stations, concurring incidents, dispatch timing, station locations, and so forth. But we really feel like we're measuring the right things at the right time now. Speaking of measuring, we're also tracking what's called unit hour utilization and individual station call volume. Unit hour utilization measures committed time on an incident for a crew and or a station. When a unit is committed to a call more than 20% of the time out of a 24 hour work period, the resource reliability begins to drop. Similarly, when a station reaches that 3,000 call volume per station, the reliability begins to decrease. So it means when the next call comes in, that unit or that station may not be available and the station, the next station or maybe two stations away has to respond to that incident. When time is critical, these delays can be life-saving. life-altering, not life-saving. These metrics are some of the most important planning tools that we have because it tells us not just how busy our system is, but really how reliable our resources are within that system. All of these data metrics are extremely important, but we don't want to just measure what we do. We want to measure the impact that we're having in our community. In 2025, the efforts of Richland Fire and Emergency Services personnel directly saved 198 lives. We define a life saved as an incident that requires life-saving intervention in that moment by EMS or within 24 hours of the receiving facility. In 2025, we had 59 life-saving medical or trauma incidents, 35 overdose reversals, 34 life-saving respiratory calls, 34 life-saving cardiac calls, and eight cardiac arrest survivors. Those are people who received early intervention, high quality CPR, rapid response, and received quality care in the hospital and were completely discharged with no deficits walking out of the hospital. This isn't accidental, it's part of the training, part of the coordination and part of the system performance, all of that working together. We're also proud to have received once again, the American Heart Association Mission Lifeline Gold Award, recognizing our cardiac care in our community. And this is just again, confirming the amazing work that our members are doing out in the field. So now I'll shift to community integration and risk reduction. Each of these metrics represents enhancing the quality of life in our community through prevention of fire or other significant incidents. In May of 2025, we added a community risk reduction specialist. This individual, his role is all about fire prevention and making sure all of our occupancies are safe, making sure the alarm systems are up to date and tested, making sure the sprinkler systems are up to date and tested. really reducing risk before emergencies ever happen. Since May, we've already seen significant impact with this individual, and we know 2026 is going to be even better with our team fully built out. Our resource navigator program continues to be one of the most impactful efforts that we'd have. This is where we start to see this evolution of EMS not just responding to a medical emergency, but preventing one from happening. Our resource navigator had 142 client referrals, utilized 86 different community partners, The Navigator also conducted weekly outreach with park rangers, partnered on a mobile health clinic that was stationed down at the Richland Community Center, coordinated a senior resource fair, secured grant funding for transportation. Those were those Ben Franklin Transit bus passes. But again, the numbers don't tell the full story. One story that has stuck out to me that I wanted to share with council was we had a community member, an elderly woman. She was struggling with anxiety, depression, substance use. She was living in a hotel, spending a bulk of her income just to stay housed. After repeated 911 calls, our crews contacted our resource navigator and put them in touch. Within 30 days, this community member was in stable housing, she was receiving the appropriate medical care, she was reconnected with family, and she was no longer relying on the 911 system for her care. That's what this program is designed to do. It's connecting the right resource to the right person at the right time, instead of utilizing the 911 system. Again, this is just one story, but it really represents a broader shift in philosophy from fire and EMS. So now we'll touch on employee growth and development. Internal investment continues to remain a top priority for our organization. The complexity of calls that we're responding to today requires a higher level of training than ever before. And our team continues to rise to the occasion. Even with limited space, our teams continue to train and improve every single day. In 2025, our members conducted countless hours of both continuing education in EMS, as well as fire based and WAC mandated training. We also certified three additional new paramedics through Columbia Basin's paramedic program, and we celebrated two more members completing college degrees. We also appointed a new member to our technical rescue team, as well as the HAZMAT liaison position. We truly have a highly educated and skilled workforce that we are proud of. We also celebrated several promotions in 2025. You got a new fire chief, we have a new deputy chief, we have two new battalion chiefs, two new captains, and four new lieutenants were promoted. Again, a lot of changes happened in 2025. Also in 2025, we hosted our first ever Officer Development Academy. We opened it to our regional partners, including our law enforcement friends. We brought in both internal and external subject matter experts, and we even had an amazing session with our very own General Mattis. Additionally, we graduated three new members from the Tri-City Regional Recruit Academy, where we partnered with Pasco and Kennewick. Speaking of partnerships, partnerships are critical in what we do. We remain committed to connecting with our community. From Tri-Cities Community Health, to PNNL, to Catholic, to the Red Cross, and many other local nonprofits, we understand that we are stronger together, and it's because of these relationships that we are able to have a far larger reaching impact on our community. We also remained active in the community with over 130 tours and other community engagements. We partnered with Richland police on a couple of flagship programs this last year, the bike rodeo and cocoa and crafts, which were wildly successful. We held our annual chain of survival events. And of course we participated in the major events here in the city like Ironman, Richland regatta, cool desert nights. Our Heart Safe program continues to be a flagship initiative, focusing on improving cardiac care, cardiac arrest survival through community preparedness. We offered 22 classes in 2025 and trained over 700 people, reaching our total of community members over 63,000 people.

It's pretty impressive.

It's all of these interactions that really build trust within the community and allow our folks to engage our community members outside of a 911 incident. We find that extremely impactful and very important. As mentioned, we also had some retirements last year. We honored four individuals representing over 129 years of service. It's 129 years of institutional knowledge that walked out the door. Very, very impactful. I've been in contact with all four of these individuals and they have all assured me that they made the right choice and they're enjoying retirement. In closing and looking ahead to 2026, we're going to continue to build an integrated, sustainable organization focusing on risk reduction, community integrated health, system reliability, and continued investment in our people. Everything we do is aimed at one outcome, creating a thriving community that is safe, healthy, and resilient. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chief, for your presentation. Very well done. Councilmembers, do we have any questions or comments? Councilmember Jones.

Yes, thank you for the presentation. So I do have some questions for you. So I didn't really see much in, you know, Really well detailed information about the wildfire readiness or in analysis or where we are. I know we have seen a lot more wildfires around the area. And I can tell you that now some insurance companies are denying property insurance for people in Tri-Cities. So I think it's important for us to really have that as part of this presentation is the risk that we're all having to deal with. Obviously, we have seen more fires. Maybe a lot of people feel that maybe it's just smoke. But fires have been more and more common in this area. And I did not see any really analysis or trend in regards to wildfires in your presentation.

Yeah, we definitely track the wildfires within the city of Richland. And the numbers have not increased. We're seeing a similar amount of wildland fires within the city of Richland pretty consistently. In our written annual report, we do touch base on the community wildfire protection plan and our fire safe program that we have. We have an annual engagement with the community where we invite community members out to... to teach them about building fire safe communities and give them resources to do just that. So there is some additional information in the written report that we'll get to you guys here shortly.

Okay. Maybe this is part of some of the presentation that you all have in that annual report, but I didn't see anything in regards to the imbalance in the fire station workload as well. Some stations have more calls to service than others. How we are addressing that issue, I didn't see that as part of this presentation. Again, it could be that you're having a different annual report to present to us where we could actually more in-depth information, but it was not part of this presentation. Is that Is this supposed to be a very brief, very superficial presentation and you're coming back with an annual report with a lot more data and metrics for us to digest?

The written annual report will be much more thorough. This was intended to just be a brief overview of what took place in 2025. Okay.

Yeah, and so one of the things that I mentioned this last year, I'm going to bring back again, so now since you're working on that annual report, same thing for the police department, is, you know, financial transparency is a big thing, especially when it comes to government. And so I would like to still be able to see the overtime reporting I think that's something that the city taxpayer needs to know. This is one of the main reasons why some cities have bad budgets right now. And I can mention a few, but I don't want to right now. But I know part of the issue is the lack of transparency when it comes to overtime. So I would like to be able to see what's the overtime usage that we do have in, I mean, numbers. The other is maybe the vehicle or equipment age and replacement. Didn't see that over here, but maybe it will be part of that annual presentation. Another one that I did not see was performance targets? Do you have any? And where are those? And have you started creating that benchmark so we know what the worst case scenario has been and where we are maybe going? So I would like to see more financial data, how that impact might pocket at the end of the day as a taxpayer to the city of Richland. is what I need to know. And I think that's not just me, that's everybody. They want to know how the work that you do every single day, how it's impacting me in my financial life. And so I would like to be able to see that at your presentation on your annual report, more financial data to actually help us understand where the money is going and how it's being utilized.

Okay, I appreciate the feedback.

Yeah, and that applies to both police and fire department as well.

Thank you. Council Member Holden.

Maybe this is under the radio project. We were in the Napa fire down in California. Very frightening experience as our cell phones went out and we just assumed we could turn on a radio and hear fire reports and road closures. But everything that we got was just rumor and extreme lack of communication of what was happening. How would you deal with communication if there were a major fire here? And is that part of the radio project, the 800 megabytes?

No, the radio project would be separate from that. That's for our responders. It's an upgraded radio communication for all fire departments across the region, moving to the 800 system, which allows interoperability with our law enforcement partners as well. From a communication standpoint, we would utilize our internal marketing team as well as BCES, our emergency management division. We have ability to do code red. We can send out text messages. We can do direct phone calls. We would utilize social media. Every media outlet that we could possibly utilize, we would do that in those types of situations.

Yeah, no phones were working, all the cell phone towers were down. And so we could call into the radio station, but almost nobody was calling into the radio station. And it didn't seem like the fire department was calling into the radio station. Just a few odd people that had, you know, ancient communication devices?

Sure. Yeah, I mean, we would attempt any kind of communication. You know, television, we would utilize radio stations. Really, any means of communicating, we would attempt to do that. So I'm not sure if that answers your question or not, but that sounds like a pretty dire situation.

It was extremely frightening to not know what was going on and what was closed and how far we could go to be in the middle of that. It's a great experience. I think everybody should live through a disaster and see what it feels like. But anyway, just so that's on your radar too, just old, old fashioned communications that are not dependent on cell phones.

Thank you. Council Member Meyer.

All right, thanks. Can you go back to the service delivery response data slide? Yep, that's the one. So these are the values that, the numbers here are the ones that we recently adopted, is that correct? Correct. Is this the entirety of that data? Are these all of the service response metrics?

No, no, there were, we broke out our call types in much more detail than what was represented here. Okay, that's what I remembered. And those, the detailed ones are in the written report. Yeah. Okay.

Can you go back one more? Yeah, you mentioned that a lot of the calls centered in North Richland were to assisted living and retirement communities. Why are they starting so many fires? I'm just kidding. I know it's EMS calls. It's the way you phrased it immediately made me.

Cooking fires.

Thank you. Council Member Van Dyke, Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

That's okay. Chief, thank you. I appreciate it. Just a couple thoughts on this. I want to be careful as a council if we ask staff for a lot of metrics. It might be good maybe to workshop ahead of time so they have an understanding of what things that we can respond to them on. Maybe some of those are more important than others, but I think that would be good either for police and fire and EMS if there's expectations we have on what those metrics those data points could be, um, maybe we, we get those ahead of time to make sure that, um, you're able to be responsive to the needs as the council of the whole on that. Um, and then I, I do think that, uh, there was, I mean, there was a reasonable breakdown in a lot of the, uh, the first, uh, quarter financial reports for both buyer and, and, and, uh, Fire, EMS, and police. And I bet Brandon can pull down just one chunk more if we need to pull down the overtime stuff. But I want to say thank you for putting this all together.

Thank you. And I'd like to just add publicly, I've enjoyed going to the Chain of Survival ceremonies and their stories and the work that EMS does. And I never thought, and I'll say this publicly, that our family would be making that kind of call and that happened. We'll be part of your 2026 number. But your people were just terrific. And it's not like I'm looking forward to the next emergency, but it's great to know we've got such great professional, caring people in our community, well-trained. They just were very good to be around. So thank you for your work. Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Alright, so that brings us to reports and comments, and we'll start off with our city manager.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Let's see. So, I failed to do a proclamation this week that I feel I should have done, because this week is Public Service Recognition Week. And we have done those on occasion, various years. And really it's to honor the people that serve the public at every level of government. I think sometimes I'm a little bit shy to do that because I'm not here to pat my own back, but I definitely want to appreciate and thank those that do the work day in and day out that represent the city of Richland and the organization. We saw two excellent examples in police and fire today. But we have over 11 departments and 600 employees that do that work. I have a little prepared statement here. Here in Richland, public service shows up in countless ways in public safety, streets, utilities, parks, planning, customer service, finance, administration, and all the behind-the-scenes work that helps keep our city moving. To the employees of the City of Richland, thank you. Thank you for your professionalism, your dedication, your care for this community, and the quiet city work you do on behalf of our residents and businesses. Richland is a better place because of your service. I think oftentimes as public servants, we often hear what went wrong in somebody's day and how We could correct or improve the situation but so much goes on behind the scenes to make sure that things operated smoothly and as efficiently as possible. And we recognize just like everyone that we're only human and we do our best and try and deliver an excellent quality of life to the best of our ability. So I want to just thank all the City of Richland employees for the work that they do. With that said, Mayor and Council, I have no other comments.

I know this is a little bit out of order, but I came across a quote today that I think just ties into what you said there that I'd like to use at this time. I hope you guys find this as encouraging as I did. The quote is from Matt Lehrman, who writes a civic leadership article. And he says, nothing works until somebody raises their hand. Not to complain, not to observe, but to step forward, take responsibility, and serve. So I think that's a perfect tie-in. At this point, let's start with Councilmember Meyer.

Not much this week other than to provide those who couldn't attend a recap of the Richland Public Library's 75th anniversary celebration. I was fortunate enough to stick around for that. It was a good event with a really good attendance. There were a lot of people there throughout the day. The hardest part was watching some of the staff who were working there have to explain what a typewriter was to some of our younger citizens. I could feel myself aging with every word. But no, overall it was a well-attended event, and I really appreciate that so many folks from around the region showed up to support the library, including a lot of folks who don't live in town, but appreciate our library anyway. So that's all I've got this time.

Thank you. Council Member Samuel.

Madam Mayor, City Council, I just want to report on a couple of activities that I've participated in this last week. I attended an open house with the City of Pasco City Council member to do a tour of Mirror Ministries' new facility over in Kennewick. If you're not familiar with Mirror Ministries, it's a non-profit set up to help underage girls who are trying to escape or recover from sex trafficking. If you're like me, you might have thought that this kind of thing doesn't really happen in our area or it doesn't happen very often. But I was really surprised to learn that Mirror Ministries helped over 250 girls in our region just last year. So it was a great tour. It's a great facility. And we're very fortunate to have a nonprofit like that and a facility like that in our region to improve our quality of health and quality of life. I attended the 75th anniversary of the Richland Public Library. That event was really well organized. Great video that was produced by our communications department. It was well organized. It was great turnout. You know, different sections of the library were turned into like mini time capsules over the seven decades of the library and how the library has had community impact. I was really struck by one of the comments that one of the library management made, which was that our library is not what you would have seen 30 or 40 years ago. Something that was academic, quiet, sterile. Today, our library is a connecting hub for our community, connecting citizens with information and with each other, which is very different than what I remember the library being. So I thought that was just an excellent activity there celebrating the 75th anniversary of the library. Finally, last night I attended at the Richland Community Center the volunteer kickoff for the 2026 Ironman 70.3 triathlon being held in Richland for the third year. It's scheduled for September 19th through the 21st. As we've discussed before, you know, the Richland event was voted as one of the number one Ironman events nationwide and in some respects worldwide by the participants. And I was fascinated by why participants rated the Richland event to be so high. The beauty of swimming and biking and running along the river through our parks and around our community was voted as one of the reasons. But the biggest reason was the spirit and energy of the volunteers and the citizens who came out to support the race and to volunteer to make that race happen. So I just think that that is just an amazing, you know, reflection on our community. Iron Man is currently looking for a sign-up, and they utilize 1,500 volunteers to make that event happen. So that's my report. Thanks.

Thank you. There's room for you. Council Member Holton.

So a rat was sighted in our neighborhood, and now there's three neighborhoods that I've heard about for rat sightings. I don't know what the deal is with rats, but if somebody can enlighten me and why we're getting rat reports, that would be helpful. I went to the Visit Tri-Cities meeting. We now have helicopter tours. They mainly cater to the tour boats, but I would love to get a helicopter tour. So they go out to the area and B Reactor, I think, and White Bluffs, so that would be quite spectacular. Flights from the airport are slightly down, but not a lot. And Richland is holding its own as far as our hotel motel tax, whereas Walla Walla is down in all categories. A lot of why we're holding our own is the popularity of the hotels around the marina, and we tend to be one of the favorite spots here to go. Attended the TCRCC luncheon, which was the legislative luncheon. There were several of us there and listened to our legislators. Staff and our legislators have been very effective at getting the funding that we've wanted for projects here. and went to the Hanford Reach Solar Project, if you haven't heard about that. So it's... You can visit the planets. They've got markers, and it's in... What's that called? In proportion to what they would be. So you can get information and see the distance that would be from the sun, which is out at the Reach. Yeah. high school teacher. I can't remember where he's taught. Oh, I think... River's Edge. River's Edge, thank you. Has been working on that for some years. It's quite the project. Attended the Chamna event, celebrating the removal of the that earthen bridge out to Bateman. And yeah, I was invited. I didn't realize that was such an honor to be invited to the Indian ceremony, and that it's been a long time since they've had something similar there. And also attended the lunch with a number of people. Yeah, for some reason I thought it would be a few local people, but there were people from Washington DC, from Corps of Engineers, fisheries, irrigation, you name it. Yeah, hugely attended. Attended the training with Sam. The rest, so I had to get the video tonight with the cheerleaders. Let's see. Sunday, I wandered down to Leslie Grove's park to the volleyball courts. Hugely attended. I didn't go to the picnic area, but more the volleyball court. Lots and lots of young people there. having a good time, well behaved. And then I went down Monday to see what it looked like Monday. And there was lots of there's lots of garbage, but a lot of it they are trying to contain. But we do seem to have not enough garbage facilities down there because there were a lot of like the huge leaf bags full of garbage that were sitting next to the garbage can. And there were some areas where they had just left a lot of beverage containers, very few alcohol, but more water bottles, so I think they could be encouraged to pick things up afterwards nicely. I did talk to a couple of young boys that were there on a jet ski and very politely informed them they're not supposed to have motorized vehicles down at Leslie Groves on that side of the island. Tomorrow, there's Hanford Community's Town Hall. Sunday, as he mentioned, there's the Police Department. And Thursday, there's a National Travel Tourism Open House. So, what's going on in our community? Thank you.

Council Member Jones.

Yeah, I have a question for the City Manager and actually maybe Carlo. So, it appears that the portal or the system to apply for permits, whether it's residential or commercial, was updated as of 2024. And some of the system, applicants were able to communicate directly with the city if they have any questions. The new system does not allow them to do that. The other was the timing. Do we have enough inspectors? It seems like applications are being submitted, but it's taken quite a bit of time for people to hear back on those applications. Same thing for the appointment. It used to be that all applications, they were able to select a time for that inspection. Now it's basically a full day. And so we'd like to find out if, you know, obviously the complaint is that the system that we had before worked really good compared to what we do have right now. The number of delays, the issues with the communication, and the timing that it's taken for some applications. So we'd like to maybe get some update on that, is to maybe, do we have enough inspectors? I know some cities around Detroit cities are having issues hiring inspectors. Is that one of our issues right now? And that is the problem why we're maybe having a delay on the response on some of the applications. And can we improve the system so we can allow those individuals that may not want to make that phone call but send an email and wait for that reply with a question, if we have the ability to do that. And same thing for the appointment. If we have the ability to have that appointment, just like the garbage people can say, you know what, I'm going to be at my house or I'm going to be able to do the inspection at this time or whatever time works for that inspector So that is just feedback that I have from some of the people that I've been talking to in regards to the new permitting system and would like to get some sort of update or news as to what we're doing to improve on that.

I would need specifics because I would say our new system is drastically better than our former system. It allows for communication with individuals. Other individuals can search any permit within the system that was not available before. I would say our number of complaints have gone down significantly and so I would like to know the specifics as to the complaint because The current system is a much better option than previously. And a lot of effort and work went into that. So if you can give me some particulars, a particular scenario. Now, if the complaint is you want to pick specific times, that's extremely difficult. Just given the workload and the number of inspections that are done, I think we do offer windows. But to be so specific as to a certain hour or time of day, I don't think is tenable at this time. While we might have had a little bit of turnover at the inspector, uh position it's not something where we are significantly behind and or have fallen behind i think we've improved in our turnaround time on permits and so forth so if you could get me some particulars that would be helpful thank you council member whitton

I was unfortunately unable to make the 75th anniversary of the library, but I'm glad to hear that it was a well put together and well attended event. I was able to get to the Hanford Reach planetary presentation a little bit late coming out of work, but that was also a really cool experience. It's awesome to see the size of the solar system at scale for reference. The center of the display is the solar complex there at the reach. And Jupiter has two markers that I am aware of. One of them is on the opposite side of the Blue Bridge, and the other one's at Howard Amen. And that's just the fifth furthest planet. There's three planets that are further than that. And there's going to be more markers around town between Richland and Kennewick and different places. So I'm really looking forward to seeing that expand. educate people on the size of the solar system. It's really interesting. That's all I've got.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

Just one thing I wanted to welcome. I think Chad Goodhue, I think it's his first meeting. He's a new member of our executive leadership team as our IT director. Welcome. That's all.

That's all. OK. I'd like to report about the ECA conference, Energy Community Alliance, and just encourage other council members, if you're interested in attending, I know that you get emails in your boxes, and if you'd like to ask me about it. So this conference was put together by communities that deal with nuclear legacy waste around the country. comparing ideas and thoughts and working with people together. So there's always been an element of waste involved with these conferences. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm sure you've been to conferences and you're wondering why am I here. kind of thing well this one was especially good and that they're talking about new nuclear opportunities was able to meet with the important people involved with that work and find out how many of them already have presence here in Richland, but then reaching out to others. So it's really worthwhile in that respect. I also learned that there's actually a market to resell nuclear waste. That was news to me and met some people that are actually received a grant to go to be involved with nuclear waste and going on the next Artemis flight. So fascinating. Very smart people. They also had a discussion about databases. So it was really interesting to talk to the people who are building them and other communities that are involved with that and just learning the details that I won't go into here. But that was really a fascinating conference. I think the next one is in September in Washington, DC. So pay attention to that. The expenses are covered by DOE. It's not pulled out of our budget, so that's an added bonus. And consider being involved with that. Also had an unusual request that was just really delightful in that a couple locally asked for a letter from the mayor. They're celebrating their 50th anniversary and so I was delighted to reach out to them. I'd never met them before but I just wanted to give them a shout out because in our community that we know that reaching that milestone is not easy and rare and so it was just really good to connect with them. They've been in Richland their lives and graduated from Richland High School. And so their names are Art and Leslie Kelly. So if you know that couple and you see them, tell them congratulations. I have a letter for them that I'll drop off at their house. Their anniversary was May Day, May 1st. So that's it for me, and thank you for being here tonight. It is now 7.31, and this meeting is adjourned.