Ad Hoc Committee on Police and Community Relations - Regular Meeting

Alright. Hello, everyone. Good evening, and welcome to the Wednesday, 05/28/2025 regular meeting of the community, livability, and public safety committee of the city council. For a record, we do have a quorum of all committee members present. Want me to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second. All

right. The motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Right. The agenda is approved. Next step is public comment. And I understand from staff that we don't have anyone signed up for public comment. So we'll go ahead and move to approval of the minutes. I'm looking to approve minutes for 05/14/2025, regular meeting of the community livability and public safety.

So moved. Second.

Alright. Any discussion? Okay. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Alright.

And the minutes are approved. That takes us to committee business. We have three items for committee business tonight, starting with item six a, approval of the community development block grant program year 2025 annual action plan allocations recommendation. And this is gonna be presented to us by City of Olympia senior housing program specialist,

Evening, chair and committee members. Can you all hear me okay?

Yeah. You sound great.

Okay. Great. So I am gonna share my screen while I get this going. Thank you for your patience. Okay.

And can you see my slides?

Okay. Thank

you. So good evening. For the record, my name is Anastasia Everett. I'm a senior program specialist with the housing division. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you staff recommendations for the program year 2025 Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG program.

CDBG is a federal grant funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Olympia is an entitlement community, and we receive an annual formula award of CDBG funds. Funds must support activities which are eligible and meet a national objective. These are examples of eligible activities. Activities can be carried out by the grantee or through sub recipients.

And sub recipients are typically eligible nonprofit organizations. While the program is flexible and can support a variety of activities, everything selected each year must align with the priorities identified in the consolidated planning process. Each eligible activity must also meet a national objective. The primary objectives are a benefit to low and moderate income persons, slum blight removal, and urgent need. The city of Olympia has a three year certification period.

So over three program years, at least 70% of our funding must be used to meet the low mod income national objective. I am presenting this evening as a part of our public participation plan in preparation of the upcoming program year 2025. Every spring, staff prepare an annual action plan with proposed activities and goals. The city's program year starts September 1 and ends August 31. And we will now move from program overview to staff recommendations for our program year 2025 activities.

Here's a snapshot of our 2025 allocation. Staff continue to work with professional organizations to lobby for increased CDBG allocations from Congress. This year, the city's award decreased slightly to $341,000 Through careful planning, the city can extend the reach of this incredibly important funding source to increase the number of people served and the households, rehabilitated. Staff recommend funding subrecipient Rebuilding Together Thurston County. Funding will support their critical home repair program.

The estimated accomplishment for this project is between five and eight homes rehabilitated. Excuse me. Funding supporting Rebuilding Together, Thurston County's Critical Home Repair Program serves low income homeowners with the following eligibility criteria. They must live in Olympia, must meet income requirements, must be unable to do the work on their own, and must either have a disability, be a senior citizen, military veteran, or a family with young children. Rebuilding Together Thurston County has consistently spent down prior year critical home repair awards within their period of performance and has shown capacity to administer a large amount of funds.

Stuck. Funding is recommended for enterprise for equity to support their micro business development program. Enterprise for equity is intending to provide specialized training for over 40 low and moderate income local entrepreneurs. Staff also recommend funding subrecipient interfaith works. Funding will support the installation of a security fence at the permanent supportive housing Sandy's Flats.

Residents of this housing complex are individuals who have recently experienced significant episodes of homelessness with co occurring disabilities. The fence will restrict access to the property from the alley, preventing burglaries, unsafe access, and property damage to the three abutting buildings. Sandy Slats has 26 units. Staff also recommends funding rebuilding or funding Interfaith Works, excuse me, for Sergio's as a public service activity. And this funding will support the services available at the daytime resource center.

The resource center connects people with hygiene services and vital social services, such as medical and mental health care. In 2024, Sergio's served more than thirteen twenty five unique individuals. Similar accomplishments can be expected with the recommended program year 2025 award. This public service activity host homes will support safe housing for unaccompanied youth in Olympia. The program aims to support youth not connected to the foster care system nor under states or supervision, mainly young people who have aged out of child welfare intervention.

The program accepts referrals from the Olympia School District's McKinney Vento liaison. Funding will be used for case management, client supplies, host family outreach and training, as well as transportation assistance. Together anticipates serving approximately 28 to 36 youth with the recommended award. Staff recommend funding, to support the public service activity resident services at Evergreen Vista. Funding would be used to support salary and benefits for program staff as well as program operating costs.

The CDBG funding will allow Mercy Housing Northwest the capacity to expand its on-site food pantry services, mental health services, life skills development programs, and out of school time initiatives. Evergreen Vista one and two are home to four sixty two residents, 47% of whom are youth 18. All residents of the multifamily apartment complex are low and moderate income. Funding is recommended for the critical home repair program by South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity. Examples of home repairs include mold remediation, roof repair or replacement, and bathroom accessibility improvements.

An estimated three to five low and moderate income households will participate in the home repair program in the upcoming program year. Energize Thurston is recommended for funding as a subrecipient. Funding will go towards the fully subsidized installation of energy efficient heat pumps for low income Olympia homeowners. Available grant funding for subsidized installations has already been exhausted with at least 16 households on the wait list currently in Olympia. The recommended funding for this project will install heat pumps in approximately three to five homes. Subsidized in oh, I'm off by one slide. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Am I am I here now? Are you thank you, Jacinda.

The recommended funding for this project will install heat pumps in approximately three to five homes. Subsidized installations are managed by subrecipient South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity. And this is a contingency project that is selected for funding in the annual action plan due to a project being canceled in the award planning process. Staff recommend using cap for city staff salary and benefits to administer the CDBG program. And contingency projects are identified during the annual action plan process to reduce the administrative burden of preparing substantial amendments to the consolidated plan, which require a thirty day public comment period and a public hearing.

In the event of a canceled project or receipt of program income, that funding is routed to projects identified in the AAP as contingencies. The staff recommend recommendation is to award PI or funding from canceled projects to sub recipients South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanities critical home repair and energized Thurston programs as well as rebuilding together Thurston County's Critical Home Repair program to be determined based on the program year 2025 subrecipient spend down of funds and documentation of need. These projects have been identified as contingency projects in prior program years with both subrecipients having the capacity and expertise to utilize the funds compliantly and efficiently. The creation and preservation of affordable housing is the number one priority goal identified in our region's consolidated plan. Staff recommends their majority of our available program funding to go towards that goal.

Additionally, all recommendations for public service activities are housing related this year. We will now discuss timelines and next steps. Staff presented funding recommendations to the Regional Housing Council's May 15 Affordable Housing Advisory Board meeting. This evening is the recommendation to the CLPS Committee. Our public comment period is set for May 30 to June 30 for the annual action plan with a public hearing scheduled for June 17.

Consideration of annual action plan approval is on the July 8 regular council meeting agenda and staff are to submit the plan to HUD by July 18. Staff were recently made aware by HUD that the annual action plan will be reviewed by headquarters for consistency with executive orders in addition to the mandatory annual Seattle Field Office review. And based on prior year timelines, staff expect to receive a grant agreement in August with our program year beginning in September 1. Thank you and I am now available for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Anastasia. Opening up to the committee for any comments or questions. Committee member Billman.

Thank you, chair. When I'm mastering the raise hand button. Alright. I'm what what I'm wondering is in your when you your first or second slide, you'd mentioned advocating to our federal delegation about funding because it it has decreased. It's also completely zeroed out in the big ugly bill that just passed the house.

Zero community development block grant along with zero section eight housing resources. And and so that makes me wonder with the funds that we have remaining, it it makes me wonder about the sort of the revolving loan fund we've had with with with projects that have sold or or, you know, otherwise, we've we've had a return. So that's my my one wondering in this. This is a this is a more broadly distributed set of funding recommendations than than some previous years. And and the question of, is there any way to position ourselves if this is the last community development block grant to maximize, you know, a longer impact in the community.

That's otherwise, thank you. I I think the work is great, and it's it's an awesome group of organizations that we're going to offer support to.

Thank you, committee members. So let me rephrase this so I'm making sure I'm understanding the question correctly. So we're worried about future years of the federal funding potentially. And so is your question, are we able to use, for instance, our entitlement funding this year for community development loans similar to, like, our rental rehabilitation ones or homeowner rehab so that it becomes program income in the future?

That that's what I'm I'm wondering, and I I I didn't expect you to come with accounting today, but I was there's there's both that mechanism of doing loans, and then there's also when a project changes use, we're reimbursed. So we've had some sort of windfalls over the years also of larger reimbursements to the program. And I think we generally re disperse those in that same year that we received them. So we don't really have a revolving fund built up. But I'm I'm anyhow, that's just I I'm windmilling a little bit because I'm I'm very frustrated with the budget that passed the US House of Representatives and and trying to figure out how we might offer similar small scale assistance to organizations doing important work.

That's that's really what I'm getting at.

Thank you. That's very important. Yes. And we do have our our CDPG program is rather complex in our program income. So it is split into two pots, and we have that first pot that is used at the time of receipt, and that's a requirement from HUD that we cannot use any of our program or we cannot request any reimbursement from the Treasury until that program income is spent.

And then the second part of funding is from payments from the rental rehabilitation loans, and that is in our revolving loan fund. And we do have about $200,000 in that right now. That being said, I do think there is flexibility in our funding sources and how we want, how you would like to use the funding, I think that there can be adjustments made to that. And I'm happy to explore what that looks like.

Oh, yes. I just wanna say thank you for for making the proposal and continuing to track the program in such uncertain times, and I I'm in support of this set of of grants.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm right there with the committee member Gilman. What can we do locally with with all of the chaos that's around us and all of the real people that still need their basics covered? Right? And committee member Peyton, did you have any, comments or questions? I wasn't sure if I had saw your

I well, initially, I didn't, but, thank you, chair. But based on what committee member Gilman just said about what happened with the the US house's budget, I'm wondering about what our plan is in terms of communicating to all the our CDBG, recipients. Like, some of these are are, repetitive, recipients over the years. They've relied on these funds. And so, how are we communicating with them so that they know that potentially this this funding is, you know, in danger and and so that they can, try to find other sources of of generating revenue for their organizations, and that they're given ample notice.

So, Anastasia, can you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely. Thank you, committee member. We sent out the staff notice to of intent to recommend funding after the scoring process for the RFP this year. And that language did include, you know, these award amounts might change based on our allocation. That was sent out before we had known the exact amount of our allocation from HUD.

But moving forward, once these recommendations are more concrete, like after tonight's decision to either move them forward, I can send out a more formal letter that it's going on with the public process and include some information about the budget in the upcoming years and that this, you know, might not be available.

Sure. Thank you. And and I'm thinking that, you know, we we all want these organizations to be able to do their best work because by helping them, we're helping ourselves as a city. They're partners to us in in this work and all the areas that they're they're all working on. And so, not even just giving them the notice, but if there are other other ways that we could potentially help them through other grant opportunities or, maybe they are are are joining us in doing that work of looking for those other grant opportunities, you know, with CDBG potentially, you know, completely going away.

I guess we'll see what happens with the the senate's version, but it it would be good to to, you know, start having those conversations of of how we might support them in continuing their work, because I would hate for there to be a complete pause. They're doing really great work, and people are relying on it, and they have for years now.

Thank you. That's absolutely correct. And regionally, we're also a leader in funding a lot of these organizations, and I will explore having conversations on how we can continue to support them.

Thank you, Anastasia. And, yeah, same here. I'm happy to support tonight's recommendations, and thanks for for all of your work.

Yeah. Well, alright. So, hearing that folks are eager to support, I do need a motion tonight.

Alright. I move to approve the recommendation for the community development block grant program year 2025 annual action plan allocations and forward to the city council for consideration.

Second.

Alright. Motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Alright. Motion passes. Thank you, Anastasia. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. All right. So next up, we have item 6B, which is approval of the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six Inspire Olympia funding recommendation. And that is gonna be presented to us if you're at two different folks, Inspire Olympia program manager, Mary Grace Gadoo, and then chair of the Cultural Access Advisory Board, Melissa Mead.

It's not the introduction. It's fine. I just didn't want to jump in before it was my turn. Thank you. Chair Yen and members of the committee, I'm Mary Grace Gadoo, and I'm the Olympia program manager. And I'm gonna start my presentation in just a moment, but I wanna introduce Melissa Mead who's with me this evening. Melissa is the chair of the Cultural Access Advisory Board, and she's gonna help me with some slides. She'll give you a little bit of the program overview, and then we'll jump into the recommendations. And I'll get this started.

Hi, everybody. I'm Melissa Mead, and I'm chairing the cab this year. In my day job, I'm dean of humanities and arts over at South Puget Sound Community College, and I'm honored to okay. Be

There we go. Are my slides up okay?

They are up, but we can sort of see the whole slide deck with the notes.

Oh, that's not good. Okay.

It's not in presentation mode.

Mhmm. Okay. Well, let me end that. I why it's doing that.

Mary Grace, if you do so, you know, when these things happen, everyone turns into an IT specialist. So

Please.

Yeah. So I think that you probably have two screens. And so if you wanna just when you're sharing your screen, maybe you can stop sharing and then reshare. And after it's already gone in presentation mode with your PowerPoint, and then you can just choose to share the slot the screen that's slide only.

Unplugged. Can you still hear me? Yeah. Okay. I unplugged my work computer screen, so this should now Oh. Function. Okay. Just a second. Sure. I apologize. I had this all ready to go, and I practiced today and everything.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're it's still it's still fine. It could still be ready to go.

Here we go. We're rolling. Only I don't have my notes on screen, so I'll be reading them if that's alright with y'all. We will launch. Okay. Thanks.

On our end.

Thanks for your patience, everybody. Okay. I introduced myself. The purpose of tonight's briefing is to share the Inspire Olympia funding recommendation for the 2025 grant cycle that starts July 1. And as I said, Melissa is going to start with some slides to give you a quick reminder overview about the program. So to you, Melissa.

Okay. And I'm also going to read my notes. It's been a really long day. I don't trust myself to ad lib. So as a refresher for the public and anyone new to Inspire Olympia, Inspire Olympia works to strengthen public access to cultural programming with grants to local cultural organizations that are funded by revenue from our local sales tax.

Olivia Olympia's cultural access initiative was approved by voters in 2022, And starting in January 2023, one tenth of 1% of our local sales tax is now dedicated to a cultural access fund effective for a period of seven years after which it can be reauthorized by a vote of the city council. The CAB was created in 2023 to advise city council on the procedures for carrying out the goals of Inspire Olympia and to ensure that the cultural access tax revenues are invested based on the priorities and the commitments made to voters. And this is our mission statement developed in 2023. Inspire Olympia initiated its first funding cycle last July. Oh, I let me actually, let me just read it from the screen.

Inspire Olympia provides a reliable source of public funding that sustains a healthy, visible, welcoming, and inclusive nonprofit cultural and science sector, making creative cultural experiences accessible to everyone in Olympia. And as the CAB, we defer back to the mission at every point of decision making. Inspire Olympia initiated its first funding cycle last July, competitively awarding over $2,000,000 to support 60 organizations dedicated to offering cultural experiences, events, performances, and hands on learning for the public in Olympia.

Oh, no. Are we Now I'm trying to advance the slide, and it won't go. Lordy. Okay. There we go.

Yeah. In in in 2023, the CAB developed specific funding goals for cultural access. These are the essential outcomes necessary to achieve our mission, and they are the basis for the evaluation and scoring system we use to select organizations and to award the funding. Proposals have been scored based on the extent to which they address these goals in the areas of programming merit and value, community engagement and impact, equity and inclusion, youth programming, and capacity and feasibility. Applications for Inspire Olympia were open from mid January to mid March.

For this year's app applicant pool, two panels of six people each were formed to review applications. Each six person panel included CAB members plus additional community volunteers who devoted who who dedicated much of their time. Panelists individually reviewed and scored applications and spent additional time in group discussion of each proposal, sending upwards spending upwards of twenty hours per person to complete the process by the April. And so here I wanna make a public thank you to community volunteers, Genevieve Kanchenko Chan, Linda Reed, Britt Baumann, Leila Cross, and Shaila Rad. Panelists were asked to identify any conflicts of interest and were recused from scoring or discussing those applications.

Scores were averaged, and the entire cohort was ranked from high to low. The full CAB then met and deliberated on funding award amounts using the scores only without seeing individual application names. Funding levels were set based on logical, qualitative cutoff points and the funding available in our budget our program budget. 60 applications were considered for funding.

I'll hand it back to you, Mary Grace.

Perfect. Thank you. I call this slide commitment pie. This is a pie chart summarizing Olympia's commitment to voters for the allocation of cultural access funds as promised in the initiative that was passed by voters in 2022. Under that commitment, a minimum of 80% of the annual cultural access tax income is to go to the eligible organizations via grant contracts.

Up to 10% is to go to support transportation for field trips for public school students. And then 10% is reserved for administration. The total amount projected for cultural access tax revenue in 2025 is 3,100,000.0. Just as a reminder, there are two funding pathways for Inspire Olympia, comprehensive funding and impact funding. Comprehensive funding is a two year contract.

It's awarded every other year, and organizations who apply in that category are funded for up to $75,000 per year maximum. The category of funding we're talking about tonight is impact funding. These are one year contracts. So you get this set of recommendations every single year. This time of year.

These are generally new or smaller organizations, organizations who themselves are not registered as nonprofits, but they're operating with a fiscal sponsor, for instance. These are organizations who have applied for funding for up to $30,000 per year. You'll also be hearing tonight a recommendation for the allocation funding level for cultural access in public schools, which we call CAPS. We're required by state law to include a cultural access program for schools. And just to brag a little bit, in our first year of funding so far, there's still good six weeks left in the school year, we have reimbursed the Olympia School District for a 119 bus trips for inspire activities and field trips for over 5,000 students from every elementary and middle school.

And just as a point of interest, the average cost per bus trip round trip has been $200. In addition to funding transportation, INSPIRE's CAPS program provides an additional reimbursable amount to organizations that host those field trips for Olympia School District kids on top of their baseline contract for services. And this year so far about $45,000 has gone out toward those reimbursements in addition to the contract amounts as I said. By covering both transportation and the cost of hosting, all of these field trips have been offered at reduced cost or completely free for Olympia students. And we're currently recruiting for a staff position to support the CAPS program.

We really hope to grow it and build on it in the coming years. A little bit about this year's cohort in 2025. We reviewed and scored 60 applications. 24 are new this year to Inspire Olympia. 28 of them provide youth programming.

At least four offer field trips. Remember, are the smaller organizations. 20 of them are fiscally sponsored. These are organizations who will provide an array of services for Olympia to celebrate minority groups. Minority groups serve at risk youth, engage senior citizens, provide us with performances and celebrations and music and dance and theater, and bring our community together in curiosity and exploration, making Olympia a more livable and lovable place.

The total combined request for these 60 organizations is for 1,600,000.0, but the cultural access advisory board recommendation is to spend a maximum of 1,300,000.0, for this cohort this year to stay within budget. That 1,300,000.0 fits into the cultural access fund budget this way, as shown on this slide. It's circled there in red for the impact contracts at 1.3. That would spend about 42% of the projected cultural access tax income for 2025. When you put that together with the commitment we've already made to those two year contracts you approved last year, that brings us to a total of 81% of the 2025 tax income that will go directly to Olympia organizations.

But wait, there's more. With the added reimbursement for field trips, that number should increase to about 84, 85% of the total 2025 cultural access tax income going directly to our organizations. In green, in the middle, you'll see the cultural access in public schools is suggested to be funded at $375,000 That's 12% of the total income. Well, it's 12% of the total plant expenditure for the year. And that line is also broken out below so you can see the three simple line items, that add up to that $3.75 are the transportation reimbursement, the field trip reimbursements, and funding for our new CAHPS coordinator.

You'll see, I think note pretty quickly I bolded it there that the expenses in this budget are 105% of the cultural access fund income for the year. And that's intentional. The plan is to gradually begin to spend down the cultural access tax that was collected before we started the granting in 2024. So we have some funding that we have been holding in reserve while we get the program on its feet and begin to understand what the demand is in the community. And we will look to spend that down over the next five years.

In fact, next year we anticipate we're projecting spending at about 110% of the program's total available funds in the cultural access fund. I want to just stop and ask if there are any questions before I give it back to Melissa. I just want to also note that a gradual spend down of those funds also helps to ensure that Inspire Olympia can continue to be a local, reliable, and sustainable funding resource during some very uncertain times. We fully expect that the federal level cuts to arts and cultural institutions and funding streams will begin to trickle down, if not cascade into the local economy. And we're beginning to even see it at the state level with layoffs at the state library, for instance.

So that's the plan there. And I will pause for questions.

Thanks so much, Mary Grace. Committee mates, do you have any questions just yet? Okay. Alright. See you now.

Thank you. Okay. Melissa, back to you.

Okay. So the recommendation of the Cultural Access Advisory Board is to award funding based on the scoring done by the review panels as shown on this slide. So the award impact funding contracts for the twenty twenty five, twenty six funding cycle based on scoring by the review panels. So that is proposals scoring 70 per percent or higher will receive 100% of their request. Proposals scoring between 6069% receive 75% of their requested amount.

Proposals scoring 50 to 59% receive 50% of their requested amount. And proposals scoring below 50% are not recommended for funding. And we recommend the CAB recommends that we allocate 12% of revenue or $375,000 for cultural access in public schools for the twenty twenty five, twenty six cycle, including field trip support, transportation costs, and staffing. The CAB believes that this outcome is fair and generous in the right places. It will fund half of the applicant organizations at their full ask.

It recognizes organizations that put real effort into planning strong programs that engage the community and still offers support to organizations who have room to improve their responsiveness to our funding goals. We also support the funding allocation for the CAHPS program.

Thank you. And then this is our final slide tonight. This is the actual list of awardees and the recommended award amounts. And the request to you is to forward this recommendation on to city council for their consideration soon. June 3, we are on the council agenda. So That concludes our presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. I have a question. Just wanna go to committee mates first. Any comments or questions? Otherwise, I'm gonna take it away. Alright. Committee member Gilman followed by committee member Payne followed by me.

Okay. Thank you. I am I am really touched by the amount of energy and effort that went into evaluating all these, and I appreciate the systematic review. I think that that's that's also really appreciated. I have two questions.

One is, I know we've just we discussed it last year with the the initial two year grants, but I'm I'm trying to remember how we work geography. And the Lacey makerspace is what put this back into my mind. Is our criteria as long as Olympia residents benefit from the programming, or does it specifically have to have Olympia field trips go how how did we decide to work that regional organizations and and benefit from the Olympia program?

Thank you for the question. Organizations may still be eligible if they are not a registered Olympia registered nonprofit if they primarily serve Olympia residents. And that is where Olympia Makerspace made the list. They're eligible because a majority of their dues paying members are Olympia residents.

I'll be darned. That that's pretty neat. And and then my my second question is about we've got 20 organizations who are working under a fiscal sponsor and a handful of organizations whose applications didn't rate a recommendation for funding this year. I know there's been some resources to workshops for new applicants and unsuccessful applicants. Could you just just give me a brief description of what kind of education or training we're offering for folks to help them in this application process?

Yeah. We had our our first inspired and connected training series during the application period. And it was focused on, as you can imagine, grant writing. We had a panel various who brought various perspectives on the granting process, but particularly people who either review or write grants. And we have pretty good attendance at that.

I think we have more than 20 attendees. And we plan to continue to offer topics to our cohort, sometimes more broadly to the public to help them gather strength experience and strengthen their capacity in things like use of technology, evaluating their programs, marketing, fundraising, all the things that it takes to run a program. We're trying not to duplicate the resources that are already out there because there's a lot of resources for nonprofits and they're very good. What we want to do is bring local experts who know our community and who know this program to talk about how to reach Olympians effectively, how to work with our school district, that kind of thing. So really tailored to our community.

There was another part to your question, council member, that I think I might have missed, but

I I I don't think so. That just just that we're offering that that opportunity to help facilitate I mean, we because we we knew there'd be organizations who weren't staffed before or who were working under a fiscal sponsor didn't have the Okay. The capacity. And how do they how do they begin? And and it sounds like we're helping to facilitate that. So I I'm really grateful. And then I'll just close by saying how glad I am that we're bolstering the public school access program, and I'm really proud of a 119 busloads of students going to field trips and cultural events this last year. That's amazing. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. We are proud of it too. Thank you. Mayor Payne had a question.

Yeah. Go ahead, committee member Payne.

Yes. Well, first of all, thank you, Mary Grace and Melissa. It's good to see you again. That year went fast. I feel like you were you were two year. Well, it's good to see you both. And that's a fun fact about the Lacey makerspace that I didn't know. But I'm not surprised, I guess. You know, that space is you know, they've even helped out with, with the city. So we're a customer as well.

I don't have any questions. I really just wanted to express my gratitude to you both, for making sure that the the program continues to, you know, be successful. And I really wanted to speak to the timeliness of the moment that we're in for having a local cultural access program like this because what we see happening at the federal level, is, unfortunately, that climate, could have have reached Olympia. You know, if it were 2025 and we were trying to do this, I'm not sure we would be successful. And so it's really great to be at this time, where we're implementing a cultural access program and that all of the diverse recipients of the program are benefiting from that in such a tremendous way.

So I just wanted to say thank you, for your support, in this program and seeing it through.

Thank you. Well, that just leaves me. And I I might missed it. I had a question, and I wonder if committee member Gilman had already covered it. But I wonder about I know that there is an educational component to this as far as educating folks that apply for the inspire fund. And so for the folks that applied that weren't recommended funds, were they how was that sort of dealt with?

So we prepared a letter and contacted each of them. I actually there were sort of two rafts of two stages. There was a group that were determined ineligible early on. They just there were threshold issues like they were mission focused in art, science, heritage, or culture, or they didn't meet the location criteria. Those organizations were notified early on.

There was a second group of eligibility issues around people who had incomplete applications or didn't have a budget match. So when we got deeper into the applications, there were sort of a second group of about three or four who were notified at that point. And then the folks who just didn't get recommended for funding because their scores were too low, they were notified again separately by letter. And that was sent by email last week when this meeting agenda went public with all of this information. We wanted them to know.

So they have been contacted as well. All of our organizations are can take advantage of our staff time to get feedback on their applications, to get help with their writing their applications next year. We're available to because we don't score as staff, we just run the process, we're available to give them active feedback on their applications. We can do everything but write it for them. And so we really encourage them to do that.

We have a couple of training programs that are open to the public during that application cycle and leading up to it. And then every single applicant, whether they got their full award or, you know, a partial award, they'll receive a letter that summarizes all the review panel feedback and also summarizes the group discussion. And those letters will go out with their award notification after June 4, after council consideration. So there's lots of feedback and opportunity for training.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm sure the applicants do as well. Actually, I was walking with one of our committee members, and we sort of stumbled in. We're just walking out of city hall, and we stumbled upon staff helping people with Inspire applications. You know, what it is, how could, you know, how can they sort of make sure they put the best application forward. And so I also, I have a question that's not, that's Inspire related, but not specifically to the recommendation tonight that I'd like to just take advantage of because, you know, we have YouTube on the screen with us. So it has been what is this? Or is it the second or third round of funding?

Second round of yeah. Second year of funding.

That's a big deal. And so I just wonder, you know, how is it going generally? I mean, I think it's working. Right? But, you know, I'm sure there's been some some learning along the way. I think this one is actually even more refined than last year's. And so Yeah. Yeah. I just wondered from from where both of your vantage points.

We'll ask the first.

Yeah. I mean, I'd like to share that that we've learned a lot. And one of the key things that we kinda changed up for this year was that Amelia and Mary Grace, who I by the way, I should have given a really strong public shout out. We have the most amazing staff. They're they're so good.

But they ran some norming sessions for the panelists. So, you know, so we learned last year that that as a small community, we all have connections to the community. So even if we don't have official conflicts of interest, you know, we all are part of the community. And so so we learned to do some norming exercises ahead of time, you know, together as panelists to get on the same page, to try to be as objective as possible. And it was really effective, those sessions.

And so the panels, I mean, they worked really smoothly last time too, but they worked even more smoothly smoothly this time. So I would say that's one thing that that we've learned and as we've gone along. Yeah. And also what was so exciting that so just one more thing is that reading applications that we saw last year, we saw such an improvement in this year, and it was so exciting. I mean, not just improvement in the quality of the application, but in the work that they've done.

So we could see the direct result of what they did with Inspire funding last year and why they want to expand on it, what, you know, what they wanna do this year. And that was so extremely gratifying, you know, to see. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. It's that's all true. You know, I think the impact in the community is huge. It's like it's hard to wrap your your arms around. We have these awesome quarterly reports that come in that I read before I hit the the go button to send them their their funding check for the quarter. And they're just chock full of lists of of performances and classes and field trips. The the planning work that organizations are doing. They're doing a lot of capacity building on their own. They're doing board training.

They're strengthening their ability so that they can do more and come into a new cycle and offer more. I had to cut from this presentation a couple of slides that talked about some of the fun things that our organizations are doing. There was an amazing letter received by our Abutus Folk School who offered scholarships to kids to take classes there using inspire money. And there was a military family who wrote a letter to Hillary at Arbutus to thank her for that scholarship and for how much it meant for her child coming into a new community as a military kid. They move around a lot.

And she had an instant sense of inclusion and belonging and an amazing creative expression outlet that made a big difference for their family. So I mean, things like that are coming in and I'm really looking forward to sharing that sort of joy more completely with you in a future presentation. We have hopefully, we'll see you in late July and possibly again in November October, November for an annual report. And at that point, we'll be able to to really share some of the stories and good news.

Oh, lovely. Oh, oops. I guess I just asked for a little creepy, didn't I? Well, really looking forward to, yeah, to seeing that report and hearing more about all of the sort of learning curves and then and it sounds like really meaningful progress too. Yeah. So really, really good stuff. Well, with that, I believe we need a motion for tonight, item 60. Committee member Gilman?

So I first, I just I wanted to acknowledge that Melissa's colleagues on the Cultural Access Advisory Board are on the call with us as as guests in the audience as are some other arts boosters, and thank you all so very much for for the the hard work and the creative thinking that that got us here. I just we really appreciate it. I would move to recommend approval of the Cultural Access Advisory Board funding recommendations and advance them to city council for consideration.

Second.

Alright. A motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Motion passes. Congratulations and and well done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for that addition, committee member Gilman. That means a lot for when folks show up for it. Right? So thank you.

Okay. We'll say, good evening to item six b, and we'll move on to item 16, which is our final item of tonight, and it is approval of the reconsideration of the public safety chapter of the comprehensive plan periodic update. And this one has a few different presenters. So we'll have, Olympia police chief Rich Allen, as well as deputy chief of the Olympia fire department, Mike Buchanan, and then Casey who's an associate planner with the city of Olympia. We'll go ahead and hand it off to you, Marie.

Thank you, chair. If can you folks hear me okay?

Yes. You sound great.

Good deal. I'll share screen. So I'll be starting tonight. I'll have a brief presentation to go over, some of the changes, in the document before you since the last time we brought this to the council study session. So let me get started with the a share screen.

And let me know if you're seeing Olympia 2045.

Yes.

Great. Thank you, folks. So, again, my name is Casey Schoffler. I'm an associate planner with community planning and economic development. Before I get started, I would like to acknowledge the extensive work on this chapter by assistant city manager Stacy Ray, chief Morris and deputy chief Buchanan of the Olympia Fire Department, and chief Allen of the Olympia Police Department.

Alright. So before you is reconsideration of the, public safety chapter. A couple of things about this chapter. The major updates to this, the first and second points here are mostly unchanged from the last time I presented to you. But just as refresher, we've moved the schools, social services, sustainability, and housing sections to other chapters, namely the new housing chapter and the land use and environment chapter.

This chapter before you is now focused on code enforcement, fire, and policing, and and thus, it's being retitled the public safety chapter. The third point reflects the most significant revision since this chapter was presented to you, during the city city council, study session back in December 2024. So as we're considering this tonight, I wanted to pose these key questions for you. What might have been overlooked from an equity standpoint, and what else can we do to increase community members' sense of public safety? These are the questions that we took to the Olympia Planning Commission, the Social Justice and Equity Commission, and to the council at large at our first study session.

Recommendations and feedback here are provided that were, the recommendations and feedback that we received, at that time are incorporated into the document, here this evening. This was a point of confusion, particularly at the study session as you were presented the public hearing version, which went to the planning commission, and it didn't include the all of the recommendations of of those commissions. This also this update also hopefully reflects the feedback that the council members provided during that study session. So this chapter reflects multiple, public participation opportunities, going through this, over the last few years, including the resident satisfaction survey. It reflects the one community plan, the reimagining public safety plan, community oversight of policing, social justice and equity commission, a staffing study, and then also both of the police department and fire department strategic plans.

The strategic plans reflect the, kind of, fine details not found in the comprehensive plan, including implementation mechanics, of the comp plan and metrics. The the strategic plans were crosswalked with the comp plan to ensure compatibility and consistency between all of these documents. And this does include the recently adopted Olympia fire department plan, which in December was not yet finalized. So when you saw this the first time or the last time. Pardon me.

Some of the key updates for specific to the fire department is a focus on disaster preparedness as an increasingly pressing issue, particularly with an eye towards climate disasters. It includes metrics for the fire department to share with the community over time and trending. It also includes, some minor edits to this section, from the last version, but overall, this, the fire department section is relatively, unchanged since the last version that you reviewed. So key policing updates. This is where you'll see a major overhaul since last presented.

Chief Allen and Stacy Ray collaborated and worked extensively on the chapter and essentially rewrote the police services section in order to better align with the reimagining public safety document. This this came as a result of that last study session, and it should hopefully better reflect the voice of the community, and it should emphasize alternative engagement with justice involved individuals. In particular, the changes include a reorganization for clarity and accessibility to make it more readable, a new introduction that emphasizes equity, community engagement, and accountability with specific reference to some of our community organizations. It removed policies that were unclear or not in alignment with the reimagining public safety or the police department strategic plan, and it hopes to should be emphasizing more transparency, data use, and civilian oversight, again, with specific reference to some of our community organizations for police oversight. It also has new policies to address additional recommendations from the reimagining public safety document that weren't previously included.

So the next two slides, are an attempt by me to break down what the changes are, from the current document that you're seeing and reviewing tonight compared to the last document that you saw in December. So, I also wanna emphasize that the track changes document that is in your staff report, the track changes are, compared to the last version that you would have seen at the study session. So, at at the study session, you had a different track changes that was actually a track changes of the new draft compared to the current comprehensive, public services chapter. So it's a little a little bit different than what you've seen. So if there's questions on that, please let me know.

Specifically, at the study session, concerns were raised about ensuring the, chapter to reflect a broader view of public safety, one that was, not solely police centric. Council members requested, more narrative about the police department's current mission and values in light of the work, on the reimagining public safety recommendations. There are also suggestions to broaden the chapter to include courts, social services, and other justice system components. Lastly, there was broad consensus to make the language more inclusive and to tell a more comprehensive story about public safety. So the revised public safety chapter attempts to address some of the not some.

It attempts to address those concerns expressed at the study session by including a more explicit framing around equity, accountability, and community centered approaches, particularly within the vision statement and police services section. It emphasizes themes of equity, inclusion, trust, accountability, compassion, community wellness, innovation, and resilience as a core element of public policy. It also attempts to change language throughout the document to be more clear and concise. We also attempted to move policies, to more appropriate goals. A lot of the policies were a little bit more sporadically spread out throughout the document, so we tried to put those policies into more appropriate, goal buckets as it were.

So try to have it a little bit more, thematic throughout. And it also attempted to reduce some of the duplication or repetitiveness of some of the prior policies in the in the document that you saw back in December. And it also tries to re emphasize and reference non use of force services and partners as an alternative to traditional policing methods. Going through this just briefly, you'll note that there's a new Values and Vision section which has six core values. I've already mentioned the tone and language should be, I would say, drastically different, particularly in the police section.

The introduction, reemphasizes collaboration and trust, and community involvement. Already mentioned that this document tries to streamline a lot of the policies and place them more appropriately under a goal heading. And then also reframe this to highlight community partnerships, accountability, and alternatives to enforcement with expanded mention of oversight roles. So I'll I'll move on to the next slide. I apologize in advance for kind of a wall of text here, but this I I'm trying to capture everything that's changed.

And if you're looking at the track changes version, it's it's it's a significant rewrite. A lot of work went into that. Notable here is a change in in the language for goals and policies around use of force, more emphasis on, de escalation, providing unarmed service provider responders for people in crisis, and engagement and integration of police personnel in the community. Part of that's coming from the discussion at Social Justice and Equity Commission, as well as the Planning Commission, trying to include the goal that was missing at the study session around walking patrol, that is included in the document now, as well as nonemergency officer interactions and community engagement. Engagement, so basically having police officers be out and part of the community again.

You'll note that the fire department overview is largely unchanged, mostly the same content. Tone is slightly adjusted. It does have a little bit of emphasis reemphasis on on resilience and and the professionalism aspect of of the fire department and and making that a more prominent component of of their section as well. Code enforcement section was relatively unchanged. I don't think there were any changes really to the code enforcement section, so I didn't note those on the revised version here.

Also want to kind of refresh the group on on what the discussion at the Social Justice and Equity Commission, as I recall, and what I captured in that conversation. Policies that they wanted to emphasize were nonfiscal code enforcement solutions. There is a process for that that is outlined through the code enforcement standard operating procedures. Social Justice and Equity Commission discussed at length areas within the city that had higher emergency calls, and had a discussion on trying to prevent rather than react to some of those calls. So really that focused on data trending and just having community engagement before emergencies arise or people are in crisis.

Really emphasizing that role of officers and partner organizations in crime prevention, and really kind of helping people where they're at and getting them to the services before they're in crisis. That included a discussion on police officers and their institutional knowledge, including their time in service and their understanding of the community and how that is critical to the success of an officer or officers to navigate those kinds of difficult situations. So not just being a presence in the community, but understanding the community. That was one of the key discussions at the Social Justice and Equity Commission. And then also a request from the Social Justice and Equity Commission to provide officers the time and opportunity again to participate and engage with members of the community in non emergent situations, of humanizing them, officers, but also having officers interact with individuals outside of those emergent situations, really focused on community building and seeing our police department and our non emergency services as a part of this community.

So with that, it's a little bit short and sweet. I wanna offer a lot of time to you to discuss, offer anything that we missed. Again, I can go back to the questions at the beginning. Question that we have for you tonight is what did we miss? What of the goals are still needing a little work?

And then also trying to ask question, are we are we in the right vicinity of what city council asked us to reevaluate and and revise in this document, going forward? So with that, I know, I think chief Allen and chief, deputy chief Buchanan are here, so they're here to answer questions. And I'm also available, and I have the document ready if you would like to look at anything specific. So thank you for your time, and thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening.

Thank you so much, Casey. Clearly, there's been a lot of work done from that study session until now, and there was some work before that too. So I think it was referred to a couple of times as another bite of the apple. And so we appreciate you going back and, and incorporating that feedback. So I'll open it up for, comments or questions from committee. Alright. Seeing committee member pain.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, Casey, and, thank you to everybody who, has had their hand on on this document. I feel like it's this is one of those things where at some point, you just have to call it quits because you could keep looking at this thing and wordsmithing it to death and making more changes and more changes. So I do appreciate that because it can be at some point, your eyes get crossed, right, with with you're looking at so much. But, I did wanna point out, that I appreciate that, by and large, I think the spirit of what's here has been captured, just in terms of the language that's been included, that's been changed, that includes some of the that includes the recommendations from our commissions, from the planning commission and the social justice and equity commission.

I did have a question, though, about it's under code enforcement preserves community livability, and it is the recommendation from the planning commission, p s 10.2, which is developed performance measures and annually report on how the program's enforcement and practices are working, including time to time to abatement so that they can be improved or refined. And I had a question. Well, a couple of things when we're talking about performance measures. Are we thinking that that could be used to make sure that we're meeting our reimagining goals? Because there there are a number of goals that I think touch upon code enforcement, things like reduction in number of arrest or people going through our criminal justice system.

So is there a is the idea that that could be used to, make sure that we're meeting those those goals? Because I often wonder that about reimagining. How are we actually monitoring that we're working towards those goals?

Chief Allen, if you don't mind, I'll jump in on this first. So that goal, I would say, is not specific to necessarily to the police department. I will say that the Social Justice and Equity Commission did have discussions around outreach and prevention and data trending and tracking. That was actually one of the Social Justice and Equity Commission members was really adamant about data tracking and prevent preventative measures, and that was kind of looked at at a regional level. When I and when I say regional level, that was kind looking at at Thurston County as as a region, and working with partner agencies to do, trending, tracking, and really just kind of preventative outreach, I suppose, would be the best way to put it.

So that was part of that discussion, and I, I'll have to go back and double check. But there is a policy that's specific to that that, kinda went through a number of revisions. In terms of 10.2, the performance measures for code enforcement, that's really specific to that's more in the community planning and economic development realm. That was actually a a fairly a long discussion at the planning commission level. There was one of our members' specific example being sidewalks.

This person has issues traversing sidewalks as due to his that person's poor vision. So one of the discussion points was code enforcement is typically complaint driven. And their their issue with that is that if nobody's complaining about it other than himself or people that have mobility issues getting through neighborhoods, the time that they're complaining about it means that they already ran in into an issue or already possibly injured or stopped in their tracks because there was no complaint until they arrived at it. So without getting too much further into that, they wanted code enforcement to be more proactive without being punitive, but basically going out, finding problem points, and trying to engage neighborhoods or or residences that are having issues, namely around sidewalks and and mobility. So kind of two different answers there.

Hopefully, that's addressing some of that. Chief Allen, I don't know if you wanted to address, mayor's, discussion on preventative, data tracking.

Yeah. Thank you, Rich Allen, police chief. What I was gonna say is we can work with Casey and take a look at the code enforcement bullet points. And just I I didn't look at those, and I didn't look at those through the lens of the reimagining. So we can we can take a look and see if we can embed some of those ideals and goals that are outlined in in reimagining and and and put those into the the code enforcement if it makes sense. So, yeah, we we can help with that. Yeah.

Great. Thanks, chief. Yeah. That's what I was getting at, and thanks, Casey. What I was getting at is that that that bullet specifically that's under code enforcement, I personally think can be applied to reimagining. I also think it can be applied to, OFD cares. Right? This is information that, we wanna be monitoring and tracking, and we're we're likely already doing that, I would imagine. But it is important that in the document that we're stating that we're doing so. And I think those using those measures is how we're gonna know whether or not we're actually doing what we said we were gonna do, and I think that's important. So thank you.

Thank you. Committee member Gilpin.

Thank you, chair Gwyn. First, just really my sincere deep gratitude for the work that went into rewriting the chapter. I I appreciate it very much, and I I'm especially pleased that I think that the the police the the policing part of the the document really reflects the many efforts towards community safety and justice that are both within and alongside OPD. I I think this this tells the story I was hoping we were going to tell. I'm I'm really grateful for that.

And I have one tiny wondering, and that is 6.9. It's it's sort of subordinate to the when we'll know we're appropriately staffed. And I wonder about calling out traffic patrol as the first thing that that would be an indicator of of fully staffed or maybe I'm maybe I'm misinterpreting that, but I'm I'm thinking we've had a couple of fairly robust conversations about how we're doing safety wise with without a dedicated traffic unit and and about some of the other priorities that we've been staffing. So I I just I just wanted to to to wonder about that about just maybe checking my understanding of what that means to to call out that to that be the one specific example of a specialized unit that we might implement if we were fully staffed.

Yeah. Thank you for that. The I see what you're saying. Our traffic unit right now is dependent on staffing, but there are many other units that contribute to maintaining Olympia's quality of life. So I I do think that should that specific goal should be more inclusive. And I can I can wordsmith that to to add some other units to that? So yeah. I agree.

Thank you. You, chief. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't making the one specific promise that we'll we'll focus on getting traffic units, which I I'm not opposed to having them, but I I I didn't wanna have that be the measure

of Yeah.

Of success. Yeah. Cool. And If I may again, thank oh, go ahead, Casey.

No. I I I did just wanna mention that I think that was included as a specific reference in response to some some comments from the from the community, asking about, traffic safety. So I think that was a a call out, specific, to some of those those members of the community, but certainly understood and heard where you're coming from.

And, again, I just I know this is a lot of work, and I I really appreciate. And I I think it reads very well, and it rep to me, it represents our values and the work that we have going right now. So I I appreciate it.

Thank you. So I had a couple of questions. Let's see. Well, we have the chief right on right now. So I guess I'll just ask that. So I'm curious about you know, we were working off of the every conversation was going in the way of sort of broadening it out. Right? And so and including those partners that we work with. And so I did see a crew and then that addition of the the walking patrol for the planning commission's recommendation. I'm curious about familiar faces. I didn't find familiar faces on there.

I would have to look. They might have just, in my head, been included in just the generic alternate responses. Right? But, yeah, let me take a look. And and, if I miss that, then I'll absolutely add it.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I thought that. Yeah. There was the crew was in there. But, yeah, definitely familiar faces. Thank you. And then also, I remember from the study session, there was some conversation about adding the work that, well, that staff and the council has has asked to do for crowd management. And I didn't see crowd management unless you did.

Please please let me know. And I'd love to if you could just tell me where that is in here. And then if not, if we could incorporate really kind of the extensive work done about fraud management and as we're seeing well, I guess there's always been a demonstration. Right? But as we're learning more about how how do we manage that effectively, right, all types of of demonstrations, even the peaceful ones are getting larger and larger, it would seem.

Okay. And then oh, sorry. Any response on that for the CrowdManage one? Like, on cheap I don't wanna maybe it was in there, I didn't see it.

No. I'm sorry. I don't believe it's in there. So I'll make sure that's included.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Let me see. And a list for this one is public safety, so, you know, I want it to be ready.

Oh, appreciate the this is not an addition, I just wanna to lift up including working with the Olympia School District as far as determining school resource officers and and sort of what that overall support looks like. I would also love to if we could add just a little bit of of language around because it's not just about school resource officers. It's just about supporting the schools in general, which I know is work that the Olympia Police Department does. I sort of recently got to meet with the school board president, And there was, you know, there was a threat and OPD came and acted and and resolved that threat and, you know, that was involved with the school resource officer. So I'd love to maybe just add even if it's just a few words about, you know, there's yes.

We can determine school resource officers whether that's something to move forward on, but also that continuing our support of schools, whatever that looks like. Right? And kind of a I'd like to lift up the work that's already been done. Let's see. Okay. Okay. And it does look like all of the feedback from the planning commission and and the social justice and equity commission, at least the letters that we got from fall of last year were incorporated in that. And so and more of that reimagining work, right, that you were going over in your presentation. So that's thank you for that. That's a big, big deal.

Oh, okay. Moving on to the fire department. So the for the fire department, this question is for you, Mike, because you're no stranger to the concerns and the seriousness of PFAS, right, which which came up actually in the study session. And so some might feel like maybe maybe it's a little does it make sense in the comprehensive plan that's yeah. I kinda argue otherwise.

But I did I remember the the chief speaking to it in the study session as something that will be included in the fire department's strategic plan, but not necessarily that it would be called out in the comprehensive plan, which I understand. And so was searching for the strategic plan for the fire department, and the only one that I found out that or found that came up on our website is from 2017 to 2022. And so perhaps that's an update that could be made.

Absolutely. Thanks for catching up. I'll speak to the chief, and we'll have the new plan placed on the city website and then link to this document.

Oh, great. And then, additionally, are you able to confirm with me if PFAS is within the strategic getting rid of it, of course, is in OFD's strategic plan?

So one of the arching goals is to invest in the well-being and voice of all of our team members. And then underneath of that is an objective to establish a fire incident or injury illness prevention program in coordination with labor and industries, and that work is underway as a 2025 work plan. So, part of that will include a a pack washer to help clean our our SCBA packs to remove any thing from that. And then specific to that chemical, I'd have to look into it, but I know that that is a concern in the industry. And Yeah. I would have to see if it's part of that reduction program, but we could come back and follow that up with you.

Yeah. I know that's something thank you for that. I know it's a little bit of an aside, it seems like, from the comprehensive plan, but it is something that actually I've heard come up from counsel quite a bit, and then sometimes when we meet with firefighters as well. And I understand that it's not not so not as easy because it's in that what is it called? That oven mitt material, basically, whole soup. Right? And so you can't just get rid of that. Right? Because then you got more danger. So but, yeah, it's not it's not, you know, something that you gotta search for too hard. But I I would love to know. And if you could just send it to the full council email, I think folks would be really interested.

I will do that. Thanks for asking.

Thank you. And then let's see.

Okay. That's

all on my list. Yeah. And then, just, I guess, for me, continue kudos for taking all of that information and and reworking it a few different times. And so really appreciate it. And I think that this one is this chapter version, is, more reflective and I think in line with what council was asking for. I see committee member Payntan.

Yes. Thank you, chair. I just wanted to it looks like the there there is a link to the fire department plan in the in the version that we got. It wouldn't open for me, but it looks like it's meant to be a link. And then there's also I didn't see that same thing for the for the police department's plan.

So if the if the intent is to link the strategic plans, if we could make sure both departments have their plans, within the comprehensive plan linked. And then, also, I do wanna mention, sharing your comments about PFAS and and and the fire department and the strategic plan. I recall having a conversation about, wellness for our firefighters, as as well. And I would even stretch that to, you know, our police department as well as, you know, we we talk a lot. So back to your question, Casey, I guess, about equity, we talk a lot about the work that our first responders are doing, but we don't have anything about the first responders themselves, and in terms of, of wellness, you know, in that area.

So I I would love to see some language around, you know, making sure that we're prioritizing the wellness of the people that are doing this work because it is difficult work. So, yeah, I I would love to see that as as part of the vision in in this chapter as well. I don't know, committee mates, if you have any any thoughts about that. But, yeah, that's just something I was recalling from the study session as well.

May mayor, can I point you to 8.2 for the police side and see if that captures what you're thinking, or does it need to be expanded?

You said 8.2?

And I can share screen if you would like.

Yeah.

That'd be great if you could do that. Bye.

Let's see. If you need me to zoom in, I can do so. Training and professional development opportunities to meet and seek.

Or are you thinking more of an expanded emphasis on wellness?

I think that captures it, but more be not just training and development, but resources that support them. So I I would just add to that.

Thank you.

Yep. Thank you.

Thank you. Committee member Gilman?

Well, I just I'm going to committee member Payne asked if we agreed. I wanna say I I definitely agree. I think that's really important, And and I appreciated your your PFAS question also, and maybe this is a parking lot that in another a future public safety update that we'd like to hear about employee wellness. And and then also, you know, there there's there's been several years of working on reducing the the PFAS, right, starting with a 2018 set of legislate legislation. But we haven't had a reality check of is there alternative gear?

Are there alternatives to foams? So we don't know what the reality is of of firefighters exposure today after several six or seven years of an effort to to reduce it in Washington State. So so I just maybe that's a that's a parking lot maybe for a future public safety update is to to consider that and and other wellness issues.

Looks like your comments were well received, committee member. I'll let a note there. Yeah. Absolutely. And then, for the record, I also agree. Committee member pain. Yeah. That wellness is really important. Right? So with that, any other comments from committee names? This is also an item that needs a motion tonight.

Chair, I have a question.

Yeah. Absolutely. So

we just made some additional, recommendations. So would we are we moving to approve this as discussed? Is is that the idea?

I think that would be appropriate.

Okay.

Yeah. Oh, and I see Casey's hand.

Yeah. I just wanna make sure that I'm cap capturing all of those comments. So if I may just kind of reiterate what might be proposed as revision before the next version, if that's okay.

That'd be great.

So under overall, I'm looking at apply code enforcement principle 10.2 to both the fire department and police department. And, again, that was, mayor Payne, your discussion on some of the data tracking and and and prevention. Also looking at linking both strategic plans. I think the intent is to do that. I just don't think they're both posted just yet, but we will have that available.

Provide goals and policies for the wellness of first responders, resources, and it and also outlining resources to support first responders. And then as a possible future option or additional consideration is employee wellness overall. Specific to the police department, looking at PS 6.9 being more inclusive, not just referring to traffic traffic and patrol. Add additional reference to familiar faces. Add a policy or possibly additional a new goal around crowd management, demonstration language, and and protections for all involved thereof.

Additional school support, not just resource officers, so some language around that. And then specific to the fire department, I'll work with chief Buchanan on on on this one, the the PFAS. It's not addressed specifically in the comp plan. Think the question I have here noted to myself is where does this go? Is this comp plan or is this possibly under the strategic plan? And then again, just posting the strategic plan online. So those are the key points that I have and we'll work to to get revisions for. Is there anything that I missed?

Yeah. May I add just a quick clarification, see how that sounds with my committee meet? So for the PFAS question, does it belong in in the comprehensive plan as it called out or in the OFD strategic plan? I believe it's OFD strategic plan. I just didn't want it to get lost. You know? And and, certainly, there's other other sort of wellness priorities for OFD other than PFAS. You know? And so I wouldn't wanna be so hyper focused as well. Yeah. So I think that's a side follow-up that that Mike is gonna email us. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So

Affirmative to the whole council.

Okay. That's

right. Might be something I can bring up with the climate team as well, looking at environmental factors of, personal protective gear. We might have a policy or goal in the environment section. It's possible. I don't know for a fact. I haven't reviewed it closely enough, but there might be there might be something we could include in the comp plan that would appropriately address personal protective equipment for all employees in not necessarily the climate chapter, but there might be something we can we can get going there.

Oh, yes. I yeah. Thank you, Casey. But, yeah, I really appreciate you're right. PFAS does belong in the comprehensive plan, but perhaps somewhere else. Thank you. I appreciate that. Committee mates, anything any adjustments to the list that Casey just ran through with us? No. Okay. Casey, are you feeling like you have what you need? I say I'm to the motion. Okay. But you're good with the list. Okay. With that, do we have a motion?

Yes. I move to to recommend approval of the revised public safety chapter of the Olympia comprehensive plan as summarized by staff and forward to the full city council for consideration.

And I'm I'm looking to our two chiefs. If they seem okay with the edits we described right now, yes, then I will second. Thank you. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

Aye. Motion passes as discussed. Alright. Thank you so much, everyone.

Thank you all very much for your time.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for your work. Alright. And goodbye to item 60. Are you a senior leader? Deal leader to all of them. Yeah. I know. I I love meeting committee member Gilman. I was going I have to work a little bit extra hard for that one, so it's pretty joyous. With that, where are we going now, folks? We're going to reports and update. Any reports and updates from committee meeting? No.

Okay. I one for myself, is June's meeting, is gonna look a little different. That's gonna be our special meeting with the well, I guess, our regular committee meeting, but the special meeting we have each year with the advisory board members. And so I will be getting together with Kelly here soon to to do all the planning for that. And I wanted to run just a few things by you all and see if there's any other thoughts that you had about it.

So I wanna make sure that that we get everything that we need out of it. And I also know that we're looking at doing it even a little bit differently than last time, which was a little bit differently than the time before that. So some things I was thinking is as far as location, there was some discussion about doing it maybe, like, at a park or somewhere else. I'm sort of thinking that we should do it in Chambers just being a familiar place, reliability for weather. If we need to use any technology, folks are already familiar with it.

Would you be okay with doing it at Chambers? Okay. Great. And then, we have invited a committee let's see. We've invited chairs, sometimes co chairs or vice chairs, and then there's a staff liaison present. How are you feeling about that? Do you feel like you wanna open it up further to other advisory body members? Yeah. How are we sort of feeling? Yeah. Can you do member pain?

Sure. Mhmm. I guess who, I guess, depends on the what. So depending on what it is that we're looking for, I I I might have a different answer.

Yeah. That's really fair. So, let me tell you a little bit more what I was thinking. So, consistent with what this committee has discussed, in past is to have all of the work plans ahead of time. So we already we already see it shared ahead of time. Also, they could have it shared with amongst committee or advisory bodies as well. I know that that's been interesting to folks to to hear. So all of that is done upfront, you know, so you have time to sort of ingest it. There's no big to do for, advisory body members to see other people's work plans. It's just to include them in on it if they're curious about something.

And then I was thinking the time spent could be maybe we have a couple of prompts, and then, we, usually have dinner together, of course. But I would love for it to be, like, get up, like, out of the table, and and there'd be chairs for folks for comfort if they'd like to sit down. But I'd like to see folks up and moving. We get name tags for folks because, you know, sometimes it's tough to see people out of context and altogether like that. Like, advisory body, they're a part of, you know, what their role is on their and and, you know, their name, of course.

And, yeah. And I'd love to, just, spend some time, like, really mingling with folks. I think that that's something that has been asked for a few times and and desired. And, yeah, I'm curious what could come out of it. We could also if that's a little too loose for folks, we could set up a couple of stations where people, you know, do a thing, and we could get some information that way.

Not about the work plan, just, you know, in general, maybe some ideas from folks or something. I wonder if there's a component here. Debbie's on the line with us. So I wonder if there's a component where is there something helpful that you that that you could get from from existing advisory body members that could help with the work of assessing the advisory bodies that might help with that. You know, we could have some information stations. Maybe we're collecting data. I don't know. But I yeah. I would like it to be a little less formal. I would like them to know that, you know, the clips committee is there.

We'll introduce ourselves, of course. We can go around, do some introductions. Again, maybe a couple of prompts. But, yeah, I'd like to kinda get up and move in and talk to people. And, you know, I'd like to or I review the advisory plans or something if something work plans. If something stuck out to me, I'd like to go find that person and sit down and talk to them a little bit, you know, and have it be pretty kinda open. Anyways, what are your sort of what are your sort of thoughts on that?

Committee member, are you there?

I'm here.

I'm here.

I I I thought maybe since you were waiting for the what before you talked about the who that you might wanna talk about the who or the what now.

So Yeah. You seemed frozen for some reason on my end, so I wanted to check. Thanks. I don't mind, loosening things up a little bit. I I will say, though, I do think we should have some sense of of, having folks prepare to discuss maybe, like, what are the, what are the priorities on their work plan?

And what I like about the informality of it is it gives us an opportunity to do maybe a temperature check on some other aspects related to the boards, commissions, and committees that aren't necessarily relevant to, the work plan per se. So how are things going? Right? Especially with the chairs. Right?

There's an opportunity to engage and have those conversations. So I would be interested in in that sort of style. And I think chair or vice chair is with the staff liaison is fine. And it's not that I'm opposed to other members, but might get a little packed, if it's open to everybody. So

Sure. And may I ask a clarifying question on that? And so and it's okay if the answer is yes. So, what I'm hearing you say is you really value hearing what the priorities of their work plan. Like, we not reiterating the work plan to you, but what the top priorities are and hearing that from every advisory body. So how do you want that? How how would you like that? Do you want it like it was the last time we did it where folks sit there and, like, listen out from folks? Are you open to different avenues of getting that info?

I'm open to doing it differently. I I if it can come up or if it can be, like, part of part of organic or natural conversation as we're sort of working our way around the room like you're suggesting, I think that that's totally fine. Yeah. It doesn't need to be formal by any means.

Okay. Would it okay. That sounds good. Maybe it's something that's submitted in advance Yeah. Along with the work plan, and then folks, yeah, so you you have some time to sort of react to it and stuff. Okay. Alright. I'm just thinking now. Okay. Thank you. Community member, Dylan, I think you're unmuted.

Yeah. No. I I agree that I I I think it it'd be great to expand to having vice chairs or a second member of the committee along with the staff liaison with chair. But I think that's enough people to be name tagged and and to be connecting. And of course, it is an open public meeting.

So if other members of the board or other members of the community wanted to come, they could come and observe. But it's it's that's a it's been in the last couple years, it's been a pretty full house. So I'm I'm comfortable with that number of people. And and I'm also glad to try I think with some little bit of prompts or structure or station, some way to slightly shape it, so we're not just eating and then, you know, some way to break up so I'm not in the same conversation with the same four people for the whole time, and then it's time to say goodnight. So

Oh, yeah. Maybe maybe you get a passport. You need to get a Something like

that. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, Debbie, your hand's up.

Yeah, I'm just thinking about getting to know each other. There might be some design things that we can do but also there might be some pre work that staff can do regarding the work plan. We have copies of their work plan. There might be something that we can put together in advance to share it with everybody. And I also wonder, I'm just thinking out loud, if there's an opportunity to share the city council work plan and your priorities So there's a sharing of information. Of course, not a long laundry list and all of these things, but just getting to connect that work that you all are doing.

Oh, yeah. I love that. Okay.

Yeah. And I have some ideas I don't need to share here about kinda how to get to know each other and to get information where it's informal and people walk around and start conversations.

Okay. Great.

I gotta figure out how to lower my hand.

No. Yeah. Committee member of Pain?

Yes. Thanks. Based on, Debbie, what you were just saying, you're, I think, this is an opportunity maybe to have some conversations around process improvement as well. So, if we're gonna be sharing council work plan in addition to, looking at the advisory, boards, committees, and commissions plans. An area that I know that we've talked about previously is is like, well, the council's work plan is done, and so how do we how do we incorporate them into our work plan process?

And so maybe creating some space around how we were looking at that and that we want to improve that would be good for them all to know.

Yeah. And we got together as a group. We debriefed the last meeting we had on this conversation, and we have some very preliminary ideas around timing and flow to make that happen that maybe I don't know your process about how we wanna bring those ideas to the committee or if we just wanna kinda workshop them there. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, more good work on the horizon. The oh, what if you said something? Oh. Oh, yeah. So okay. What do you think about this, committee mates? I'm just thinking about one of the last meetings. It wasn't the last one.

Maybe it was the one before that, but we had a meeting where all the staff liaisons were there. Do you remember that? And and they're they're so kind to stay so long on that call with us. And they had shared they had shared just how much the advisory bodies just wanted to interact with council. And so what do you think about having a no pressure, open invitation, it'd be a a publicly noticed meeting anyways, to invite our council colleagues?

You know, we'll tell them, you know, what this meeting is for and all of that and get them kind of acquainted with it.

Yeah. Love it. We could expand our reach.

Love this idea. No.

You didn't ask me, but I love this idea.

Yeah. Yeah. It's okay. Mhmm. Could could you imagine if I was like, I didn't ask you to agree. No. That's great. Okay. And then I saw committee member Gilman, I think you gave the okay for that too. You're good with that? Okay. Great. And then anything else? I know I'm kind of using up quite a bit of my little reports and updates time, but anything else that you wanna add that as far as, like, planning? This might be the last time this definitely is the last time I'm talking to both of you about the June meeting. So anything else you want us to think about? No? We're good? Just looking forward to it? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll just wanna make sure we get all the materials out in advance. So we'll wanna do that. So okay.

Alright. Okay. Well, with that, I will move to assistant city manager Debbie. Do you have a report date?

I have nothing to update or report.

Okay. Yeah, you kind of just gave us a little update just now, Yes, I did. Yeah. Okay. Well, with that, thank you everyone, everyone that's also not pictured on the call. It is 07:28, and that concludes our committee business for this evening. We are adjourned. Have

a good evening, everyone.

Bye.