City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right, the time is 6 p.m. We will go ahead and get started with our study session on legacy standards. Staff, take it away.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council. So for tonight's study session, I'm going to be presenting on the topic of legacy standards as they relate to land use and development. We have just kind of a brief presentation where we'll be covering the following areas. And there will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. If you do have questions during the study session, though, please feel free to let me know, and I'm happy to pause to answer those. So we have to start with a bit of history. And for this, I'm going to ask you to roll back a few decades to the 90s. some great years, brought us a lot of good things. The 90s gave us Beanie Babies, if anybody remembers that. We also got the Macarena from the 90s. The World Wide Web was launched in the 90s, as well as the premiere of Friends and Grunge and Alternative Rock. But the 90s also marked a period of significant evolution and debate in the land use planning across the United States within both practice and policy frameworks. And we saw notable changes for us here in Washington state the growth management act that was enacted in April of 1990 was a landmark shift in washington's land use regulation. And another movement that influence aspects of urban planning was new urbanism. This started in the early 80s as a response to the negative effects of post-World War II suburban sprawl. And the urban design movement promoted more walkable, mixed-use, and sustainable communities in place of what we were used to, which were the tract housing, where garages projected out in front of the home, and things were just functionally designed around the automobile. So you saw wider streets, you saw parking lots in front of shopping centers, as you see in those images there in front of you. Some of the focuses of new urbanism was more walkability to daily needs, shops, schools, parks within a five to 10 minute walk. Mixed use developments where you saw a blend of residential, commercial, recreation integrated in a multifunctional neighborhood. More diverse housing options, so more of a range of types of housing and affordability levels. Sustainable practices such as green building, preservation of open spaces. And with that, we have a little background. So the definition of legacy is something that is part of your history that remains from an earlier time. And for Battleground, this began in February of 98, when city council held a retreat at which they identified the desire to set a new standard for development within the city of Battleground. From this idea emerged the concept of adopting development standards that assure that developments that occur in the city leave a legacy for our future. Through discussions, workshops, retreats, and hearings, several of the guiding objectives emerged. They included establishing a baseline standard for new development, recognizing our existing community identity, recognizing that there's multiple modes of transportation, not just automobiles, encouraging multiple uses of the street system, enhancing our natural environment, improving our neighborhood livability, providing and preserving the opportunity to establish and maintain open spaces and create incentive systems, options, and opportunities for new developments to implement desirable design elements. Ordinance number 9904, establishing these new legacy development standards was adopted on March 15th of 1999. I'm just going to on a few slides quickly highlight some of the areas kind of broken down by groupings. So the first one we're going to look at is streets and roads. And one of the very first changes right out of the gate is the title changed of this chapter from streets and roads to transportation standards. And the reason for that was to recognize there are more forms of transportation in the city than just automobiles. The other things we saw in this area were enhanced streetscapes, addition of street trees, landscapings and detached sidewalks, enhanced interconnectivity between neighborhoods and pedestrian, more variety in street types and graphically based standards, which there's an example on this slide in the bottom right corner of kind of the illustration of a specific street type, the dimensions, etc. We introduced traffic calming for neighborhoods. The idea of alleys was introduced. We added a trail standard. We eliminated double and triple frontage lots. We eliminated cul-de-sacs as a standard development option. And there was the encouraging of on-street parking. The next area we'll look at is residential standards. And these new residential standards were intended to incorporate the city's existing zoning districts with existing and new standards with a focus on location, variety and compatibility. we saw dimensional standards including an average building envelope to create the balance between the size of a lot and the building size and we also saw a change in minimum setbacks to reduce the prominence of the garage and bring the residences closer to the street we introduced neighborhood design standards including an architectural variety and appropriate transitioning between uses to create compatibility and continuity We added the parks recreation and open space section to help implement our pros plan and work with developers to site and create park facilities that are in close proximity to existing and new residential neighborhoods. We also introduced design standards for those new park facilities and we added the concept of neighborhood retail. Then we're going to focus on some non residential development changes, and these are reflective of the city's increased emphasis on higher quality more Community supportive development that is tied to the overall emphasis on creating a legacy for the future generations. We again introduced some design standards. These included automotive circulation, parking, pedestrian infrastructure, site design, and then architectural and building design. We added buffering standards. We enhanced our parking lot design standard. It includes now screening, wheel stops, and parking lot landscaping. We also shifted where the parking lot would be located in relationship to the buildings and we clarified the different type of site plan reviews and submittal requirements. So I told you it was very brief. But in conclusion, the goal of establishing these legacy standards was to find that balance and help create a livable, walkable, sustainable community that balances our social, economic, environmental needs. And I'd like to open it up to any questions or discussion on the topic.

I have a question. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you. So if we go back, it looks like, I'm trying to understand the timing of the changes. So it started in 1998. Correct.

So the 90s just saw shifts in land use planning and design. And for battlegrounds specifically, it kind of the effort started in 98, early 98, with the ordinance adopting these new legacy standards being signed in March of 99.

So are these standards

they have been updated since then or they're the same as they were when you did them in 98 great question so i would say the the bones are still there in our current bgmc battleground municipal code um we do update usually annually um either to enhance from a city perspective or in response to state local regulations. So yeah, a lot of the framework that was adopted in 1999 still exists today in our development code.

So based on where the code sits now, where the standards sit now, and your expertise, you've been at this a long time, you act, you obviously interact with other peers in other cities, would you say that we are progressive enough? Are we behind? Where do we sit from considering the changes that continue to come in the city and just how the economy changes? what what the needs are what the plans are i saw the picture of battleground village and i remember visiting there when it was first developed and now when i drive through all the cars are out on the street um and because people use their garages for their belongings rather than parking and you know we have a lot of that going on where we have congestion in the streets. And so I'm just curious, where are we in terms of evolving to support the growth management planning and then support what is actually true for our city?

I think that's a great question. I think we're positioned very well and we're responsive. Part of the balance that I talked about is staying true to our community, kind of a bedroom community, but also being compliant. You mentioned the Growth Management Act. I had a slide on it, but I took it out because I wanted you all to stay awake. But that is continuing to evolve. And currently there are 15 goals or elements that we have to make sure we are compliant with. So the comprehensive planning, process which we are currently under and that's that 20-year blueprint for your community to accommodate growth we revisit it every 10 years so we're getting ready to adopt our newest iteration and i would say i think a lot of the changes that we're incorporating accommodate the gma growth management act comprehensive planning So, I think we're doing well. You mentioned Battleground Village. That's a good example. So, when these legacy standards were adopted in 1999, there was a section about planned unit developments or PUDs, and Battleground Village was one of those developments where the design requirements or the approvals maybe looked a little bit different. opportunity or section of our code no longer exists. So that's a good example of us kind of staying current or making adjustments to try and facilitate what makes the most sense for our community, but also being compliant.

Thank you.

Seven or eight years ago, there was a subdivision built north of Parkview Trails, just south of Daybreak. And you might remember I brought up that we had, well, you weren't here, but Shane might remember I brought up, we had some stub streets that were for future growth. And the development came in and those streets did not connect to the new neighborhood. They were interceded by green spaces. Are we looking at our... in our future where we have projected growth that we have these stub streets for future development to connect them and not let the green space of a new development get mitigated and interfere with that connecting street so you don't have to answer today i just kind of get go in the future with it 23rd and 27th avenue maybe marks want to chime in on this

Yeah, I'm going to ask Mark to comment on this.

So with these legacy standards and with those kinds of developments, are we looking at how to avoid that issue again so that we don't have these stubbed streets that we have to maintain that really don't serve any purpose?

Yeah, so the code on that particular issue hasn't really changed since 99. And the issue over there is wetlands. So when a development comes in, they put, essentially we required like the Stub Street about every 500 feet, depending on how everything lays out. And in that particular case, the Parkview Trails met it when the project to the north of it came in, those areas ended up being wetlands. And that's one of the things where the wetland standards kind of change over time. And so that particular, those couple of streets just got caught up and, you know, it made sense to have a cross connection there, but, you know, in the future when that project came in, it ended up being wetlands. So our code would require, you know, if there weren't wetlands, parks, stormwater, those sorts of things couldn't block the road from going through. Wetlands is the one kind of thing that trumps that we can't do much about just because of state and federal regulations.

Right. so one of the questions i asked back then and and i don't know that we ever really resolved or got an answer to it was on situations like that where we have these stub sheets that are not built we can't build through um i asked the question are we able to then sell that property to the adjacent property owners so that we don't have to do maintenance of asphalt concrete uh other components to it since it's not usable property what did we ever figure out about that

Yeah, so there's a section in the code. Council has authority to do road or street vacations. There are utilities in those roads, so that would be the first thing to confirm. If there's utilities that aren't used, those obviously could be removed. If there's utilities that are used, they can get an easement in exchange. And so that right away can go away. And essentially it's 50-50 to the two abutting property owners. There's rules about what they have to purchase and those sorts of things, but very much allowed in state law and our code. So there is a mechanism that property owners can approach the city with. Okay, cool. Thank you. And I think even the city, if they want to, can drive the vacation. I don't think it necessarily has to be a request. It's typically a request, but I believe the city can drive that.

I know these are extreme on the one offs. It's just that that was one that really kind of stuck out back then. And as we grow west, hopefully we can avoid that. I understand the changing laws for wetlands, but I hate dead ends as well.

So it drives me crazy. But yeah, I think we have solutions for it. All right. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Kristen.

It's almost like a dead end can turn into a cul-de-sac.

Which we don't really want you to do.

We don't talk about cul-de-sacs and roundabouts. Kristen, for council and the people listening out there and at home, can you explain a little more in detail neighborhood retail? The concept, I generally understand it, but I think more detail could be given. And then maybe...

an example of that that we have currently in battleground yeah absolutely um so we introduced this idea of a neighborhood retail zone and the idea is to locate certain types of commercial uses within a residential district to provide necessary services within close proximity so again kind of promoting the idea of walkable or You could bike there to get some groceries. Some examples at the time were groceries, restaurants not exceeding 1,000 square feet. Currently, if you look at our neighborhood commercial zone, it allows for daycares, medical clinics. So again, more of low-impact uses, but ones that you would like to find nearby, kind of modern conveniences. I wish I had a zoning map. We do have a couple areas of neighborhood commercial. One example, the northwest corner that we recently annexed, there's a pocket of neighborhood commercial there. Sorry. There's a couple examples. I'm happy to send out a zoning map later. um but yeah the idea is to have these small little pockets kind of think of your corner store that you need a gallon of milk and you just walk five minutes to grab the quick gallon of milk very limited uses that are allowed in that zone that is the particular property that i had in mind as well is that annexed area that i see is zoned for that um and to my understanding neighborhood retail or

James Forrest, Norcal PTAC, he or she, Resident commercial residential and that also has some prohibitions of like drive throughs and things like that correct they're more of a walkable drive up kind of retail.

Yeah, so like currently in our downtown zone, we don't allow like drive throughs. But yeah, to your point, the neighborhood commercial zone, if you look at the use table in our current development code, very limited uses are permitted. Because again, the idea is very small scale, just some, you know, I need to pick up schools, for example, like I need to go my kid can walk to school. So specific uses that make sense located in the community versus like the hustle and bustle of a large scale retail center.

Thank you, Chris. All right. Council Member Bowman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. 5,279 days. Thank you.

Did you?

That's when I brought this up. 5,279 days ago. Sorry. No.

I didn't know that you was there then. Oh, you weren't here. My spidey senses were...

So I'm glad that we're finally talking this. I've been promised this a lot. So here's, I'm gonna give you the issues that I have. Number one, this is similar to Lake Oswego, okay? Lake Oswego runs the same standard. We're not Lake Oswego. And here's the things that have been brought to me in the last 5,279 days. We changed from sidewalks to planter strips and sidewalks. We as a council know what the planter strips have done to our sidewalks. Our community doesn't know who is in charge of the planter strips. That's the first issue that we have with this. The second issue we have with this, when we put planter strips in sidewalks, we eliminated about two and a half feet of parking in your driveway because then you're blocking ADA. So as we go through this city and we could probably go right out here tonight and see how many vehicles would not fit in the driveway now that would in 1998 when we brought this, when we implemented this. So we're making people automatically violate ADA standards if you have anything more than a midsize car in a lot of these areas. building fronting the streets so um landmark church was a good example of this we had a building that sat on the corner there we needed uh we needed to expand that street with this connecting washington and we had two options we buy out landmark churches building or we tear down wells fargo so we've we've put ourselves in a box in expansion we've limited what we can do another example of this and mark you probably remember we had a big box retailer that was this has been a few years ago a lot of years ago that was coming in out about where prather's truck storage is on five 502. they wanted to come in there we were going to require that the back of that building be at the street, the parking lot would be on the backside, what I would call the backside or the south side. So you build it right to 502, which at the time was not four lanes all the way through there. You have a major building there. The thing that it did also is, I had someone come to me that was looking at putting a restaurant in there, but because of the legacy standard and putting the back of the building there, the restaurant was going to have to go on the backside. There's no frontage. You can't see it. They said, no, we're not coming. So development is tough. If you look out here where the Barber's is in the Christie building there and on 503 right there at Shell. If we ever need to expand 503, we're tearing down buildings. We're not taking out parking lot. We're taking out buildings. And it gets really, really expensive. So what we do is we kind of hem ourselves in. And it's just a pinch point. And we don't allow for that growth. The bike lanes. I like the paths. I like all that stuff. The trees I like, but if you go into my neighborhood that was built pre this, my trees in my yard, and it's not popping a sidewalk because it's far enough away. The ones that we have are popping sidewalks, and that's become an issue. The last two... um and if you go over to the west side of town you can see this because we allow on-street parking if you look at the how tough it is to get emergency vehicles into those neighborhoods because we didn't we didn't look at family sizes because we go has a completely different family size than we have here and so when you got you know four or five people in your household three of them being teenagers they're driving mom and dad are driving these cars are parking on the street and it's making it more and more difficult for our public safety to get to them or get in there and they're parking on both sides of the street and so we've we've lowered our lot our lot sizes we've put the houses closer to the street we've allowed parking on the street we've made smaller streets so all this stuff is just you're just squeezing more and more and more in instead of so i don't think There is a livability factor to this, but I think we missed that a while ago because we didn't really think, what is Battleground? And we took a model that was Lake Oswego, Sherwood, Oregon, and we said, that's Battleground, and it's not Battleground. And so that's why I wanted to look at this a long time ago. I think there's some good things in it, but I think there's some things that we could adjust and make it a little bit... more north north county and and how that fits our community um it's it's a big lift to to change a lot of this stuff and and then you know we've already developed part of our city that way i know lighting was a big issue we changed all the lighting we went to acorn lighting so if you lived in the areas that you had acorn lighting you had a two-story house you had lights shining through your window if you live in an area that has the cobra head lighting and it's shining down it's not shining through your window we got a lot of complaints about that and so um it seemed like a good idea and i think that the intent was good but i think there's a lot of things that just don't fit battleground that we need to look at because as we continue to build we're building smaller and smaller lots that r3 lot was r5 in 1998 and so our three lots are 600 plus thousand dollars with a home on them now closer to a million dollars with a home on them now and so um don't think the livability is in my opinion quite what it should be for that and and i think that public safety probably has went down a little bit because of it especially if we look at sidewalks so um that's the stuff that i would like to look at and potentially see if we can change i don't think you throw the whole thing out but i think that there are some things that we should look at that won't cost the city as much when we have to redevelop areas and also we'll make it a little bit more livable for the people So thank you for bringing it up. I appreciate it.

I appreciate your feedback. Thank you.

Council Member McCoy. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. Back, I think it was on slide two, you mentioned something about. Sorry, is it? Anyway, something about cul-de-sacs and how we don't want cul-de-sacs. Elimination of cul-de-sacs is a standard development option. Why is that?

I might look to Mark and I are tag teaming this area because this is his expertise.

The thought back at the time was essentially to integrate neighborhoods to each other. So whenever you had a cul-de-sac, you were essentially, you know, those people kind of stay with those people and you don't mix with the next subdivision over. So the theory was that if you had cross circulation on the streets, there was just better integration between the neighborhoods.

As somebody who raised two kids in Battleground, I loved living on a cul-de-sac. and and you know especially in a neighborhood that really didn't have a park so i i really i hope that's still not in there and if it is i hope we're not discouraging it i mean it i guess to be at least neutral on it would be a nice compromise um but and i agree with most of what uh counselor bill i want to get his head to begin my degree with everything but i agree with most of what he said um and i'm just curious what does that process look like if If we wanted to make the changes that were just talked about, what does that look like? Does that involve a consultant? Does that involve, what can we legally do with how restrictive GMA is anymore? Can you just kind of give me a 30,000 foot level of what that would look like?

I mean, I think we could do it in-house. It's going to be a heavier lift. I don't want you all to think it's going to be a breeze. It needs to take time and thought. A lot of parts of our code reference other parts of our code. So sometimes when you start in one place, you create kind of a snowball effect and you need to make sure everything agrees at the end of the day. Process-wise, most of these live in chapter 17, which is our zoning section. Those would, you know, we would draft changes, we would make sure they're compliant with GMA. They also get reviewed by Washington State Department of Commerce. But we would go through planning commission, we would have public hearings, get feedback, make iterations, bring it to council, it would go through all of you for your review and approval, public hearing, etc.

similar to kind of how we just got done doing our spring battleground municipal code updates but probably a little more robust yeah like focused like a deeper dive well i wonder if it's something that we could bring back the top two things or you know and kind of you know how do you eat elephant one but one bite at a time kind of thing um and then i think the last bullet to encourage on-street parking um i Yeah, I would like to revisit that as well. I don't know why we would encourage that. I don't quite understand that. And then can you maybe explain double and triple frontage lots, and then I'll get out everybody's way.

Yes. And I had to ask, well, Mark helped me remember this, and I had to ask him for some additional clarification. So I wrote it in my notes. Please hold for a moment. Okay, so he calls this the fence canyon effect, which I really like. That's a heck of a visual. But an example is if you're going down Rasmussen between Parkway and even Grace or... Yeah, essentially Clark. Yeah. You're driving and there's fences on both sides. It feels a little narrow. And so Mark explained, and I'll let him continue to explain because he'll do a better job of it.

Yeah, so it's essentially the the visual kind of impact so that older neighborhood has both fences to the back. So when you're driving it, it literally looks like a fence Canyon where you don't have double frontage. You essentially get like what's on 20th. northwest 20th avenue parkview trails where the houses are turned the other way face front um you have an alley behind and then you have the next set of lots in the street so again whether you like it or not the thought was the aesthetic of it that that looks better to somebody driving down the road than the fence canyon

First of all, thank you guys for putting all this together and explaining our legacy standards and code. I will actually agree with both Councilmember Bowman and McCoy that it looks like it's probably time to revisit this a little bit with the scope of what is the future of Battleground and the livability of it. I love the comment, more North County. right a little bit longer driveways maybe the house set back a little bit so people with their long bed pickups can actually park in their own driveway um maybe an opportunity for a wider driveway so less people have to park on the streets are it seems like our streets and neighborhoods are getting awfully condensed and and i understand we want to have street parking don't get me wrong But it's really nice when you have friends over that they have a place to park in front of your house and so. yeah definitely I don't know if we just take chunks of this at a time, work on them in study sessions or or maybe a retreat have a an over overall look at it from a 10,000 foot view and Council has the opportunity to have discussion and pull out things that we want to look at and leave the things that seem fine.

I think from a procedural standpoint, if there's certain ones that jump out at you as ones that you'd like us to give our attention to first, I mean, we have to go through the process. So it makes sense to get the most bang for our buck that if there are some topics or areas you want us to focus on, let's do them together, get them through together, see how we like that. And then we can continue to kind of pick away at it.

John Potter, yeah, so I would look for my council's input on that i'd like to jump in on that if we if you we want to start picking away at the chunks, I think, for me, the first part we would need to look at is how we're constrained with our urban growth and what the. County and the state require of us so that we can work through those mechanisms to make the larger streets. So as developers come in, we have a better understanding what we can and can't do. So that would be one of the first things for me, I think we should tackle because I think that the housing comes after that. It just fits naturally. So if council agrees, I would, I would like to see that come up first.

I think you need to, I mean, I don't want this to be developer driven. But I think having developed, we don't develop. And so having developers have some input and say, hey, here's here's some of the things that we see, the challenges that we see. And especially because the easy land that we developed is already developed. And so it's now hard land that we're developing. How can how can that fit? How can it fit with some of the changes that we want to make, but also have the planning commission weigh in on this and. you know all of us together say hey here's some of our priorities how can we fix this because we may find out that you know we change this and we say we want to go back to an r5 lot in you know 2000 or 1998 was roughly 7 500 to 8 000 square feet right well that lot now is going to cost you know a half a million dollars for the lot so what what can we do to make it you know, still fit some of the things that we want, longer driveways, that kind of stuff, but not increase the cost to where it's just astronomical out here. And so I think that's where, not necessarily developer driven, but get some input from them. What would it cost if we did this? If we went back to, took some of these things out, went to this, what would that look like? And what would it do to our housing? So, I mean, and then the Planning Commission, I think this is a great thing for the Planning Commission to look at as well and give us another set of eyes.

Hey, real quick to the crowd out there, if there's anybody willing to give up a seat for some of our elderly folk, our beautiful young people out there, That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Okay, great. Mark and I can work with Sam to come up with some topics and start the conversation at the planning commission level. And then I like the idea of including stakeholders and planning commission, obviously the public hearings, et cetera, is a good opportunity for people to provide their input.

Yeah, I think we'll potentially get planter strips as a topic. I'm just going to guess. But thank you, Kristen. Thank you. All right. If we have no other questions, that will conclude our study session. And we will reconvene the meeting at 7 p.m.

We get it.

All right. The time is 7 p.m. On June 15th, I call this meeting of the Battleground City Council to order. Please stand with me if you are able for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God's individual law, with liberty and justice for all,

All right, Ms. Salili, if you could please call roll.

Mayor Overholzer?

Present.

Deputy Mayor Vail? Present. Council Member McCoy?

Here.

Council Member Ferrer? Present. Council Member Kuipers. Present. Council Member Bowman.

Here.

Council Member Munson.

Present.

And the Clerk is present. That concludes the roll.

All right. Thank you, Liz. Appreciate that. We'll move on to summary reports and presentations. Are there any Council Member reports this evening?

Council Member McCoy, go ahead. We had a RTC meeting. The same resolution came forward that was President Seatran. There was a motion by the campus rep to protect small cities from the cost of light rail. That motion failed, I think, by two votes. It was a pretty close vote, but that did fail. And then the resolution did pass RTC from the city of Vancouver. So that did pass. Then after that passed, I think I got my parliamentary procedure badge because then somebody wanted to reconsider what was on consent agenda. And what was on consent agenda was the transportation improvement plan, which actually programs the money for the bridge. so City Vancouver wanted to pull that off and add language in there the light rail would go to evergreen had RTC done that the bridge project would have stopped uh and that failed I think ten to one so uh i don't know i don't think there's anything currently coming forward to rtc on the bridge uh the money is programmed just waiting on if there's going to be a record decision uh the tolling piece is being done by the two committees oregon washington and rtc has some information on that if anybody's curious they have not settled on what that toll is going to be uh just a range so um but it was a motion-filled meeting but in the end not much changed the proclamation the resolution from the city of vancouver is really it doesn't really prescribe any behavior it just sets i guess you would call it policy direction so there's nothing binding with that And then I would just, for anybody that's not aware, the first stage of the bridge project, if it goes forward, will not have light rail on it. Light rail is not funded. So for anybody who's curious. If you have any questions, I can send you anything else you want.

Thank you, Council Member McCoy.

Do we have any other Council Member reports this evening?

All right. Hearing none. We will move on to the mayor's report. First, I want to announce that tonight it is my pleasure to announce our newest recipient of the Big Heart Citizen Recognition Award. The Big Heart Citizen Recognition Program honors Battleground residents, organizations, and businesses whose exceptional service, achievement, and contributions have enriched our community. By recognizing these individuals and groups, we shine a light on the everyday actions and extraordinary accomplishments that make Battleground a vibrant and connected place to call home. Recipients of this award are selected by the mayor and presented with a commemorative Big Heart stone, a lapel pin, and a certificate during a city council meeting. It is my honor to welcome Lynn Groff of Battleground Auto License as the recipient of the June 2026 Big Heart Citizen Recognition Award in recognition of her outstanding customer service to our community. And Lynn, if you could come up to the podium here. Now, Lynn was nominated by Lacey Acklin of the Department of License. And for anybody that knows Lynn, she has been the cornerstone of our being able to get our vehicles licensed, getting our tabs renewed, getting our plates. Anytime we need to do a title transfer or anything, Lynn, you've just been amazing through the years for the people of Battleground, and you actually make going in the Department of Licensing a pleasure.

Thank you.

Which is hard to say. So let me go ahead and read this certificate, and then I'll come up and present you this certificate and the award, and then we'll give you a moment to make a brief statement if you'd like. All right. So the Big Heart Certificate of Recognition presented to Lynn Groth. The city of Battleground proudly recognizes Lynn Groth of Battleground Auto Licensing for her exceptional professionalism and outstanding service to our community. The Department of Licensing is often viewed as a place people simply have to visit. But for nearly 30 years, Lynn has brought warmth, kindness, and genuine care to an otherwise routine part of everyday life. She is described as the bright spot in someone's day, with many patrons choosing to wait specifically for the opportunity to be assisted by her. People enter Battleground Auto Licensing as customers, and because of Lynn, many leave as friends. The city extends its sincere appreciation to Lynn for being a beacon of kindness in our community we congratulate or we gratefully acknowledge her distinguished service and lasting contributions to the people of battleground presented on this 15th day of june 26 by mayor eric overhauser thank you let's hear it

Just want to say thank you for 30 years of serving the public and you're all wonderful. Thank you.

All right. And we'll move on. to proclamations. First proclamation I have the pleasure of reading tonight is Ride Transit Month, June 2026. And it is my pleasure to proclaim June 2026 as Ride Transit Month. And proclamations are not statements of policy, but are a means by which the mayor can recognize an event, group, or individual. As part of the ceremonial duties of the mayor, the mayor is charged with approval of proclamations at his or her discretion and reserves the right to decline any proclamation request, as well as the right to make exceptions to these guidelines and procedures. individual council members will not issue proclamations and request for a proclamation should be directed to the mayor or the city clerk this proclamation was requested by jay house guard community engagement coordinator of ctran it's probably house guard yeah yeah C-Tran CEO Leanne Kaver and Deputy CEO Scott Patterson will be accepting the proclamation. And if you guys want to step up to the podium there to receive this proclamation, I'll read it out loud and then give you the presentation. In recognition and celebration of Battlegrounds. Whoops, almost did it again, you guys. Got them in the wrong order. Proclamation whereas see Tran is provided public transportation in Clark county since 1981 today operating local regional and express fixed route bus trans transit services. C-VAN, paratransit service, vanpool, and the current on-demand service. And whereas C-TRAN provides cost-effective, safe, and accessible public transportation that empowers the community by providing mobility options that connect them with places of employment, education, healthcare, shopping, entertainment, recreation, social, and religious function. And whereas an average public transit provides more than 100 million passenger trips in Washington each year, locally, C-Tran provided 5,280,313 transit rides in 2025, which is a 6.3% increase over 2024. And whereas C-TRAN operates Route 747 and the current door-to-door service in Battleground, supporting connections to Yakult, Vancouver, and Greater Clark County, while connecting passengers to and from areas within Battleground for work, school, doctor's appointments, and other daily needs. And whereas the current launched in Battleground in September of 25 and has seen increases in ridership since its inception. And whereas transit demand is linked to high need populations, including seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income households, transit provides essential trips and essential jobs for people living in Battleground. And whereas over 5,700 people age 18 and younger in Battleground can ride C-TRAN for free through the Youth Opportunity Program, And whereas veterans and active duty personnel in battleground can ride local C-TRAN routes for free with the Heroes Pass. And whereas up to one in four adults have a disability in battleground that may impact their ability to move from place to place in a timely manner and may make them more dependent on public transit. Now, therefore, I, Eric Overholzer, Mayor of the City of Battleground, by virtue of the authority vested in me, do hereby proclaim the month of June as Ride Transit Month. in the city of Battleground, Washington, and encourage the federal government, states, localities, schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and other applicable entities, along with the people of the United States, to observe Ride Transit Month with appropriate events and activities to promote public transportation. Thank you.

to be safe. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Mayor Oval Holzer and councils for acknowledging Ride Transit Month. As you stated, it's transit is important and makes an impact on all our communities. And we want to just highlight take this moment to highlight the importance that it makes and the impact that it makes for everyone's life. And just to encourage those that don't usually use transit to especially for the summertime when events are going on to get out and try our service and see how it works and navigate the how easy it is to navigate. Anything else? All right, that is it. Thank you again.

Thank you guys. All right, second on the proclamation list. Tonight, it is my pleasure to issue a proclamation recognizing and celebrating battlegrounds, traditional nuclear families. point of personal privilege mayor hey one second and let me be clear oh is she back again i'm going to give this as a general warning to all in the in the uh chambers i'm issuing a single warning Okay, louder coordinated demonstrations not continuous run will result in removal. And so let's just keep our cool. Let's be respectful of all parties in this room. I really don't want to do this again, guys. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and give a two-minute recess. We're gonna take a quick break. Take a breath. If I have another disruption out of you, ma'am, you will be removed from the chambers. We will reconvene at 7.17 p.m. Thank you, clerk. All right, we will reconvene the meeting. Time is 7.17. I'll start this off again. Tonight, it is my pleasure to issue a proclamation recognizing and celebrating Battleground's traditional nuclear families. This proclamation was requested by Philip Ridgway, who will be accepting the proclamation, Phillip, if you could please come to the podium and receive this proclamation. Give you guys a second. All right. in recognition and celebration of Battleground's traditional nuclear families, whereas the family, comprising a husband, a wife, and their children, stands as the oldest and most enduring institution in human civilization, predating governments, nations, and all other social structures. And whereas the traditional nuclear family serves as the foundational building block of a healthy and flourishing society, providing the first community into which All right. One more outburst and you will be removed. Providing the first community into which each child is welcomed and nurtured. And whereas fathers and mothers each bring distinct and complimentary gifts to the raising of children. Offering love, provision, discipline, guidance, and the irreplaceable example of committed marriage. And whereas children raised in stable homes with loving fathers and mothers are shown by generations of lived experience to develop strong moral character, a sense of belonging, and the resilience needed to meet life's challenges. And whereas the family home is the first and principal school where children learn the essential virtues of honesty, hard work, generosity, faith in God, and the respect for others. And whereas the bonds of family between husband and wife, between parents and children, and between siblings cultivate selfless love, sacrifice, and dedication that extend outward to strengthen neighborhoods and communities. Whereas grandparents, uncles, aunts, and extended family members enrich the nuclear family by passing down cultural heritage, family history, and timeless wisdom from one generation to the next. And whereas the commitment of marriage between a husband and wife creates a stable and enduring covenant that anchors family life and provides children with security, continuity, and belonging. And whereas families serve as the primary cultivators of values, faith, and civic virtue, producing citizens of good character upon whom a free and ordered society depends. and whereas the countless sacrifices made daily by parents in labor and sleepless nights, in consistent discipline, in patient guidance, and in unconditional love deserve acknowledgement, honor, and profound gratitude. Now therefore, I, Eric Overholzer, Mayor of the City of Battleground, By virtue of the authority vested in me, do hereby proclaim that the traditional nuclear family is celebrated and honored as a cornerstone of human flourishing, its endurance across centuries a testament to its strength, its warmth of refuge in an uncertain world, and its legacy the greatest gift one generation can bestow upon the next. I encourage all citizens to support, strengthen, and celebrate families in their communities, recognizing that in honoring the family, we honor the very fabric of our common life together. And witness whereof I here unto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Battleground to be as fixed this 15th day of June, 2026.

Thank you, Mayor Overhalzer. The nucleus is the central and most important part of an object, group, or thing, and the basis for its activity and growth. The nuclear family, then, refers to the core, central elements of what a family truly is. The traditional nuclear family speaks to the essential elements of a family as recognized throughout all human history. Those elements are a husband, his wife, and all children under their care. This tradition has divine origins. It is, in fact, God's design for the family. In Genesis 2.24, God says, therefore, man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. God says that a new family is created when a man and woman are joined together in marriage. Marriage defined by God is a lifelong union between one man as created by God and one woman as created by God. That nuclear family expands as children are added, either through procreation or through adoption. God's design for the family is the same today as it was in the beginning. And though none of us perfectly live up to it, aspiring to it and striving toward it is the pathway of blessing, both in the family and in the community in which the family lives. Mayor Overhalzer. Thank you for celebrating and honoring the traditional nuclear family and recognizing its importance and benefit in society. May you continue to use the authority delegated to you by God to do what is right according to God's standard and best for the people of Battleground. Thank you.

All right, we have one more item here on Mayor's report. And this city council will now consider the appointment of three council liaisons to serve as AWC voting delegates. These delegates will cast votes at the Association of Washington City's annual meeting to elect the AWC Board of Directors. With the approval of this council, I have chosen to appoint Deputy Mayor Vail, Council Member Ferrer, and Council Member Kuipers. to serve as the three AWC voting delegates. And I would call for a motion.

Move to approve the appointment of Deputy Mayor Vail, Council Member Ferrer, and Council Member Kuykers to serve as the 2026 AWC voting delegates on behalf of the City of Battleground.

Second.

All right. We have a motion by Council Member Munson, second by Deputy Mayor Vail. All right. Any discussion that we'd like to have on this? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. Welcome to my delegates. I'm excited to see your guys' votes. Before we go to presentations, I do want to take a brief recess just to let people leave that may want to head out, and we'll reconvene in five minutes at 7.30 p.m.

mics are hot mics are hot probably

All right, time is 7.30 p.m., and we will continue this meeting. We move on to presentations, and I'd like to introduce Greater Vancouver Chamber President and CEO John McDonough and Chief Operating Officer Janet Konefsky.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, councillors, I see you. It is really a pleasure to be back in front of the council, although a number of you weren't here when we made our last presentation. I thought I'd give just a couple of highlights about our chamber, your chamber, and then Janet's going to run through some slides with you to give you a little more detail. When I first entered the chamber industry about 11 years ago, I heard the phrase that if you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber. And that was not very reassuring to me at the time. What is unique about the Greater Vancouver Chamber is that first, we're a regional chamber. Our region covers all of Clark County. We have members in southern part of Cowlitz County, Skamania County, and actually have nearly 10% of our membership with headquarters in Portland, but they do business in our county and therefore want to be a part of the Chamber of Commerce. In addition to being a regional chamber, we also have a single focus as a business to business chamber. So Visit Vancouver is responsible for the tourism in our market. The Columbia River Economic Development Council has the responsibility to recruit employers to the marketplace. The responsibility of the Greater Vancouver Chamber throughout the region is the viability and sustainability of the business community. So you'll see as Janet goes through her presentation, the focus we have on doing exactly that. So with that, I won't take any more of your time. I know you have a busy agenda and Janet will run through the slides.

Good evening and thank you for having us. Again, I serve as the Chief Operating Officer for the Greater Vancouver Chamber and

I am going to, there we go.

A little bit about our organization. In addition to what John had mentioned, we have over a thousand members of the Greater Vancouver Chamber of All Businesses. We have businesses here in Battleground, all around the region with our sole focus on supporting and advocating and educating the business community. This is our team at the Greater Vancouver Chamber. It's hard to see here, but on your screens, those that are highlighted in green, we are those of our staff that live in the district. And then our board members on the right, one of them... You may recognize Leanne Caver, who is here at the CEO of CETRAN receiving her award earlier. She is one of our board members. So we have a pretty robust board that sits across the county, across the region, representing organizations of all different sizes. Those that are in the green live and work here in Battleground. And then majority of the others also do business or provide services throughout the region. The Chamber is pro-business, first and foremost. We're pro-community. We're a nonpartisan organization that really is solution-focused for the businesses in this community. We're partnership-driven, and that extends to the Battleground City Council, as well as the Battleground School District and many of the businesses here and nonprofits that are focused on creating a thriving, viable community. What we have is we look at place. We look at opportunity. That's what Battleground brings. You have a robust business community. Yes, we consider a bedroom community, but there are over 700 businesses that are here in Battleground. You have those that are here to make place. You have workforce, and we want to make sure that we encourage not just the sustainability of the business here, but also the pipeline to the business community so that they can live and work. here in Battleground or across the county. One of the things that we've done since we've met the last time, we have put into place over a year now, so we're coming up on the year anniversary of our executive dialogue. We bring together CEOs of Battleground organizations of all sizes, and we meet regularly once a month for the last year in order to educate here the community, hear from the business owners of what they want, what they're seeing, and really how we can help bridge the gap between communication. So the next slide will show you a lot of those organizations that meet with us on a regular basis. We've had, thankfully, the city has come in to speak with us several times in order to give CEOs an understanding of the transportation impacts, the transportation packages, needs, what's happening here in the community, so we can make sure that the CEOs here actually understand what you all are doing here in the community. Very important and one of the things that we recognized early on, there are a lot of assumptions made about businesses and how they interact with their city and their knowledge. A lot of them were unaware of what was happening and some of the infrastructure and the different even improvements that were happening around the county and around this city that they, their staffs and their businesses could take advantage of. We produce newsletters around the region, so we publish a weekly newsletter. If you're not getting it, please let us know. We have a battleground section in there where we try and communicate with the 15,000 people that are on our newsletter and then post it on our social media. What is happening around town so that we can use our megaphone and our interaction with employees and businesses? Those that are... working here or may live here but also work elsewhere in the county it's important to keep them up up to speed on what's happening in the business community through these communications so we have that newsletter and we frequently post and you'll see information and we we thank you because your city reposts a lot of what the chamber shares as well so a good partnership there Empowering people is really what we do. We work with entrepreneurs. We have a business training technical assistance program, an incubator, if you will. We have a nonprofit association. So in 2023, your Greater Vancouver Chamber absorbed the region's nonprofit association. So we work with approximately 450 nonprofits in a varying number of ways. education, pipeline, helping them understand the fundraising and the differences in the fundraising, and also making sure they're at the table for advocacy when budgets are cut at a federal and state level, where they can go and access funding and also become stronger nonprofits in the community. And of course, organizations and nonprofits. So here we have commuting patterns because we take a look at a lot of things at the chamber. You have over 700 businesses that are here in Battleground. Here are your number one commuting patterns. These are people that are commuting to Battleground for work and the numbers. So if you take away the top two, we're going to assume those are local, five to seven, five to 14 minutes. Anything outside of that, that's outside of the county, And oftentimes we do have quite a few people that are traveling from Oregon coming here. So when we talked about C-TRAN earlier today, businesses, employees have almost 100 employees that work here in Battleground for Battleground businesses that require transportation and do ride public transportation every day. So very important for us to take a look at. how regional this city is, that you have a workforce that exports their time to other parts of the county, but you have other parts of the county that are filling the needs of the workforce here at Battleground Company. So taking a look at that, that's why we're interconnected as cities across the county. That's why it's important for us to understand what's happening throughout the county and thankful that you have liaisons and others that are sitting on boards and other commissions so that we can make sure that everybody is in the know and we're all working towards one purpose, at least with the Chamber, is a thriving business community and make sure that they continue. We have a local merchant program. It's a community currency program that we encourage corporations, grandmothers, families to gift a local currency where merchants are part of that. They can receive this as cash. We usually have around $80,000, $88,000 in circulation to be spent at merchants that are accepting those gift certificates. So we encourage our corporations, instead of buying big box gift certificates or the ones that are very easy to buy online, we want you to encourage people to purchase local and spend it local. One of the most recent ones that we added this week was Savvy Sipper. A new business that just joined us this week. We had a ribbon cutting for them. We'll be joining the merchant program here as well. So adding funding into the retail, into the merchants is really key for us. Again, over $80,000 that's in circulation. Merchants have redeemed over $200,000 worth so far. And there's over 50 merchants and counting, they keep coming in. So encourage the local spending. We have a future workforce. We spend a considerable amount of time. Amy Hanska here is our Education and Workforce Development Director. placing interns and businesses all throughout Battleground and through the community have some great success stories there. It's important for our youth, if they could see it, they can be it. We wanna make sure that they see opportunities even outside their region of what is possible for them to go into the future workforce. And that can look a number of ways, but internships is a really great opportunity for us to get our youth exposed to different opportunities throughout the region, different career paths. This is an interesting slide for me because battlegrounds industries are made up primarily 61% of the businesses are made up in only five categories there. We like to look at the future of workforce and we wanna see a little bit more of a robust sector because between the five and 10, it's only 20%. And so heavily on construction, that's not a surprise there. But we do have some manufacturing, high-tech manufacturing that could increase and could bring more opportunities to the region. So we take a look and how can we fill that pipeline of the businesses that come in and then we see some businesses leave. We want to make sure we understand why are they leaving. Our goal is retention. We want to make sure they stay and they're thriving 5, 10, 20 years. into the future. So we'll be taking a look in partnership with a lot of our businesses on how can we help develop a little bit more of the pipeline, keep those youth that are getting educated here in the community to stay in the community and work where they live. um the uh civics b you have all been very gracious to have our youth in sixth seventh and eighth um come before you and talk to you about our civics b battleground is the number one um producer of youth that sign up and participate in this program it's phenomenal it's showing our youth how they can make a difference in their community and they do that in a number of ways And there's a lot of your Lauren, a lot of your middle schoolers that are up there that were very proud about a month or two months ago to present to an audience about their project and then go on to win prizes. So a good portion of it, again, comes from Battleground, a huge Battleground support for that. There we go. And then we have Lemonade Day that happened last week, about a week and a half ago. This is where youth ages six years old to 16 learn how to build their own businesses for the first time. And they come out and they celebrate and open their businesses to over 14,000 people that come out to support them and show what business community is really like. 350 kids populated the parks and others were out throughout the community, not just selling lemonade, but selling their wares and really figuring out what it is to be a business owner. And they really came out of their shell. So a really great way that we saw battleground individuals taking advantage of this. So if you see a lemonade stand somewhere in the summertime, please stop. because they have taken the time to learn and get educated on the entrepreneurship skills. And they were all required to do a profit and loss statement at the end to figure out their net profit. So it's a pretty robust system. And we want to make sure that our youth understand how to build, how to save, how to spend, and how to share that philanthropic part of being a business owner, very important to us in the community. They sold $40,000 last weekend. So $40,000 went into the pockets of these kids. And when a kid gets out there and makes $800, he knows that he can do anything for life. If he falls on hard times, he knows how to run a business that he can always fall back on the skills that he learned, he or she learned when they were six, seven, and eight years old. It was really tremendous. So a great program. um there we are we had 18 18 um kiddos that were with us um at the at the market from battleground and another 77 took the lessons and um really just all in all a really great day and um you'll be seeing some of those business owners here in the community in the next five to ten years i i'm pretty confident of that This is our pathway to prosperity. This is the important for us because this shows that an organization and a community that has economic development, that has outreach, that has entrepreneurship, that has a pipeline for prosperity is a community that's going to be around and thriving for a long time. This is what your Greater Vancouver Chamber wants to make sure that we continue to be a part of and supportive here in the battleground community. And we appreciate your partnerships all throughout the year and the opportunity to be here before you today in order to present what we're what we're doing and how we're supporting the battleground community. And I would invite any questions if there are any.

Thank you. This is great information. And I'm just so happy about the partnership that you're also doing with the schools. Business is important, but bringing up that next generation, it's so important. So thank you for that. The question that I have is you have quite a few programs that are specific to helping small businesses. um that have you know more often have limited resources in whatever they need you know whether it's budgeting or or you know managing expenses or advertising or whatever it is um Of those programs that you offer, do you have any data on the percentage of businesses in Battleground that are taking advantage of that?

I do. And I can send you a full report on the demographic, socioeconomic, the entire breakdown. We do a considerable intake process. We have approximately, we get applications. We call it our business pod. It's a technical assistance program. We have about 350 companies that apply for it every year. So we have a waiting list. Last year, I believe we had at the time, the prior year that I was reporting on, had 25 businesses that participated in that. That's just the one-on-one technical assistance and cohort type community building because it is, it's important, the financial aspect. We have tax accountants and those that are in the finance field that have no idea how to market their product or social media. Then we have social media companies who have no idea how to account for their um their finances so it's really important that we build up that acumen so that they feel confident and they can sustain not just another pandemic but also um maybe a downturn of the economy as well we also so our chamber has approximately i want to say maybe 52 programs that we run right now some for women some for executive women some for um entrepreneurs micro enterprises some for larger businesses you saw the executive dialogues it's important for us to to make sure that everybody feels they're getting something from us but the technical assistance is the most important because that is the reason a lot of companies go out of business that we can't retain them and we we enjoy sometimes that a new business is opening up that's great they left a place that somebody left and There's a reason for that. And we want to make sure that doesn't happen, that we continue to grow in some of the expansions that we're seeing around the county and around Battlegrounds so that we can build that.

Yeah, I appreciate that information. And then also copy these slides.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Okay. I appreciate your time.

Appreciate it, John. Thank you guys to the entire Greater Chamber of Commerce. We appreciate it. James, you got to step up next time. Come on. Thank you, guys. All right, we're gonna move on to, uh, the agenda. Does any council member wish to amend the agenda this evening? I have council member Munson. Close yours.

Thank you, Mayor Overholzer. I moved to rescind the motion approved at the June 1st council meeting that authorized a $50,000 budget amendment for the mayor to hire an independent council slash investigator to review internal city departments.

This is the clerk. Council member Munson, can you please confirm that you voted on the prevailing side?

Thank you, clerk. Yes, I was a member of voting on the prevailing side.

All right.

All second.

We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we will strike that from the agenda. And I'll entertain a motion unless anyone else wishes to amend the agenda this evening.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to remove ordinance 2026-14 budget amendment in its entirety from the business section of tonight's agenda.

I'll second. All right.

We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

We have one opposed. would you and i all right okay just i'm sorry thank you my ears don't all right motion passes unanimously i think we can move on now thank you for your help liz mr my pleasure motion to approve the agenda as amended thank you we have a motion we have a second for the approval of the agenda all those in favor any opposed hearing none motion passes unanimously and now we can move on We're going to move on to the citizen communication. I will now open the meeting for citizen communications. As authorized under the council's adopted rules, the mayor may adjust both the individual speaking time and the overall length of the constituent comments period to ensure the orderly and efficient conduct of the meeting. Due to the number of individuals wishing to speak this evening, each speaker will have one minute time, and the total public comment period will be extended to one hour. This portion of the meeting is limited public forum for receiving input from the public. It is not intended for a dialogue with the city council to help maintain an orderly and efficient meeting. Please avoid conduct that disrupts the proceedings. This includes speaking out of turn, exceeding the time limit, creating loud or coordinated demonstrations such as applause or cheering and calling out from the audience or otherwise preventing others from being heard. While all viewpoints are protected under the First Amendment, obscene language, derogatory remarks, personal attacks, or campaign speeches can create disturbances that interfere with the orderly conduct of the meeting. Speakers are therefore asked to present their comments in a manner that allows the meeting to proceed efficiently and respectfully. Threatening behavior, intimidation, or any conduct that substantially interrupts, delays, or interferes with the meeting may result in removal from the chambers to protect the safety and order of the proceedings. If your remarks relate to an item scheduled for a public hearing, please wait to provide your comments during that designated hearing time. All comments should be directed to the mayor. The council may not be able to respond to individual comments and we may refer citizens to a staff member for assistance. if due to time constraints you are unable to provide verbal comment this evening please submit written comments to the city clerk's office with the title public comment for disbursement to council the city manager has placed her business cards at the podium feel free to take one if you would like to contact her with any questions if you have printed materials to submit for the record please hand them to the city clerk seated directly to the right of the podium Thank you for your cooperation and participation in the council meeting this evening. Clerk, are there any members of the public on Zoom that wish to comment remotely?

No, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thanks, Liz. All right. We're going to get started from the top down. We do have 63 people on docket tonight to speak. And so if I need to extend past the 60-minute period, I will, but the time is 7.53 and we will start. First up, Jessica Cole.

Hello, council. I'm Jessica Cole. The way that the council spoke to the city manager at the last meeting was completely inappropriate, and I see she's missing here tonight. The mayor is responsible for running these meetings. I hope they are handled more professionally and respectfully in the future. I also want to correct my statement from the meeting at May 18th. What I meant to say was that there are clergy who disagree with adding invocations, but some are concerned about speaking out publicly. I'm concerned that, like proclamations, invocations will not be treated equally. Those concerns are reinforced when elected officials engage in conduct that appears dismissive of certain faiths or communities, including anti-Muslim social media posts made by Councilor Victoria Ferrer. Thank you very much, and happy Pride.

Thank you, Jessica. Ali's strap is on, and then I'm going to call up the on deck. Again, there's a green painted square over to my left. It would be your right here in the chambers. Next on deck is Simon.

My husband and I are about to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary next month, and even though we are cis, our family doesn't meet the narrow, harmful, segregating definition of a traditional nuclear family, because this is not the first marriage for one of us, not all of our children are genetically related to us, and we are non-religious. However, we raised our children with the golden rule. So we share and care with our neighbors, whether we have much in common with them or not. I agree that healthy, loving families are foundational to building a healthy, flourishing society. And that includes whether it's a family of one or a family of 15. And regardless of the identities and intersectionalities comprised within, everything in nature is a spectrum. Binaries are human made. If you want to be political in your nonpartisan positions on that dais, then build this wall. Keep your church out of city business and just be good humans. It's what Jesus would do. Happy Pride Month.

Thank you, Allie. Next up, Simon. And on deck is Rebecca Postapak.

Mayor, could you repeat the name of the person on deck?

Rebecca Postapak. Did I get that right? I'm sorry. Close enough. Okay.

Eric, you are not being true to your word or fair. You told me that you want to be inclusive of all, yet you are not consistent with what proclamations you will or will not issue. When the mayor flip-flops with intent, it gives our great city of Battleground a reputation of dishonesty. You are directly causing Battleground to lose money. Community members are avoiding spending any here because of you. Your actions are not helping build a pool and they are not improving safety. As a mayor and a city council member, you are supposed to be representing everyone in the entire city. Also, I do not support invocations, especially because of all the legal fees it has incurred. I don't want my tax dollars being wasted on things that a majority of actual citizens don't even want. Most of our neighbors want real community, not forced assimilation. We don't need to have identical opinions in order to live and even thrive together. Happy Pride Month, Eric. I'm glad you've been able to get so many people to the council meetings in June to celebrate it.

Thank you, Simon. Rebecca, you are up. Next up is Liz. Just the name Liz. We know who you are.

I'm here in opposition to the Nuclear Family Proclamation. I'm a person of faith, active at church, and have volunteered at VBSs since literally the last century. I'm also a single mom with a kid at BGHS. My kids walk in richly diverse circles of friends, including queer and trans kids who love fiercely and have learned to advocate for themselves in systems that often wrongly claim they're less. We are a battleground family. This proclamation is not representative of battleground. It's not representative of the Bible or our own national history, where people have married one person or several or none, who birthed children, adopted children, or had no children, people who are beautiful and messy and holy and imperfect, and all of whom, like us, are worthy of recognition and celebration simply because we're human. But this proclamation is not even representative of this city council. We all, including you, have a constitutional right to better. You are in the wrong, but it's not too late to change your mind and follow the Constitution. I'm here to help hold you to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Rebecca. Next up, Liz, followed by Bren. Bren.

Well, show and tell. So, good evening. Humans are born, humans age, humans marry. Humans divorce, humans die, future humans arrive. That's life. The structure evolves, the family remains. Peace, pride, thank you, and have an evening.

Thank you, Liz. Bren, you are up, followed by Bridget White.

My child was raised in a single parent household from three years old. He was loved. We had a happy home with rescue dogs, good food, and lots of laughs. He was reading well before kindergarten and loved math so much that he learned long division while in kindergarten. We took road trips throughout the year to places like Wildlife Safari, Coos Bay, Oregon, and always at least one Seattle Mariner game. He's now a wonderful adult, and I am so proud of what a kind, smart, happy human he is. There is nothing wrong with my family. I was at an event on Sunday where a young lady was speaking about the sexual and physical abuse she endured in her traditional family. She came to trust an administrator at school and eventually told them what was happening. After she was removed from her home, the administrator became her foster dad. She spoke about the joy of finally being in a loving home where she was allowed to be herself, cultivate friendships, enjoy art, school, and most importantly, her safe and loving home. there is nothing wrong with that family many families do not fall within the description of your proclamation if your focus is what a family looks like you're missing the point thank you brent bridget you are up followed by jay

In Of the Natural Rights of Individuals, our founding father James Wilson wrote, I begin with marriage, which forms the near relation between husband and wife. Whether we consult the soundest deductions of reason or resort to the best information conveyed to us by history or listen to the undoubted intelligence communicated in holy writ, we shall find that to the institution of marriage, the true origin of society must be traced. by that institution the felicity of paradise was consummated and since the unhappy expulsion from thence to that institution more than to any other have mankind been indebted for the share of peace and harmony which has been distributed among them the first society is in wedlock itself says cicero in his book of offices a work which does honor to the human understanding and the human heart As we approach our 250th anniversary, I thank you for promoting the natural family and the principles of natural law, the spirit of which is fundamental to understanding our U.S. Constitution and our constitutionally federated republic. Thank you.

Thank you, Bridget. Next up, Jay, on deck, Mrs. Clark.

Our mayor, a Maddox employee, has repeatedly refused to recognize his community members that are different from him. Instead, he proclaims that there is only one acceptable and honorable way to be. As a parent, as a lover, as a citizen, as a human, it's his way. That's not democracy, grace, or love. That is harm. That is violence. He and his affiliates are trying to prune humankind like a bush that only exists for his pleasure. These are the real powers that threaten our city. Not immigrants, not anti-fascists, but rich multi-state CEOs and sellouts who will twist the Bible for their monetary gain over your health and safety. Ask yourselves, what outside influence will keep Matic CEOs from putting out false news now that they own the Reflector? Why is this council hiding the legal implications of their prayer invocations? I call on my community to seek the bounty of culture, history, and wisdom that we can learn not only from our relatives, but from every one of our citizens. Thank you.

Thank you, Jay. Next up, Mrs. Clark. On deck, Michael Terry.

Mayor, that proclamation is not a celebration of families. It is a political litmus test dressed in sentimental language. Battleground includes countless families that don't match your ideal version. Their love is no less real because it doesn't match your personal theology. The Seven Mountain Mandate is a political strategy of Christian nationalism pursued by a growing number of extremists nationwide. It seeks dominion over seven spheres, the family, church, government, business, news, education, and arts. It grows during economic instability, using fear of outsiders to make a dominant group feel superior yet threatened. there is strong evidence that this is happening right here given the mayor's employment connections reckless proclamations and the recent sale of our local newspaper mayor you are not qualified to redefine family for our community your recent proclamations reveal more about your priorities than about battleground's values thank you mrs clark michael terry you are up followed by david terry

I'm a lifelong Clark County citizen. My wife and I are raising our three children in Brush Prairie. And what I appreciate about the proclamation supporting family is that it accurately represents our majority voice. Battleground, Clark County, Washington State, our United States. And that's the role of duly elected representatives within our constitutional republic to accurately represent our majority voice. Nothing is robbing anybody from the choice of living a lifestyle or particular way that they would like to. This decision simply accurately represents the overwhelming majority voice here in Battleground, Clark County, Washington State, and our United States. My family line goes back 12 generations in our United States. There's been an enormous amount of sacrifice for these freedoms and liberties. My grandfather, Stephen Hopkins, was the 14th signer of our Mayflower Compact. The Mayflower Compact is the first document ever written that stated that the government would be structured to serve the people. Our Constitution is modeled after a Mayflower Compact. Three million, our first three million citizens, 98% were Protestant Christians. We love people that we disagree with. It's okay to disagree with each other.

Thank you, Michael. David Terry.

On deck, William Keith Matheson. I'm David Terry. I'm actually a battleground resident. That's weird here tonight. I don't want to talk about what's going on tonight, although I'm not happy about that either. I want to talk about the meeting on June 1st. Let's look at the actual numbers provided by the city manager's team for that meeting. Your political theater has already cost the taxpayers in a battleground $38,000. $38,000. And that's before the inevitable legal bills are added to the tab. I'd like to see our counselors to raise their hand if they were happy about spending $38,000 on that meeting. Please raise your hand. Our own citizen survey says our priorities are roads, public safety, and aquatic center. I don't see any of those reflected in that. And I want to look at the rest of the collateral damage that's left behind. I understand that our legal counsel has stopped working for us, that they're not going to work for us anymore. Our strategic planning is leaving. What next? Are we going to chase away our valuable employees? I mean, it's terrible.

Thank you, David. That's your time. William Keith Matheson, you are up, followed by Bree Harper. Bree Harper.

Thank you for this honor to speak to you. I support the council's proclamation for traditional marriage. Families are the foundation of a stable society. Traditional families are the nursery for the upbringing and training of future leaders and and contributors to society. Even though it is not always possible, children have a more stable upbringing with their loving biological married parents, not broken up families. Every effort should be made to uphold traditional families. I'm a retired real estate agent. Long time ago, I had an appointment with a single father. He had to work hard, but he had to sell his house because he couldn't afford it anymore. His daughter was in daycare all week long.

Thank you, William.

Yep. Support the families. Thank you.

Next up, Bree Harper. Bree, you can sit down as well if you'd like. Take a little off the leg. Next up on deck would be Skylar Martin. Skylar Martin.

Good evening, Battleground City Council. My name is Bree Harper, and I'm here to express my heartfelt support for this proclamation celebrating the traditional nuclear family. I grew up with divorced parents. They loved me and did their very best. But I'll be honest with you, there were gaps and confusion. Parental standards were on different pages. There were things I had to figure out the hard way. how to navigate healthy relationships, how to function in a healthy way in society, lessons that ideally a stable home would have taught me early in life. I'm not saying that to cast blame. I'm saying it because it's the truth of what many children experience in broken homes. That's exactly why this proclamation means so much to me. It affirms what research and lived experience both confirm that children thrive better when they have the consistent presence of a mother and father under one roof. Mayor Overholzer, thank you so much for honoring and publicly affirming this righteous proclamation.

Thank you very much, Bree. Skylar Martin, you are up. Next on deck, Kim Reese. Kim Reese, you are next.

Thank you, Mayor, for your leadership and for your willingness to publicly affirm and celebrate something so fundamental to the well-being of our community as the nuclear family. There is no temporal institution more central to the direction of this town, the state, this nation, and this world than the family. In a time when many core institutions face open attacks, it is encouraging to see courageous local leaders recognize the vital role families play in building a healthy, caring and flourishing community. We thank you, Mayor, because just like the ICE and Antifa proclamations, this is an objectively good proclamation consistent with your charge to promote public welfare and civic duty. It is also supported by the majority of your constituents, being controversial only with a radical fringe that, sadly, is used to getting its way in the past. We have been discouraged as the views of a radical few have been coddled by the previous mayors. This small 20% tries very hard to pretend they're the 80%, but thank you, Mayor, for seeing the truth.

Thank you, Skylar. Kim Reese, followed by Jeshia Gray. Green, Jeshia Green, sorry.

This proclamation implicitly recognizes and honors the countless acts of love and sacrifice that occur behind the doors of ordinary homes every day. It recognizes fathers and mothers who work hard to provide for their children, who offer guidance and encouragement, who teach responsibility and compassion, and who invest themselves in the next generation through self-sacrifice rather than self-indulgence. More important than that, it recognizes the sacred value of human life by championing the best, most healthy relational dynamic in which human beings can flourish. One man and one woman in a committed marriage. Children deserve nothing less than the most optimal environment possible. The stability that nuclear families provide to children and to society as a whole is indispensable. It is the very building block of strong neighborhoods, strong schools, and a strong city. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms. Reese. Mr. Green followed by Justin Hornbeck.

the agenda of proclamations is directed to recognizing the need of good decisions to highlight what would benefit the community wholesale this is a declaration for a greater awareness that gives examples of healthy and honorable values to uphold kids from a traditional nuclear family are five to seven percent less likely to be in poverty forty percent likely to complete college three times less likely to be incarcerated as adults one and a half times the high school graduation rate, half the teen pregnancy rate, 4% will suffer from behavior and emotional challenges. Now here are the kids not coming from nuclear families, at least two times as likely to have aggression or need disciplinary action. Dropout rate, 28% Caucasian children versus 48% Hispanic, have 20% lower income as adults, are two to four times as likely to suffer physical abuse or neglect, two to three times higher reported rates of sexual abuse, and at least two times more likely to commit suicide if only one biological parent is at home. Thank you.

Thank you, Josiah. Next up, Justin Hornbaker, followed by Matthew Reese.

Last meeting, there was a proclamation titled Get Outdoors Month, which made a juxtaposition between an inactive lifestyle of indoor confinement and one of exercise and wilderness enjoyment. Did anyone here take that as an open insult against the elderly in nursing homes? Or the paraplegic? Was this an attack on the humanity of addicted gamers who never leave their bedroom? Of course not. Because in that case, people are able to understand that recognizing what is ideal, cherished, or beneficial is not dehumanizing to those who don't conform. It is merely providing society with what it constantly needs, a compass pointing toward true north. The opposite is not true, however. To elevate something that is objectively unbeneficial or even harmful is an attack on what is ideal because it purposefully diverts our compasses away from true norm. To lift up, for instance, an 18-hour-a-day game lifestyle, one fueled on junk food and interrupted only by a little sleep, is an attack on a healthy lifestyle.

Thank you, Mr. Hornbaker. That's your time. Matthew Rees, followed by Tyler Long.

Thank you. What is perfect is not an attack on what is less than perfect. In fact, it helps it by anchoring it and giving us a true north against which to orient itself and strive. However, the less than is always the enemy of what is perfect because adding even 1% of impurity renders the whole impure. And while adding what is pure to what is impure only makes the imperfect mixture better, even if still impure. That's the secret of the pride proclamations some are limiting aren't being done. They celebrate what's lesser on purpose. It's a deliberate attempt to drag society down into the gutter by attacking the perfect. This proclamation is a threat to them precisely because it reestablishes true north. Darkness always hates the light. Those who wallow in wandering don't want a compass. If everyone were to follow the pride lifestyle they once celebrated, humanity ceases to exist. It's not complicated why that's not to be celebrated. Society doesn't thrive with that as our example of true north. It literally dies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Reese. Tyler Long, followed by Peter Tapio.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Those who oppose this nuclear family proclamation are proving to be true what they've always denied, that celebrating pride and celebrating nuclear families are mutually exclusive. If they're not mutually exclusive, what connection are they trying to make today between the two? If there is no connection, none of them would be crying about rejected pride proclamations today. Yet they are. They didn't cry about rejected pride proclamations during the get outdoors proclamation. Why? Because there's no connection. Yet we've sat here for years that they've submitted these proclamations and listened to their lies. As they've said, there's no connection and no attack on nuclear families with their proclamations. But I'm thankful that the veil is being lifted today. And I'm thankful to them for tacitly acknowledging today what they've always denied. The pride agenda and nuclear families are competing priorities. To support one is to undermine the other because there can only ever be one true north. By complaining that this proclamation excludes gay people, they're also acknowledging that their pride proclamations were about excluding. Thank you.

thank you tyler peter tapio followed by jeannie tur turden ferdin terrible at reading thank you chamber uh mayor eric and and the staff and all those who support you to make this time possible and just a plug to the vancouver chamber of commerce who briefly had a chance to meet them and we in the crowd You know, we're excited to hear about 40,000 Rays selling lemonade. I mean, that's cool. And that underscored the prosperity and just, you know, as previous folks have said here, you know, this, nuclear family prompted me to do some brief study of my history. And it's a powerful thing that goes way, way, way back. And it became here in the 1920s under a Polish immigrant anthropologist, if I have it right. You can fact check me. But it's a powerful story. And to underscore as previously what they had just said was that honoring what works doesn't insult. Those who may face hardship or any of the above, just like praising healthy living doesn't insult those that may be sick. Thank you. Thank you.

Jeannie, you are up, followed by Lori Bumala.

Even worse than the illogical arguments of the main battleground community social media platform, many try to dig at the personal lives of counselors, pointing out that some do not fit the perfect family description found in the proclamations and labeled them hypocrites and failures. It's ironic that they're calling counselors failures by the same standard of True North. They don't want to recognize through the proclamation. That is hypocrisy. Falling short of perfect is not hypocrisy. Insofar as any support of this proclamation falls short of what is perfect, they still recognize what is good and uplift it. When your pride proponents fall short, you march around and demand that your shortcomings now become the model to uphold. and you wanna disparage the council's, majority's council, you would much prefer if you modeled their humility in recognizing what is good.

Thank you, Jeannie. Lori Bumala, followed by Jordan Shaw.

Hello, thank you for this opportunity. I'm just up here to say I support this proclamation. I think it is the spine, the backbone of society to say that there is a traditional nuclear family is not excluding others in our community from being who they want to be, but it's recognizing that strength comes from stability with a father and mother at home. And when there is a lack of it, There is a lot of statistics that show that young men miss that father role. They have programs in inner cities because that is such a vital piece of a family for building stability in that young man and that we uphold that. We uphold that in a strong society, yet we do not disparage other people's choices to be different.

Thank you, Lori.

Yes.

Jordan Shaw, followed by Caleb Sturdivant.

Hello, this is my lovely wife, Shelby, and we are family people. We just want to say thank you so much for recognizing the nuclear family. In fact, our four kids are in the overflow. You're welcome, everybody, for that. But we're family people. I just want to say thank you so much for serving Battleground in this way. Thank you to our law enforcement for being involved. Truly, the further we go north, the closer we get to righteousness, the better off the city is. And I do believe that that's the majority vote here. And so on behalf of us and many other families here, we just want to say thank you so much for supporting healthy families. Thank you, Jordan.

Caleb, followed by Vernon, Jeremiah.

Mayor and council members, thank you. I want to say thank you for the work that you do for the city and this community. And I want to encourage you all in your work. And I want to thank you, Mayor, for the proclamations that you made. And I want to I would read Romans 13, but I don't have time. But it says that the job of government is to promote and protect what is good. The nuclear family is a good thing and is foundational. It's a foundational institution of our society. It is good to work hard, get married, have children, raise them up. And I'm happy that we're recognizing families here in Battleground who are doing just that. pray that god will bless you and this city and in closing i'd like to read from at least part of psalm 27 which i have found helpful in times of trouble the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall i fear the lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall i be afraid thank you for your time thank you caleb vernon you are up followed by richard rylander

Unicular family is the base, the cornerstone of all government and is a government in itself, created and planned for by God. Biblical values throughout scripture set the standard for how a family should live, flourish, procreate, and take dominion over the earth while they follow God and have a binding relationship with Jesus Christ. I encourage the Battleground City Council to continue promoting and returning virtue to the Battleground community. Doing God's will incurs blessings, and with God's blessings, Battleground will thrive economically and will become a shining beacon of light like no other place in Clark County. And let me remind you all, the God who provides these blessings to Battleground is Jesus Christ. Our Lord and Savior, the only king we follow and the only king worthy, worthy to rule this nation, worthy to rule this world, worthy to rule battleground. Thank you and amen.

Thank you, Vernon. Richard Rylander, followed up by Drew. Just one name, Drew. All right.

Mayor, excuse me, thank you on behalf of our nuclear family, which is my wife of 55 years, 12 grandchildren, three great grandchildren, we obviously believe it's important that the family be a focus is absolutely essential. And by taking your the action you have taking your proclamation, who are supporting what we have lived our entire lives. Thank you. Thank you, Richard.

Drew, you are up, followed by Benjamin Beal. Benjamin Beal, you are on deck.

A proclamation for nuclear families during Pride is calculated. It serves to clarify who the mayor and city council are talking about when they speak of community and who they are actively opening. It marks territory to tell those outside who is welcome here, who is seen here, who is safe here, and who isn't. And it's a signal to the millionaire buying up the city in the name of Jesus that his vision for Christian Battleground is in line with the vision of his mayor and employee. I'll let you see the rest of my time. Thank you, Drew.

We have Benjamin Beal up. Oh, coming on in. Next up will be Terry Kinney. You're up. Go ahead, Benjamin.

Thank you, Mayor, and this entire City Council. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the work you guys are doing in this community. Great job. And to those who I think the vast majority of us can agree that a mother and a father and two kids shouldn't be a topic of discussion. But here we are in 2026. I would just say bravo. Good job for taking this small but significant step to acknowledge that. To the people who would disagree with it, I would ask you to ask yourself, if the family is healthy, would you not want a mother? Would you not want a father? I know there's many single moms who have worked tirelessly to put food on the table for their kids and many people who have given love to children who may have not otherwise received it. But God ordained man and woman, and it is a reflection of Christ and his church by whom we are called. Thank you.

Thank you, Benjamin. Terry Kinney, you are up, followed by Sharon Murfin. Sharon Murfin up next.

Hi, thank you. I'm a 37 year resident of Battleground and we raised our kids here. My wife and I came up from Southern Oregon and I just want to tell you how much I appreciate making a proclamation for the traditional nuclear family. It is the strength of our community and families are what's going to keep Battleground the wonderful place that we came to 37 years ago. Thank you.

Thank you, Terry. Sharon Murfin followed by Judy Blevins.

Hi, you guys. Thanks for letting me speak. I actually wanted to just start this with the RV thing. Like, I don't even know how I got so deep into this. But when we came to thank you all for all of your service, my daughter was here and she signed up for an email. and didn't sign up for an email. Send an email to only the council, the city clerk. She's gotten repeated emails that state how terrible the mayor is, show up tonight, all these proclamations, how terrible Maddox is. I mean, what is his crime? He's helping this community. I mean, I just don't even understand it. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that you're standing against things that are good. Not you guys, but I don't even understand why we're here. I just, I'm exhausted from listening to it all. I just pray for you all. I pray for the city, and I'm thankful for you guys standing up. Have a great evening.

Thank you, Sharon. Judy Blevins. Ma'am, you are up, followed by Troy Rusband.

Thank you. Yesterday, June 14th, a Sunday also called Flag Day, is another weekend when many worshipped in the congregations to which we've chosen to be a member. And I think a lot of our congregations are part of those bodies that have struggled with what is a nuclear family in 1990, 1926. A nuclear family is all of us. And we work together to help our families and each other and to recognize that not all of us are the example that so many of you want to say we are. We have children that are we're proud that they are part of pride because there are children and we helped form them so i guess we've always been part of pride thank you judy troy rustman followed by greg

Hello, my name is Troy Rasband and I'm a CD3 candidate and I'm here to speak against the Nuclear Family Proclamation. It is another step in normalizing hate against the LGBTQ community and further brings battleground closer to a Christian nationalist safe haven. This is a dereliction of duty on your part. and is an affront to American values. You do not get to pick and choose who you represent as an elected official, and you certainly do not get to decide which families are valid. Every family is welcome in Washington State. And while I have 30 seconds, I just wanted to comment the true North thing was a little creepy, and if you offer me a Fresca, I will deny it.

Happy Pride, Mother. Thank you, Troy, and I would urge you to remember that we do not do campaign speeches during public comment. Thank you. Greg, followed by Jackson Deruntz.

I would like to speak to the recent actions being taken by the Battleground City Council. We have all seen how divisive your recent actions have been, and yet you insist on moving forward with yet another proclamation that you knew would be divisive. I can only assume these decisions are being made because either you wish to cause more division or that you're intent on promoting a single ideology. We have, I also want to say we have on our battleground city council, a deputy mayor whose husband works for a billion dollar industry. And we have our own mayor who also works for the same company. He parks his car, his company vehicle in the city hall parking lot. When you mix big money, religion, with city officials making government decisions involving the very business they work for, it begins to reek of corruption. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Jackson, you are up, followed by Joey.

Thank you, police officers and firefighters for protecting us.

There's no applause. Yeah, I know. I want to applaud, too. That's great. Joey, followed by Sarah Newhouse is on deck.

I just want to thank you guys, and I think we all see the stretching and the level of hypocrisy that's coming out here. I think a proverb that sums it up really well is, a fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own heart. And since a brother, I think it was Sturdivant, didn't have time to read something earlier, I figured I'd pick up where he left off. Romans 13 says, rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of that authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. For it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid. For it does not bear the sword in vain. For it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. I just want to thank you all for doing what is good and doing what is right. And I really appreciate it. It is so refreshing. Press on.

Thank you, Joey. Sarah Newhouse, you are up, followed by Ari Wolf, Reverend Ari Wolf.

The oldest and most enduring institution in civilization, you've said here. The term nuclear family emerged in the earliest 20th century and became especially popular after World War II. Throughout history, people have lived in a mix of arrangements that factored in economics, labor, and cultural traditions. So not only is this feckless proclamation inaccurate. It also creates division, and it excludes constituents whose reality does not match your incredibly limited view of the world. So to our battleground families who are harmed by this, your gorgeous, unique compositions that don't subscribe to this divisiveness, I just want to say we see you, we root for you, and your makeup as it is is perfect, and we wouldn't have you any other way.

Thank you, Sarah. Ari Wolf followed by River. River.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate being able to speak. I'm wanting to speak on all of it, but given the limited time, I'm just going to go with the proclamation on invocation at meetings. As a member of the clergy, I have to say I love prayer. I love starting meetings with prayer. I love spending time with prayer. And as an American, I have to say it really doesn't go well with governance. When I start meetings with parents because I'm at church and our whole business, no matter how small and mundane, is the work of prayer um just wanted to say really quickly there is no one true north there is no one way to be good or right there is no one way to be a family and there is no one way to be it's all about love thank you ari next up river followed by brent ingersoll

There are many ways to raise kids and have loving families. The traditional nuclear family model is not inherently better than other ways of parenting. Non-traditional families, queer families, single parents, kids with more than two parents have always existed and will continue to exist. I'm a queer person living in battleground and also a devoted parent. My fiance and I are raising our toddler on a small hobby farm alongside another queer family. We cook family dinner, we sing bedtime songs, we have sleepless nights, we experience the greatest joys of parenting and also the daily struggles. We are hardworking and we love our kids unconditionally, and we are not any less than other types of families. The LGBTQ community and families exist in battleground, and this proclamation does not make us go away. We are your constituents and your neighbors, and we deserve to be celebrated as well. Happy Pride.

Thank you, River. Brent Ingersoll, followed by Michelle Black.

Hi. I'm a battleground resident and retired active duty Air Force officer. I grew up in a traditional nuclear family with a mother, a father, and two siblings. As an adult, I started my own nuclear family. I got married as a young adult, and by age 30, I had three children. and I'm speaking in strong opposition to this proclamation about the traditional nuclear families. My life experience has taught me that there is no narrow definition of what a family is or what a family should be as some kind of false true north. I've been divorced, my children have a stepmom, and I've met countless wonderful people that are part of non-traditional and queer families. The idea that families that fit in the proclamation's narrow definition of a family are the oldest and most enduring institution of human civilization is both historically false and an overly simplistic view of a complex world. Single parents are part of our community. Gay and queer people are part of our community. And no two families are exactly alike, but they all have equal value and dignity.

Thank you, Brent. Michelle Black, followed by Jennifer Fisher.

I believe that you're using your position in government, Mr. Mayor, to push a religious agenda for a company that is buying up this town, the local media, and who you financially benefit from in the form of a salary, benefits, and a vehicle that we see you drive to these meetings. There's a clear conflict of interest, and I don't believe the city has the budget to pay for future legal challenges that are going to be brought forth if you continue to misdirect your behavior. Instead of working on the things that make Battleground a thriving city with great schools, parks, and businesses, you're dividing the town and wasting city time and money on culture and religious wars for what I'm guessing is to drum up financial support for your future political ambitions. You and the owner of Maddox certainly have the right to your religious beliefs, but if you can't separate them from your duty to represent all 23,000 battleground citizens, then you need to step down. And I can answer the question that the denial of the pride proclamation is the hypocrisy.

Thank you, Michelle. Jennifer Fisher, followed by Lori Schott.

Good evening, my name is Jennifer Fisher. I think we can all agree that here in Battleground, it is an adorable place and it benefits greatly from taxes generated from small businesses to fund our schools, our first responders and have pretty parks. I'm here to speak in opposition to the nuclear family proclamation. I had a nuclear family for 22 years before drug and alcohol abuse robbed me of my marriage. I am not the radical left. I am a part of the 40% of nuclear warages that end in divorce. I then did what every single mom with three kids in a town has to do. I went back to work and I quadrupled my revenues. I pay those revenues to battleground, but you do not recognize my family. I am the head of household. There's no other option. He skipped out. I go to all the kids' sporting events, the presentations at the school because my nuclear family was blown apart. I attended all three kids' graduations in one week.

That's your time. Thank you. Thank you. Laurie Schott followed by Xander Garcia. Xander Garcia, you are on deck.

Hello, my name is Laurie Schott and I am a resident of Battleground. Your proclamation of what you deem as traditional nuclear families is deeply, and I'd say objectively concerning. By elevating a single model of what you define as traditional, this proclamation excludes and diminishes the many diverse families in our communities. Families who equally provide love, stability, belonging, and care, and who contribute every day to the strength of battleground. You are sending the message that only certain families are worthy of recognition. I'm not here to change your beliefs in a minute, that won't happen, but I am asking you to expand your very narrow understanding of the community that you represent. The council's responsibility is not to elevate one view and promote the interests of outside funders, but rather to reflect and serve all of its residents. Please consider the full range of the families in Battleground and ensure that your actions reflect the values of loving your neighbors and accountability to your entire community, not just the narrow view of it.

Thank you, Lori. Xander Garcia, followed by Brent Henrich.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Alexander Garcia. I want to address the idea that the proclamation on the nuclear family is divisive or that it invalidates diverse family structures. This proclamation on the nuclear family is important for communities that want to prosper. I come from a complex family background, and I clearly see the traditional nuclear family as a cornerstone of healthy communities. It should be supported and encouraged. Growing up without that stability created confusion and a lack of structure that many children struggle with. This proclamation does not invalidate my upbringing, nor does it make me feel excluded in any way. Supporting the nuclear family is supporting the core unit of society where a mother and father raise their children, not the state. That foundation is how strong communities are built. if that idea offends some i would encourage reflection on why the truth is in god's design for the family is the traditional nuclear family whether you like it or not thank you xander brent henrik followed by jen frost jen frost you are on deck

My name is Brent Henrich, and I'm a father in what you call a nuclear family. With that in mind, I'm here to stand firmly against the Nuclear Families Proclamation. Let's get the obvious out of the way. I find it impossible to believe that imposing this proclamation during Pride Month of all months is anything besides an attempt to tell LGBTQ plus people and families in particular that they are not meant to be welcomed here. I'm also shocked that this proclamation hand waves all the single parents who've worked hard and raised incredibly successful children. The rights and successes of traditional nuclear families have never been threatened in our American history for single parents or perhaps same sex couples. That's a different story. This proclamation tells them that their families are not valid in the eyes of the city of Battleground. And for that, I'm sickened. I absolutely oppose this proclamation.

Thank you, Brent. Jen Frost, you are up, followed by Stephanie F. Stephanie F.

Hey, I'm Jen Frost. I first want to start off by thanking you very much for everything that you do for Bottle Ground. You are the emotional and verbal punching bag for both sides of this community, whether they agree with something or not. I thank you for your patience and everything that you put forth. Whether we agree on certain things or not, I pray for you, I pray for your families, and I pray for a hedge of protection over you. I wanna talk a little bit about the fact that I am an ex-Alphabet community member. I was in the community for 30 years. I was married to a transgender and I was saved seven years ago and came to Christ. The proclamation for the nuclear family is something when I was in the community that I really tried to meet while living a gay lifestyle because it stands for good values. And I always tried to make those good values in my relationships. I am a single person today. I do not have any children. I did not meet that nuclear family, but I'm also not offended by what you have. It's a good foundation. Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie. I'm sorry, Jen. My apologies.

Stephanie F. Mr. Mayor, we're down in suite 148. Can you please verbalize when Stephanie's time starts and ends?

Yes, ma'am.

This is the clerk. Time is starting now.

I would like to ask a simple question. Why does this proclamation only recognize a nuclear family while excluding many other families that make up our community? Our city is home to single parent families, grandparents raising grandchildren, blended families, adoptive families, foster families, multi-generational households, and LGBTQ plus families. These families work, volunteer, pay taxes, raise children, and contribute to our community every day. The proclamation language was not neutral. It specifically chose to elevate one family structure while leaving others unrecognized. That sends a clear message that some families are more valued here than others. The purpose of this proclamation is to celebrate families and strengthen our community. Then why not celebrate all families who provide love, stability, and support? Why draw a line that excludes so many of your own constituents? A strong community is built on inclusion, not exclusion. Every family that cares for one another and contributes to the common good deserves recognition and respect. I encourage the council to reflect.

Thank you, Stephanie. That is your time. Next up, Kate Lohr. On deck, Alex Stone.

good evening i am a straight christian minister daughter of a minister and i love my family but all that info is actually irrelevant why because battleground city council is a non-partisan body and a secular body Those principles exist for a reason, so that local government can serve everyone who lives here, not just those who belong to a particular political party or a religious tradition. Our community is diverse. We hold different political views. We worship in different ways or not at all. Yet we all rely on the same roads, parks, public safety services, and city governments. The oath of public office is not an oath to a party. It is not an oath to a church. It is an oath to the Constitution and the people.

Thank you, Kate.

I urge you to have a happy Pride Month.

Thank you, Kate. Alex Stone, followed by Emily Crow. Emily Crow on deck.

Good evening, mayor and city council. I would like to thank you for the recent proclamations. In particular, I'd like to thank you for the nuclear family proclamation. It's essential for society to promote marriage and raising children because my generation is choosing to forsake marriage and children altogether, believing these things to be burdens rather than blessings. To those who think that this proclamation is morally wrong, I would like to ask them where they're getting their standard of morality from. Would this proclamation have been controversial at any point in human history before marriage was attempted to be redefined by the Supreme Court in 2015? The Declaration of Independence states that our rights come from our Creator. I would argue that this means that our standard for good and evil must also come from that same Creator. This proclamation is objectively good because it's in alignment with God's law that states that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and that man shall be fruitful and multiply. Thank you, Mayor and City Council, for choosing to uphold God's moral standards that go back to creation. Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. Emily Crow, followed by Stephanie Van Valkenburg. Did I get that?

I wanted to thank the mayor and every brave person who showed up here today using city resources to stand up for one of the greatest dangers facing battleground people in loving relationships. If we keep going down this path people like women and LGBT Q plus may even want equal representation roles like being mayor or CEO of maddox. As someone in the audience, I have to say I believe in religious freedom as guaranteed by our Constitution, which is why I believe the government should reflect only my religious beliefs, even if it excludes others. I also believe in the rights guaranteed by our Constitution, which is why I believe our government should include other sources or things like my own edition of the Bible to reinforce those laws. I believe that making a proclamation for nuclear families, specifically between a man and a woman, could never be divisive. That's why making a pride proclamation that celebrates other types of families was too divisive last week. Thank you.

Stephanie, followed by Ed Stanton.

I'm a fourth generation Clark County resident, and I've been reading your proclamations, including the proclamation on the traditional nuclear family. And damn, that's crazy. And an oxymoron. Clark County has always been and will always be a community that supports and protects all of its people. So to the single parents who stepped up and sacrificed to ensure their children have a better life, to the queer parents who provide just as much love and support as heterosexual parents, to the trans parents who are showing up for their kids every day while also facing hate, bigotry, and threats from our government, And to the child-free folks who made the responsible choices that worked for their family, we see you, we support you, we celebrate you. If you're struggling, please come find me. I'd love to offer support in any way that I can because that is what Clark Family is about.

Thank you, Stephanie. Ed Stanton followed by Ken Jennings. Ken Jennings, you are on deck.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. I want to say thank you for passing the consent agenda tonight, especially because of item I, the 15th and Main Street project. That's kind of the last thing that was needed in order for that project to continue. And something that probably would unite all of us is the joys of battleground traffic. And this project is going to help that. And on behalf of our church that is on that corner, I want to thank Mark and his staff and not just this council and this mayor, but several mayors before you and several council members who worked so hard, stood behind us, helped us work through all of this so that that project could get started. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Ed. Ken Jennings, you are up.

on deck kimberly goheen album i'm going to assume ken isn't downstairs this is the clerk uh reaching out to suite 154 is there a ken jennings down there to who would like to speak this is alicia no it doesn't depend there is

All right. Kimberly, go ahead.

Yeah, that's Kimberly Goheen-Albin. So pride goes before destruction and a haughty heart before the fall. Let's all be humble. I'd like to mention the Association of Washington Cities is not accountable to the people, that they are their own agenda and that to be careful when you go there, they lean left. For the public interest, the Clark County Council holds weekly meetings and their agenda should be looked at weekly. You can call in and immediately speak. and listen to the meeting. Whereas when I called in two weeks ago, not only did I have to call in early 48 hours, but I couldn't hear the meeting and then I was dropped. That's why I didn't get my extra 15 seconds. But so I'll say, let's go back to allowing everybody to call in that wants to call in, especially me. I drive a little ways to get here and we can revise that and I'll write a letter to you folks. Also, I'd like to state that seven to nine states have banned chemtrails and we must do the same here um if you don't believe that there's chemtrails and we're uh breathing poison take a camera take a look at your car windshield there's no bug splatter they're dead thank you kimberly next up alex l and on deck donald frazier alex and then donald on deck

Hello, happy Pride Month. This proclamation strikes me as a gross misuse of municipal resources. But regardless, I'd like to spend my time lifting up all the non-nuclear families I know who raised citizens of good character. I was raised by a single mother as my dad struggled in and out of addiction. Her choice to remove my siblings and I from someone who struggled in this way probably saved our lives and changed the trajectory of them. I know folks who have decided to thoughtfully uncouple but remain steadfast in their love and dedication to raising thoughtful, curious, and loving young people. I've known women, trans, and non-binary folks, and I myself have bonus children. We're present in the lives of these youth so that they know that they have an adult to turn to should they need food, shelter, or just a warm hug. there are so many ways to be a parent and a family to define it as one thing or one true north is incredibly narrow-minded and can only seek to include and create divisiveness that's on display before you today you're creating this amongst neighbors who should be gathering together in community and instead we're here wasting this time thank you for your time

Donald Frazier?

Mayor Overholzer, this is the clerk. Yes, ma'am. It has been one hour, sir. Do you wish to extend the speaker's time?

Yes, I would like to extend the public comment time another 15 minutes, or at least until we get through the last eight speakers. Donald Frazier? Do we have a Donald Frazier? On deck will be Angela Benson-Slayton.

Mayor, council people, I'm born and raised in Battleground, and I'm always been very proud of that and that we've always been a community and we've always been a religious community. And I feel like from different religions and that we've always been able to get along together. But unfortunately, we're spending our city money and our taxpayer money making divisive proclamations that are hurting each other instead of gathering and Do you know what we could have done with $38,000 that we spent last meeting and then to have our legal team go? This is crazy. This is what we should be asking. Where is our money going? Why are we not helping other families? Why are we not lifting each other up, having community events? I mean, this is insane to me. And then I just finally want, as a grad student of social work, the reason why people are single that have problems is because they're financially working hard to survive if they didn't have to survive they wouldn't they'd be very successful thank you thank you angela um next up i'm gonna probably mess this up trailum godfred

It's Tracy, T-R-A-C-E. Yeah, sorry.

T-R-A-C-E, just how it's spelled. And then next on deck will be Gary Wilson. Gary Wilson on deck.

ahead tracy okay thank you mayor i'm concerned um about the use of taxpayer funds for proclamations that do not represent or unite our entire community i understand this proclamation supporting a nuclear family may be meaningful for some but it does not reflect the reality of many families in our city and i am from battleground and live here and own a house and pay taxes fyi when i was 12 years old My father died from cancer. He fought it for seven years. Overnight, my family no longer fit the perfect definition of what you guys call true north. Okay. And this nuclear family. Yet my mom, very strong Irish woman, kept us together. And we still stayed a very valuable part of our community. I was also a teacher at Battlegrounds High School for many years, and I spent a lot of my own money feeding young children and high school students, that is. But as I'm looking at my time, I'm really concerned that we are spending $37,000 on proclamations that divide us. Please don't raise my taxes. I can't afford it. I want you to spend our money wisely as a good steward.

Thank you, Tracy. Gary Wilson, followed by Margo Logan.

Thank you, Mayor Eric, for the proclamation in recognition and celebration of the traditional nuclear family. As a school board member in a nearby school district, I'm aware that children in a stable family environment with both the mother and father have a better chance of performing better academically And depending on which OSPI metric you use, less than 50% of Washington State students are meeting academic standards. It's clear that no matter how much money we've thrown at this problem, in the last five to 10 years, it has not helped. So again, thank you for putting a positive message out there. And this proclamation does not disparage single moms and single dads doing an awesome job in a tough situation. It sends a positive message for what works best for all involved. And the nuclear family is God's design and it is what works best. And again, thank you and God bless.

Thank you, Gary. Margo Logan.

Mr. Mayor, we're down in Suite 148 with Margo. We're ready for you to start for time when you are.

This is the clerk. The time starts now.

Oh, hi. My name is Margo Logan, and thank you so much for what you're doing here. I'm a former CBS investigator.

I was in DHS in 1994.

when we got the word verbal memo coming down on high, probably from Bill Clinton to stop investigating ritual abuse, stop training on it, stop talking about it at staff meeting. And NAMBLA was created in 1978 and their slogan is sex before eight or it's too late. So child trafficking came in by 1997 via the foster adult program. And it is just destroyed children. And so I've been trying to out DSHS DCYF because I've seen the damage that happened when this happened. So the, all of a sudden we got a lot of gay men coming in to child

Thank you, Margo. All right. We're down to the suite 154 roster. Okay. Three left. Stay with us. Next up, Stephanie Adams. On deck, Nancy Tarr.

Thank you, council. We got a ton of Stephanie's here tonight. Although I'm not currently a churchgoer, I did spend all of my high school years with a very large non-denominational church up north. I know how it feels to believe that you're on God's side. God is on your side. That is some really heavy stuff. And it's why we have a line between church and state. If you choose to live within the family system of man, woman, child, feel free. It's hardly the only valid way to raise good humans, but more power to you. Using council business time to tell your community you'd prefer that they mold their family around your preference takes a special kind of arrogance. You're attempting to blur and then abolish the line between church and state here in Battleground. It's odd. The recent proclamations intend to sideline and exclude certain locals. But if I'm correctly understanding Jesus's track record, these excluded folks are the ones that he intended to serve. Jesus said two things, love God, love your neighbor. These recent news are clearly about power over some of your actual neighbors. They're deeply unwelcome. All families deserve love, honor, and profound gratitude. Happy Pride.

Thank you, Stephanie. Nancy Tarr, followed by Amber Martinell.

The mayor's decision to proclaim Nuclear Family Month after declining to recognize Pride Month earlier sends a clear message. One group is officially recognized, while another one that has long faced discrimination and exclusion is not. Pride Month is not about elevating LGBTQ people above anything else or diminishing traditional families. It is about recognizing the dignity of people who have too often been marginalized and ensuring that they are seen and respected. Sorry, I ran from downstairs, a little out of breath. Local government should serve all residents instead of symbolic actions that divide the community Leaders should focus on making everyone feel welcome, represented, and heard. And if citizens disagree with those priorities, they can make their voices heard through civic engagement and at the ballot box.

Thank you, Nancy.

How does proclaiming Nuclear Family Month help unite our community while refusing to recognize Pride Month does not divide it? Thank you. That is your time. Amber Martinell.

We have Amber Martindale down on Suite 148 ready for her time when you are.

This is the clerk. Your time starts now.

Hello, thanks for having me. I'm personally offended deeply. I bought my home in 2009 here in Battleground. I pay taxes, I participate in civil causes, and I shop locally. You literally just pulled the rug out from underneath my family, underneath my feet. My family is my unit. And we are a true family. We do not meet your definition and we do not believe in a God that would hurt people as you have tonight. I can't wait to vote you all out every single one of you. And I agree. This is alt-right national Christianism. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Amber. And I believe that concludes our public comment period. We will move on. How you guys doing? Anybody need a break? Oh, it's good. We good? OK. We'll move on to that. Sorry, no questions, ma'am. What's your name? No. Yeah, sorry.

We had sign-ins.

OK. I would like to just take a five-minute recess. And we will reconvene at 9.09 PM.

Mics are hot.

Mics are hot.

the time is uh 9 10 p.m we will reconvene the battleground city council meeting up next on the agenda is the consent agenda does any council member believe any items need to be withdrawn from the consent agenda tonight move to approve the consent agenda in its entirety as presented second all right we have a motion by council member munson second by council member ferrer any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye any opposed motion passes unanimously all right we will move on to the public hearings uh liz is there any public testimony uh submitted for the public hearing that has not yet been provided to council no mr mayor thank you ma'am sorry All right. This is the public hearing on resolution number 26-03, adopting the six-year transportation improvement plan or program for 2027 through 2032. Public hearing in motion. I'd like to open the public hearing at 9-11. p.m. For the public testimony, individuals are limited to three minutes to provide testimony on resolution number 26-03, adopting the six-year transportation improvement program for 2027 to 2032. All comments should be directed to the mayor. Is there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to provide testimony, Ms. Clark?

No, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Are there any members of the public who wish to provide testimony on this Resolution. All right. Hearing none. Seeing no further members of the public wishing to speak, I now close the public hearing at 912 PM. And I would entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I'll move to approve resolution number 26-03, adopting the six-year transportation improvement plan for 2027 through 2032 as presented.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a second. So we have a motion by Councilmember Kuyper, second by Councilmember McCoy. Call for discussion.

sorry i totally forgot uh is there is the the fifth street still on that plan currently it is yes okay so we would be passing it that's my concern so i'm going to be voting no against this um or i can make an amendment even though i know else move this vote after the history Yeah, I guess everybody's okay with that. I'll move to move this business item until after 5th Street.

We have a motion on the floor.

Yeah, I know.

And we have a second.

Yeah, could I, we have an option to either vote it down or I can make an amendment that we approve everything minus the 5th Street. But what would.

Can I withdraw my motion?

You.

It's been seconded.

Oh, it's been seconded. Yeah, we've gone too far. Yeah, so we're going to go to a vote. Okay. Everyone understand what that means? All right. All those in favor? Hearing none. All those against? Nay. Motion fails unanimously. And that'll allow us to... move past that resolution for the time being and move on to business.

Are you going to make a motion to bring it back?

Oh, thank you. Sorry, I got too far. I'd like to entertain a motion from somebody to bring back the resolution after the Fifth Street.

I'll make that motion to bring back the resolution.

Yeah, get out to Parliamentary.

Or reconsider. Yeah, the resolution 26-3 until after the project discussion.

I'll second that.

All right, we have a motion to reconsider after, to move this after the 5th Street.

That is the improper parliamentary procedure there. Liz, how can you help us? Certainly, absolutely. My pleasure, Mr. Mayor. A motion to move the item uh two after the northwest fifth street item would suffice okay so not a reconsider but just no not a reconsider but just a move it okay you have to reconsider i disagree we've already just voted we failed it we have to oh that thank you actually uh councilmember mccoy you are accurate sir takes a village yes you you are correct my my bad okay so there is a motion to reconsider and we have a second by council member yes is there any discussion to be had on that liz is still not sure about this this would actually be a motion to bring back not to reconsider because the Well, no, you're right, actually. Motion to reconsider.

My bad.

Again. We're going off of the nice cheat sheet you left us.

Yes.

All right. So we do have a motion to reconsider. We have a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. Motion to reconsider passes unanimously. All right. On to business. uh miss halili are there any communications uh submitted regarding business items that have not yet been provided to council no mr mayor thank you all right we will move on to ordinance 2026-04 storage of trailers and recreational vehicles and no we didn't no we didn't wrong yeah yeah we're no we victoria we moved past that So ordinance 2026-04, not resolution, ordinance, storage of trailers and recreational vehicles in residential areas. Presentation and motion introduce Mr. Robert Barrier.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. On April 6th of this year, the city council adopted ordinance number 2026-04. That amended the battleground municipal code chapter 17.135.150 relating to storage of trailers and recreational vehicles in residential areas. Ordinance 2026-04 was adopted by the city council after public hearing and went into effect May 6th of this year. During the council communications portion of a prior meeting, the first meeting in May, the council asked the matter be placed on an agenda for a future study session. additional review and discussion based on new data and information that's provided by fire district 3 after the adoption of the ordinance and that study session occurred at your second meeting in may may the 18th if the city council wishes to reconsider policy that you've already adopted for the storage of trailers and recreational vehicles in residential areas implemented through ordinance 2026-04 The matter would be subject to the same consideration approval process as when you originally adopted that ordinance. If council decides it does not want to do that, absent no further action from the city council, no additional action is required and the matter will be enforced pursuant to the ordinance on the books now. That concludes our presentation. If you have questions, please feel free to ask them.

All right, let's open this up for discussion.

I will speak up right now. So thank you. Thank you for that summary. I was one of the persons who had requested that we bring this back up for review after we received some additional information from the fire chief. I think we had some good discussion around other concerns that came up related to um how we we kind of started our process with there were no recreational vehicles allowed we wanted to implement this to allow some guard rails for the appropriateness of following code and having safety issues addressed for people who did want to park recreational vehicles at their property. I think that when we addressed this initially in our retreat conversation, we talked about allowing one vehicle and then over the course, or one recreational vehicle. Over the course of the time, that kind of evolved from one to an unlimited number that could be parked in the front side or backyard. Following that, we got additional information on concerns from the fire chief. We had some good discussion about other concerns about allowing just kind of open ended numbers. And so I did ask that we review this again. And so I am prepared to make a motion for a change in what we originally had agreed to in our for our ordinance that was recently approved so it once there's no more discussion i'll make that motion um i think there's uh potentially more discussion but we could you can bring a motion shall i go ahead Okay, so I would like to move to direct staff to prepare a draft ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 17 zoning, chapter 17.135 supplementary regulations for specific uses. section 17.135.150 a trailer and boat storage in residential districts to state that one recreational vehicle shall be stored in the front yard and one in the backyard and to set public hearing for july 20th 2026 regular city council meeting to receive public testimony all right we have a motion on the floor

For sake of clarity, you said one RV in the front yard. I assume you meant the driveway.

I'm sorry. Yes, driveway. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you.

I think we all kind of knew what you meant. In the front. But I appreciate clarification just so we have the verbiage. Yeah. That's important. Do we have a second?

Second.

All right. We have a second motion by Council member Kuyper, second by Council member Bowman. And that opens up discussion. I do have Council member Munson queued up here. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Mayor.

I get the intent by making this change, but I also think we constrain people that have larger parcels of property. Is this council amenable to digging in a little deeper to set constraints? Say, for example, if you're in an R7 having one in front, one on the side, but if you're in an R1 or an R3 where you have larger parcels, Uh, as we see in the community, there's people that have the ability to store more without being a fire hazard and we should not affect them and what they're doing. So if you're council, if you're open to it, I would suggest that we, if we're going to do this, that we make this code a little more definitive on, on who and when and where. So that we're not blanket policy, blanket policy, applying to all all the different zoning aspects that we have out there.

Council Member Feldman?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'm not opposed to what you want to bring up, but if we're going to do that, then I think we also need to look at higher density zoning and saying you can't have it at all. Because when we were talking earlier tonight about the legacy standards, there's places where you probably shouldn't have any of that stuff based upon setbacks, based upon side yards, based upon backyards, that kind of stuff. So I think if we're going to do that, which I don't have a problem with because we do have some bigger lots in the city that have been either brought into the city or, you know, were developed to the different standard that we had back then. Then I think that we may want to look at that and say anything over, you know, an R7 zone and above that, you know, you can have one in the front as long as it does not impede ada but uh the side in the back maybe not just because of the size of the lots and so um you know we can i i have no problem looking at that through zoning but i think we need to look at all of it if we're going to look at look at it so that it doesn't um you know i can jam a trailer down the side of my house with two inches and two inches to the fence and it's right up against the backyard and those type of things i think that would be beneficial too

I'm going to weigh in on this, and then we'll go once around. I also recall during our discussion with Chief, our previous code stating setbacks. Is that something that, and I remember kind of the gray area because an RV doesn't necessarily fall under the building setback requirements. Um, but could we still implement a footage distance from adjoining properties or something like that? That, that was the one thing that caught me off guard that it, it really spoke to me was the proximity to a neighboring fence line. And that thing catches on fire now. You have a fire jumping over to the neighboring property and that that's something that had me fairly concerned. So. I don't disagree with looking at it based on zoning. Necessarily, but also having some clearances built into that. That kind of ensures that we have some safety from neighboring properties. I think that would be advantageous as well. We'll go, uh, Council member for air.

I appreciate this Council looking at the different lot sizes. That was one of my things that I brought up at the other one. Setbacks my only concern was setbacks when you put restrictions. Like I get the side yards if you have there's already setbacks in our codes, right now, so there's no reason why we can't just put that in this one, my only concern is side yard makes sense. You know you've got your five you've got your five feet from you know the property line to the building makes sense. The backyard though, unfortunately, depending on the lot size. So I guess I would want to take a look at our zonings, how we're going to be utilizing this language in pertaining to zoning, because you do have people who have small little RVs and then next to it, they could put their boat and their trailer and it will all fit in their driveway, in the backyard or in their yard period, in their backyard. But if you start putting these setbacks, then it could potentially, none of our, a lot of our lots aren't going to be large enough to allow somebody to put their RVs or their travel trailers With a setback such as correct me if i'm wrong, I know mark you got those numbers right in front of you, I think it's with the driveway you have 20 feet for the setback from the House. To the streets that be in the curb then I believe the front yard is a 10 feet setback and the backyard is it also a 20 feet setback.

So if I may, sorry, this is Kristen. Oh, sorry. No, don't worry. No, no, no. I'll do my best. So most residential zones, you were correct. So 20 feet from the garage to the front property line. I'm just bringing up the table now. Most residential zones, the front yard, so the residence, the dwelling is 10 feet. And then when we look at rear yards... In R3 and R5s, it's a 20-foot setback. In R7 and R10 through R20, it's a 10-foot for rear yard.

Okay, so exactly. So that's my concern is if you put a setback on these RVs, I'm not opposed to HAB-Masyn Moyer- You know, putting some kind of restrictions in the side yard, but if you have a house that they have a backyard it has to sit first of all the rv has to be 2018 feet away from that house and then also 18 feet away from the next house.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- No, no, no.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- So it has to be 18 feet away from the property that's even worse.

But we want to treat this as a house. Well, that's why I said I don't know if we need to say sorry I shouldn't interrupt, but my backs versus clearances. You don't know my setbacks versus clearances. Okay, and that's why i'm saying we're in my brain. What i'm hearing chief say is we need to be able to access the property. We need to have 3 foot 4 foot distance. to get through with our gear safely. That's the number that is in my head. And so my point is, hey, keep it three feet away from, four feet away from the neighboring property line. Whether you gotta keep it away from your own house, I don't know if that's necessarily what I was talking about. I'm talking about being respectful to your neighbors. It was my whole point.

But I think that goes to your setback comment is exactly what Kristen said is if you go to a higher density zoning, mine's R5. I got to be 20 feet from the back fence on my setbacks. So that means I'm 20 feet from the back fence of my house, the neighbor's 20 feet from the back fence, so there's 40 feet. You go to an R7 zoning, there's only 20 feet between those two residents. So now you want to cram a camper in there or something else, you're putting it right on top of that residence now. So if you're talking public safety, the spread of fire will be greater there than it would be at an R5 zoning. That's why I think you have to look at zoning if you're going to consider what that looks like. I know when I moved out here, I needed RV parking. I didn't have a choice, so I had to look at properties that had RV parking. It was different than You know the new stuff that was being built on the west side of town, because I just couldn't get it with with those lots. So I think that's what we have to look at if we're going to look at setbacks.

And I just wanted to add real quick. I want us to be careful, too, because not everything if the definition isn't just rvs it's also boats and trailers. So when we talk about setbacks it's going to be for everything, even things that aren't fire starters. So I just want us to be careful and think about that, too, when we asked staff to create a direction that's been a lot. There's going to be a lot to this. I don't think it's going to be that easy.

Well, let's get back on track here. Council Member Munson. Deputy Mayor. Oh, sorry. Deputy Mayor Vail. Yeah, you haven't gone yet.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Ferrer said what I was going to say as well, which was this code does not just talk about large RVs. And so I think sometimes we get a little bit blinded up here and we're talking about really large footprint RVs. And that's not what this code is only talking about. It's also talking about folding tent trailers. Those are very, very small. Motor homes, truck campers removed from truck or pickup, horse trailers, boat trailers with or without boats, other recreational trailers and utility trailers and boats. So you could have a very, very small boat like those jet ski boats or the Sea-Doo boats. You could have what I've seen people have is a single Sea-Doo on a walkable, a little walkable trailer that they can walk right through their gate through their pedestrian gate on the side of their house and they can park it right next to, you know, the back patio. So I think that though there could be some merit, we don't want merit to some of the claims that I'm hearing, which is we don't want to impede the firefighters and their response to actual fires that could consume a residential home. That is concerning. We also don't want to have RVs parked so close to a fence that it could very easily catch the fence and then nearby homes on fire as well. So I think that there is some merit to some of this concern. However, I think that we need to look and consider all angles. And also, longer code is not always better code. So this, I think that we can look into this and see how can we make this more simple to understand for our citizens? They don't have municipal code about these RVs that is 10 pages long.

Mayor Mrakas, or Council member months Thank you mayor overhauls or this is a two parter but i'm going to lean on our city clerk for a minute to get me from my first part to my second part, can you please read back to me the motion that was made, so I can articulate my statement next.

Yes, Council member munson. Council Member Kuyper's move to direct staff to prepare a draft ordinance amending Battleground Municipal Code Title 17 zoning, Chapter 17.135 supplementary regulations for specific uses, Section 17.135.150 sub A, trailer and boat storage in residential districts to state that one recreational vehicle shall be stored in the front driveway, clarified, and one in the backyard and to set a public hearing for the july 20 2026 regular city council meeting to receive public testimony that's a lot thank you so uh in the spirit of the motion i appreciate this coming up and us having this conversation however

Are you clear on what we're looking for? Cause I'm not clear on what we're looking for. And we are now asking to put this direction in your hands when we can't even figure out what we're talking about. So what I'm gonna get at is this, we have seven different opinions flying up here. Some are close, some vary a lot. I don't wanna see staff have to try to take what they hear tonight and get this done in the next five weeks when we can't figure it out ourselves. So what I'm gonna encourage is whether it's through you rescinding your motion and coming up with something different but i think it's on all seven of us to do in our bi-weeklies our own homework and our own research so that when we hand it to miss swanson to give to kristen that they understand exactly where we're coming from because if not we're going to keep doing this over and over and over again and we're not going to get it right and we talk we hear people talking about wasting the city's money Mayor Mrakas, This is wasting the city's money if we can't be clear and give you guys direction so i'm going to put this on our shoulders, however, you need to fix your motion, but I don't think it's fair that we give the city staff, the short amount of time when we we can agree on what we're at. Mayor Mrakas, Thank you, ma'am.

Council Member Kuypers.

Okay. So my first, I have a question. Is rescinding my motion appropriate since it was seconded?

Yes, you can rescind your motion.

Okay. And I also appreciate all the good conversation, the input on zoning-based and setbacks, clearance. Those are things that do have to be considered. So I'm glad all that was reiterated. My concern is I do want to make sure, as you have said, let's get this right. I also don't want something implemented and citizens start making changes in their property, maybe making improvements. to put in a pad because now they think they can park something in the front that they hadn't been able to before. We want it to be clear and we want to get this resolved before people start spending money in addition to the money we're spending. So I'm happy to try to restate my motion for direction and give it a try. so to be clear you have rescinded your motion original motion and i'm ready to make another motion ready she's ready she's ready okay um i would like to direct staffed i moved to direct staff to prepare a draft ordinance that would include bullet points related to zoning based allowances and setbacks and clearance appropriate to the zoning. that that be the first draft that we review during bi weekly meetings, and start that conversation. And that we hold off on a public meeting to be a public hearing date to be set at this time. So we allow ourselves enough time to do the research that needs to be done and have the conversation. But I'd like the expertise of the staff to start a draft.

I understood.

Thank you.

Can I ask a question on that motion?

You bet.

Did you want to add anything in regards to the driveway? And you just mentioned pads earlier. Is that anything that you wanted to add on? No. Okay. Because you're talking about citizens putting in pads and work and everything. So, okay.

We have a motion on the floor. We have a second.

now we open it back up to further discussion um the one question i have is is that clear enough to at least get you guys started on a draft yeah it seems like there's there's basically three parts here talked about a part of your motion number one you want to have you want to look at zoning considerations how that might influence this you also want to talk about setback and clearance requirements how that might influence it and you'd like to do a lot of the work in bi-weeklies as much as possible and before it comes back to the city council yes

yeah that summarizes my emotion thank you all right uh council member mccoy uh yeah i agree with most of what's been said i think um the setbacks may self-rectify the zoning right i mean that and and i 100 agree it needs to be simple uh i like the idea of you know if you have an r1 you're afforded more flexibility so i could support all of those

All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this topic? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

One opposed. Motion passes six to one. All right. We're going to go back to this now. We are talking about ordinance 2026-14 budget amendment. Oh, wait. We pulled that. My bad. That's pulled. We doinked that right on out of there. OK. Now we're going to Northwest Fifth Street project discussion presentation. Mark, take it away.

Good evening, Council. I'm just going to pull up the staff report so everyone can see it. Zoom in a little bit. Um, so we've talked to a couple of different meetings about our Northwest fifth street project. Um, and recently council member McCoy had, uh, brought up a request to table the fifth street project. Um, and feel free to correct me if I'm getting anything wrong here, but. essentially with several caveats. The first being that the CAM school was required to dedicate right away as part of their projects. So we would continue forward with requiring that and getting that in place. separately we've been looking at in this area for a possible well site and so we would continue to move forward if ultimately that we decide that a well would make sense there that we would treat that as a separate project to this and and could move forward having those discussions keeping Fifth Street in the TIP and then requesting our legislative group to talk to the legislators to see if we could reprogram the funds into a separate city project. um just a couple clarifications from me or or suggestions for the tip i'll just point out that we have both funded and unfunded projects in there so to me it probably doesn't matter if you leave it or not we would definitely leave it in the tsp which is the transportation system plan because that would be a long-term project most likely when the school property redeveloped that would be a requirement of that And then for the reprogramming of funds, my only recommendation would be is, and I think the timing will work out fine, but because we can move funds internally in the Connect Washington projects, We want to make sure 15th and Main gets done, because if that comes in at a higher amount, we can move money from this project to that project. So we want to make sure that project is fully funded. And then whatever's left over is what we would ask our lobbyists to try to get reprogrammed. So did I capture everything? Looks like I did. So I'm happy to answer any questions on that.

Councilmember Bowman. Mark, how much do you think we're going to be over on the 15th project?

I don't think we're going to be over as much as, so I think, I'm not sure how much we have programmed for that. I think we're in the $700,000 or $800,000 range. My guess is we'll probably be close to that, if not pushing towards a million. But I think we'll be pretty close. So I don't think we'll have to take a ton from this project. But again, because we can use it toward that, I'd want to make sure we are capturing all of it that we can.

And what is the total that we have right now set aside with connecting Washington for the Fifth Street project?

I think we have about $2 million after 15th is done. We'll be in about the $2 million range. Okay.

So I don't have a problem waiting until we get 15th done. I could be completely wrong, but I think it would be absolutely insane of this council to think that the state of Washington is going to allow us to roll that money. when they have i i know for for a fact of two overpasses right now in eastern washington that they've shut down that will be shut down for over a year because they failed and they can't fix them so to think that we're going to be able to keep that money and that the state is not going to roll that back and say nope, we're going to keep it. It's $2 million that will come out of our community and go to a different community. And that has been from discussion that I've had with people at the state level saying that they're already rolling some of this back, some of the back-end stuff. I mean, we were the first were in the we were supposed to be in the first six years now in the first ten but we were in the first six years of this project of a 20-year project those that are on the back end of this are not going to see this money and so i think that um I think the state cares. I don't even think they care if we say, hey, we're going to use that for a roundabout. They don't care because a roundabout means nothing to them when they can't open overpasses or a bridge on I-90 that is a major thoroughfare through the state of Washington. So any money that they can get, they're going to roll it back. So I think we just have to be prepared for that, that it's going to go away. That's $2 million that will leave the community and go to another community. Thank you.

Council Member Kuypers?

thank you um i understand that that's two million that will go it's high risk that it goes away um but in addition to that i understand that if we move forward with this project two million dollars doesn't cover the project we are we are going to have to figure out how we're going to fund what do we think the total project might be at this point more in the four to five million

I want to say it was in the four-ish arena. I'm trying to remember from last week.

It's an additional $2 million that we don't have available to us right now. The other part of it I'm concerned about is the requirement by CAM. And the school district doesn't have money. So... i just good point and yeah i'm would be sad that we'd have to lose it but we're if we move forwards we're spending a lot more money than we're prepared to spend and i just don't see that that intersection warrants that risk council member mccoy

Mike Noce, Mgmt. yeah I agree it's it's a long shot to try to reprogram the funds, but I think we still have to ask. Mike Noce, Mgmt. So I agree it's probably not going to happen, and we just make that tip tsp instead of tip.

Mike Noce, Mgmt.

My concern is is the funding aspect and us being on the hook for 503 as well. Mike Noce, Mgmt. Our engineering staff, we have currently have underfunded projects on eaten and grace.

Yeah, Eaton is currently well underfunded, obviously with grant requests in, and Grace is pretty close.

So I'm also fine, you know, tabling it and keep it on the tip as well. But I think having our staff with this many projects in the air is problematic. I think there's some problems with the just we would probably have to eminent domain the school. It's probably the only way we're getting this road through. So there's political water we need to carry to get this project through. There's financial water we need to carry. And we've been talking about this I wanted to give staff clear direction to Councilor Munson's point earlier. So we're fishing or cut bait at this point, right? And I'm fine with obviously whichever way this goes, but I think we need to give staff clear direction on this and either move forward or say this project's off the docket for a while. Thank you.

Councilmember Munson. uh to council member bowman's point about the state pulling the funding um the state's been very very vocal in the last two weeks about their budget for next year it would not surprise i'm not saying they're gonna i'm just gonna say it though i would not be surprised if they pulled the funding anyways because we haven't met the timeline and their budget shortfall is probably going to be the one of the biggest ones we've seen They're still looking at other mechanisms to generate their revenue. This would be low hanging fruit for them to come and take that money back since we haven't met it. My only concern is if we do move forward with this is yeah, there's a gap that we're gonna have to cover when there's other projects that are, still need to be moved and then mark and his department's time to continue to keep this on the books look at modifications especially if there's different state codes that update i think you presented to us last two two meetings ago with a modified version widening 503 because we talked that what good does this do us if we're just following one lane down around about we're now going to back traffic up past main street So as much as this project's been on the books for a while, I think it's just prudent that we recognize that the state can just pull that money anytime they want because we are so far behind the eight ball on this. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Graham.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would just like to echo Council Member Munson's sentiments that there's a lot of problems here. I have not been a fan of the Fifth Street project at all in any regard whatsoever. I don't believe that it will fix the problem that we have. I think it'll create problems of its own. I don't see spending $2 to $3 million, if we stay on budget with that project, of our own money is really going to meet the solution that we need it to for that big of a budget bite. So I am not in favor, again, of this project. And I think it's worth at least asking. There is going to be major budget shortfalls. We've seen that. We've seen sweep of funds. We've seen letters from the governor talking about that. And so I think that it is a concern. but it doesn't hurt to at least ask and see we may be surprised but i do agree that the uh this is problematic and i am not in support of this project at all council member ferrer thank you mayor i just have a question i did we look into did we not already look in to see if we could be reallocating those funds to somewhere else

We confirmed with WSDOT that they don't have any authority to move it. They can move it within the Connect Washington, so any of the, you know, West Main can get funds from it. That can move around. But outside of that, they don't have any administrative authority to do so. And again, they had the same concern that it was highly unlikely that when we asked the legislators that they're going to approve it.

So going back to what councilor Munson said about widening the road north of main street on 503, would that be an option at all with this funding?

No, not with this funding, this funding specific to fifth street.

Okay.

And it would touch on 503 just because of the impact at the intersection, but it wouldn't get you fully to, um, the entire width. And then again, there would be significant amount of money that we would have to put in to get there.

Council Member Bowman.

Mark, was a roundabout included in this? So we originally proposed a right in, right out as part of the state has a process that's called ICE. That's Intersection Control Evaluation. So you have to look at the intersection to see what the appropriate treatment there is. The ice indicated that the roundabout was the preferred method. However, because we originally proposed the right in, right out, the state ultimately was okay with sort of an interim doing it that way. But long term, the correct solution is the roundabout.

So why can't we do a roundabout, use the money we have to do the roundabout? not finish out, not do fifth, put the roundabout in, we'd at least alleviate traffic coming from Fred Myers, be able to push it north instead of going south, start that project, finish that, and then if fifth ever goes through, it goes through. If not, we finish the side that we messed up on 10 years ago by not putting merge lanes in and all that.

So from the state's perspective, the only way to get approval to actually do that intersection treatment is to have that road also go to Parkway. They see it as all one project, and the max benefit is by getting cars off other roads. And so just doing the treatment at the intersection would not meet their requirement. That was looked at in the ICE.

So this goes, I mean, I'm fine with that. I don't care where it goes, but I will say this, this is what happens when we drag projects out that councils approve and other councils come in and change them. And so this is what happens when you have councils that, and you know, I know councils change, but these projects don't change. They're on a transportation plan for a reason. and we get politics change and then we come in and we scrap whole things because well that's not what i want and we we lose funding and and we don't do it so it will happen again um because uh this is the the climate that we're in we will we will run on certain things to you know whether it be a neighborhood not wanting it or whatever um but it's sad that we spend the amount of time to do these projects which this this was the only piece of this project that had nothing to do with the state 12th had to do with the state first had to do with the state 15th had to do with the state 502 and 503 had to do with the state this was the only project that was alleviating traffic that didn't have to do with the state and we scrapped that project and did everything that the state should have done to begin with this was the only project that we didn't do that had to do with the city of battleground and what what the city of battleground needed the rest of it was was state ran and so 502 503 uh on store all that that has to do with the state and i understand the state doesn't want to fix anything they want us to fix their roads And I get it, we use them. But there's other funding sources for us to do this. We could shift money from TBD for one year or two years to put in a road instead of doing the preservation. There's other ways to do it. But I mean, this is what happens when we take this long to do this. And it's not staff's fault. This is dealing with the state and dealing with COVID and dealing with all the things that go into it and then not having escalators from 10 years ago. I mean, this project should have been a $14 million project when it's 10 years later because that's how much it's going to go up. And so that's the challenge with this.

I appreciate the work you guys have done, though.

councilmember mccoy that's our last time around yeah i'll make an emotion at the end of it um i don't disagree anything councilmember bowman said my concern is i don't think this council has the political will to see this project through so i think it's a race a waste of staff's time and resources for us to have it on the plan. For me, that's the reasoning behind it. This would take a lot of political will for this council to get this project through. Now, if it's there, that's a different story. But I don't think it is. I don't see it. I'm not hearing it. And I haven't seen it. And that's why we had this discussion the first time. The only direction staff got was see if we can reprogram the funds, which they did a great job and went and asked. This council did not give clear direction at that time. So my point in bringing this back is I think every single council member should be taking a stand on this, say where we are. If we have the political will to go forward, political will you know vote that way if not vote the other way and let's move on to other things if or get this done so with that i move that we table the northwest fifth street project uh with protection for the school commitment of future access is agreed with cam placement additionally uh investigate an agreement for purchase and placement of a well location while keeping northwest fifth street in the tip as an unfunded project as well as asking staff to attempt to reprogram the funds all right we have a motion on the floor i'll second that all right we have a motion by council member mccoy second by council member kypers any further discussions

yeah well to summarize the motion you table the project but keep it on there uh and it also work on the well location of hydraulically and

yeah and i'll just i'll just add i mean i have concerns of the school adding in two new buildings three futures we saw that plan drop uh the trade school um so i'm not super happy with the school district uh as far as them continuing to put weight on the scale of a failing intersection so That's why some of this is in here about wells and some quid pro quos. Um, I'm not, they're not helping us make this decision easy. I'll just say that.

Thank you.

Council member for, so I'm just trying to read it and get like wrap my head around it. Cause I don't want to just vote this through very quickly. Cause this wasn't, this wasn't on any, on our agenda was from the mic. What? you're on the mic commenting yeah while you're reading it yeah that's what i'm going to do i'm going to use my time to speak to read it to get clarified is that that is that okay mayor well yeah but we just have other people like speak while you're doing that well it's my first round he's already spoken to it yeah well this is a new round because we have a motion on the floor OK, I just wanted to find I'll use this time to ask my question. A clarifying question. It says with protection for the school commitment of future access as agreed upon, that's the right of way, correct? OK. And how? OK.

So maybe that's worded incorrectly and I would take staff. I mean, that's just to make sure that we don't lose that right away if in the future that's redeveloped into something else, that there's no net loss to the city. That was the intent of that. If that needs to be restated.

So let me say it, I'll say it the same, but as part of the CAM staff report, they were required to dedicate the right away from CAM 2503 as part of the impacts of their project. So if the project moves forward and we have to purchase property from the school, we do not have to purchase that piece because it's a requirement that they dedicate it to us. So what I hear from this is that they would continue to have to dedicate that as part of their project. That right away would essentially just sit there until it gets used for the future construction, which is far down the road at this point.

if there is future if there is future construction if there's not future council could if cam came forward to ask to use that property later that would be up to that council at that time to say yay or nay once the school dedicates that it's ours and so we can use it however we see fit you know within the boundaries of that right of way whether that be selling it back to them for something or say go ahead and use it however just okay correct thank you for clarifying

Council Member Bowman.

That's my only concern with this is the school district is just going to build on it. And so what we don't have is right away, they'll just build, they'll build something out there. They already did it with Cam. They knew exactly that road was going through there and where they put Cam right in the middle of the road. And so and that's the pushback. Well, Cam is going to have a road running right next to it. They knew the road was running right next to it before they put Cam there. They could have moved CAM where they're putting the trade building right now. And so that's my concern is the school district, they're not planning on vacating anything. I think we still hold them to it because they did that and they said, we're going to dedicate the right-of-way to you.

Yeah, so my recommendation would be two things. One, we continue on with making them dedicated because it does protect it from that. And then two, by keeping it in the TSP, any development they do, if it's up in that area, would trigger that, plus it prevents them from putting anything in that area that's permanent. If you have part of a baseball field or stuff like that, it's totally fine. they could not put a building on there because our TSP would require a road in that location, even without us owning the property.

But that's why we have to keep it on the TSP. Correct. Because if we take it off, they can do whatever they want.

Yeah, if you take it out, again, the TIP, it can be on or off, doesn't matter. In the TSP, we want to hold it there because it protects that and also requires it if they ever develop that area. Yeah. Thank you.

councilmember munson thank you mayor we're there so just a couple things i'm going to point out to say that we don't have the political will to move this forward. I love how you're trying to manipulate that conversation to see that this moves forward. At the same time, I see a council member down on the far saying that councils are gonna continually not push this project through. I have zero problem with this project going through. What I have a problem with is you have bigger projects, more important projects than this project. So we can table this. And in five years, we can come back and we can hear the same thing you're saying tonight. And then we can hear what you want to say about this being a political motivated agenda item. But at the end of the day, this project still sits here and does nothing. It's going to sit here until the state pulls the funds from us because they're going to need it somewhere else. I'm not a fan of this project because I don't think it's going to give us the alleviation we need, but I also don't want to see this project pulled if there, for some reason, pot of gold shows up and they can be completely funded by the state. I'm cool with that. So thank you for the challenge. I'll be voting in favor of tabling this, but when this sits here for five years or 10 years from now, and that project costs us $20 million because we couldn't move forward because we have more, more important projects that we're underfunded on, correct?

Correct.

so i'll call for the question that's called the question and we will go vote on the motion on the floor Oh, sorry. My apologies. So we'll take a vote on the call to question. All those in favor?

Is there a second on the call to question?

Oh, my bad. Do we need a second? Yeah. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

All right. We have a second by Deputy Mayor Vail. All those in favor to call the question?

Aye.

Any opposed? Two opposed. Motion passes five to two to question. Let's go to the vote on the motion on the floor then.

yeah everyone good can we read the motion can we hear the motion again please it's right uh

To table the Northwest Fifth Street project with protection for the school commitment of future access as agreed with camps placement. So we retain the right of way guarantee an agreement for purchase and placement of a well location if hydraulically hydrologically feasible keeping Northwest Fifth Street in the tip. If needed to be stated and request to ask staff to attempt to reprogram the funds.

Do we not have to be specific about the TIS instead of... I'm sorry.

I wanted to amend that, but the question has been called so I can't.

Okay. We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor? Hearing none, all those opposed? Nay. Nay, sorry. All right, motion fails unanimously.

Let's move on.

I'm out of time here. Oops, sorry, mic's off. All right, so now we go back to resolution number 26-03. see where we're at on that and uh adopting the six-year transportation improvement program for 2027 to 2020 or 2032 public hearing and motion uh mark kersig you're up sir um

So we had the public hearing. I won't spend too much time on it, but essentially, TIP is required every year. It lists all the projects that we anticipate doing in the six-year period, both funded and unfunded. always give the spiel that there's no particular order required by the state. We typically try to have the funded projects towards the front of the TIP and then the unfunded towards the back. There are several projects that were removed from last year, and those are just all based on them hopefully being done by the end of the year. We've got several that have already been bid and a couple left to bid. So those have been removed. There is one new project. It's at Grace and Rasmussen. As part of development, that triggered a level of service failure. So we're adding that to the TIP in order to make sure that we can collect concurrency mitigation funds to make the improvement at that intersection. So happy to answer any questions about that.

Councilmember Freire.

Yeah, just a question. What exactly are those updates going to be to the Parkway and Rasmussen?

If I said Parkway, I meant Grace and Rasmussen.

I mean, yeah, sorry, Grace and Rasmussen.

Grace and Rasmussen would be a compact roundabout.

Okay. Isn't there, do we have big trucks that go on there?

Um, there are trucks on that route, but the roundabout specifically designed for mounted curb for the center area that would accommodate them.

Mayor Mrakas, Council member Bowman smear move to approve resolution 2603 adopting the six year transportation improvement program for 27 through 3220 27 through 2032 is presented second, we have a motion by Council member Bowman second by Council member munson.

Mayor Mrakas, Any discussion.

just want to remind this council by approving this we are leaving fifth street on tip right doesn't mean anything's going to happen with it just it's going to sit it's still there but then it's very similar to the motion council member mccoy said we will be wasting staff's time to you know for them to be potentially going out for funding grants Unless we let them know this is not on our at least a high priority list.

It's not wasting their time. We just voted down tabling it. So you just voted down to table it, but then you want to.

Remove it completely.

That's what tabling it would have just stopped that, but you voted.

I thought tabling it would have been like the discussion. Well, I want I was not happy with the call to question. To be honest, I had more questions, so that's why I voted it down so.

But it doesn't change anything on there. Like he said, if we need that money to go to 15, it will go to 15.

Well, he said we could still get it even if we go after TSP. We could easily put it on TSP, yes, and still go after the funding. Did I not understand that correctly, Mark?

It has to be on the TSP. It's your choice if it's on the TIP or not.

Let me clarify.

if i understood what happened in the previous one it did not get tabled so it is still a city project that we're moving forward on so based on that it has to stay in the tip exactly so in your guys's mind we are all on board with fifth street now that is what i heard that exactly what he's hearing uh yes deputy mayor

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I wanted to ask you a question mark as well. So I understand I'm a new council member, I'm doing my best to understand as very quickly as I possibly can. But because this project is currently on the tip and then the TSP and because we already have that, that land that canvas set aside. So couldn't we just pause and have this project be unfunded and still sit exactly where we're sitting which is that land is protected it's still on both things although we will not be funding as a council and this is just hypothetical we will not be funding as a council that particular project and that could be directed and they can still sit on the same lists and then that will still protect our interest in that land in case in the future we want to develop it is that correct

So on the TSP, it will protect the area because it would essentially then require if anytime the school district did something to build the portion that they impact getting the right away dedication that we already, they already owe us again, would protect that area from them. Um, the tip is purely a funding mechanism so if you have funding for a project you have to have it in the tip um we do currently have funding for the project because the project was not tabled it has to remain in the tip okay but it doesn't mean it's getting built Correct. Again, just sitting there. We have this conversation next year, you know. Carry on, right?

Council Member Munson.

So this is my seventh time doing a TIP with you, and you've taught me a lot. And one thing I do know is we can have a wish list all we want of things that are our pet projects or things that are your pet projects. But what it comes down to at the end of the day is we still have to vote when that project comes up. So it can sit on this list. But it's not going to there's no action item until we give you the word go. And like I said tonight, my 14 percent of the vote is I'm not a fan of this project. But if you find 10 million dollars to get that two lane highway all the way north to Onsdorf and you can get the roundabout and you can get Fifth Street punch through and it doesn't cost the taxpayers here any dollars. OK, I'll go for it. I'm all for it. But by sitting on this list, it causes no harm, no foul. I'm not gonna vote for it if it's gonna cost our taxpayers directly. So I don't have a problem with it sitting on here. You're gonna look for every avenue you can to get that funded. I believe that. So my point is, I don't have a problem with it sitting here. It's not gonna go anywhere. It's been a headache for 10 years. Who knows? Maybe Washington state will figure out their budget someday and they can pass all that money back out to us. But it's not happening anytime soon.

Thank you, Mayor Council member for I'd like to start with a question. What is the timeline on this? I mean, this was grant funding. Is there no deadline to this?

So just for clarification, we're talking about the TIP. Are you asking about the TIP or are we asking about FIF?

Fifth, the funding that we have received for fifth. Connecting Washington. The Connect Washington, yeah.

So the city, the state has a biennium. And every biennium, they have to renew it if the money is not spent. They have done that every biennium so far. As has been pointed out, it sounds like it's going to be a tough budget next year, next year. And that, I believe, end of June is the end of the biennium. um for the states at the end of June next year um so it you know we would assume that it will get re-appropriated but it's always a risk when you reach the the end of the biennium if they will or will not okay and I get

I get this is a wish list. I also get what you've told me from the very beginning where I've learned lots from you as well, that although it's in a certain order, that's not the order that we're going after these things. It's whatever we can get in regards to grants. But I would also say that, it's not just pushback that we're receiving from CAM. It's also from the high school. It's also from the property owners. It's from the residents who live in that area. And so, I wish that we would be able, we would have been able as this Council to say yes or no, you know, but it just allows it to stay on there for, you know, future Council, maybe, maybe, maybe the next round. Maybe it's the next round that you guys get the people that you want on there and they'll push it through for you. So I'll be voting now on this.

Okay. Council member Bowman. I'll be quick. We've already had to push back. We had to push back 10 years ago. We had to push back eight years ago. We had to push back six years ago. We have pushed back every single time. And guess what? There's no road. So just because it's on a list, you're going to have pushback no matter what. Just leave it on the list. If we fund it, we fund it. Like Mr. Munson said, if it comes back to us, we will have to vote on it to spend the money. because we know the state isn't going to give us, we know there's not enough to fund it. So the pushback's already been there. It's going to continue to be there until this road is either built or it goes away.

All right. Hearing no further discussion, we do have a motion on the floor and a second. So I will move to a vote. All those in favor.

Can you restate the motion, please?

The motion is to approve the resolution number 26.

Thank you.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nay.

All right. Motion passes six to one. On to administrative reports.

Mayor Mrakas, Thank you, Mr Mayor, I would be remiss and I think our PIO will be very cross with me if I didn't mention the pop up birthday party. Mayor Mrakas, yeah at qantas park this Thursday, the 18th celebrating battlegrounds 75th birthday, it is an Alicia correct me wrong 11am to 1pm. Mayor Mrakas, I got it right, I got a thumbs up they're going to have many horses yeah they're gonna have face pain and the expectation is every Council member in attendance will have their face painted.

There will also be a foam party.

So it's going to be lit. So there you go.

Thank you, Robert. I'm going to pull that from YouTube later. It's going to be lit. I agree. It will be lit. But I don't know if I can sign up for the face painting. I don't know how the paint works with beards. Maybe you can just put a little something up on the forehead. All right, Alicia. I have to go back to work after that. That'll be great. All right. That concludes administrative reports. On to council communications. And I've got people queued up. This is awesome. I love it. Council Member Munson, you are first up.

Thank you, Mayor Overholzer. Governance Committee Manual. Governance Manual Committee. Excuse me, getting that wrong. I think my caffeine's wearing off. Everything's wearing off. So we I talked about this meeting or 2 ago, and I failed to do a follow through. So I apologize to Council. We've gotten through, I think, our first third of the manual, which really comes down to meetings and kind of the meat and potatoes that starts this whole thing. Now we're looking at the back end of it. And so I sent out an inquiry to MRSC and I was gonna look for consensus tonight, but because I failed to get this out to council, I'm gonna ask if, liz or rob wouldn't mind sending this email to council essentially what it is i asked them that we don't have any mechanism in our governance manual or in the rcws when it comes to removing a mayor or deputy mayor from their appointed position they still retain their elected position so i think in our governance manual it would be prudent of us to at least investigate this to see if we want to move it forward So again, if Ms. Halili or Mr. Ferrer could move this email this out for you all to review and then our next meeting, I'll come back and I'll look for a consensus to see if we want to put something like this in our governance manual. So I apologize, Mayor. I was going to look for consensus, but I didn't communicate effectively. So it's still going to be on my mind. All right. Council Member McCoy.

Mr. Mayor, I rise in support of the policies our council has previously adopted. And I quote, proclamations are not statements of policy, but are a means by which the city can recognize an event group or individual, end quote. recent proclamations are in direct conflict with our policies because it is not a statement by which the city can recognize an event group or individual additionally 21a sub ii states proclamations can be issued at the discretion of the mayor and maybe four organizations individuals or businesses within or outside battlegrounds jurisdictions end quote To be clear, no one on this council is pro-political violence, no one is pro-uncontrolled borders, and no one is protesting married families, contrary to accusations myself and Councilmember Kuipers have received. In this case, there is not a pro-ICE chapter of Clark County, there is not an anti-Antifa book club, nor to my knowledge is there a nuclear family support group of Battleground. Were there any active groups, your proclamations might have a basis in this meeting if you so desire to read them. However, instead of promoting groups, events, or individuals who have a positive impact on our community as a whole, the recent proclamations, including the one tonight, have resulted in untold stress and extra work forced upon our staff and police and a dereliction of our paramount duty to focus on roads, parks, police, and other essential services. notwithstanding the cost of staff time and city services directly related to these proclamations currently tolling in the thousands. The issue with these proclamations is that our mayor is making public policy statements through these proclamations. Policy statements that are and should be subject to a vote of the entire council rather than dictated from just one person. For these reasons, I'll be moving to amend the governance manual to make clear that proclamations are limited to their true intent and spirit and eliminate the potential use of proclamations to state policies, especially policies that are best left in the political realm. Therefore, I move to instruct staff to draft a resolution to amend chapter 21 of the governance manual to eliminate the following in subsection I sub I, as well as the right to make exceptions to these guidelines and procedures. Right now, under current rules, this council is allowing policy proclamations. I would hope this council takes this policy-making decision seriously and returns that power to the duly elected council and not one person.

All right. Council member?

Is there a second?

Second. Oh, yeah. Sorry. There was a motion.

Yeah.

Okay. We have a motion. Can you restate your motion, please, Council Member McCoy?

I instruct staff to draft a resolution to amend chapter 21 of the governor's manual to eliminate the following in subsection A sub I, as well as the right to make exception to these guidelines and procedures.

OK.

It still gives the mayor the right to make proclamations. It still solely rests with the mayor. However, this one line allows carte blanche on every proclamation

legal has been very clear that with this line in there there are no guardrails on proclamations at all yeah and we have a second all right we have a motion in a second open to discussion i will just clearly say that This is the same group and not everybody. I'm not going to point names, but just two years ago amended the governance manual to remove the ability to vote against the proclamation in a minority to overturn a proclamation because you didn't like it when it happened to you.

This has nothing to do with that.

I would say it clearly does because you were one of the voting members that removed that rule.

This has nothing to do with that. What this line does is it allows you to make policy statements. Our legal even agrees with that, and you can ask them. And this is not taking any proclamations away from you at all.

I understand what you're getting at.

Any of the ones that we say in there, it will be or something, or an event group or individual. But because this line is in there, you don't have to follow our own rules because of that one line.

I would argue that every proclamation I've given has been for a group or individual.

I would be happy to have legal to weigh in. Well, let's not- I mean, if they haven't quit already.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

I guess I'm not tracking Council Member McCoy. Can you repeat to me the one line that's given you heartburn so I can understand this better?

um just removing as so if we have chapter 21 um it says kind of what i said earlier proclamations are not statements of policy proclamations are issues discretion and at the very end it says the mayor has the right to make exceptions to these guidelines and procedures so basically it just throws out everything above it have we been doing that doing what

making the acceptance there there have we have had to yes there have been proclamations that have been proffered that have policy statements in them yes okay so so i'll weigh in i've said this to every one of you on council at some point except with the exception of council member mccoy i don't like proclamations They're feel good statements. I don't think they have business here. I will support any mayor of any temperature that's going to do it under the purview of the governance manual. I'm supporting the mayor now with his proclamations. I would support you to bring them up because those are under your purview, your purview if you're mayor. But something that I brought up on the governance manual committee, and these two will attest to it, is I've been vocal that I just want to see proclamations go away. So I don't know that I can support your motion right now. I'm going to take a break for a second.

Can I move to suspend the rules to extend the meeting past 1030, please?

Second.

Sorry, not to interrupt the motion, but I figured we're running out of time. Yeah, vote on it. All right, I have discussion topics here. No, you got to vote on the suspended rules.

To suspend.

Vote to suspend the rules. Now we have to vote. Yeah. Sorry, my apologies. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, rules are suspended. All right, back to our motion on the floor then.

um do you have discussion points I'm not and do you yeah I didn't have one this guy also remember Bowman go ahead so I'm I've heard from a lot of people in the community over the last couple weeks it's amazing to me and and um if we don't think it's a policy statement It's amazing to me how many people think that piece of paper is a policy statement. Because there was no attack on nuclear families. But tonight there was in half this room's eyes. And they thought that we gave them a piece of paper that I don't know what changed from last week to this week. So these pieces of paper where we may think that they're not policy statements, they are policy statements. And when we go back to the comment that you made about the minority voting, the entire history of our council, and I can give this because I've been here a while. I probably won't be here much longer because it disgusts me where we're at. i know for some of you that's what you would like because that's the only way you're getting me off this council is if i quit so my issue is this the mayor used to be able to make proclamations until these proclamations i will tell you in the 15 years i've been here the largest proclamation and i told you this was ben making ben the ambassador to the city of battleground There was no controversy of making Ben the ambassador to the city of Battleground. The mayor had the opportunity to do proclamations, and they were for specific groups. And they would come in and they'd ask for that proclamation. It wasn't until we had a council member that decided she did not want the mayor making a proclamation about LGBTQT. and brought that up from the dais when Mr. Johnson was mayor. And Mr. Johnson, to challenge that, to challenge the mayor's proclamations. And so Mr. Johnson said, fine, let's put it in the governance manual that if three council members have an issue with it, then we won't do the proclamation. And that was never exercised until last year when a minority pushed through not doing a proclamation that the mayor could do. So then it became political very quickly. We're not going to do them because of minorities. You know, if we can't do them for all, we've had legal counsel weigh in on this. Legal counsel has told us what their opinion was. And if you don't think so, go back and watch the meeting with Mr. Ellis telling us what his legal opinion was on this. And this is where going back to Mr. Munson, it's disgusting to me that we think that this piece of paper means something. And it means absolutely nothing. And we've divided our community. And, you know, people that live next to each other, and there are people that think that's a great thing to do. I don't think it's a great thing to do. I don't think there's anything Christian about that. to divide people. I think we should be finding common ground. We should be working towards common ground. And if this is what it's going to do, that we do away with it. But I will say this. I like the fact that it should state policy, that it's not just mayor can do whatever he wants. I think there's a few things that we need to change in our governance manual. I don't think the mayor should be able to change the public comment it's not the mayor's meeting it's our meeting it's seven of us meeting so if we have public comment on one meeting that goes three minutes because it favors what we want then all public comments should go three minutes or it should be up to council if we say 30 minutes then then it's 30 minutes so that's another one i think but I don't think my issue is this. I agree with Mr. Munson. I would rather they go away. But I think that that's exactly what everyone else wants to play in so that we get another room full of people saying, you're trying to take proclamations away from us because they're so worried about a piece of paper. And when I have police officers that live in this city that work in Portland saying, what the heck are you doing? Why would you ever kick a hornet's nest that you don't have to kick? Why would you ever want what we're dealing with in Portland, in Battleground, when we never had it? All it was was political theater. This is similar to going back to Washington, D.C., and standing in the Capitol or in the Senate rotundra and watching the political theater that goes on there. making you think they're in the capitol building and they're not in the capitol building or the speeches from the floor when there's no one there and they're speaking to a tv and there's no one there this is exactly what we're doing in our city and we've hurt a lot of people on both sides on both sides and it's it's a shame that we're doing that i i would rather they go away so that we don't hurt anyone else but i can tell you what this room will be full of people saying you're stopping the mayor from doing proclamations When if we would have just stuck to what Mr. McCoy is talking about, we wouldn't have this issue. And I know some of you think this is a cross, the hill you want to die on, this is a cross that you're bearing. It's hard to convince people when they think God's putting them doing this. But I will tell you this, I know this, God is not a God of confusion. So God doesn't tell you one thing and me something different if it's right. but that's what we've done. And it's a shame that we've done it. I'm embarrassed to be a part of this. I'm embarrassed to watch this. We're 10 30 at night. We still got an executive session to go into. And this has been every single council meeting. And we haven't taken anything that this community has said they want us to do. We have not taken one thing that this community said they wanted us to do and done anything about it. We've taken all these people that most of them aren't even in our community. They're in the community. They don't live in this city.

Mayor, call the question.

All right. We have a call to question. Yes, sir.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Okay. We've called the question. We have a second. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

All those opposed? Nay. Nay.

Did you abstain? So I'm abstaining because I lack the education to make a conscious choice on this.

Okay, so we have a tie vote, three to three.

So actually, usually an abstention is a vote in favor or a vote against. Sorry, it's late. I know the screens are getting very tired. So that is just I think we just voted on the call to question. We did. So there was an abstention on the call to question. Is that correct, Council Member Munson?

That's correct.

So that is a vote in opposition.

Okay, so the motion fails. Question fails.

Keep going, Shane. Shane, would you like to finish your comments?

I think I'm done. Because it's interesting that we want to call a question at 1038 and shut people up, but we don't want to do anything else. We want to let this go and go and go. So it's a shame. It's a shame that this is where we've come as a council. Thank you.

All right. I have you up there.

Yeah. All I was going to say is I don't feel comfortable voting on it at this time because I haven't seen the language. What I would have preferred to see is for it to be placed on the agenda, which would have been asked by Council to yay or nay. And then if we all agreed to bring it up, which we've always given Council, as for what I've seen, I'm always willing to let Council bring something forward. So I think this Council has demonstrated that. So I would have preferred it to go that way. So I'm going to be voting no on it just because I would have preferred to see the language and been able to wrap my head around it. Not at 1030 at night after we've been dealing sitting up here with all of these other agenda items.

I have you cute in Council member. No, that's open next.

That's not for that.

I'll just hold you there.

okay all right councilmember kypers one last shot here we've had um a full evening of disruption of ongoing questions of taking breaks because we're all exhausted and that's the way it has to go and i get it but um let's remember why we are here and this You know, I'm sorry, that was very frustrating to have the question called when we try to allow the, um, the full extent of other comments that other council members have without calling the question. So let's, let's try to hear people out. We're all tired. And you're right, we've got more to do, but I think we've got to figure out some unity amongst ourselves here. We are failing in so many ways right now, whether it's because we have our own agenda, whether we're going to agree with one or we're going to disagree with one, but somehow we've got to get to unity amongst us. And right now, I honestly I don't know who I can listen to, who I can share my thoughts with, who I can't. And this is this is not what I signed up for. This is not what I signed up for. It is not what I asked citizens to vote for me to do. And so whatever it's going to take to get us working together and to lead staff and to get staff to trust everything that's going on, we're going to have to, we got a lot of work to do. And so I'm going to say, we need to set aside some of these agenda items that are more controversial and get to, okay, what do we need to do to figure our community among us so that we can get community in our community? sorry i'm tired and i think we are going directions we don't need to go so i'm asking you each to look at yourselves and let's say what do we need to do to come together all right we have okay all right we have a motion on the floor and we have a second to uh that was a motion to

amend the governance manual or was that to direct the government staff draft a resolution so it would come back as a form of resolution you're not deciding on on doing this today you're asking staff to draft a resolution to come back and have a discussion okay clear all right all those in favor aye aye all opposed nay and we haven't abstained and so fails

motion motion fails to draft the resolution all right uh council member bowman thank you mr mayor um i have two quick things real quick number one i've had uh a couple community members reach out to me on parking enforcement wondering uh and i'd like to just get numbers back not tonight um but on parking enforcement specifically on um the northeast first avenue there by uh margarita factory and what those numbers look like over the last couple months. One of them had said that they had called in multiple times on stuff and nothing was done. I did see, I think, our parking people out there the other day, but it was the last day of school and uh the seniors have been gone for a week and so there's less traffic being parked on that street once once that happens so um if we could get some of those numbers back then the second thing i just wanted to get clarification on at the last meeting uh mr mayor you said that um our legal expenses were due to one city council member could you expound on who that city council member is

You're going to ask me when I'm tired. Okay. I don't know if it was from one city council member, but it was our legal expenses.

Because it was brought up about our legal expenses and that we were over budget. And you made the comment that we're over budget because of one city council member. Then that would.

I'll have to I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Okay, thank you. If if we can find out at the next meeting what that was, please. Yep, thank you.

All right, Council member for air.

So when we look into the park enforcement i'd like to know more about that one, too. How many hours are we spending on is our parking enforcement spending? you hear me okay sorry um on these these kids that i'm assuming they're kids that are parking because now again this was just my understanding and why i voted the way that i voted when we it was us on this council was because i was under the impression that these kids were probably parking over there and they were probably leaving school grounds, doing things they shouldn't have been doing. Maybe they're going to go vaping or smoking their cigarettes. But it's now come to my attention that they may be potentially parking there because there is not enough parking for these kids on the school grounds. And so I would like to know more about this. Obviously, it's late tonight. So if you could... maybe bring me something back chief if that's okay to direct you to do that um just to know how how many hours because i'm not trying to make her heart her her life difficult we have a lot more pressing issues than you know ticketing some kids who have nowhere else to park if that is even the issue so thank you council member munson thank you mayor overholzer uh rob

There was an email put out by Chris talking about expenses and what we've incurred. I'm challenged with those numbers, so I'm going to be out of town next week for work. I won't be able to attend the biweekly with Chris, but I would ask that you relay to her how she came up with those numbers, because some of those numbers I see and what they think were the expenses were, I'd Something inside me tells me that that's not the exact numbers that they were. And I'm not accusing staff of inflating the numbers. But what did we see? Four people, 10 hours for chairs, things of that nature. So could you please relay to Chris that I want a more in-depth, detailed conversation with her, whether I do it over the phone next week or whatever. But I don't like numbers being put out there if they are inaccurate and misleading to the public. If they are accurate and it is what it is, but I want to know a little more about that, thank you and i've just for clarification i've also.

contacted our deputy city manager and requested a little bit more information on these items. And with everything that's been going on, I didn't put a deadline on that because. Well, our staff is pretty busy right at the moment, but I'm hoping to get those numbers back as well. All right. What do we have for Deputy Mayor Vail?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, so I've got three things. Two of them, I mean, they're quick. Sorry, the oh my gosh from the mayor hopefully wasn't heard on the mic. No, I'm just kidding. So quick, the hours were also concerning to me as well, especially the 350 billed hours for $25,759.25 for one staff member. uh so i think that they might have accidentally been a typo there or something that generated a huge amount um that i don't believe to be likely accurate so second thing we were inundated with emails at least i was um from community members that were thanking our police department for their professionalism and their patience in escorting a protester or disruptor out of the meeting. So there were so many emails from people that just wanted us to pass on our thanks to the chief. So I wanted to do that on the dais to let you know, and the officers that were here know how appreciated that they were, that they were seen and thanked for their professionalism and patience. Third thing was invocation update. Last meeting, I had asked staff about creating a draft to amend the governance manual, which was passed by this council. I was just asking for an update.

Yeah, the item in regard to invocation will be the work will be done by myself and will be presented to the city council the first meeting in August.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Amy. I have one thing.

Actually, a couple things, but I don't know how many I want to dive into. This is the problem with saving yourself for last.

I'm going to make this statement here, and then this is just, we have July 4th coming up, and we aren't going to have another meeting until after that. So as we celebrate the 250th year of our independence, let us take time to reflect on the freedoms and opportunities that make our nation so special. The Fourth of July is a reminder of the courage, sacrifice, and vision of those who founded our country and the generations who have worked to preserve the liberties we enjoy today. Here in Battleground, we are fortunate to be part of a strong and caring community that embodies the values of service, responsibility, and neighborly support. As you gather with members or family members and friends, I encourage you to celebrate safely, cherish time with loved ones, and remember those who served our nation bravely. Happy 4th of July, okay? On to the last thing, and then we can get on to executive session. I'd like to instruct council to draft a resolution to amend the governance manual to add term limits for our city councilors. And I think I'm a firm proponent that whether it be 2 or 3 term consecutive or non consecutive. I think it's a good idea, just like we have term limits for our mayor. We should also have term limits for our Council members. And yeah, so that would be up for further discussion once a resolution is drafted. But I'd be in favor of the 2 or 3 term limit consecutive or not American.

I guess I'm understanding. Are you Are you wanting council to dive into this or do you want the governance manual committee to look into it and then present it?

Really? I think it's a governance manual governance. Coordination manual committee that needs to look these things over and approve these. I'm just directing staff to start to draft something of what that would look like to bring to our. Coordination manual committee and allow them to weigh in on that. Okay. Does that include legal?

I don't think I don't think we legally can do it. So you might want to start there.

You might want to start with legal.

With term limits? Yeah. All right. Well, I will instruct staff to then consult with our legal on whether term limits could be allowed into our governance manual. And then when we find out that they are, draft a resolution to bring to our governance coordination manual committee for review.

Do we have four?

yeah so yeah we need to thumbs up or thumbs down right now i'm giving direction so anything else that's permanent yeah thumbs up thumbs down it's good legal it's based on what we've picked because we're codified cities so actually we could do yeah all right all right now we will go into executive session Pursuant to 42.30.1101 G, the city council will enter a new executive session to review the performance of a public employee. The session will last. We'll say 20 minutes and then I'll extend if needed commencing at 11 o'clock. And ending at 1120 with no action to follow, we do possible action to follow please. Do you want possible action to follow on this 1? You know what we're, okay. With possible action to follow.

I stand corrected.

I know, I just gonna, I'm just, I'd like to extend the executive session 10 additional minutes to go until 11.30 p.m., please. Thank you, Liz. mics are hot is this a new record oh i'm on mic sorry oh All right, the time is 11.30 and we will reconvene this council member. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to move that any credible claim of hostile work environment or sexual harassment against any sitting council member may not be able to receive city-funded representation.

Say that again, please. Yeah. Sorry. Can you read?

I'd like to make a motion that any credible claim of hostile work environment or sexual harassment against any sitting council member, I'll say will not be able to receive city funded representation.

Okay, so emotion that any hostile work environment or sexual harassment claim would remove that council member from legal from the city city, they would have to provide their own legal okay where's our other our deputy mayor.

yeah would you.

We have emotion and a second on the floor. Um, so now we can open this up to discussion. This was not the action I expected to come out of the executive, but could you. Give a little more context to that.

I will. Yeah, obviously.

So you're, you're just coming in. There's a motion on the floor by council member Bowman that any. Credible. Hostile work environment or sexual harassment claim towards any city council member will not allow them legal coverage from the city attorney. Is that correct?

Correct. You'd have to provide your own legal coverage.

You'd have to provide your own legal coverage.

Yes.