City Council - workshop

Good afternoon. I'd like to call to order the City Council study session of August 18th, 2026. Clerk, please call the roll.

Deputy Mayor Bushnell.

Present.

Council Member Diaz. Here. Council Member Hines. Here. Council Member Palmer. Here. Council Member Rumba. Absent. Council Member Sedalge.

Here.

Council Member Scott. Absent. Council Member Walker. Absent. Mayor Ibsen.

Here. OUR FIRST AGENDA ITEM IS AN UPDATE ON THE PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX. I'D LIKE TO CALL ON CITY MANAGER KIM TO BEGIN THE DISCUSSION AND WE ALSO HAVE CHIEF JACKSON, CHIEF STALLINGS AND DIRECTOR ESPARZA.

Mayor Ipsen, thank you very much. Deputy Mayor, members of council, staff is here today to provide an update in regards to the public safety sales tax. We discussed in earnest last fall, as well as in January, when the council took councilmatic action to pass the sales tax, that we would come to you in the summer to discuss what we're doing, what we're proposing, and start the discussions, Mayor. So we'll start with the first slide here. WE'LL START WITH BACKGROUND ON THE PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX COMPONENT FOR THE PUBLIC. AND AS THE SLIDE COMES UP HERE, JUST FOR BACKGROUND, MAYOR, DEPUTY MAYOR, COUNCIL, IT'S COMING UP, GOTCHA. I'LL JUST, I'LL AD HOC JUST SPEAK TO THIS. FOR BACKGROUND FOR THE PUBLIC WHO'S LISTENING TODAY, The Public Safety Sales Tax was authorized under RCW 82.14.345, State House Bill 2015. This permits cities and counties to enact a .01% sales tax increase for the purposes of criminal justice purposes. And as defined, it's quite broad in terms of what the dollars the sales tax can be paid for. Some examples here are domestic violence services and programs. public defense staffing, diversion programs, reentry work for inmates, local government programs that reasonably contribute to reducing the number of people interacting with the criminal justice system, community placement for juvenile offenders, community outreach and assistance programs, alternative response programs, and other mental health crisis response. So it's quite broad in terms of what the purpose is for public safety at the end of the day, how to actually impact and also potentially get more officers. There was a stated purpose to this, which I'll speak to when it comes to the grants portion of the authorizing legislation. Next slide. So benefits for Tacoma, the passage through councilmatic action in January, the tax became effective for us on April 1st. It is projected to generate about $16 million on a biannual basis. So about $8 million per year. This also supports Tacoma's eligibility for state grants enshrined within House Bill 2015. It is a specific grant portion for $100 million to hire and retain police officers and staff. So that is the background. So April to now, we've collected about $1.3 million year to date. And we're generating about $600,000 with the sales tax at this point. And we anticipate ending with some fund balance in this actual revenue source that has not yet been appropriated by council. And just for background, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council, this is very much like many other revenue options for the city. We'd like to collect the proceeds and have it as a smoothing action, have those funds available for us to actually have the actual receipts. So it's not something that we're recommending today that we would expend those dollars or obligate those dollars through a budget amendment or at this time. We'd like to see what we collect as we move forward. The discussions today, as far as the proposals, they are for this next biennium. So with that, I am advancing the slide here LET'S TRY ONE MORE TIME. THANKS, ANNA. OKAY, PERFECT. BEFORE WE GO TO THE ACTUAL PROPOSALS, I JUST WANT TO BRIEFLY DISCUSS JUST OVER THE SUMMER, I HAVE DIRECTOR ESPARZA, OUR CHIEF OF POLICE AND CHIEF OF FIRE. WE WORK CLOSELY WITH FIRE POLICE AND NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY SERVICES AND OUR OTHER DEPARTMENTS TO DETERMINE THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ways in which we can approach recommendations to this body for consideration. As these funds are made available through the sales tax, we want to recognize that this is an opportunity for council to both reinforce and potentially look at other priorities when it comes to community safety. And so we took these planning sessions to heart to say what can we provide to do both the most good with these dollars as proposed, along with the potential for addressing city council priorities. So I will speak to that a little bit more We are in the midst of developing our biennial budget. And council priorities, council, this is coming at a time where we're coming with proposals today for these revenues. This will be adopted through the budgetary process. So there will be many opportunities for council and workshop to let us know there may be things that come up that you would want to prioritize funding for. So there's options. So I just want to preface the proposals that I'm bringing to you today. Their recommendations at this stage, they can change and they probably will change as we go through the budgetary process. And of the two proposals that I'm sharing with you today, the bottom line is the directive that we had for our leaders and our departments that. TOUCHING THE FACETS THAT ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THE USE OF THESE DOLLARS WAS TO MAXIMIZE THE OPTIONS THAT WE CAN PROVIDE TO YOU TO DO IMMEDIATE STEADY STATE WHEN IT COMES TO EXISTING PUBLIC SAFETY EXPENSES, ALSO WITH THE ADVANCE OF OTHER PRIORITY NEEDS THAT WE HAVE THAT COUNCIL HAS NOT SEEN YET. SO WE WANT TO SHARE THOSE. OF THE RECOMMENDED APPROACHES, Both Proposal 1 and 2, which you'll see here in the next slide, they meaningfully address the $40 million structural gap within our biennial budget. So I would like to state that out front. And if Council would like to entertain any other changes or additive dollars that could be used for these dollars, as you see in Proposal 1 at the bottom, other public safety general fund offsets, $12.4 million for Proposal 1, any additional dollars, we would have to talk about where we would have those offsets be paid for. It will have to be paid for through further reductions and potential program eliminations. So I just want to share that with you. And so getting into proposal one, I'd like to share first and foremost that the largest portion here is the steady state of getting dollars dedicated for the purposes of paying for our body worn camera system as well as our in-car dash cam systems. That is not in our baseline budget. It's something that we have appropriated on a ONE TIME CASH BASIS IN PRIOR YEARS. THE USEFUL LIFESPAN OF THOSE, IT'S NOT SOMETHING WE'RE PURCHASING EVERY YEAR, BUT THEY ARE THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS FOR OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT. SO $1.5 MILLION THERE. DEPARTMENT OF ASSIGNED COUNSEL CONTRACT, WE WOULD LIKE TO RECOMMEND IN PROPOSAL ONE AND PROPOSAL TWO, LARGELY, A MILLION DOLLAR INCREASE FOR INDIGENOUS DEFENSE. PURSUANT TO SOME CHANGES FROM THE STATE SUPREME COURT, CASELOADS HAVE TO BE MEANINGFULLY RESOLVED BY LOCAL JURISDICTIONS SUCH AS OURSELF THAT ARE OPERATING MUNICIPAL COURTS. AND SO A MILLION DOLLARS, THIS IS THE START OF A TEN-YEAR PLAN TO INCREASE DAC FUNDING. ESSENTIALLY A MILLION DOLLARS FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS TO GET TO A PLACE WHERE WE CAN HAVE MEANINGFUL DOLLARS FOR CASELOADS AS WELL AS PROVIDE RESOURCES FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE. And then the third portion is of that authorizing grant that I spoke to, the department, Tacoma Police Department, has applied for that grant portion, and they have received acknowledgement that they will be potentially receiving with your concurrence. Next Tuesday, the council will have an opportunity to approve that grant. It's for an additional 12 officers, as well as some civilian positions to support those officers and the department. The matching portion of that is under Proposal 1 is about $508,000 on a biannual basis. This is to pay for the vehicles. This is to pay for the matching portion. Let me scratch that. I'm sorry. It is not to pay for the vehicles. It's to pay for the 25% match for the grant portion for this next two years. So I want to just preface that. Also listed here is a proposal to pay for two youth engagement officer positions in support of our school district and our downtown Tacoma partnership. The idea here is that there's an existing contract with the school district to provide for officers to cover our middle school, junior high, and high schools. This will be for two of those officers. The school district will pay for nine months of the salary portion of those officers. And the downtown Tacoma partnership would be paying for the remaining three months through about $70,000 for those two officers. The department, the general fund, the city would be picking up the cost for the vehicles as well as the other ancillary costs that comes with equipping those officers. This partnership in detail, the full expense is about $949,000. The offset revenue from this is about $334,000. $239 FOR THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. THAT'S THEIR PORTION. THE NET COST FOR THE CITY IS ABOUT 615,000. THE DEPARTMENT WILL PURCHASE THE VEHICLE, THE EQUIPMENT FOR THE BASELINE BUDGET AND THE NET OVERALL INVESTMENT OF PERSONNEL FOR THIS AGREEMENT IS ROUGHLY 354,000. LOTS OF NUMBERS THERE. that the school district and DTP would be paying for a portion of the majority of the salary for these two officers. Supervision costs, as well as equipment and vehicles, will be borne by the department if you were to consider this in proposal one. And this is something that we've been discussing in earnest and negotiating over the last few months. I'd like to compliment Chief Jackson and her team for bringing this for consideration. You're seeing this now, and the public will be looking at this from the standpoint This was at the request of the school district. The school district requested us to consider this and we met that challenge by potentially looking at PURPOSING SOME OF THE DOLLARS FROM THE PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX TO PAY FOR THAT PORTION. AND THEN THE LAST FEW ITEMS HERE, JUST WANT TO JUST NOTE, WE WOULD LIKE TO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT HAVING THIRD PARTY PROCTORS THAT PROVIDE THE TESTING STANDARDS AS WELL AS THE TRAINING PROCTORING THE EXAMINATIONS THROUGH A THIRD PARTY. THAT COSTS $168,000 ON A BINUAL BASIS. THERE MAY BE A QUESTION FROM THIS COUNCIL AS TO COULD WE SAVE THESE COSTS AND NOT INCUR THIS FOR PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX DOLLARS. and just have the city provide this. I think there's a value to the community, the department, and overall to the betterment of everyone involved that we have third party proctoring for these services. And Chief Jackson can speak a little bit more to that if there are questions on that. And then the remainder, Council, is essentially of the existing public safety costs that we have that we do not have dollars for, we'd like to use $12.4 million on a binary basis to address our structural deficit in our general fund, of which we have in the general fund police and fire are a material consideration in the general fund. So I would pause there. Mayor Ipsen, before I go to Proposal 2, I would just recommend, if I can do Proposal 2, I just have a few more slides, and then we're going to talk about a grand portion.

Yeah, if it's okay with everyone on the council, why don't we just proceed through this. I'm sure there will be a lot of questions, and let's just have all the information on the table, and then we can be as informed as possible. Is that okay?

Okay, perfect. Thank you, Mayor. So Proposal 2, thank you, Anna. I was given a clicker. I'm not doing a good job. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. So proposal two, in large part, the purpose of this is to increase funding for law enforcement staffing and indigent defense, again, Department of Assigned Counsel, while reducing the impact to the general fund. And you see it at the bottom there. IT'S A LARGER PORTION OF OUR EXISTING PUBLIC SAFETY OFFSETS, $13.4 MILLION. THIS ALSO INCLUDES A PROVISION FOR $1.1 MILLION ON A BINAL BASIS FOR THE HEAL TEAM PERSONNEL COSTS TO BE EMBEDDED WITHIN THE PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX. THIS WOULD FUND HALF OF THE HEAL TEAM PERSONNEL COSTS. WHICH WOULD PRESERVE SERVICE LEVELS WHILE DECREASING EXPENSES IN THE GENERAL FUND AND MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER FUND, WHICH REQUIRED A $1 MILLION ADJUSTMENT TO BALANCE. HALF WAS MET WITH THIS PROPOSAL HERE, HALF WOULD BE MET WITH PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX COMPONENTS. SO THAT'S TO SAY MSED FUNDING, WE HAVE TO ACTUALLY TRANSFER DOLLARS FROM THE GENERAL FUND TO MSED This makes a lot of sense to maybe have those funds. It's an eligible use of the public safety sales tax dollars for the HEAL team. That is our proposal today in Proposal 2. Without the public safety sales tax, the imbalance in MSED fundings would require the continued use of cash reserves in MSED in that fund. And this would be likely depleted by the next biennium. In the next two years, we'd most likely deplete the cash reserves in that fund. THAT PROBABLY IS NOT THE BEST POSITION FOR THE USES FOR THAT SALES TAX, WHICH THERE ARE MORE NEEDS IN OUR COMMUNITY THAN WE ACTUALLY CURRENTLY HAVE REVENUES FOR. SO THAT IS WHAT THAT FIRST ONE IS. AGAIN, JUST TO REITERATE, THE SECOND PORTION, SO WE SPOKE ABOUT DEPARTMENT OF ASSIGNED COUNSEL CONTRACT, A MILLION DOLLARS IN BOTH PROPOSALS. WE JUST NEED TO FIND A WAY TO FUND THIS NEEDED EXPENSE. AND THEN THE STATE GRANT MATCH PORTION, This would also match 25% of the funds to support increased law enforcement staffing under the prospective grant that we're going to come to you for permission next week on. And we'll talk a little bit more of that here in the preceding slides. And of that, I just want to note for both Proposal 1 and Proposal 2 that I want to just call out some of the considerations right now of the grant that we're coming to you for permission to take on for hiring more officers. under the CGTC grant. Right now, the appropriation is to the end of 27, 28. We have every indication working with our GR team and the department with CGTC that the state will further allocate those funds to be used because it's a three-year program. If we're to start hiring now, the runway is not three years, so we are talking with both AWC, eligible other jurisdictions that are asking the question. The state is aware of this, and there's good consideration that the state is considering reappropriating that $100 million to continue for this next three, four years so that eligible entities can actually expend those. So I do want to preface that here in this presentation. Perfect. Thank you. Just looking at the grant specifically that will be coming to you next week, again, just in greater detail, what this grant will support. It's for 12 new entry-level police officers, three support positions, and a contract psychologist. And again, that note, grant funding would end in 2027. We are anticipating that this would be in place for the next three years so that we can have this work out. The award that the department has RECEIVE, YET NOT ACCEPTED, AND WE'RE WAITING YOUR APPROVAL, IS $4.6 MILLION. THE CITY MATCH OF THAT, 25%, IS $508,000. AND THIS IS HOW THE BREAKOUT WOULD WORK OUT FOR THAT PORTION. AND WE WILL COME BACK FOR ANY QUESTIONS ON THIS ONE. AND RECOMMENDED APPROACHES, YOU KNOW, THE PRIME DIRECTIVE HERE THAT I'M TAKING AND I'M WAITING FOR POTENTIAL NEW INSTRUCTIONS. We do want to reduce the structural gap in multiple funds, not just MSED, general fund, and other funds. We want to ensure compliance with state mandates. What we have found, led by Chief Jackson, is that for every portion of hiring more officers, the requirements to train our officers is a prime directive for the department. And many of those things are not funded by the state. And so this criminal justice, so this public safety sales tax is a good vehicle to pay for some of those state mandates as well. When we talk about offsets to the general fund, that also would be a portion of this. We'd be covering that as well. And then preserving flexibility for future biennial. So a lot of these things, there are some one-time or three-year programs here. enabling future councils to have discretion to reappropriate, reprioritize how this sales tax is used. That is also something that we were very mindful on that portion as well. And avoiding the near-term fiscal cliff. The proposals one and two do not create an ongoing staffing obligation beyond this biennium. That being said, however, the grant award will create ongoing obligations that the city must fully fund in July of 2027 if the council authorizes acceptance of this grant. I will let, and we, I did not let the chief know that I'D LIKE HERE TO SPEAK TO MORE OF THIS, BUT I WOULD JUST SHARE WHEN ASKED OF THE QUESTION WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE GRANT ENDS IN THREE YEARS OR NEXT YEAR OR IN TWO YEARS, WHAT HAPPENS, THE CHIEF HAS ASSURED ME AND I'M VERY CONFIDENT THAT SHE HAS A PLAN IN PLACE TO ADDRESS THAT THROUGH NATURAL ATTRITION THAT HAPPENS IN THE DEPARTMENT. CHIEF, DID YOU WANT TO SPEAK A LITTLE BIT MORE TO THAT? YES, PLEASE.

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for hearing from me. Again, I'm Patty Jackson, and I have the privilege of serving as your chief of police for Tacoma Police Department. Absolutely, we have what you've heard from us, a very young department, meaning that a large portion from the hiring data are individuals who will be here for some time. But at the top of that, that tree, if you will, We have individuals who are either currently eligible for or very near to eligibility for retirement. And so, you know, you will look forward and forecast that with where we are in the budget at that point, where are we with, you know, the needs for, you know, the department numbers as we see them. And if we would have to, you know, if we weren't able to secure additional funding We would not, I don't foresee a need that we would lay people off. I would see that through attrition, those individuals, those 12 entry-level, if you will, officers would be, you know, maintain employment for the police department.

Thank you, Chief Jackson. And then, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council, I just want to close with, I don't know if Council Member Rumbaugh is online, but I just want to speak to the discussions I've had with her. And many of you, when it comes to domestic violence, therapeutic courts, what I am prepared right now, we are starting negotiations on our next interlocal agreement with the Crystal Justin Family Justice Center. We are having negotiations with the county right now. We are anticipating, staff is anticipating, an increase on the annual appropriation for FJC funding. That will most likely be picked up by the general fund. It could be a knowledgeable use, again, for That is just not complete yet. And as far as therapeutic court, we are three, four weeks out from a presentation from Judge Grupa and our municipal court on a request for funding for almost a million dollars for therapeutic court expansion, potentially even other enhancements to court patrons. That is also something that we're considering here. And then also, ultimately there are council priorities too to be funded to. And so we want to maintain as much flexibility as possible. I do want to preface again the notion of trying to address the general funds imbalance, not just today but tomorrow. This is a good tool for us on eligible. Every offset for a general fund in using these tax proceeds potentially, they will all be eligible public safety uses, whether it be more services to the fire service or the police department or NCS. We currently are carrying that in the general fund right now. This is a relief that I would recommend that we pursue. And then lastly, with Chief Stallings here with us here at the table, I just want to speak to There are some ineligible uses of public safety sales tax, such as really public safety needs when it comes to fire apparatus, equipment, those things. I do expect that we'll be having an earnest discussion with you all through the budgetary process for general fund allocation. So any pressure relief to the general fund would be a tool that we could use to fund other general fund needs for public safety, including fire engines and the like. So I just want to preface that. That's a long presentation. I'LL TURN IT BACK TO YOU.

IT'S AN IMPORTANT TOPIC. I APPRECIATE THE THOROUGHNESS HERE. THANK YOU SO MUCH, CITY MANAGER. COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS FROM THE CITY COUNCIL? WE HAVE ONE FROM COUNCIL MEMBER SEDALGA. COUNCIL MEMBER SCOTT, I'M SORRY. THE S IS BLENDED TOGETHER.

PLEASE GO AHEAD. APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR THE BRIEFING ON THIS. I JUST HAD A FEW QUESTIONS JUST SO I CAN MAKE SURE I'M UNDERSTANDING VARIOUS THINGS HERE. I did not write these in any specific order necessarily, so I apologize if they kind of go back and forth. So as far as the partnership with the schools, do we already have officers that are there, or would these be new to the schools?

These would be new to the schools. We have, obviously, the community needs to hear this. Chief, please correct me. The highest priority, not that the schools would always be, we have coverage for patrol. In the past, prior to, I believe, 2020, and maybe even a little bit after that, we did have dedicated school resource officers. This is somewhat of a similar program, but the preface of the name is really important to our partners there.

Okay, so how did the Downtown Tacoma Partnership get involved in helping to sponsor that?

This is where I'm going to be really candid. So as Chief Jackson was negotiating and having some discussions with our partners at TPS, the idea was for those shoulder months when school is not in session, the natural partner for that would be Parks Tacoma. for those three months. And as we have found over the last six, the Parks District has had to, so Parks Tacoma, has had to take a look at their finances on an operating basis a little more in depth. We came to the conclusion altogether that they were not going to be in position to support this. And so we shifted to what other groups could potentially help on this. If it's not an emphasis patrol, and it's not an emphasis patrol, please, you should tell me, you know, city manager, that's not what we're calling this. But this partnership, who else is in position for this? Who else could potentially help? And we have heard from our partners in District 1 for DTP. They're interested. And the chief found out they actually have been budgeting dollars for some sort of emphasis visibility in downtown. So that's how it came about.

So when these officers aren't kind of patrolling the school area, does that mean they default to downtown?

Thank you. So their primary response, responsibility as well, will be the schools during the school year. However, just like any other, right, if an emergency takes place, they will be diverted from there to take care of it wherever. What our idea is is that you don't want to have people answering those primary call for response, right? So they'll be available to help. And that is also what the Tacoma Public Schools was saying. Their ask was not to park officers in the schools, that's the reason there are two, but to kind of probably draw a line down north and south division to determine, you know, this officer so that the individuals in the schools get to know their officer, right? So on north schools and also on the south. The primary time when you'll see the officers downtown to where they're going out and knocking on doors and really out there shaking hands with business owners, AND TALKING TO THE COMMUNITY AND ALSO WORKING WITH OUR OTHER TEAMS TO DETERMINE IF THERE'S A NEED OR, YOU KNOW, AN AVAILABILITY FOR HELP TO INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE OUT THERE, THEY'LL BE LIAISON FOR THAT AS WELL. SO THEIR DEDICATED ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE WITH THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND WITH THE DTB.

THAT'S INTERESTING. I THINK I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT, BUT I DON'T HAVE THEM FORMED IN MY HEAD JUST YET. Can you remind me again how much TPS is contributing to the cost?

Yes. So TPS will be contributing $334,000 of the $949,000 total cost. Okay. As far as the general fund stuff, does this just relieve some of the burden that

Is there currently, or does using these dollars free up money for other things that cannot be paid for with public safety tax?

Yeah, it's actually the, it's not the latter. So any dollars that we use to provide for general fund offset, it's not new, it's not dollars that we could use for other purposes. So it relieves the general fund of the structural deficit, so it doesn't free up dollars.

Okay. On slide seven, about the grant overview. So, and I think you answered this, but I just wanted to make sure. So after, so the grant funding ends in June, 2027, and we just are working on a plan to absorb those costs. It's like, or just chief mentioned, like we're not necessarily laying anybody off after that.

Right. Our plan is actually to see to it that THE DOLLARS ARE, ONCE THEY'RE REAPPROPRIATED THAT WE HAVE THE DOLLARS, OUR PLAN IS NOT TO JUST ABSORB THOSE COSTS. THAT IF THE GRANT GOES AWAY, THE CHIEF JACKSON AND THE DEPARTMENT WOULD THROUGH ATTRITION ABSORB THOSE COSTS. IT'S NOT KEEPING THOSE COSTS, IT'S THE ENTRY LEVEL OFFICERS WOULD BE TAKING THE PLACE OF RETIRING OFFICERS, OFFICERS THAT ARE LEAVING SERVICE WITH TPD.

Is this a one-time grant and they're not doing it anymore after that? We're applying for it, got it this time, and we'll have to apply again, but it is there in the future for us to apply for.

Yeah, there's some speculation on this one. It was $100 million that was appropriated by the state legislature, and of that, Chief probably has a better figure as far as how much dollars have been obligated through awards at this point. Again, we were awarded funds. The council has to approve it next Tuesday. The full $100 million has not been obligated. It's not even close. So somewhat speculative in terms of what they'll do with those dollars.

So they may or may not make them open for grants, or they may decide in the next session that they need to put that money somewhere else entirely. Okay, politics. How will, as far as the contract psychologist, how will that, how is that position used? Is that like as needed for officers? Is that for training purposes or?

Right. So there's currently a department embedded psychologist that is for that. We call it officer wellness, right? But there's so much more to it. And that individual is embedded in the department right now. And so they're available and comes to turnout, provides training, also responds to critical and crisis, you know, kind of. there's a situation that they'll do some intervention with that they are lead in you know doing our debriefs so when something happens the loss of you know a young life or just something that you know is very hard for the normal person to just kind of process through there they're on site for us they provide additional their consultant so they provide additional and ongoing therapeutic right

counseling and advising for that person so and then my last question I believe it's just about that second the graph there are the table there with the numbers so when it says the this number here with like the million dollars it's a city match grant what is this figure is that like what we are already paying so transparently what we're showing is that without the grant or the portion

IF THE COUNCIL WERE TO WANT TO KEEP THESE OFFICERS AND NOT THROUGH ATTRITION ABSORB THESE COSTS, THAT WOULD BE THE COST GOING FORWARD ON AN ANNUAL BASIS. OBVIOUSLY THAT IS A BIG NUMBER. WE'RE SHOWING YOU THAT HERE AS FAR AS THE ANNUAL BREAKDOWN.

THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU, MAYOR.

THANK YOU. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to just piggyback off of some of Council Member Scott's questions, especially since we're already on this slide. Just to reiterate, this isn't a proposal to increase the budgeted number of patrol officers by 12. This is a way to pay for 12 hires in the future that would help backfill regular attrition.

THIS ACTUALLY WOULD BE INCREASING OUR HEAD COUNT BY 12 OFFICERS.

OKAY.

AND THE PLAN WOULD BE, AS YOU HEARD, CHIEF JACKSON, IF THE GRANT GOES AWAY YEAR THREE, WE WOULD WIND DOWN OUR HEAD COUNT NUMBER BACK DOWN TO WHAT'S BUDGETED TODAY TO ABSORB THOSE COSTS.

OKAY. SO I JUST, OKAY. BECAUSE WE CURRENTLY, ARE WE STILL IN SINGLE DIGIT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OUR BUDGETED HEAD COUNT AND ACTUAL RIGHT NOW?

We're today at 14 vacancies, and that is based on retirements and things along those lines. We were down to five. And so I just wanted to piggyback, if I may, sir, on would we be increasing our headcount? And that is the whole idea behind this grant that they put out, was to increase the number of individuals who came into law enforcement. And so we would increase by 12 to go from the 368 that we're currently authorized and budgeted for and increase another 12 on top of that. It is something, I lost my track there for a second. No, that's what I wanted to know.

I was unclear on whether, okay, that's fine. And then to get a grant match of $4.6 million, we have to outlay $500,000. That's correct. And that $4.6 million pays for them for how long?

So that's what I'm prefacing here. The authorizing resolution for the grant portion, it ends June 2027. So obviously, next session for the legislature, we are going to be waiting for them to reappropriate this to extend the deadline. Because if we're receiving these now, you accept the grant next Tuesday. The theory is that this would pay for officers for three years. THE APPROPRIATION ENDS JUNE 2027, SO WE'LL BE WATCHING FOR THAT AS WE'RE MOVING THROUGH THIS PROCESS. BUT IT PROBABLY ELICITS MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS.

YEAH, LIKE DID WE, DO WE HAVE $4.6 MILLION SITTING OUT THERE THAT WE GOT TO GIVE THEM $500,000 FOR OR NO?

WE HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE DOLLARS YET, BUT IN THEORY, WE WOULD HAVE TO WAIT FOR, SO IS THIS ON A REIMBURSEMENT BASIS? YOU'RE WATCHING, THIS IS A TRUE WORK SESSION NOW AT THIS POINT. This would be on a reimbursement basis, correct?

Right, but we just have to wait for the yes. And so once we get that, we do have individuals that are wanting to apply for positions right now. It's an entry-level position, and so that would just afford us the ability to start utilizing those dollars to pay for the first 12 people that we would hire.

Got it. So if we win it, the next 12 people we can subsidize. Correct. We also increase our ceiling of number of officers. And then to fill that, we have to figure out how to fill that, right? Correct. Okay. Got it. That was important for me. And so then going back to Proposal 1... The body worn and in-car video systems, that's not related or that is related to increasing that ceiling?

That's related to our current baseline needs to pay for the next contract to purchase and keep our body worn cameras and dash cams for our fleet.

Okay, so I guess the question is why is it in Proposal 1 and not 2? That's a good question.

It's because I have it in Proposal 1. Proposal 2 is not in there. It would be paid for with general fund dollars right now.

I see. I wasn't sure if that was related to another one. Like if we increase the number of officers, we need more equipment. Okay, got it.

It's much like the Department of Assigned Counsel. We know that we're going to have to step up funding. This is probably something we should probably include in both proposals. That's a conversation for you all.

Okay. And then on the HEAL team personnel cost $1.1 million, it goes back to the same question I had more with the 12 officers. Is that increasing headcount, increasing something, or is it paying for something we already do but through this fund instead? Oh, we need someone to, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you for the question. It's to sustain our current level of service. So as you know, our HEAL team straddles both human services and public safety. Human services through community outreach and public safety by helping those that are unhoused understand city laws and comply with them, hopefully through placement through services. And so recognizing this as a council priority, this is a way to ensure even in the face of budget struggles, that we have some sustained funding going towards the HEAL team in their role in public safety. Got it.

So this is a way to provide some meaning, some way of having some sort of sustained funding for a portion of HEAL team. Correct. Yes. But unlike the 12 officers, we're not increasing anything. We're just finding this as a new source. TO SUBSIDIZE IT. GOT IT. THANK YOU. AND THEN WITH THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND DOWNTOWN PARTNERSHIP OFFICERS, IT KIND OF SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE CLOS. ARE THEY NOT CLOS? BECAUSE THE WAY YOU WERE DESCRIBING IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE DOING A LOT MORE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN SPECIFIC KIND OF CONSTRUCTS. CLOS BEING COMMUNITY LIAISON OFFICERS.

Yes, so they are not primary call responders. So anytime you have individuals out there in the neighborhood, they are actually, you know, engaging with our community. And so their primary assignments will be community engagement. And so whether that's the, and that's why they're calling that also, right, for the youth engagement officers, right, that those individuals will be embedded in our community and dealing with, you know, our youth because that's one of the biggest things that people are asking us. What are you going to put in place to make sure that we are maintaining a safe environment for the youth that live in our community? And so then also with the downtown business, they would be out, again, not primary call responders, so their focus would be out there and doing similar work. We're not going to take them from our CLO. As a matter of fact, we want to grow our community liaison positions, right? And that's what we can help do when you bring those 12 additional officers on. Because we'll have the officers, we don't want to keep taking from those primary call responders, right, or receivers, however you want to put that. We don't want to keep taking from those and putting them off into programs like this, because then you go back into, it's taken us too long to go respond to calls, or we don't have people that are available to go and respond to those in-the-moment things that are happening.

Got it. No, that makes a lot of sense. I did want to add my support of a contract psychologist, primarily because a few years ago when I did the Community Police Academy, one of the things I was really pleasantly surprised about was when the psychologist, that individual came in and talked about their work with the men and women that serve. And as we all talk about mental health, you have to realize that police officers are often meeting people, usually one of the worst days they're ever having, right? the residents they meet regularly are having bad days and that kind of emotional charged response has an effect on every single one of us. I think, I believe we're one of the only departments that cares deep enough to provide one the way we do in a way that is, that also has trust with our officers and that was, that came across in that segment, so I appreciate it. And then lastly, you know, just to kind of get a little bit on a soapbox here, you know, this was not a tax I was originally a fan of back when our budget goals were a mere $20 million. I understand how it helps us today, but I do want to reiterate an important point, not to you, but just to the general public that is listening, and that is being echoed across Washington state with other municipalities in the Association of Washington Cities, State Legislative Priorities Committee that I'm part of right now, many, many, many other jurisdictions are talking about that as the state is getting less regressive in how they tax, when we only have regressive tools on a local basis, IT CAN BE GRADING ON EVERY RESIDENT THAT GOES IN. AND FOR THIS SPECIFIC ONE, I THINK THAT WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO BE VERY CAREFUL AND CONSIDERED IN HOW DO WE SPEND THIS MONEY RESPONSIBLY BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, QUITE FRANKLY, THIS IS THE TAX EVERYONE SEES SCORES OF TIMES A DAY SOMETIMES. EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU GO AND DO A REGISTER, Transaction get a receipt and you see the ten point whatever five percent or whatever it is right now with the County adding on that is a tax you see and I would You know it is important that when when we go and talk to our constituents We talk about all the things we're doing with that one tenth of one percent. I think these are Good proposals, I'm gonna have some more specific questions about these and others, but appreciate it. Thank you Thank you. Council Member Walker.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I think Council Member Scott and Council Member Stalge got at most of my questions, just sort of understanding why some things are in one and not in the other. So I may just need a little bit more math in the next day or so. But overall, the goal of each of the proposals is to total $16 million, because that's what we estimate we're going to bring in. So if we wanted to pick and choose from one and two, we could do that. So we talked about the body worn cameras. There's some sort of trade-off that we could put that in proposal two and not in the general. So there's things like that that I feel like are, I think we've gotten a lot of those questions answered, but maybe seeing it next to each other would be helpful for me. Did you want to say okay, and then the last thing is just on the grant so I understand the match part the matches in both of these but the 4.6 million is not in these so the 4.6 million is above and beyond the 16 million and Okay, so that's, I think I'm getting at a similar thing that Council Member Sedalge is, is how are we telling the public what they're getting out of this? Because there's a lot of numbers here, and I think we have asked enough questions, and we can continue to ask questions to understand where we're headed, but the real question is how we're going to talk to the public about what they get for the dollars that we said yes to on the sales tax, right? I think we have to a little bit more work on the story here. And then my other question, you might have said this city manager, but is the goal today for us to tell you to go down door number one or door number two, or this is just the start of the discussion and we're headed towards the bigger budget conversation? What's our deadline?

It's the latter. There is not necessarily a deadline because this will be. Fully enveloped within the budgetary process. This is to get general direction. My intent in telegraphing this back in January was that to bring you a high-low middle, you know, kind of middle ground, a full general relief package, and then also new programs. And as Council Member Sadagi mentioned, when we saw the revised forecast at $40 million, this is where you're seeing me going heavy. These are, I'll use the word, like it's almost like a colored vignette. Like they're very similar shades on that. I WANTED TO HEAR FROM YOU TODAY IN THIS WORKSHOP SESSION TO JUST TALK, IN THE STUDY SESSION, TO HEAR WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS? IS THIS HITTING THE MARK? BECAUSE WE ALSO HAVE, AGAIN, I ENDED UP TALKING ABOUT THE DISCUSSIONS I'VE HAD WITH COUNCILMEMBER RUMBAH ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROGRAMMING, WHAT THOSE ARE GOING TO LOOK LIKE. THAT VERY WELL COULD FIT IN HERE AS WELL. SO VERY MUCH THE LATTER, COUNCILMEMBER WALKER.

OKAY. GREAT. WELL, THANK YOU. SO THIS HAS DEFINITELY GOTTEN, I HAVE MORE INFORMATION NOW. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION, BUT I DEFINITELY DON'T FEEL LIKE I'M AT A POINT WHERE I KNOW WHERE WE WANT TO GO SPECIFICALLY. AND I THINK IT'S BECAUSE SOME OF THOSE TRADE-OFFS, RIGHT? LIKE, WHAT AREN'T WE GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO IF WE DO THAT? AND SO I THINK JUST THIS IS GREAT TO HAVE THIS NOW IN AUGUST AS WE MOVE INTO THAT. SO THANK YOU. AND MORE DISCUSSION COMING.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. COUNSELOR BURDIAS.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. I GUESS I'LL START MY QUESTIONS ON THE SLIDE WITH THE GRANT OVERVIEW AND THEN I'LL COME BACK TO OTHER QUESTIONS I HAD ABOUT THE TWO PROPOSALS. AROUND THE 12 OFFICERS, I'M WONDERING GIVEN THAT WE'RE SORT OF ADMITTING HERE THAT IF WE DID THIS, THIS WOULD BE 12 NEW OFFICERS THAT WOULD THEN ATTRITION INTO THE EXISTING WORKFLOW. I know that in other levels or places in government, when we're recruiting for a position that's funded in one biennium or in one year, it gets really hard to recruit people to do that job. I'm wondering if that is the same or different for officers, since they know that theoretically people will be retiring, there's going to be a place for them, or they could always go police somewhere else. But I just wonder how that impacts.

Yeah, I will tag team this with Chief Jackson. I'll start with what I've heard and what you've heard today. is that these new entry-level officers are not being told that they're project positions. They're being told that they have a full job here and that as we have natural attrition, we got close with five vacancies. We're back up to 14 now. That's how we'll relieve that if we don't have the state funds to pay for those 12 officers. So they'll still be with us. It's not a temporary job.

We can say that pretty straight-faced because we know what recruitment numbers look like. Thank you.

Right. I think also historically, right? So it's not just surmising that this thing is going to happen. You can look at history and you can see that that is in fact, right, what will happen. The additional thing when you're asking is this going to be hard to recruit for, You know, I've said it before, and I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but if I'm going to sound like a broken record about something, it's going to be about this. And that is we're a great department to work for. I believe in the profession as a whole. I would never say anything bad about another agency, you know, that is there because it is a hard job to do. But the reason that people want to come to Tacoma and they want to know if we're going to still have a job for them, like City Manager just referenced, is that they have the support of the community. First and foremost, that's a big thing. They don't want to be policing in a community that doesn't support them and back them. They have the support of our council, which has been loud and clear heard, and every time I go to turnout, I bring it up again, our city manager included, and then also the support of the executive team within the department, and they have all of those. And our goal is to continue forward that if tomorrow were a day that you determine that there's no Chief Jackson that you want in this mix, there would be another person that would be there and be able to maintain this same level of service that our community deserves.

Great.

We are the agency of choice.

Thank you. I would completely agree with that and add, you know, we have a great benefits package. We have a great work culture. We have a lot of assets just being here in the city of Tacoma. I do, I think I have a little bit of trepidation only because I just want to say now, if for some reason we can't find them, I don't have money later. The city does not have money later for some recruitment program. SO I JUST WANT TO ARTICULATE THAT UP FRONT, THAT THAT IS JUST NOT, IT'S GOING TO BE A HARD NO FROM ME IN THE FUTURE, BECAUSE I'VE HAD TROUBLES WITH THOSE INCENTIVES IN THE PAST, AND SO I JUST WANTED TO NAME IT AND OWN IT, MY OWN BIAS THERE. AND THEN I WAS CURIOUS ABOUT THE CONTRACT PSYCHOLOGIST. IT SOUNDED, I THINK, FROM COUNCIL MEMBER SEDALGA'S I think you might have answered my question. Are they exclusively for the officers, or are they also for community members? Because I kind of heard a little bit of a mix there.

That individual is exclusively for the officers and the agency members. Okay.

I don't know why, from your remarks, it sounded like they were helping the victims, and I Incredible but also different so I just wanted to be clear because I think that's really helpful I think similar to the programs we have on the fire side I really do worry a lot about our officers and how much trauma and things that they're seeing so I think that's a really important thing that we keep funding and thinking about how we do that is is it contract so it's a Contract to like an agency or an organization or is it individuals? I'm just wondering how you do coverage since things happen at weird hours. I

Right, so it is an individual, and so we have, you know, a myriad of individuals who respond out, right? If we had something that that was in need of our psychologist right at that, you know, that moment, he's been, he's come into turnouts that I've been in, whether it's, you know, 5 o'clock in the morning, whether there's, you know, something that that needs him at, you know, 11 o'clock at night, right? He or somebody that I'm sure that he would, you know, have in his, right? If he's going to be out of town, this is who will cover it, something like that. But I will tell you, thank you so much for that support. It means a lot. And by getting that support, that is what's making it an easier avenue for our team members to actually reach out for help when they need it.

Yeah, great. I just was curious because policing happens at all hours. So I just... I WANT TO MAKE SURE IF WE'RE PAYING FOR THAT KIND OF RESOURCE THAT THEY HAVE ACCESS TO IT WHEN THEY NEED IT, NOT AT 9 TO 5 WHENEVER THE DOCTOR'S BACK IN. SEEMS HELPFUL. AND THEN I DO HAVE SOME TREPIDATION AROUND THIS PIECE AROUND THE TPS OFFICERS AND THE DOWNTOWN TACOMA PARTNERSHIP OFFICERS, BUT I THINK I'M GETTING TO UNDERSTAND THAT IT'S NOT NECESSARILY OFFICERS IN A SCHOOL, WHICH I don't think community members would be that interested in. I think the school district would probably see some smoke for that more than us, but I think that that is a real concern. I am curious. I know I have heard from officers in the past and I think from DTP themselves that they really want bike cops back since this would be the same individual. You can't really bike to all the schools. I assume that this is going to be a separate animal, but I just wanted to hear a little bit more about whether that is true or not.

Right. I think that the way that the program was in the past is that there were a couple of bike officers, right, or bicycle response team members that were, I guess, for lack of a better term, embedded, right? They had a place where they were kind of working out of. Again, even though they want bike individuals, sometimes in winter months or in just different things depending on what they're responding to, that might not always be the best YOU KNOW, MECHANISM, BUT WE HAVE ALREADY, YOU'VE PROBABLY SEEN IT OUT BECAUSE OF THE PROXIMITY ALONE, WE'VE HAD BIKE TEAMS THAT ARE OUT THERE AND IT'S MAKING A BIG COMEBACK IN A SHOWING. SO WHEN WE CAN, WE WILL HAVE THESE MEMBERS OUT ON BIKES. AND MAYBE WHAT HAPPENS, MAYBE THAT THE SCHOOL INDIVIDUAL IS, MAYBE THEY'RE NOT GOING TO RIDE A BIKE, MAYBE SOMEBODY ELSE IS, THAT WILL BE SOMETHING THAT THAT IS, YOU KNOW, OUR KIND OF OVERSIGHT ON.

Okay, so it'd be kind of flexible.

Should we go that route? Yes, ma'am.

Great. And then the other question I had just about the, I guess kind of the broader and the two proposals, I think Council Member Walker started to get at this, is some of this is still a little bit mix and match, right? We're still sort of, for lack of a better term, making a checks mix here. So we're trying to figure out what it is that we're actually proposing. SOMETHING THAT I WOULD BE CURIOUS ABOUT IS MAYBE A SECRET PROPOSAL 3 OR ANOTHER OPTION TO THE BUFFET IS, IS THERE A WAY THAT WE COULD TALK ABOUT KEEPING OR INCREASING THE CSO PROGRAM? I KNOW THEY'RE PRETTY POPULAR. I KNOW THAT THERE'S PROBABLY SOME BUDGET CONSTRAINTS THERE, AND I KNOW THAT ALL THE POSITIONS AREN'T FILLED, BUT I JUST THOUGHT I WOULD ADD THAT IF WE'RE ADDING TO THE CHECK MIX.

Yes, Council Member Diaz, I anticipated that this will be a conversation for our budget workshops as we bring proposals for our alternative response programs. They're not shown here. And as was questioned by, so a great question from Council Member Scott was, is this money that we have for other needs? And I'm here to tell you that that's not necessarily the case. I will be prepared to have corresponding offsets if those programs are where council wants to continue funding. Those offsets will be in other program reductions or eliminations to pay for those. Thus is the budgetary process for council.

Yeah, but I think to the point, I think probably Council Member Walker was trying to make, is I would like to make sure that we're telling an important and clear narrative of how we're using these safety tax dollars specifically, even though we know that it's a part of the bigger budget conversation. Because it is such a regressive in nature tax, we want to make sure that we're explaining to people that we're being good stewards of that.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Palmer.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Manager, for bringing this forward. I know you said you wanted to get back to us with your proposals, because that was something you promised, so thank you for doing that, and thank you for answering questions. You mentioned multiple times about the conversation we had in January around what we would like this money to be put towards. We didn't allocate the funds then, but we did talk about what we our hopes and dreams for this tax and what we would want it to go towards. A lot of council members, as you mentioned, talked about alternative response and kind of things other than traditional policing, domestic violence, shoring up our court system. And a lot of the conversation was around before we spend these funds on anything new, that we would make sure that the current programs and stuff that we have are shored up. And so, and that was one of, I remember Council Member Sedalge's main points was making sure that we are adequately funding the programs that we have so that they can be successful. And so I'm just wondering, like, how does the proposed allocation kind of reflect those broader discussions when we're talking about, like, the Hill team, but at their current allocation and not, like, broadening that to where they can be successful?

Yeah, I believe that both proposals, if we were to, so mix and match here, the proposal today is largely addressing THE STRUCTURAL IMBALANCE OF THE GENERAL FUND WHEN IT COMES TO OUR EXISTING PUBLIC SAFETY EXPENDITURES AND THE LACK THERE OF DEDICATED REVENUES, I THINK IT MEETS THAT POTION OF THE PROMISE, THE CONVERSATION WE HAD. COUNCILMEMBER PALMER, IF I'M UNDERSTANDING YOUR PROMPT HERE, IT'S NOT A QUESTION, IT'S A PROMPT. OF THE EXISTING PROGRAMS THAT WE SHOULD BE DEFENDING WITH THESE DOLLARS, YOU KNOW, IS THIS FULFILLING THESE PROPOSALS? THE ANSWER IS NO. IT'S NO FOR THE REASONS OF I WILL BE COMING TO YOU WITH THESE LEADERS AS WE PRESENT PROPOSALS. WE'VE LOOKED AT ALL OF OUR PROGRAMS, ASKED OUR DEPARTMENTS TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE EFFICACY AS WELL AS THE ABILITY TO SUCCEED IN SOLVING PROBLEMS. AND SO THERE'S DIFFERENT REASONS FOR DIFFERENT PROGRAMS WHY THEY'RE NOT SHOWN TODAY. I think it's a broader conversation that will be coming in the coming weeks for those discussions. Council Member Palmer, I would hope that we have The wherewithal to take a look at some of the problem statements for existing programs in this budget process that sometimes gets lost in the mix of dollars and cents of What are we trying to accomplish with your finite resources?

So I'm looking forward to that conversation Couple questions on the I guess a question on the grant match I'm curious as to does the grant have to be supported by this tax as far as the matching dollars, or could it be?

It does not. The matching portion is 25%, and I need to preface, I should have shared this with you. There are some hard caps on how much of the eligible salaries can be covered. I believe the state, so the legislation approved up to 75% for a full-time officer salary, up to $117,000. Well, our starting salary is above $117,000 for our officers. So it's 25%, but it's a little bit more because of that portion. General fund could also match this. But with a $40 million structural deficit, yeah.

I'm curious about, you know, the plan for attrition to help cover these costs in three years. And I'd be curious why we maybe couldn't do that sooner. to cover that 25% grant match.

To use salaries, current salaries. Yes. That could be a discussion we have with you all. The spirit of this grant award is to get more officers. That's a question that we can have in earnest with you all in the coming days.

Yeah, fantastic. Are we in the bargaining process with police unions right now?

We are. We're currently in bargaining with Local 6. Okay.

And then is it normal that staffing would be bargained in that process?

Not normal to bargain the number. It's really the city's wherewithal to support. That's not to say that in bargaining there our discussions. I'm not privy to, we're just starting those discussions now and it probably is not yet ready for discussion in a public forum at this point. But I would say atypical to talk about bargaining to, so an employer to say, well, we will have this many positions, you know, to bargain that, you know, that's a pretty big decision, not typical.

I know we talked about coming to the table with the Crystal Judson Center and trying to figure out funds there. I would love the same time and attention to these positions as well when we're talking about the efficacy and why we would go with these positions over YOU KNOW, MAYBE SOME OF THE ADDING STAFF TO THE HILL TEAM, HOPE TEAM, THOSE TYPES OF THINGS. SO I GUESS THAT WAS ANOTHER QUESTION I HAD WAS, HAS STAFF COMPARED, LIKE, THE LONG-TERM PUBLIC SAFETY AND FINANCIAL RETURNS OF ADDING POLICE POSITIONS WITH THE INVESTMENTS THAT COULD REDUCE FUTURE DEMAND ON POLICING, LIKE THE COURTS AND EMERGENCY SERVICES AND THAT?

Councilmember Palmer, PERHAPS THAT'S That's a more expansive discussion that I welcome. When we look at our When we look at the number of officers that are approved through the budget, we have a dual mandate. So absolutely community safety, response, primary call taking, top of mind. Also, there's another dual mandate that is officer safety and well-being. And constant in our agreements is the minimum staffing that it requires to have enough officers to provide coverage for our community. I welcome a broader conversation in the coming days if that's something that you would like to have a conversation on. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I guess I'm hoping that there's more weighing the options and weighing and understanding and using the data to come back and say like, hey, this is why two cops allocated for the whole public school system. This is what it would help. This is what LONG-TERM WOULD BE THE BENEFIT OF THAT AND HAVING THE DATA BACK THAT UP WHEN WE'RE MAKING THESE TYPES OF DECISIONS WOULD BE FANTASTIC. I KNOW TPD AND THE CITY, WE'RE ALL THE CITY, RIGHT, BUT WE ALL HAVE A SHARED GOAL OF MAKING SURE THAT DOLLARS ARE BEING USED IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE TOWARDS SAFETY, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S MEANT FOR SAFETY. And so I think having that research and those reasons behind we're putting money here, we're putting money here, it just makes a lot of sense to have that. I want to say, you know, we're looking at this and it's just very thousand foot view. And I think I'd love to get into kind of the nitty gritty as to why it is. what are the alternatives and kind of moving from this bucket to this bucket and seeing what that changes. I know a lot of us also, just from what I'm hearing, haven't had conversations personally with TPS around what they're asking for. And so I look forward, thank you for bringing up that and getting me in contact with Josh Garcia to have that meeting. There's just a lot of questions My last question is in this other public safety general fund offsets, it does look like the cameras are still in there because on proposal one, it's at 12.4 and on proposal two, it's at 13.4. So that could still take care of the cameras. I'm curious as to like what other things are maybe in this other bucket. Yeah.

Yeah, so take, for instance, just one line item for public safety, overtime. The totality of overtime, both planned and unplanned because of extrusion circumstances, that in itself could be a lion's share of this, of what's in there as well. The cost of personnel, of having our general fund support a priority area for us, which is police and fire and other general fund expenses, I can give you a full accounting of what we can plan for that. This is to address the structural deficit. That also is a large portion of this. And to the question about, you know, now that we're having this be an offset, can we use those dollars? And it's unsatisfactory to report back to you that's not the case when we're trying to tackle a gap in our general fund.

Thanks. I'm just a fan of, I guess, balance, right? And I think we have I'm curious as to what a lot of the general fund dollars are. I'm looking forward to having this conversation alongside the creator conversation because I have a lot of questions there. If there's 40% or so of our general fund dollars that are already going to TPD, I'm curious what that's paying for and why there's a need for this extra chunk. And so there's lots of questions, and I look forward to digging into that. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hines. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Hyun, and the rest of the team here. I think what a question I had. To go to the grant funding, everybody really likes to talk about grant funding. Those can only pay for police officer positions, correct?

Correct. And support staff for police.

And support staff for police. How vaguely can we interpret that?

It's very specific when it comes to the thread of get more cops. It's almost like a more cops grant.

Yeah. I mean, I remember the governor being very clear about that when they put this through. So one, so I think that's just something to keep in mind. And if we don't take this grant, there's probably other cities that would take the money to fund for their police officers, or is this already ours?

So of the $100 million, not all of it has been applied for at this point. But yes, our indications are most jurisdictions are looking to seek these dollars out. Yeah. What we've learned through this process, as TPD has been one of the first departments that have been prospectively awarded funds, the requirements are pretty onerous. So it's the existing training for officers and more, and that costs money as well. And I should speak to that. The grant also has, when we hire more officers, the costs for vehicles, equipment, and uniforms we're still somewhat looking towards that grant source to apply again to pay for those so we don't take on all of the burden.

I mean, first of all, I want to just give my kudos to Tacoma Police Department and staff here that have got us in a position to get the grant money because I don't want to be lost in this process. Maybe talk about all the things, a reminder of all the things we had to do in order to qualify. We had to have a bunch of our policies in line. We had to do a lot of work on the front end to make sure we were able to receive the money. Yes.

Yes, sir.

And so I appreciate the human work the police department has done to do that. There's lots of agencies that haven't done that work yet to put themselves in a place to achieve this. And I don't want that to be lost in the broader conversation about whether the money runs out or not over time. Because I think it's really important to think about that. So that was my question about the grant funding. Everything else on here, I mean, I think it makes sense. Everything you listed on here, I mean, absent maybe the Tacoma Public Schools, downtown Tacoma Partnership, this stuff WE'RE PROBABLY GOING TO HAVE TO PAY FOR IT ANYWAYS. SO TO THE COMMENTS ABOUT JUST AROUND LIKE, YOU KNOW, IS THIS SUPPLANTING FUND, YOU KNOW, WE WANT TO TAKE CARE OF WHAT WE'RE ALREADY SPENDING MONEY ON WITH THESE DOLLARS VERSUS ADDING NEW, I THINK VERY LITTLE OF THIS IS NEW. SO I THINK IT IS LANDING THERE. I WOULD LIKE COUNCILMEMBER WALKER, I'M ALWAYS CURIOUS ABOUT WHEN WE START USING WHAT ARE THE TRADES I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT JUST YET WHEN IT COMES TO THE GENERAL FUND DOLLARS. You all can tell me we can do that. You're going to have to take that money out of the general fund. I want to know what that trade is before I agree to it. And so I look forward to another broader conversation around this and what it looks like as part of the full budget process.

Yes, sir. I feel a little bit out of sequence because I promised you all we would bring this to you this summer. It's kind of the fall now at this point for the record, so I apologize for that. Thank you for your grace. The trade officer is coming as we go through the budgetary process. There are proposals that were proposed that I have not preliminarily taken yet. Those will be available for you in the coming days as well.

And just to go back to Council Member Palmer's point, I hope that as we start thinking about where we land with our investments in public safety dollars, we take a broad analysis of the data and not become hyper-fixated on maybe a program or something we've grown accustomed to or attached to and think more broadly about how are we best using these dollars to invest and promote a community where everyone is safe. And I would challenge us to kind of stay fixated on that idea of how do we make sure more people in our community go to sleep each night feeling safe, and not about who the program is that's delivering that safety to them. Because I think we sometimes, we all have our programs we like, but I think an objective view about how do we best deliver safety in this community is the conversation I'm looking forward to have as part of the budget process. So with that, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. Really great conversation today. I just want to echo the kudos to the department to be able to even be able to apply for this is it took a monumental effort And so just appreciate all the folks that helped put this together And I appreciate you kind of going through based on the guidance of the council trying to find ways to make sure that our general fund is Accounted for before I get into my specific questions. I really just want to kind of address the elephant in the room and that is just The root causes for why we need a public safety sales tax in the first place is because the revenues that the city receives is unsustainable. And the way the city receives its revenues is based on how the legislature allows us to. And so I really appreciate that they have given us the opportunity for a regressive public safety sales tax. But the root cause is that we cannot keep up with the safety needs of the community because of our revenue sources. So I just want to go back to the root causes why we needed this in the first place. and I'm a little frustrated about that because Safety is something that we need to account for as a city and it's a core responsibility the city Forever for as long as the city exists and so unless that there is a sustainable Long-term funding sources to support public safety in our communities Then we're gonna have to go back for additional revenue sources in order to make up the shortfalls a year after year and so the legislature is Again, is allowing us these grants that are also unsustainable and unpredictable and not necessarily giving us the opportunity to have sustainable funding over time. So they're dangling grants in front of us for additional officers, which I appreciate because we need more officers. But the reality is, is we never should have needed those grants in the first place. So I think that we really need to look at the more systemic opportunities for us and cities to be able to fill their basic needs. Public safety is certainly a big part of that, but there are other areas in which I think that needs to be accounted for. And I recognize that it's not an easy fix, so don't get me wrong there. And so additionally, I appreciate that we're looking to increase the total personnel count by additional 14, but it's my understanding, and Chief, correct me if I'm wrong, we've been at the same total head count for over a decade, maybe more, but the city has grown significantly over the last decade. And so the numbers aren't jiving correctly, in my opinion. Could you just kind of maybe talk about that a little bit?

You're talking about how many we're asking for or just the fact that I wholeheartedly concur with what you're saying?

Well, I'm just trying to think about, so we, like in 2010, I think we were at about just under 220,000 people. We're at 230,000 people. Correct. EVEN LESS POPULATION BEFORE 2010, BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG WE'VE BEEN AT THE SAME HEAD COUNT FOR OUR ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT. SO I GUESS IF I RECALL, I THINK IT GOES BACK EVEN PRIOR TO 2010, WE'RE AT THE SAME OFFICER AMOUNT.

CORRECT. IT'S BEEN DECADES, AND AT ONE POINT, YOU KNOW, THE HEAD COUNT BUDGETED AND AUTHORIZED WAS ABOUT 405. And it's down to 368. And so if you do the math, you're 100%. And just in plain speak, the math isn't mathing there, right? And so if the governor himself did not feel as if this was something that needed to shift, I can pretty well straight face say that there wouldn't be $100 million that's set aside to grow this profession and in effort to safeguard our community members. And, you know, I think it's great that we can sit across from each other and talk about that there have been some crime trends that have trended down. But with the shift of the wind, those go right back up, right? And so trying to get an agency that is trained to be able to do all of the things that are required, right? You know, let's talk about just de-escalation as one thing. There's all these other things that are happening. To think that we could just respond with the population if crimes start trending up again, that we would just have people that are, I always call it, that are in the bullpen, that are ready to come out and pitch, that just doesn't exist. And so we need to make sure that if we are trying to grow an agency, we're also meeting the demands of the community, have well-trained officers in a plethora of different things. And so that's what we do. And that's not just a TPD requirement. That is something that we all get that training for that peace officer certification at the Criminal Justice Training Commission. And so it is something that I think goes without saying that it is everything you said about the taxation, everything, that aside, We are still, per capita, the lowest number of individuals, officers, that are there. And when we talk about do we need two officers, three officers, what is it, that's also a requirement of what's happening with legislative changes. We need time, distance, and shielding. things along these lines. And so you might have two officers that go in now that take 45 minutes for a call that used to be able to take, you know, a lot less time than that. But it is in response to the demands that our community make and that we want to make sure we're able to safely and, you know, just compassionately do that, provide that service.

Yeah, thank you. And then on top of that, there's investigations and there's other personnel that do the detective work to to make sure there's justice for victims. There's the criminal justice side of it that is really lacking in support. I really appreciate the dollar amounts for indigent defense because we need to make sure that folks are receiving the proper representation that they deserve, that it's a constitutional right. And so there's just a lot of things out here that I wish we had more resources, obviously. So kind of going into more of my And part of it we kind of talked about and touched on the we have to assume that these grants go away And we have to assume that we're going to have to lower headcount in the future and so that I appreciate you having the foresight and thinking of that Because I suspect that they will go away especially given the state's budget constraints that they're going through and In the body-worn camera and car system, video car systems, does that account also for the running the system itself? Because there's a significant amount of PDRs and other staff requirements that it comes to with having those body cameras and the cars, and I don't know if it's accounted for, or are these just one-time costs for the equipment alone?

So this is the equipment in the storage. It's the contract with the actual provider for the physical equipment. The PDR aspect is a... ever-growing envelope for the city overall. It's a discussion that we address without, this is an unfunded mandate from the standpoint of, I think everyone in this room right now would speak to, we never want to actually diminish transparency or showing our work or providing the responsive records. At the end of the day, there's not funding for those things. I can tell you that this 1.5 does not include the PBR aspects of the staff that it takes to be responsive to the body-worn camera records or the dash cam records.

Can we utilize our public safety sales tax for those purposes, specifically for the... You know, I'd have to come back to you on that one.

I don't know if that's going to be an eligible use for that. It's something that, in large part, is a general fund cost. Let me get back to you, Deputy Mayor, on that one.

Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I think that, you know, there's a lot of unfunded mandates that go upon our general fund, and if there's ways to relieve it in certain different ways, and that may be within the other public safety... general fund offsets. I am also curious as to what's in that 12.4 million or the 13.4 within the two proposals. Just like an idea of what's all included in that.

Yeah, my thought around that, just want to be upfront with you all and not actually listing out A SIMULATED COST STRUCTURE THAT ADDS UP TO THE 12.4, THE 13.4. THE NEEDS OF PUBLIC SAFETY ARE MUCH LARGER THAN 16 MILLION TOTAL. SO IF YOU WANT TO SEE THAT, WE CAN PROVIDE THAT TO YOU AT OUR NEXT OPPORTUNITY.

YEAH, I'M JUST CURIOUS, AND I KNOW THAT AS YOU'RE BUILDING OUT THE BUDGET, THAT MAY SHIFT. SO I RECOGNIZE THAT AS WELL. MY OTHER QUESTION IS, IS FOR DIVERSION PROGRAMS AND PARTICULARLY I THINK ABOUT BRAVE. IS THIS SOMETHING THAT'S POSSIBLE TO ALSO HELP SUPPORT THAT PROGRAM OR IS THAT A DIFFERENT FUNDING SOURCE? I'M JUST CURIOUS IF THAT HAS BEEN A PART OF THIS CALCULATION AT ALL. AND IT COULD BE BRAVE BUT JUST OTHER LIKE YOUTH AND YOUNG ADULT LIKE VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION AND THINGS OF THAT NATURE.

Thank you for that question. There are a number of investments the city makes in human services, including BRAVE, that were eligible uses under the RCW, such we make investments in domestic violence services, outreach to those that are experiencing homelessness. So there is a series of them, including some of the BRAVE investments. Yes.

Great. And then can any of those investments also be utilized for any like capital projects that support those things or are they just capital is not really a part of this at all?

I don't believe capital is a part of it. Okay.

And part of the reason I think about that is because we need places for folks to go, right? And so we can have the greatest programs in the world, but if there's nowhere for a young adult to be able to go to have a safe place, then it makes it difficult for us to provide that stability for them to be successful.

That's a great point, Deputy Mayor. So much of what we're doing when it comes to programmatic dollars or FTE to address a problem statement, so often we don't have a place to take folks. Yeah, that's a great point.

Yeah, thank you. And, you know, something else to be thinking about for the future here. I think I'm going to stop my questions there. I have a lot more. But another thing I've been thinking about, especially if we have more officers on bikes, maybe we can make some investments in e-bikes. I saw some sweating officers out there quite a bit. So, and they're very, very fit folks out there, but I think maybe having e-bikes might help them be able to go further and help more, so.

Okay, I'm going to kick myself by saying this, but that's how we kind of keep the cost of uniform down, right? We want them to be out there really working it so that I don't have to buy them a new uniform. So, just kidding.

Great, thank you so much. Great questions. Thank you, everyone. I, too, just a couple of comments and then a couple of opportunities before we move on to our second topic here. And starting by saying thank you, City Manager and Chief and everyone for bringing this forward. This is a very responsive document. It's good to have options, despite the fact that this is a very limited and, as the Deputy Mayor was alluding to, a very unjust framework that we're making the best out of. But I definitely salute the creativity and the forward-thinking nature of that. A brief comment to me, I'm certainly at least in favor of entertaining what shall henceforth be known as the trail mix amendment. So whatever that looks like, whether it's cheese mix, whatever you want to call it, certainly interested in just being aware of all options available. I certainly think that as we take a look at the muni court's recommendations, if there's a criminal justice, especially a long-term cost savings implication that can supplement the work of our law enforcement and other departments, I'd at least like to be fluent in what that might look like. CERTAINLY MORE INFORMATION IS GOOD INFORMATION. AND THEN BEFORE WE MOVE ON, WE HEARD A LOT FROM OUR LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSPECTIVE, SOME FROM NCS. ARE THERE ANY ADDITIONAL BITS OF INFORMATION OR QUESTIONS YOU THINK THAT WE SHOULD BE ASKING FROM THE NCS OR THE TFD PERSPECTIVE? ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD? SEAN?

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I REALLY DON'T HAVE MUCH TO ADD. AS THE CITY MANAGER KIND OF OUTLINED, THE ways that you can use this funding are really more focused on criminal justice, police, alternative response. And we were part, all of us were part of a couple different workshops where we had three pages of options listed. And so that's the city manager's job is to kind of look through those, have conversations with you all, and decide where we land. And so what he proposed today is just pretty much the start of that conversation that you'll be having.

Well, thank you so much for the very robust conversation. Looking forward to continuing it. All right, and with that, Chief, you stay put. And we are going to move on to our second topic, which is the discussion of the proposed Tacoma Public Safety Partnership. And with that, I'm going to call on Chief Jackson once again, once you're ready.

Thank you, sir. So also coming up is going to join me is going to be Deputy Chief Ryan Lane. Welcome. And so he's going to come up and help fill in the gaps if there's any questions. And so this is going to be just a fly overview. I know that I've already forgotten my instructions on how to work this. So. We're here today to talk about the next phase, what we're going to be talking about. Basically, I've been here about 18 months, right? I've had the privilege of sitting in the seat serving as your chief for about 18 months, and what have we done to move the needle? And so I can tell you that we've done quite a few things, and so one of the things that is important is to understand that I go out as often as I can to be in the community to really listen to what the people that we serve are asking for. And there's all kinds of, you know, there's different things that are happening in methodology with how information is shared that are really led by many other places, right? We were talking about, you know, the West Side community groups, you know, East Side, you know, South End, Salishan, you know, you name it, and that's not a community engagement program actually led by the Tacoma Police Department. And so when we go out, you know, we can't really do, have a partnership, I guess, in just educating. And so that is something that we really, you know, kind of want to talk about. We are ingrained right now and in the midst of, you know, working things out that involve our, you know, our labor unions and things of that nature. What can we do that doesn't get in the way of that, that doesn't also look in the form of just sitting on our hands and doing nothing? And so this is something that I think demonstrates that it is something that has worked. And just kind of getting together a group, you can call it if you'd like, THE CHIEF'S ADVISORY GROUP OR SOMETHING OF THAT NATURE. I THINK IT'S MORE IMPORTANT THOUGH TO CALL IT THE TAKOMA PUBLIC SAFETY PARTNERSHIP BECAUSE IT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. IT'S NOT THE CHIEF GOING TO PEOPLE AND TELLING THEM WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR. IT'S THE CHIEF, OUR COMMAND STAFF, AGENCY MEMBERS, SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS, YOU KNOW, YOU NAME IT, THAT ARE COMING TOGETHER WITH BETWEEN 12 TO 18 COMMUNITY MEMBERS. that are really talking about things. And I want people to be able to have their opinions and know that there is no way, shape, or form that I'm going to be trying to change people's opinions on what they have emotionally gone through or what their belief in law enforcement is, but to at least give them a point so they know where we are, right? What is it that we're talking about? How did we get there? And just being able to give information that doesn't violate you know, contracts. It's just an opportunity, if you will, which is why this is out there, that, you know, we've spent years now discussing policy, policing, transparency, accountability, public trust, and this, the Tacoma Public Safety Partnership, or TPSP, if I may, from this point forward, builds on that very work. So I don't want to come to our community and tell them, hey, trust us, we're your police agency. I don't want you to trust us just because I ask you to. I want you to have confidence that what your trust comes from, an understanding of who we are and what we do, and make certain that people are aware of those checks and balances that are currently in place. Also, you'll hear me say it, it is designed to promote dialogue, not automatic agreement. Next slide, please. Oh, did you next slide me? No. I WENT CRAZY.

RIGHT THERE.

SO THE OBJECTIVES AS YOU WILL ARE AGAIN TO STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS TO INCREASE UNDERSTANDING

To promote that transparency, we really want to encourage constructive dialogue, and by that, it's not us talking at you, it's talking with you. That's a big difference that I do know is something that is very popular amongst people, but it also gives people an opportunity to be heard, THEIR FEARS ARE HEARD, US BEING ABLE TO BRING MORE PEOPLE TO THE TABLE, ALSO LET OUR OFFICERS, OUR TEAM MEMBERS, OUR SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS KNOW FIRSTHAND WHAT THE PUBLIC IS REALLY SAYING. SO THAT HELPS US KIND OF DEVELOP A PATH FORWARD. AND THEN WE WANT TO EVALUATE LONG-TERM SUCCESS. YOU SAID IT HERE TODAY, WHAT ABOUT PROGRAMS THAT ARE ALREADY IN PLACE, HOW DO WE KEEP THOSE GOING? NOT ALL OF THOSE PROGRAMS ARE REALLY MOVING THE NEEDLE. So it is something that we want to evaluate, and we can evaluate just based on feedback from our community and just what we're seeing out there with, you know, are there trends that are going down in crime? Are there more people out on our streets, and there are more people wanting to move and invest here?

Next slide, please.

So what does the structure look like? I know people have asked, hey, well, this is great. I think that you've got this great idea, but how is this any different? And so I'm really coming before you just to educate you and to share with you this path that we're going to be taking, which is an 18-month pilot initiative. And this is something where we will get between, I'd say, 12 to 15 community partners. in 12 monthly meetings in three phases. And the reason we say 18 months is because those first three months are going to be spent really standing this partnership up. And so there will be public applications, there will be a selection panel, there will be participant selection, orientation, and a program lounge. This is not gonna be something where we're going to need to do things, for example, like do a background check on somebody. We're going to have this in a public forum setting EXCUSE ME, WHERE PEOPLE COME IN, THEY DON'T NEED TO SEE JUST BACKGROUND REQUIREMENT TO BE PART OF THE TEAM, BUT IT WILL BE A COMMITTEE, SO A PARTNERSHIP, THE SAME PEOPLE WILL BE THERE FOR THE LONGEVITY OF THIS PROGRAM. AND THEN ORIENTATION, YOU'LL SEE THAT IN THE BULLET POINT IN THE GOLD BOX. That just means that the first month that we really get this up and standing before we kick into the monthly meetings, we're going to provide two meetings that really do a very quick flyover. You've heard Council Member Sadagi. I'm pointing at him like he's still over there, but that's where he sits. He talks about being able to participate in the community academy. IT IS A BIG DEAL WHEN PEOPLE GO THROUGH THAT. IT IS SOMETHING THAT KIND OF ALSO KIND OF GETS THEM FAMILIAR WITH SOME OF THE MAYBE THE TERMINOLOGY THAT IS USED AND, YOU KNOW, JUST A BETTER UNDERSTANDING SO THAT WHEN WE DO GO INTO THOSE MEETINGS, THEY'LL AT LEAST BE A BASELINE. THEY'VE HEARD THAT TERMINOLOGY BEFORE SO WE CAN, YOU KNOW, NOT SPEND AS MUCH TIME, RIGHT, TRYING TO REINTRODUCE THAT. WE CAN JUST EDUCATE AND GO FORWARD. THEN PHASE TWO, THAT'S THE OPERATION, SO THAT'S WHEN WE START THOSE MONTHLY MEETINGS, AND SO THEN WE'LL TALK ABOUT, YOU KNOW, MANY THINGS, AND DIFFERENT THAN WHAT'S HAPPENING OTHER PLACES, THIS WILL BE AN IN-PERSON MEETING, RIGHT, SO WE'LL KNOW WHO'S IN THE ROOM, WE'LL KNOW THE INFORMATION THAT'S GETTING OUT THERE, AND SO WE'LL TALK ABOUT THINGS, YOU KNOW, I'M A BIG PUSHER, IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DETERMINED THIS, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE GOING RIGHT. You know, we can talk about the crime all day long. We can talk about, you know, there was a shooting here or there. But then we go back and we talk about the exact things that, you know, our deputy mayor talked about with, you know, the investigators. How did they solve a crime? What did that look like? What did it take? And so we can review some of those completed, you know, cases, if you will. employee commendations I'm going to really put forward like I'm gonna I'm gonna do a little woody woop moment because one of our Detectives right now his son is a member of the Tacoma baseball team that is over in the Little League World Series right now And so that's a big deal for us and so but just things like that I think that that helps the community see us as people they see us as parents they see us as Volunteers they see us as individuals who just like you want the same thing which is public safety. And then we'll talk about other educational topics. What does it mean, a SWAT team? Why do you call that out? What's the goal, right? And so just we'll have subject matter experts that come and speak to those very agenda items. And then that community dialogue. We're hopeful that of these 12 to 15 community partners that are there, those are the individuals who have a voice amongst, right? It's a plethora throughout our city not just a certain group. Those are the individuals that have a voice that can go out and can speak to their community members as well. So that just kind of force multipliers, if you will. And then really getting into phase three, that's our progress assessment. That will be taking place all along. You don't just, when you're standing something up, go, well, this is the way we're going to do it. We look to see what's working, what's not working, and move forward from there. We'll have participant feedback. We'll also have data collection. and then just future recommendations. And you can be rest assured that we, myself and the deputy chief or whoever we appoint, will be also reporting back to you all as a council so that you know what's happening, so that when you're speaking to your constituents, they'll know kind of what were they talking about, what happened, and is it making a difference for the city of Tacoma? Next slide, please. Just a sample meeting agenda. What's it going to look like you ask? And so I'll tell you so there's always going to be you know that welcoming period I think that you know you break a little bread together You know and you know you just talk let people get you know seated and get everything and then the very first thing I want to do is I want to recognize that excellence You know just as you might have heard that somebody lost a family member I want to make sure that somebody knows that one or more of our agency members save the life of two or ten just last night and oh by the way after they went to this call that that involved you know an infant baby they had there was another call pending they need to go straight out to that what does that look like and how does that affect us and what are we doing to safeguard the men and women that are selflessly dedicated to serving this community. And then, you know, we'll have like a case study review. It could be, you know, something that happened that was a crime. It could be something internal where people want to know what happens and just how, right? Not necessarily reviewing everything about what somebody gives them the opportunity or how they feel something would happen, but how we got there, what is involved in making decisions. We'll get community perspective and then just kind of looking ahead. Okay, what are we going to be looking at next month and, you know, going forward from there? SO APPARENTLY THAT IS THE LAST SLIDE HERE. BUT I WANTED TO THEN TELL YOU, OKAY, WELL, HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? WE WANTED TO COME BEFORE YOU SO WE COULD USE THIS FORUM, RIGHT? I'VE HAD JUST THE PRIVILEGE OF MEETING WITH OUR COUNCIL MEMBERS AND JUST KIND OF GIVING THEM JUST A SNAPSHOT AND AN OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM THAT WE INTEND TO OPEN UP. BUT I WANTED TO LET YOU ALL KNOW I'M ALSO GOING TO SHARE THAT INFORMATION WITH THEN OUR ACTUAL GENERAL MEMBERSHIP THERE IN THE AGENCY, AND THEN THERE'S ALREADY, YOU KNOW, AN AVENUE THAT'S IN PLACE. WE DIDN'T HAVE TO REINVENT THE WILL FOR COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO JUST APPLY TO BE PART OF THIS ONLINE. THEY'LL BE ABLE TO DO THAT. WE'LL BE SHOWING THIS. WE'LL BE SHARING IT. THERE'LL BE A MESSAGE THAT GOES OUT IN THE MEDIA THROUGH TACOMA.GOV BACKSLASH TACOMA COMMUNITY, TPD COMMUNITY. AND THAT'LL BE SOMETHING TO WHERE, YOU KNOW, THERE'S SOME QUESTIONS WILL BE ON THAT APPLICATION. YOU KNOW, WHAT AREA, RIGHT, ARE YOU WANTING TO, RIGHT, Are you already involved or engaged in something? What area are you from? So that we make certain that we have a diverse group of men and women that come to the table. And then our office will be reviewing the applications and communicating with all applicants. It's not something they have to come in and do an interview, but something that we want to talk about. What is it that you want to learn? And then that'll help us also build up that program as we stand that up. And then we're also going to be using our community programming page to provide partnership schedules and other opportunities for Tacomans to get involved with our agency. This is not something we're going to do instead of. This is something we're going to do along with. And so that said, I can't tell you enough how important it is that we keep asking, this is not unique to Tacoma Police Department. What are you doing to promote transparency? What are you doing for accountability? What are you doing to build relationships back up? That's not new, right? I've been, this is my 37th year in law enforcement. I started when I was six, remember the math. And that said, this is something that people have been asking all along. This is an answer to that question. This is how we engage and we let people participate. I'm tired of sitting on my hands and doing nothing. If it doesn't work, we'll know that at the end. I'M TELLING YOU, WITH EVERY CONFIDENCE THAT I HAVE, AND I'M NOT TYPICALLY A COCKY PERSON, BUT I CAME BEFORE YOU WHEN I ASKED FOR INCENTIVE PACKAGES. I DELIVERED ON THAT, RIGHT? AND BY SAYING THAT I DELIVERED, I MEAN THAT THE MEN AND WOMEN THAT ARE WORKING FOR THIS AGENCY FELT THAT THAT WAS IMPERATIVE ENOUGH THAT WE ALL GOT ON BOARD. WHEN WE TALKED ABOUT A PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX, THEY KNOW THAT THAT'S NOT SOMETHING THEY HAVE DONE. We had to get on board for that because we wouldn't even have been able to be eligible for that to come before your yes vote if we didn't do the things that we did. We are here for you, and we are hopeful that you're here for us as well.

Thank you, Chief. Ryan, anything to add? Yes, Deputy Chief Ryan Lane. Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members for the opportunity to be here. Yeah, I think Chief Jackson said it all. This is her baby. This is her concept. This is her presentation. But I will tell you that it's not too far removed from what we're already doing in community policing and partnering. It's just a different take on things in that it'll be, in large part, if not entirely, facilitated at the executive level, which is not something we've historically seen, at least not in TPD, on a consistent base month after month after month. THROUGHOUT THE PILOT PERIOD ITSELF. AND THEN FROM THERE, THE SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS, WHETHER THAT BE RANK AND FILE OR OTHER MEMBERS OF COMMAND STAFF WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE AS WELL. BUT IT'S REALLY JUST AN EXPANSION ON OUR LONG, ONGOING COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY POLICING AND PARTNER WITH COMMUNITY. THANK YOU. OKAY, WONDERFUL.

ANY COUNCIL QUESTIONS?

COUNCIL PRESIDENT DALGATE. THANK YOU. I, YOU KNOW, APPRECIATE THE the objectives here, because I personally, you know, I keep talking about going through the Community Police Academy because, as you kind of pointed out, it was a forum in which we could have dialogue. Right. One of the first things that happens when you come in is, you know, the officer who's presenting the lieutenant usually will say this is a safe place for you to ask all the questions you wish you could ask. Then we can answer them because in the midst of active investigations, you know, investigating agencies are precluded from often. communicating directly to the public to preserve the sanctity of that investigation. The consequence of that in the world in which we live with social media is that rumors, innuendos, and other kinds of those types of thoughts are the ones that permeate and those are the ones that become fact in people's lives. And if this is a forum in which we can help EDUCATE, AS YOU SAID, INFORM AND EXPLAIN HOW AND WHY THINGS HAPPENED, IT ENDS UP COMFORTING IS NOT THE RIGHT WORD. IT ENDS UP INCREASING THAT KIND OF TRUST AND UNDERSTANDING. AND IT DEFINITELY WORKED A LOT MORE THAN I EXPECTED FOR ME. SO HOW THIS CAN ALSO THEN BE USED TO BE MAGNIFIED WITH MORE THAN JUST A SELECT VIEW IS SOMETHING I THINK SHOULD BE EXPLORED IF THERE ARE PARTNERSHIPS, MCO, IF THERE ARE WAYS OF RECORDING PORTIONS OF IT OR USE LEARNINGS IN THOSE CONVERSATIONS TO SAY, HEY, THESE ARE REALLY IMPORTANT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS THAT ARE COMING IN AND THIS IS HOW WE were able to answer in the theoretical. So we're not talking about very specific kind of cases, very specific instances. Because a lot of times people want to talk about their issue or something they heard about. And we can talk about the policy and the policy explanation and how that policy translates to how we do the job today. And that's what I learned. So those were all things that, you know, I THINK WOULD BE REALLY BENEFICIAL. SO I LOVE THE FACT THAT WE HAVE THIS COMING, THAT YOU'VE THOUGHT LONG AND HARD ON A LEADERSHIP LEVEL OF HOW TO GET THERE. SO I'M SUPPORTIVE OF ALL THIS. SO I DO HAVE A QUESTION. THE ONLY QUESTION I HAVE IS, IS THERE A BUDGET ASK IN THIS BUDGET?

There is not. So, I mean, you know, it's individuals that will be, you know, kicking this off. And, you know, maybe it's something in the future that we would have to look towards if we're trying to grow something to what you're talking about. Are we going to try to, you know, grow this bigger? You need to start right somewhere. And this is us where, you know, Deputy Chief Lane had already indicated that, you know, our command team will be there. Well, we shift our schedules to make that happen, right? We want to meet the public, right, with where their needs are. And, you know, we would be hard-pressed to think that most of the public could come down and see us at 12 in the afternoon, right? So you're looking more at 530 at night or something like that. And so that's how we will shift this. Will there be some costs that are associated with that? Not over and above what's already on the chief's, right, costs. I believe in minding the store, and I believe in using the dollars that we have to be able to really maintain a good product. We don't want people to have to buy the produce that's already outdated. We want to be able to make sure that we're utilizing our budget to the best that we can. We're not asking for additional dollars. We're not asking for supplies or anything like that because we don't need them.

Thank you. THIS IS EVOLVING SOMETHING YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN DOING BETWEEN, YOU KNOW, YOU YOURSELF HAVE COME TO MY DISTRICT DIRECTLY WHEN I'VE ASKED YOU TO SIT DOWN WITH BUSINESS OWNERS IN AREAS THAT HAVE HAD CONCERNS, REPEATED CONCERNS, AND THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE BECAUSE IT GOT AREAS OF THE CITY THAT HAVE ROUTINELY COMPLAINED BUT FELT THAT IT WASN'T WORTH IT TO CONTINUE TO PUT IN CONCERNS AND COMPLAINTS BECAUSE NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. And we started seeing them engaging, and we started a dialogue that is, you know, I'm not going to say we've solved every problem, but we're way better off today than we were. So I just also want to point out this is not new. This is directly something you started back when you were an interim, and this is a good evolution of what we're doing. So I appreciate that as well. Thank you.

Thank you so much for those kind words. I do want to say, because I kind of kicked right into it, that I missed one of the most important parts. And that was making certain that I let everybody know this is not a Patty Jacksonism. This is something also where it's unheard of for, Our labor teams have gotten behind, and they're fully supporting the kickoff of this. They're going to be engaged and involved in it so that they know kind of where we are. They're excited for it. I got a text from somebody that was saying, I'm very excited for this, and I want to be part of it. That should speak again volumes, and that is also showing that support that we're getting from you all. That is a big deal, and so I want to make certain that I am thanking those individuals for their belief and trust in me. And just on the way over here, Deputy Chief Lane and I were talking, and I got a few phone calls in, and it's community members reaching out, hey, where can we get backpacks? I can tell you that if you look across the nation, it's very few times where somebody's calling the chief herself say, can you come down and pick these up and go take them somewhere? That's the kind of department that we're really trying to grow. Not that they have to go do that. That's just an example of what it really means to serve community and be community serving first.

Thank you. Council Member Palmer.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. I want to say I look forward to participating if possible and however I can. I think that this could be a real tool to make sure that we're connected and understand each other. I am hoping, my hope for this is that I think people buy in and feel like it's theirs when there's some ownership there. And so I do hope that there's maybe time in like maybe some of the first meetings to kind of co-create some of the agendas and maybe bring up questions that we have. And if that happens, then I think this is great. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Palmer. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. And I just want to echo a lot of what Council Member Sedalge said. I THINK THIS IS AN ITERATION BECAUSE I KNOW THAT YOU AND A LOT OF THE OTHER TEAM HAVE BEEN DOING A LOT OF GREAT WORK OUT OF THE COMMUNITY. I THINK THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO KIND OF FORMALIZE THAT A LITTLE BIT MORE, INVITE SPECIFIC PARTNERS, AND REALLY DEMISTIFY A LOT OF INVESTIGATIVE PROCEDURES AND HAVE FRANK QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS, AND I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE'RE TRYING TO BUILD TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY WITH OUR COMMUNITY. And so just really appreciate the work and the cognizance of that and then trying to be more intentional about how that how that outreach looks And then just additionally, you know We have a lot of data out there. We have you're very open and transparent about our data information This can also help provide context for that data that we might be seeing as well So when when trends go up or trends go down we can be like hey Here's the larger, broader context. We're not looking at that data in a vacuum because data points are a point, but it doesn't necessarily tell the story. And so I just really appreciate that. And I think there's a lot of opportunity here for additional work. And I'm really glad to hear that folks in labor are really interested in this and others. I think we need everybody to feel that they're a part of this. And I'm just looking forward to how it goes. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Chief, this is a great presentation. I am a little bit personally miffed at the lack of dog photos in there, though, from our newly sworn in members, but I'll let it slide just this once. Thank you. This is a great presentation. I appreciate the briefing beforehand as well. A suggestion, just as a follow-up from our earlier conversation for slide four, where we have the boxes for what those different phases look like. So since phase three, it's very focused on accountability, about evaluating how we did I would strongly recommend that phase one have something corresponding to connect to that, namely wordsmith, however you like, but basically articulating what winning looks like, whether it's some kind of metric or I think the most obvious way to look at that would be taking a look at the community safety action strategy and just connect with Jacques' team because I believe there are at least a couple of metrics like surveys in terms of trust in policing or perceptions of safety or any number of those survey question or questions that you think makes the most sense in this context. And I mean, if we can move the goal on something we've already adopted as a council and use this to do it, I think that'd be terrific. And then what better way to ascertain the success? That'd be my recommendation.

Thank you, sir. Duly noted. And it is something that you will see. That's also how you measure it, right? Individuals that are taking those tests separate or those surveys, pardon me, you know, separate from what's already there. you will see an increase, right, in the popularity, you know, so long as everything that we're doing, that we're meeting our mark as well. So very much appreciated.

Thank you. Yeah, we could take like a baseline measurement, like before and after, and just like going to the doctor. How is our blood pressure improving, basically? Sometimes literally. Very good. All right, well, thank you everyone for your presentation, and looking forward to learning more. All right. All right, moving on to other items of interest. Our... First item in this section is policy discussion for improving local hire and apprenticeship outcomes. I'd like to call on Councilmember Diaz to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor. folks should have received in the packet, and then I sent it out again yesterday in case folks didn't see it, a memo from myself and my policy analyst, Linda Foster, who has been with me on this fun journey to learn about CWAs and how we as a city can improve our policy options for local hire and apprenticeship outcomes. I'LL TAKE YOU GUYS ON A LITTLE JOURNEY TO HOW WE GOT HERE, BUT JUST KNOW THAT SO I'M NOT BURIING THE LEAD HERE. THE RECOMMENDATION THAT I AM HOPING TO BRING FORWARD AS A RESULT OF THIS PRESENTATION, THE ONGOING CONVERSATIONS WE'VE HAD NOW FOR A COUPLE YEARS IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE IS BRINGING FORWARD A PRIORITY HIRE ORDINANCE TO DIRECT THE NEGOTIATION OF A CITYWIDE COMMUNITY WORKFORCE AGREEMENT. for public works projects over $5 million in the effort to achieve better local hire and apprenticeship outcomes. So a little bit of how I came to that determination as a policy solution for the city takes us back in time to 2017, before any of us sat here. May or may have been here, don't know. At that time, the council put together a Tacoma Community Workforce Advisory Committee, which met over the course of, I think, about six, four months-ish to look at different ways that the city was approaching apprenticeship, approaching equity and contracting, approaching all the different ways that the city does business with contractors for public works projects. And what was... Radical about their 25 page findings was that they determined that Through no shock to anybody who's woken up in America. There is inequities in the way that contracting is done So that is the committee that birthed the equity and contracting program for the city of Tacoma And so we have successfully been running the equity and contracting program since I want to say December of 2018 as a direct result of those recommendations the LEAP program here at the city of Tacoma which FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT ON THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE, STANDS FOR THE LOCAL EMPLOYMENT APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING PROGRAM AT THE CITY. ACTUALLY PREDATES THAT COMMITTEE. IT WAS STARTED BACK IN 1997. BUT A LOT OF THIS WORK HAS BUILT UPON EACH OTHER. TACOMA IS REALLY UNIQUE IN THAT WE HAVE A LEAP PROGRAM AND WE HAVE AN EQUITY AND CONTRACTING PROGRAM. MOST OF THE OTHER CITIES WHO DO CWA'S CURRENTLY DON'T HAVE THOSE TWO PROGRAMS. So we know in Tacoma we've already been invested in the work of making our apprenticeship utilization higher and making sure that we're hiring people locally. And we know as a city outside of Seattle that we have to make sure that we work harder to keep our employees here in our community, make sure our jobs pay good money for what people are working, and that folks are safe. As a union town, I think we have a lot of background in making sure that folks are safe in their workplace, folks are not having their wages stolen from them, and that they are able to grow and thrive their small businesses as they're growing in Tacoma. So, with that said, THIS CONVERSATION FIRST STARTED FOR ME BACK IN, I WANT TO SAY THE FALL OF 2024, WHEN WE AT THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE GOT A PRESENTATION FROM THE EQUITY AND CONTRACTING STAFF ABOUT THEIR 2024 DISPARITY STUDY. IN ORDER TO FORM AN EQUITY AND CONTRACTING COMMITTEE, THE CITY OF TAKOMA HAD TO DO AN ORIGINAL DISPARITY STUDY BACK IN 2018, WHICH FOUND THE DISPARITIES THAT CREATED THE COMMITTEE. In 2024, we did another disparity study where we have found that we have made some important gains in that data and the workforce and the workplaces, but there's still more ground to cover. If folks are interested in that 2024 disparity study, I'm sure Casey Woods would love to tell you all about it. It's also on the equity and contracting website if you want to dive into any of that. We also simultaneously had carpenters show up at council meetings for those who weren't here at the time. ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US TO LOOK AT WAGE THEFT ASKING US OF WAYS THAT THIS IS HAPPENING, NOT IN OTHER PLACES IN OUR COMMUNITY OUTSIDE OF TACOMA, BUT LITERALLY IN CITY LIMITS. SO PART OF WHAT BROUGHT THIS POLICY IDEA WAS MAKING SURE THAT NONE OF THAT HAPPENS ON A PUBLICLY FUNDED PROJECT. So with that said, we're looking at before you this memo has a lot of that background included. It's going to tell you in those first two paragraphs after the executive summary, the difference between a project labor agreement and a community agreement. COMMUNITY WORKFORCE AGREEMENT. I'LL GET INTO THAT HERE IN A LITTLE BIT. IT'S GOT A LOT OF DATA FOR YOU TO PERUSE WHEN YOU ARE INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT THE DATA. I WANT TO ALSO HIGHLIGHT THE CONTEMPORARY WORK THAT WE'VE BEEN DOING THIS YEAR WITH THE MAYOR. WE HOSTED THREE ROUND TABLES IN MAY AND JUNE WITH FIRST PRIME CONTRACTORS WHO WORK WITH THE CITY AND JUST WORK ON PRIME CONTRACTING FOR ANY KIND OF PUBLIC WORK PROJECT WITH ANY OTHER MUNICIPALITY OR JUST ON PROJECTS IN GENERAL. We were we hosted one with subcontractors and then a whole separate one with building trades and labor partners to talk about All of the findings from the first two and hear more about how their agreements work in other municipalities So the highlights from those three roundtables are on pages four through 7, 8-ish, top of 8. I recommend folks look through those. There was a lot of impassioned conversations from folks, particularly in the subcontractor work group. They had a lot of very real concerns as small business owners around, frankly, being in the middle, squished between PRIME CONTRACTORS WHO GET THE CONTRACTS AND THEN PAY THEM TO DO THE WORK AND NOT HAVING THE AUTONOMY FROM WHETHER OR NOT THEY USE UNION EMPLOYEES AND HOW THAT IMPACTS THEIR BOTTOM LINE. SO THEY'RE KIND OF THIS MIDDLE GROUP OF BUSINESS OWNERS WHO ARE SQUISHED AND WE'RE TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE AS TACOMA IS THINKING ABOUT IF WE'RE GOING TO DO A PLA OR A CWA OR DO SOME SORT OF A PILOT, HOW WE KEEP THEM WHOLE BECAUSE THEY ARE THE EMPLOYERS IN OUR CITY WHO ARE A LOT OF THEM ARE IN THE EQUITY AND CONTRACTING PROGRAM. We're trying to make sure that they don't go out of business because they are employing our workforce and making sure that we are doing what's best for our workforce at the same time. So I highly recommend folks check out those details from those roundtables. People particularly in that subcontractor group had a lot of direct quotes that they wanted to share with you. So I want to not minimize how much We built a lot of rapport and passion with folks together and that we're not going to lose that as we move forward. There was also some policy solutions that were identified in those conversations that won't come forward necessarily in this project proposal, but that we're going to continue to look at at the Economic Development Committee and I think as a council so that we don't lose small businesses while we're trying to do this work. So, what I wanted to bring for sort of top of mind for folks is the big three reasons for me that I think moving forward with either a community workforce agreement or a project labor agreement would be good for our city. One of the biggest pieces is that it's going to create more good local jobs. We're looking to train local residents to do skilled trade work. and have them be able to achieve employment here in Tacoma instead of moving away to chase a better job. One of the data points that the Equity and Contracting Committee and the LEAP program really highlighted for us every time they come to present at EDC is that union shop contractors are significantly outperforming non-union shop contractors in meeting local hire and apprenticeship goals. So a CWA can help us leverage those union workforce options and create the outcomes that we want in our city that would increase the goals that we're already trying to meet. We also want to help protect workers. A CWA would help create accountability measures to ensure workers have job site conditions that are being provided, benefits that they earn. So all workers on public projects in Washington are required to pay a prevailing wage for work. Contractors can even unintentionally violate this requirement in many ways, and this can be by miscategorizing a worker or not paying a correct wage for the work they're actually doing. A CWA corrects for that by having workers dispatched through union halls and having union halls be that extra layer that helps verify that folks are doing the job that matches their job classification and helping make sure workers are paid APPROPRIATELY. SO THAT'S NOT NECESSARILY EXTRA CITY STAFF TIME, THAT IS THE UNION'S JUST DOING THAT WATCHDOG WORK. THERE'S ALSO WAYS THAT THE CITY CAN WORK TO HELP MAKE SURE THAT THAT WORK IS ABLE TO HAPPEN BY CREATING A SYSTEM WITH SYSTEM-WIDE EQUITABLE OUTCOMES. SO ONE OF THE PIECES I WANT TO SAY THAT'S IN THE PROPOSAL IS CREATING A DUAL BENEFIT REIMBURSEMENT. I WANT TO SAY SEATTLE HAS THAT. IT'S A FUND WHERE THE CITY WOULD DO A REIMBURSEMENT FOR CONTRACTORS SO THAT IF THEY ARE PAYING INTO A CONTRIBUTION FOR THEIR EMPLOYER-SPONSORED BENEFITS, THEY ALSO PAY INTO THE UNION TRUST FUND. SO EVERYBODY IS KEPT WHOLE AND THE CITY HELPS OFFSET SOME OF THAT FOR FOLKS. THERE'S ALSO I think just a lot more that we could talk about in detail. It feels a little bit like having a conversation with folks like, I've done this big book report. Has anyone read it? I don't know. But I'm happy to get into more of the details for folks who have been able to read it. And I want to really highlight for folks that this is a kickoff moment for folks to be able to look at it. think about it, ask more questions. There are two policy options in the document on page nine. I have sort of a 1A and 1B stacked next to each other because they have a similar fiscal impact to the city. The fiscal impact just by way of printing ends up on the second page behind it. There's also a sneaky second option which would be a little bit cheaper because it would not be a full CWA or PLA for the whole city it would be one pilot project for a PLA for transparency I think the county is looking at doing something like that so if that starts coming out that is where that idea comes from. THERE IS ALSO A LOT MORE DETAIL IN WHAT HAPPENS SORT OF AFTER THE CITY PASSES AN ORDINANCE. A LOT OF THE WORK OF WHAT GOES INTO THE CWA, THE PLA IS THEN NEGOTIATED BETWEEN THE UNION AND THE CITY. SO WE CAN STIPULATE THINGS THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN THERE. BUT ULTIMATELY A LOT OF THAT IS GOING TO GET NEGOTIATED OUT. SO WE'RE JUST CREATING A RUBRIC FOR WHERE THAT CONVERSATION CAN HAPPEN. SO OUR PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS CAN HAVE THIS LEVEL OF OVERSIGHT. SO THAT IS THE HIGHEST LEVEL OVERVIEW OF HOW WE GOT HERE, WHAT I HAVE BEFORE YOU. I WOULD WELCOME QUESTIONS SO MAYBE WE CAN DIVE INTO MORE OF THE DETAILS IF FOLKS HAVE THEM AND SAY THAT JUST FOR TRANSPARENCY, THIS IS NOT COMING TO A VOTE FOR TONIGHT. IT'S NOT COMING TO A VOTE THIS MONTH. We are hoping to have this conversation here today and then have a good month here where folks can come ask me questions, folks can ask stakeholders questions. I invited everyone who came to one of the roundtables to listen in on today's meeting or to come join in the room. So I've also encouraged folks to reach out to council members individually. We did have a brief update in committee on how the roundtables went, but we haven't dug that deeply into the outcomes at that point. LEVEL EITHER. I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR US AS A COUNCIL TO BE ABLE TO HAVE THOSE CONVERSATIONS TOGETHER AS WE'RE TRYING TO FORM A POLICY THAT MIGHT WORK FOR EVERYONE. AND SO I HAVE ENCOURAGED STAKEHOLDERS TO REACH OUT DIRECTLY TO COUNCIL MEMBERS NOW THAT FOLKS HAVE MORE OF THE INFORMATION THAT I HAVE SORT OF BEEN AMASSING FOR TWO YEARS NOW AND I'M NOW READY TO SHARE WITH FOLKS. So with that said, I welcome any questions that folks might have or any details that we can try to provide later. Some of this will be me saying, we're going to research that and get back to you. But it's going to be really helpful to us. We're also forming a FAQ document that folks can look at. So there will be some things in there that are not in this memo that we'll make sure we'll highlight separately and share that out. And I would just pause it if folks have questions and particularly back to the mayor who did join me for the three roundtables. If you have anything you want to add about the roundtables or about how you how you came in, plug in into the work.

Of course. And Councilman Diaz, thank you so much for facilitating these. And this is, I think, a model of good policymaking. I mean, I've learned a lot about not just PLAs and CWAs and all those fine-tuned details, but frankly, I've learned a lot about what good policymaking looks like. And a big shout out to Linda Foster out there in the audience as well. This is really expertly put together. A very fair conversation, I will say too. I saw the discussions as generally good natured. We had a lot of good feedback from even non-traditional participants in this conversation. So job well done, however the policy gets developed there. I have my own questions on this, but we'll open up the council first before we go down that rabbit hole. Starting with Council Member Walker.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Diaz, for all of the work and the background, too. I knew this was a long time coming, but I didn't know it went quite so far back. So thank you. I appreciate that. And I think that makes a difference. I think the conversations that have been had and pulling that in really important so I think I appreciate the long document a couple questions and maybe one really dumb one that I feel like I should already know but I haven't figured out yet and so on the the the proposal Just for city projects. I guess just starting there.

Okay over five million dollars So anything under would not qualify.

Okay, and the on page three is a chart of These are the projects that this could apply to and when we did in we have had the leap apply to most of our projects over five million dollars and So that's already been happening. How does something over $5 million not apply to, how does LEAP not apply? Why are there four public works projects that didn't do LEAP?

That is a good question. I don't have the answer to, but I will look to see.

And it doesn't have to be right now. That can just be on the list of questions.

Perfect.

And then on the local portion of that, when we, This is the question I feel like I should know, so I feel kind of dumb, but is the local employee, do we track that based on where the employee lives or where the business is based? What makes it local?

I believe it's where the employee is based, but I will, thank you. Debra gave me a thumbs up, so Debra knows all things.

Okay, great. I was hoping that because I do want to support local businesses, but ultimately I want to support Tacoma and staying in Tacoma and being able to work in Tacoma. So that's really great and really important. Is there an analysis of the things that change? If we go from LEAP to a CWA, for example, is there analysis of what more we get out of that?

Excellent question. If we pass this proposal, we will keep LEAP and we will keep EIC, and this is another layer of the onion to help. Something that might help clarify that is on page 10, if you look at the chart that's after the recommendation, it goes over the ways that currently the LEAP program does have penalties that we assess on folks who don't meet the requirements that we're asking of them. CWAs would help approach us in a proactive measure. So we would keep the assessments that we find people and we would have this proactive measure to help get people there in addition to.

Awesome. Thank you. That's super helpful. My last question is about the costs and I see the fiscal impact. So why does it get so much more expensive in year two?

I believe that that's because in year one we're just setting up the program and in year two we would be actually negotiated out and the program would be happening and moving.

So that's the staff to do that proactive work and things like that? Yes. think well that's definitely all my questions I think there's so much good stuff in here it's all things that we want to do I want to make sure I understand that when we put more dollars into it we're getting more out of it because I am so proud of the work that our staff has done around the LEAP program it feels like we're doing so many things my understanding is that we can get more but I just maybe need to do a little bit more reading to understand that. But it feels like we're on the right track.

Staff is doing a great job with our two programs and the equity and contracting folks were really engaged in the conversation and really interested to make sure that we don't erode the work that they do. So that's really something we have an eye on as we're doing the proposal is not eroding in the work they're doing, but that we're adding to it. And like I said, because this is just a sort of an unveiling, I do want to encourage that either we have some of those conversations or folks have those conversations with stakeholders and staff over the next month as we actually develop a proposal that folks could like make amendments to or consider. This is just a draft proposal for a proposal. So we figure out what direction the vibe is.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for all of the work that went into this. Thank you.

All right. Council Member Sedalge.

THANK YOU, MAYOR, AND THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER DIAZ. I LEARNED A LOT BECAUSE I WAS READING YOUR BOOK REPORT, AND I LOVE HOW YOU PUT IT TOGETHER BECAUSE IT HELPED ME KIND OF FORM A NUMBER OF QUESTIONS. I'M NOT GOING TO ASK THEM HERE. I WOULD LIKE TO JUST TRY TO FIND AN HOUR WHERE WE CAN KIND OF GO THROUGH IT BECAUSE I HAVE A NUMBER OF KIND OF THINGS. BUT I DO APPRECIATE THAT WHEN WE DO MEET I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO BE AT LEAST IN CHAPTER 2 RATHER THAN IN THE INTRODUCTION OF THIS BOOK. So I appreciate that. They're just kind of detailed questions in various policy sections over here in trying to understand the scope and then each of the specific ones. So thank you very much. It was, believe it or not, a pleasure to read. Not a lot of people click on the... the attachments on these meetings. So if you're listening, please do so. You learn a lot. There's quite a bit in here. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you. All right.

Council Member Scott.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Diaz, for this. Each time we talk about it, I feel like, one, I have a of a better understanding but then also I always end up with other questions so I appreciate the time and feel free like if these are some of the questions I have right now like if they're questions you need to back me on that's totally fine as well I guess starting out having a better understanding of why $5 million is the appropriate threshold for Tacoma if there is a specific reason we landed at that number. And then if there is any benefit to maybe looking at a little bit of a higher trigger or even for projects over this, these are the things. And then even if they're over this, then these are the things, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. It does. And so I don't know if, did you want to answer any of that? Yeah.

Okay. So $5 million is the threshold that every other city or county who has these uses. So it's a pretty common threshold as a smaller municipality than the other folks. So the other comparables are Spokane, I want to say City of Vancouver, not City of Vancouver, Spokane, Seattle, City Government, and King County. And then I want to say Sound Transit as well. THEY ALL HAVE PROJECTS THAT ARE SIGNIFICANTLY BIGGER AND MORE EXPENSIVE. SO WITH OUR SIZE, GIVEN THAT EVERYBODY ELSE USES 5 MILLION AND OUR PROJECTS ARE, WE'RE A SMALLER CITY, COMPARATIVELY, 5 MILLION, I DON'T SEE A REASON THAT WE WOULD BE SMALLER IN SCOPE OF WORK AND HAVE A HIGHER THRESHOLD. Strange to me. And then the other piece of it is that we, in coming up with that second option around a PLA pilot project, we did discuss potentially doing a pilot project that had, like, say, a $10 million threshold if we were to just identify one thing, knowing that that would be something huge, like if we redid the Tacoma Dome. It's kind of the pet dream we all keep thinking of, but that is something in that size and scope.

Thank you for that. And then I know that the state recently changed some stuff. Did anything that they've adjusted in their level, do we expect or have we seen that that's going to help us address some of the issues that we're experiencing here in Tacoma that we're trying to fix with this?

We do. I also recently got from King County updates that they made because they've had a CWA in place for at least five years, if not more. So they recently did an update this last summer that I got from Council Member Mosqueda that we're looking to make sure that we have lessons learned from other folks and theirs into whatever we put forward for ours.

I think I just have two more questions. For the shortfall around like apprenticeship stuff, is that a supply? Like we don't have enough people who are apprentices or is this more about like contractor behavior and they're not engaging apprentices on their work?

We had a really robust conversation about that at the building trades table, and I will say it's not a short answer. We can make sure we get you a good answer in the FAQ and in just conversation because it was a longer conversation around chicken or egg. And particularly Mariana Hike with the Carpenters is really knowledgeable about that because she used to run a partnership program. So we have a lot of experts in town. That's great.

Awesome. Thank you. And then the last one is on page four. The table that's there about leap requirement hours is this measuring the share of successful hours like there were a hundred hours of there's a hundred apprenticeship hours and 57% of them were you know union firms 42 or non-union and you know and so on or is this their utilization rate so for like 57% of their projects they utilized APPRENTICESHIP HOURS?

I BELIEVE IT'S THE LATTER. UTILIZATION RATE? LOOKING AT MY FRIENDS. ON PAGE FOUR. WE MIGHT HAVE TO GET BACK TO YOU. OKAY. THAT'S FINE. I GOT A LOOSE THUMB UP, I THINK. SO IT WAS UTILIZATION RATES? OR WAS THAT THE THUMBS UP THAT WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU LATER?

OKAY.

WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU.

THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU. YEAH, NO, I THINK Having this discussion is really important. And I think what ultimately what folks are hoping for from us is where they want to see us invest in things in the infrastructure. They want these projects to get done. I think folks are also hoping to balance that with we do want a new building, we do want a new street, but we also want career pathways and we want people to have living wage jobs and to be able to depend on these things where they can, you know, an apprenticeship without a pathway to the career, just, you know, so. So I appreciate the work that's being done and I'm looking forward to the ongoing discussion. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And point well noted, we actually did hear from a lot of the subcontractors who were people who started in the field and then eventually became someone who owned their own company and are now doing that work. So it is a pathway even into entrepreneurship.

All right, Councillor Palmer.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Diaz, for all of the work. I will admit I haven't dug into your book report yet, but I appreciate that it's here. I do appreciate that you have presented some possible policy proposals, so that makes it A little bit easier to interpret the information. Question. It sounds like you reached out to a couple other municipalities about their programs. I'm not sure if I saw a summary in here about that. And I'd be curious to just hear kind of their pros and cons and what they've learned.

Yeah, I can see if staff can add that to the FAQ. I know we met with Seattle, and I believe King County, and Department of Transportation, and there could have been some others that I missed, but those were the ones, the conversations I know of most recently. Fantastic. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Okay. Councilor Hines. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilor Diaz, for the presentation. This was really great, and I also appreciate the Kind of starting back with what was found in 2018 and then kind of drawing forward and pulling it together. I think having reviewed all of this, I mean, I think you've done a wonderful job of just like talking to a lot of folks that are going to be affected by everything here. So my question was the, just, and you may have talked about this before, but the Sorry if I missed this part, but the estimated increase per project is the 15 to 20%. Where did that number come from?

That is the exact question I asked, staff, and I want to say it will be addressed in our FAQ.

Okay. And then the dual benefit reimbursement for Seattle is only 0.04% of the project cost, or is that just attributed to that part? I'm looking at the fiscal impact down here. I mean, should I see those as, I guess... I would love to know more about where that number is generated. The .04?

Yeah. We can flesh that out, too, because I am a little bit more curious about that, too, and how we would assess it and how we put that money away. So I think it is a critical piece of the funding is how do we make sure that the subcontractors, particularly with the contractors, have the money they need to help offset the costs that we're pushing forward. To get local hires and get better wages.

Yeah. No, I agree. And I think when we talk about, you know, the priorities we're trying to look at, which is, you know, how do we get people who live in our community building the future of our community? How do we make sure we're building a ladder for people to move from the workplace, you know, from kind of entry level into the trades and then moving forward and getting higher and better wages and better benefits? I think these are all really valuable. I think the question that I'm coming back to is just kind of FISCAL COSTS AND KIND OF THE BALANCE, I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE TALKED ABOUT, TOO. AND THE TWO MAIN AREAS IN COUNCILMEMBER PALMER'S POINT, SEATTLE, KING COUNTY, HAVE TWO EXAMPLES OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO BE LOOKING AT. DIDN'T SPOKANE DO SOMETHING RECENTLY AROUND IT? SPOKANE DID AS WELL. All right.

And these costs are really preliminary because once we have an actual ordinance and things drafted, then we can number crunch a little bit closer, which is why I had the two AB sort of stacked next to each other because the estimates were very similar as opposed to originally they were laid out as options one, two, and three, and they felt like more of an AB and an option two has a significantly different cost associated.

Great. And then I think something that I was interested in, maybe you could just elaborate on this a little bit, right? But I think one of the contractors made a point that the compliance costs would be something they would just pass on to us. They said something about the fact of like, if we have to do this, those costs will just go to the, the city will have to incorporate into the cost of the project overall, correct?

Yes. And I think that's where part of that 15 to 20% is coming from. Gotcha.

Okay. Well, you know, I think, I don't know, I have many more questions. I thought you did a wonderful job kind of digging into this. I know we're just in the first part of the conversation. And I really thought you did a good job of trying to talk through how do we, the thing that, it seemed, the thing that came out in 2018 when you read the report is this idea of how do, does a CWA PLA function with a city that has these kind of women, minority owned business goals and early program goals and how do we make sure those align to each other. I think for me, that's kind of where I'm thinking about those two as much as possible. Before our, what was the, the minority-owned business organization that was in the CED before it got gutted by the federal government, I forget what that was called. It was the Office of... I can't remember. I can't remember what the name of it was, but I went to a roundtable with some minority-owned contractors, and one of the things that they had chatted about was just the challenges that they had faced. And so I think along with how could we make something like this work, also how do we make sure it's aligned with our goals around women and minority-owned businesses and contractors doing work here in the city of Tacoma. I think when we did links to opportunity for Sound Transit, I think Councilor Walker's over there, One of the things we did was look at creative ways to bring more of those type of contractors and smaller firms into that project process. And so that's something I would love to see also how I can make that work too.

Yeah, I think it's very sort of spinning two plates at once, making sure that we have OMBE contractors and folks from those communities as workforce, right? We can't have one without the other. Make sure that we're weaving that in together. And then you bring up transit. I also think a big piece of this is how do we get people off of I-5? People are just like losing their whole lives trying to get to projects outside in other parts of the region. So how do we help incentivize folks staying local both to live and work and be here?

Yeah. The only other thing, and I would love for Chap, and now we're just having a conversation about this, that I found interesting was that conversation that some of the contractors had mentioned about the fact that they don't just do government work. They don't just do contracts with, say, a city or a county. They sometimes work for private contractors, too. And the challenge of staff being able to move back and forth between the two and remaining both competitive in the private marketplace and the public marketplace is was something that I had not thought about, but it was good that you, I was really happy you all brought that out in the research here. It's something for us, I think, to consider when we think about how, you know, there may be firms, large firms, that their only work will be with the city of Tacoma or one of our large projects worth $5 million, and then they'll just create a system by which to implement this. But if we think about people who may or may not, who may move in and out of the threshold or in and out of those projects, how do we, how do they function? There's something else I think about a lot, too.

Yeah, and that is, I think, critical to the work that happens in LEAP and EIC is that we have to keep those subcontractors in there because they're the ones who are meeting a lot of those goals, too.

Yep. Great. All right. Those are all my questions, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you both, and particularly Council Member Diaz for your leadership on this really extensive work here and all the outreach. And I really appreciate all the folks out in the community and have engaged in this and engaged in these conversations in earnest. I really appreciate how you've really laid out the problem statement, what we're trying to solve here, and really clear opportunities for us to solve that problem. And so I DO JUST HAVE SOME SPECIFIC QUESTIONS BASED ON THE FEEDBACK RECEIVED, AND I THINK SOME OF THE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ALREADY ASKED, BUT I THINK MY BEAR IS REPEATING. BUT MY FIRST QUESTION IS KIND OF ALONG THE ESTIMATED FISCAL IMPACT, IS THIS ON TOP OF WHAT WE'RE ALREADY PAYING IN ORDER TO ADMINISTER THE LEAP PROGRAM AS IT CURRENTLY EXISTS, OR WOULD IT BE IN ADDITION, WOULD THIS BE AN ADDED LAYER ON TOP OF THAT? OR IS THE WHOLE PROGRAM KIND OF GOING TO BE REALIGNED AND Some of it may be existing funding and then restructured into a little bit of a larger pool.

Knowing that the city manager is the one who's going to have to decide how he staffs people, my assumption would be particularly for some of these estimates around a 0.5 FTE, we'll probably be combining some folks who already work with some new pieces of this, but some of it will be whole new individuals. It's going to depend on how the contracting goes also.

Great, thank you. And then just the 0.4%, DUAL BENEFITS REIMBURSEMENT PORTION, DOES THAT KIND OF SPECIFIC DOLLAR AMOUNT REMAIN TO BE SEEN, OR DOES THAT KIND OF BE MORE JUST BASED ON A PER PROJECT SITUATION AND HOW MUCH IS ACTUALLY IN THAT?

I'M LOOKING AT THE HARDCORE. I CAN'T CLICK ON THE SEATTLE EXAMPLE, BUT MY GUESS IS THAT THE ANSWER IS IN THAT LINK.

OKAY. JUST GOING A LITTLE BIT INTO THE WEEDS THERE.

NO, THAT'S HELPFUL. THANK YOU. IF IT'S NOT, WE'LL HAVE LINDA ADD IT TO THE FAQ.

Great, thank you. And then to Council Member Scott's point earlier, how did we land on the $5 million? And you answered that, that a lot of municipalities are using the $5 million amount. And there's some folks that have talked about maybe it should be something higher or maybe even lower. And so I just want to make sure in the FAQ that we kind of have that talked about. Additionally, WHEN IT COMES TO THE CW ITSELF AND THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR THESE 5 MILLION PLUS PROJECTS, WHO IS ALL GOING TO BE AT THE TABLE FOR THOSE? IS IT JUST THE CITY AND THE UNIONS OR DOES IT INCLUDE FOLKS THAT MIGHT BE BIDDING ON THESE PROJECTS? I'M JUST KIND OF CURIOUS WHO IS ACTUALLY AT THE TABLE FOR THESE THINGS.

I'm not certain, but we can put that in the FAQ if staff don't have that answer handy. I think they might have come out in some of the conversations, so might be got at also when we answer Council Member Palmer's question around who all we spoke with and what the plus or minus was, because I'm not sure who all is in the room. I know the city will be there, I know the unions will be there, and I know that King County does this really cool meeting that folks talked about where every quarter, I think, they reevaluate sort of publicly with everyone, contractors, unions, everybody, how the program's going. I JUST DON'T KNOW IF ALL THOSE SAME FOLKS ARE IN THE ROOM IN THE ORIGINAL NEGOTIATION OR NOT. WE'RE LOOKING TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR HERE BECAUSE IT WAS REALLY SPOKEN HIGHLY OF THE PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY THAT THAT MEETING BRINGS.

YEAH, PERFECT. YEAH, I'M JUST THINKING ABOUT, LIKE, IF, FOR INSTANCE, THE UNION HALL DOESN'T HAVE AN APPRENTICE OR THAT'S ABLE TO BE LINED UP FOR THE JOB, YOU KNOW, WHAT'S THE OUTLAND? THAT COULD BE POTENTIALLY NEGOTIATED HERE. HERE'S WHAT THE ACTIONS ARE BASED ON THIS PROJECT. IF WE'RE NOT ABLE TO FILL CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS OR WHATEVER. AND THAT'S SOMETHING THAT CAN BE TALKED ABOUT IN A HOLISTIC WAY. AND SO JUST THINKING ABOUT, LIKE, IT'S HARD TO MAKE A UNIVERSAL POLICY WHEN THERE'S SO MANY VARIABLES. AND SO ESPECIALLY ON A PER PROJECT BASIS. AND THEN COUNCILMEMBER SCOTT HAD ASKED ABOUT THE AVAILABILITY OF APPRENTICES AND THAT'S WHERE I WAS LIKE, OKAY, MAYBE THERE'S AN OFF RAMP IN THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR THOSE KIND OF THINGS. And so that's just a thought there. And then just to, I think Council Member Walker brought up the point of local hires specifically. Obviously we want to prioritize folks that live in the city of Tacoma. Does that include also the TPU service territory, which is areas obviously outside city limits, but they might work within, they might be within the TPU service area. Because some contracts are going to be outside city limits. And so does that include that as well?

It could. I know that I want to say it's LEAP, but one of the programs brings to us in their update their zone map that they use that I think comes from Workforce Central, and so it's the broader Pierce County map, not just the city map. So it might be more aligned with that map than with TPU boundaries, but there's an overlap there too.

Yeah, because we have projects all across not just the county, but even the state, because we own assets and we could have projects in the millions of dollars that might be in a whole other county. A lot of folks might not realize that. And so I'm just trying to think, you know, we want to obviously prioritize local hires, but would it be local hires in those areas also? Because it is a part of our territory in terms of like TPU specifically. Yeah. And then the other question is, well, not question, it's kind of a statement. It's just I really appreciate how far ahead we are in terms of Apprenticeship utilization and and this work because Pierce County is kind of only just starting or delving into it And they're trying to initiate a pilot project and but as as they move forward and I'd like to continue to have Conversations with them because maybe there's an opportunity to align purposes maybe More precious of utilization countywide and maybe there's some learnings that they could take from us and as they go through their own pilots we can learn from them as well, but you know trying to find consistency for for this space for us in the region. I think we'd be beneficial both to the contractors and for all the different workers in our area that could utilize these programs and support. So just something I want to keep in mind as we move forward in this and really appreciate all the work.

Perfect, thank you.

All right, Chair Diaz, thanks again for moving this forward. Comments and a couple of questions here. So one of the biggest takeaways that I had from the conversation, one of the biggest consistent pain points in the current status quo, not to mention the conversation about project labor agreements or community workforce agreements, is working capital, is access to liquidity to just be able to keep people employed and pay your overhead. Constant horror stories of people having to take on HELOCs, mortgage their house, draw down savings just to keep the lights on. And to be abundantly clear, that's the status quo right now. You don't need to have the current policy for people to be economically anxious, I feel that if we could use something like this, a PLA, CWA, to require just a friendlier sort of capital access arrangement for primes as well as subs, I think that would generate a lot of goodwill. I think that's at least 50% of all the anxiety from the business partners that we spoke with, for what it's worth. That's my big obs and mostly a comment than a question, but it's a question in the sense of if in your research you found any other peer communities in our state, other places that have done something like that, awesome. If we're the first, then that's differently awesome. So just putting that out there. My second question is TPU. So we're talking mostly, I think, with general government and with Connect Tacoma passing. I think we have some additional opportunities as well. But there's also a very big, very close partner of ours that often works very closely with Public Works and oftentimes on the same projects. SO DO YOU KNOW, WOULD THIS APPLY TO TPU AND OR WOULD WE HAVE TO WORK WITH DIRECTOR FLOWERS AND YOUR STAFF MEMBERS RAISING HER HAND? AND DO WE HAVE AN ANSWER ON THIS?

DO YOU WANT TO COME UP WITH AN ANSWER OR DO YOU WANT ME TO ADD IT TO THE FAQ? I INVITE MY FRIENDS.

ALL RIGHT. WELCOME EXPERT FRIENDS, FRIENDLY EXPERTS.

No need to pass the baby game.

So your question was?

Yeah, if this was passed, would this apply to projects that TPU touches as well or currently just general government?

So currently the LEAP program applies to both sides of the house. And so my understanding would be they would apply to both, one city.

Well, sorry to be cute, but an additional follow-up question. Since TPU has a huge service area, If we're talking general government, it's pretty obvious. That's just Tacoma, basically. But I mean, Tacoma powers service area. I mean, we have dams in the sticks, right? I mean, we have a service area out in Elk Plain, right? So would that apply just to projects that touch those areas as well as Tacoma? Or what would the footprint be of Tacoma-related projects that cross the threshold?

Hi, Linda Foster, Senior Council Policy Analyst. So in the analysis, the chart that we had that showed the LEAP project, LEAP projects apply to PWI, which I'm going to have Deborah explain in just a moment because I'm less familiar with that acronym. What CWAs or PLAs across the state generally apply to are called public works projects. Public works does not mean our former public works department. There's a state definition for it. So any public work. This could be actually putting up fencing around a building. It could be things of that nature. LEAP, I think, is a slightly broader because it's PWI, which I'm going to have Deborah explain in just a moment. But our analysis was, what if we followed the Seattle King County model and it applied to all public works? LEAP is our best example. And we could analyze 14% of LEAP projects were over 5 million already. So that's just something we could do an analysis on. TPU projects. DO HAVE TO FOLLOW LEAP AND YOU CAN SEE IN THAT CHART, IT'S BROKEN DOWN BY LIKE WATER, RAIL, SO IT'S BROKEN DOWN BY THE DIFFERENT, I DON'T KNOW IF THEY CALL THEM DEPARTMENTS, BUT THE DIFFERENT KIND OF SECTORS OF TPU. SO YOU CAN SEE ALREADY WHAT, HOW MANY PROJECTS THEY HAVE THAT ARE LEAP APPLICABLE AND HOW MANY IN THE LAST FEW YEARS HAVE BEEN OVER 5 MILLION. YOU OF COURSE AS A COUNCIL COULD SET A DIFFERENT POLICY. BUT DO YOU WANT TO KIND OF JUST TALK THROUGH WHAT LEAP APPLIES TO?

So LEAP right now applies to projects that are 250,000 and above, so estimated to cost 250,000 and above. Those are for civil projects that don't require a building permit. If you get to the ones with building permits, those start at 750,000 and above. So our threshold for LEAP is much lower. But with, as Linda said, the projects range. So right now on estimate, I'd say 60% of our projects at least, and it varies, are below the threshold for CWAs. So probably more than that over time as it fluctuates. Part of your question about the area, and hopefully this will answer it, is LEAP applies to projects that are within the TPU service area, but if they're outside of the TPU service area, if they're being performed as infrastructure or on behalf of TPU to say service, say it's a salmon hatchery, but it's outside TPU service area, but it's for the benefit of TPU, then LEAP could apply to that as well.

Okay, thank you. And my other question there is, there are a fair amount of projects that are interagency, so like Safe Routes to Schools, for example, or if we work with the parks, or if we have a partnership on shared infrastructure, for example, obviously that would trigger the requirements of something like this if it's our money, if we're doing the work, for example. Would there be opportunities for cost sharing, like let's say a Safe Routes to School project?

I would assume so, but I haven't encountered those in my years with LEAP, which is many.

Okay, and then one final clarification for my college benefit as well as just making sure, just to test how well I read the homework, is that one of the many differences between frogs and toads, between PLAs and CWA's, is that a community workforce agreement is a one-time general set of standards that applies to all projects in a certain area, and a PLA is negotiated project by project between the unions and the business, performing the work, is that a correct understanding?

I'm going to make this more complicated. Okay. We had a chance to talk with WSDOT, and this is the example I'll use. They've done negotiation project by project, and some of their projects were CWAs instead of PLAs. A CWA is when the government agency, so I've been saying municipality, but say WSDOT, state of Washington, negotiates directly with the unions, and a PLA is when the contractors negotiate directly with the unions. So most municipalities that do a CWA do a negotiation once. It's quite costly. It takes a lot of specialized skill, is what we've heard, and it's quite costly, and WSDOT uses consultants for that, so it's nuanced. But most municipalities do a master agreement, and I've had the joy of reading four or five of those. You can find them online, they're very accessible. So that would be a standard approach is what I'd say. However, if you wanted to do a pilot, it's written down as PLA because that's most of what's been talked about. But if you wanted to pilot a single CWA where the city does that negotiation, that would be following kind of a wash dot approach, which was different than what we see in a lot of local municipalities.

Okay. Thank you so much, Linda. Thank you, colleagues, for indulging me. These are great questions. And thank you so much again for the robust work. And it looks like we'll continue this conversation and we'll take it from there in the next month, give or take.

Thank you. And I would just add, just based on your questions and the answers from staff, I think the piece around whether or not we include the TPE service area or not, would, for me, be based on whether or not we model the ordinance on LEAP or not. And so I think that's going to be a policy choice for us. My preference as the person drafting this policy, as I'm engaging conversations with you all and stakeholders, is going to be for what is going to make the program most administerable by staff. So if that is doing what LEAP does, that would be my preference. If it's not, that would be my preference. And I will... follow up with staff and figure out what that is as we're all building a plane as we fly.

Okay, very good. Thank you so much. All right, moving on to our fourth agenda item. It is a council committee request for a place at our table sponsorship. The prime sponsor, Council Member Walker, she had an obligation to 230, so I'm going to do my best to read from her talking points. But I first want to start by thanking Council Members Sedalge and Council Member Rumbaugh, who herself also couldn't make it for her sponsorship. Nourish Pierce County's annual luncheon, a place that our table is coming up later in the month. I know many of you are familiar with Nourish, but just to share a few points about how they help our community. They're a nonprofit organization based in our city whose mission is to provide nutritious food and support services to people in need with compassion, dignity, and respect. They operate six pantries and 16 mobile food distribution sites countywide. The majority of those are in Tacoma. Last year, they served nearly 29,000 unduplicated Tacoma residents which is more than 12% of our population. Food security is really crucial, especially as we navigate concerns like food desert in some of our neighborhoods, like the loss of the Fred Meyer on Pac Ave, for example. And it's vital that in a time like this, especially with growing federal uncertainty, that we support local organizations doing this great work. So a thank you to Council Members Walker, as well as Rumbaugh and Sedalge for co-sponsoring this. In return for this $2,500 ask, The City of Tacoma logo is going to be added to the Nourish annual luncheon on August 25th. We'll also have a table for 10 there as well. I see Council Member Sadalge is, would you like to add anything as a co-sponsor to this? We're both kind of talking off the cuff about this.

No, absolutely. You know, I just appreciate the opportunity to co-sponsor with Council Member Walker. Nourish does some amazing work and pretty soon will be doing some work even in District 4. as well. I'm not at liberty to explain all of it right now, but there's some really good stuff that's happening because, quite frankly, food insecurity is high in our area. We anticipate it increasing. not only because of the sustained increases in inflation that we're all seeing, but there's just a lot of policy coming down from levels much higher than us that are putting pressure on working families and individuals across the region. And this is a great organization, and I'm just proud we have an opportunity right now to support them.

Thank you very much. Any questions? All right. Well, this will move forward at tonight's council meeting. And thank you again to everyone who's supported this and, of course, to Nourish for the great work. All right. Our fifth item is courtesy of Council Member Hines. Perfect timing. This is a council committee request for a proposal for a city flag competition. I'd like to call on Council Member Hines to discuss this more.

All right. Okay. So today I'm here to talk to you about a proposal I have. Mr. Mayor, thank you for letting us have the opportunity to bring forward a $6,000 contingency fund request to hold Tacoma's first official flag competition. So if I look, if you, I don't know if the camera can look, if you look over behind the dais right here, you'll see our lovely blue flag here. And this past year, along with most other years, when we go to the Association of Washington City's annual conference, one of the things they do is they do a parade of flags. And each city brings their flag, and they parade around, and it's kind of a celebratory moment. And as you know, the alphabet is A through Z. So if you didn't know the alphabet was the alphabetical order, there you go. But I found myself as a city of Tacoma, T, standing right near the mayor of the city of Vancouver, V, right close to the alphabet. And they had just launched a brand new flag competition. And this past year, they picked a new flag. And As I was talking to her about this, I just was very interested. Like, whoa, this is our flag in Tacoma. You know, what happened in Vancouver? And she talked a lot about this wonderful competition they did where they brought the community in and they had a community-wide conversation about a new flag. And that is when I learned more about an organization called the North American Vexiology Association. So Vexiology is the study of flags. And the Vexiology Association does a kind of has a list of standards for what a good flag is. And they have a good flag and a bad flag standards. I hate to say, Tacoma, we have a bad flag. The Vexatology Association says that good flags have kind of five key things we want to keep in mind. They're very simple. They use meaningful symbols. They use two to three basic colors. Important for us, there's usually no lettering or seals on the flag. Our flag is just a seal with lettering. And it says to be distinctive or use similarities to show connections. And so our flag, while we may love it, is a bad flag based on the criteria of the North American Vexiology Association. And so what I'm hoping we can do through this competition is really think about what a better flag would look like for the city of Tacoma. Oh, one recent stat. In 2004, the Vexiology Association, who are the experts in flags from North America, did a study of the 150 city flags in the United States. And in 2004, our city was ranked 132nd. Out of 150. So we have a lot of room to grow when it comes to our flag game. Why I'm bringing this forward right now is I think it's a good opportunity for us to think about what symbolizes the city of Tacoma and do we have a flag that best represents us and symbolizes us as the amazing community that we all know and love. I think there's a lot of conversations happening both regionally AND NATIONALLY ABOUT COMMUNITY AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE PART OF A COMMUNITY AND WHAT THE SYMBOLS OF OUR COMMUNITY ARE. AND I THINK IT'S A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR US AS A CITY TO COME TOGETHER, BUILD SOME CIVIC PRIDE AND UNITY IN OUR COMMUNITY AROUND WHAT IS OUR SYMBOL IN THE FORM OF OUR CIVIC FLAG. WE HAVE SEVERAL CITIES AROUND US THAT HAVE DONE THIS. SPOKANE REDID THEIR FLAG IN 2022. And just as an interesting number, I was looking this up. In the 2004 vexiology study of flags, Spokane was ranked a little higher than us, but with a score of a 3.15. And their new flag raised them all the way up to a 7.1. So a new flag, Spokane jumped from the bottom of the pack all the way up to the top of the state of Washington when it comes to the rules of good and bad flags. I'd still say they're not a better city than us. But their flag is obviously better by the standards of the North American Vexiology Association. So not only do you have Spokane, but you have Vancouver that also recently did a new flag. And what excites me about it is a new flag is an opportunity to really help us think creatively about what best represents our city and what symbols kind of unify us and bring us together. So I have no doubt our creative community would be great and enjoy participating in a flag competition to help us design a meaningful and unifying symbol for the city of Tacoma. So here is kind of my proposal for what the competition might look like. and it's based almost a lot on what they did in Spokane and Vancouver. So the first one would be that we kind of open competition That would be open to anyone who has a connection to the city of Tacoma We could talk about whether need to be residents or not But we want to think about people who have a connection to our community for the flags Vancouver took flags from anywhere in the world the mayor said they had somebody from Brazil who submitted a flag that over 142 flag submissions Spokane also had over 40 flag submissions for theirs so I would expect there could be potentially lots of entrance in this, we would ask, we would create a, as part of this, we'd create a place, a portal where participants could upload a photo of their design of their statement, a photo of their design of their flag, and a statement to a platform, right? So that they could, because one of the things they did in Spokane was they had a picture of the flag, and then the creator wrote a little write-up of why they thought that flag best represented the city. And there's a voter's pamphlet for Spokane's flag competition, if you want to look at it, it's very, it's cool to look at. City staff would kind of look at the photos, the uploads, they remove anything that's inappropriate, divisive, right? One of the reasons if we move to the rules of the North American Vaxiology Association is there's no words, and it's going to be simple, so that helps us kind of avoid maybe some of those more controversial things that may try to come through, but staff would be looking at that. And then I am proposing that we create, like Vancouver, a flag commission that we would select to help narrow things down. So we'd have an open portal where people would turn in their flag submissions. We would then have a flag commission that would narrow it down to a top 10, which is what they did in Spokane. And then we'd allow the public to vote to narrow us down to the top three. And then from there, the city council would pick a winner. So the top three vote-getters would come to us, and we would determine which one of those we wanted to go with. The council contingency request would be for a monetary... REWARD FOR THE APPLICANTS, PEOPLE WHO SUBMIT IT, SO THE WINNING FLAG THAT IS CHOSEN BY THE COUNCIL WILL GET $2,000, AND THE SECOND AND THIRD PLACE, WELL, THE TWO OTHER FINALISTS, BECAUSE WE'RE NOT GOING TO SAY SECOND OR THIRD, WILL GET $1,000, AND WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THROUGH THAT, WE WOULD THEN GET THE RIGHTS TO THE FLAG DESIGNS TO BE USED AND REPRODUCED, BECAUSE WE WOULD WANT IT TO BE HERE IN OUR CHAMBERS. THAT'S A ROUGH KIND OF OUTLINE OF WHAT I'M THINKING THROUGH. I WANT TO THANK COUNCILMEMBER SCOTT AND DIAZ FOR CO-SPONSORING THIS REQUEST. And I would I'm open for questions and this would be on the council agenda if it moves forward August 20 August August 25th. Whoo. Sorry front mouth strine out talking too much about flags All right.

Thank you very much for bringing this forward councillor Palmer Thank You councillor Hines for bringing this forward. I feel like you get to bring a lot of the fun stuff That's light hearted and you know, it's very helpful for I think we need a mix of these things in order you know, we see a lot of HEAVIER THINGS AND MAYBE NOT SO FUN THINGS AND SO THIS IS FANTASTIC. I LOVE THAT WE WOULD BE COMPENSATING THE ARTISTS AS WELL FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND OUR USE OF THEIR HARD WORK. I TOO WAS AT AWC AND CAME AWAY WITH FLAG ENVY SO I THINK THIS IS GREAT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. A COUPLE QUESTIONS. FIRST, THANKS FOR LETTING ME COSPONSOR BECAUSE I AM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THE IDEA OF A FLAG COMPETITION. TO COUNCILMEMBER PALMER'S POINT, I THINK YOU'RE ALWAYS THE ONE BRINGING COMPETITIONS, SO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT YOU AND YOUR NEED TO HAVE WINNERS AND LOSERS. I DO HAVE GENUINE QUESTIONS. ONE IS KEN ASKING FOR A COUNCIL COLLEAGUE WHO IS MORE CREATIVE THAN I OR A CITY STAFFER, CAN STAFF APPLY?

I DON'T SEE WHY THEY COULDN'T PUT THIS APPLICATION IN. WE WOULD LEAVE IT UP TO THE FLAG COMMISSION TO DETERMINE IF IT'S ONE OF THE TOP TEN. EXCELLENT.

Would this be something that we do this one time? Are you looking at some sort of a sunset for the flag? Is there something you want us to do every centennial? What are your thoughts on this being the flag forever or not?

That's a good question. My thought would be we could have a BUT THE CURRENT FLAG, I THINK, I'VE SEEN SOME OLDER DESIGNS, IS THE ONE WE'VE HAD SINCE THE 90s. SO YOU'RE LOOKING AT ABOUT 35 YEARS ON THAT FLAG RIGHT THERE. I THINK MY THOUGHT WOULD BE THE FLAG WOULD HAVE NO KIND OF SUNSET AND THEN IF A COUNCIL IN THE FUTURE DECIDED, HEY, WE WANT TO RE-EXAMINE AND DO A DIFFERENT DESIGN, WE COULD DO THAT.

And then as much as I would love for the flag to just be like some sort of a better than me artist rendition of like the Tacoma Dome or something, right? That's like Tacoma iconic. People like to use bridges when they're using iconography for the city. My assumption or thought is in this, what is it called? North American Lexological Association, they sort of think about it more in terms of like the U.S. flag where like we would have blue to represent the commencement bay and green to represent the parks, right? Like it's more about the colors and the shapes than it is about the literal like iconography. Is that a general thought?

Yeah, I think the one, the thing that they said that I think is very, helps me remember is in their keep it simple, their point is a child should be able to draw from memory. So it should be so simple that a kid could draw it. So if you ask my eight-year-old to draw the US flag, she would draw a blue square and then do red and white lines. She could do it. Or Chicago's flag, which is like the blue bar, the blue bar, and the three red stars. And so they want to keep it as simple as that. So yes, more colors. But some cities, if there was a, I think what they would say is if there's a symbol, like a bridge, or the Tacoma, or Mount Rainier, maybe one symbol, but not I know we love our Tacoma skylines or our Seattle Sonics knockoff images with like the background of the city in the back. But they would kind of say keep it as simple with symbols. But colors would be the better way to do it.

WELL, DON'T PUT ME ON THE FLY COMMISSION BECAUSE CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT IS IN THE MOUNTAINS, NOT ACTUALLY IN THE CITY. I KNOW. THE OTHER GENUINE QUESTION I HAD WAS I KNOW THAT YOU PRESENTED AT THE ARTS COMMISSION. I'M JUST CURIOUS WHAT THEIR THOUGHTS WERE ON THIS AS A COMPETITION.

YEAH. THEY WERE NOT AS EXCITED ABOUT THE COMPETITION ASPECT TO IT, RIGHT, AND THOUGHT OF IT AND Encourage as you can imagine, you know, I'm a former football coach the competition is like in my mind Um, but they had said well Maybe it's just invite people in and have a conversation and be more of a celebration of different symbols of the city The challenge is we're trying to get to one like we're not gonna have five total flies. We have one so it kind of That's where we kind of landed on the competition side when I talked to the Arts Commission what I think I came away with was the thinking that, hey, we want to do this flag competition, the best place for it to land is with the Arts Commission. And after talking through with them a little bit, I actually came to the conclusion of, while the flag is artistic, it is different than, say, what the normal Arts Commission does. And so it's better landing in a flag commission that would look at it for choosing the one that they think best meets the standard. But then I would like to, as part of this, invite A MEMBER OR TWO OF THE ARTS COMMISSION TO SERVE ON THE FLAG COMMISSION. AND SO THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING FOR JUST MY COLLEAGUES, IS TO THINK ABOUT WHO YOU WOULD WANT ON THE FLAG COMMISSION. I WOULD EXPECT SOME OF US TO BE ON, I'D ASK THE MAYOR SPECIFICALLY IF HE WOULD WANT TO BE THE LEAD ON THE FLAG COMMISSION BECAUSE I THINK THAT'S AN IMPORTANT PART FOR HIM. BUT WE WOULD WANT TO HAVE A FLAG COMMISSION TO HELP KIND OF DECIDE THAT.

I apologize for being so in the weeds. I didn't mean to be. I think it's just because my policy brain is turned on by the CWA conversation. But the only other question I had was for who goes on the flag commission, if you could make sure as we're drafting that it allows for people who are currently serving on boards of commissions to be there. I know that was a conversation we had when we did the charter review. So making sure that since it's a temporary thing, they can keep serving whatever other capacity they have so they can do this momentary flag competition. Thanks. Yeah.

AND WHEN WE THINK ABOUT COMMITMENTS, IF YOU SPOKE VANCOUVER AS ANALOG, THEY HAD FOUR MEETINGS WHERE THE FLAG COMMISSION MET. INITIAL MEETING, SET THE RULES, HOW THEY'RE GOING TO OPERATE. THEY MET TO KIND OF NARROW THE FIELD DOWN. SO IT'S A VERY LIMITED DURATION FOR THE FLAG COMMISSION. YEAH. THANK YOU. DEPUTY MAYOR.

THANK YOU, MAYOR, AND THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER HINDS, FOR BRINGING THIS FUN COMPETITION FORWARD. I THINK IT'S A REALLY GOOD IDEA. I HAD THOUGHT ABOUT THIS IN THE PAST, BUT IT WASN'T NECESSARILY, I THINK YOU KIND OF DID ALL THE GROUNDWORK TO MAKE IT HAPPEN, SO GOOD JOB. JUST ONE THING, I THINK THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT LOVE TACOMA ALL OVER THE WORLD. I'VE MET PEOPLE FROM like literally, like I'll be wearing my Rainier's hat, ah Tacoma, like out in the ether. So I really want to, you know, there are people that aren't living in Tacoma for one reason or another, but still love this city. And so I'd love for them to still be able to have the opportunity to reflect that love and the flag in the competition. I THINK HAVING IT OPENED UP TO EVERYBODY, NOT JUST FOLKS WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS, BECAUSE THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT LOVE THIS CITY ALL OVER THE WORLD, WHETHER THEY CAN LIVE HERE OR NOT. AND SO I JUST THINK THAT THAT SHOULD BE REFLECTED IN THE FLAG.

GREAT. YEAH. WE CURRENTLY HAVE IT WRITTEN AS OPEN TO ANYONE WHO HAS A CONNECTION TO TACOMA, AND YOU'D EXPLAIN IT, BUT I'M HAPPY TO, IF YOU ALL HAD SAID, HEY, JOHN, I WANT TO NARROW IT TO JUST CITY OF TACOMA, BUT IF YOU WANT TO KEEP IT OPEN, I'M HAPPY WITH THAT, TOO. YEAH. All right, thank you. Any other questions? All right, thank you for bringing this forward. Yeah, just one final comment, Mr. Mayor, if I have a second. No, and to Councillor Palmer and Councillor Bushnell's point, you know, I think I do try to bring a little bit of fun to the policymaking job here. And I just think this, I'm really excited about the opportunity as we're engaging in lots of conversations about what our priorities are, what we care about, who's in our community, what do we value about our community, what do we value about our city. Because our city is growing and changing, OUR CITY IS A DYNAMIC PLACE, AND WE WANT IT TO BE. I THINK HAVING THIS AS A TOUCH POINT TO SAY, HEY, YOU KNOW, THIS IS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO TALK ABOUT, LIKE, WHAT SYMBOLIZES THIS CITY? LIKE, WHAT VALUE DO WE HAVE? AND HOW DO WE VISUALLY REPRESENT IT, RIGHT? IN A WORLD IN WHICH WE TALK ABOUT ISSUES IN WHICH THERE'S OFTEN NO CLEAR, TANGIBLE RESULT OR CHANGE, SOMETHING LIKE REIMAGINING OUR FLAG AND COMING UP WITH A CLEAR, TANGIBLE VISION FOR OUR COMMUNITY I THINK IS ACTUALLY A REALLY POWERFUL THING WE COULD DO. AND I'M EXCITED ABOUT IT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Okay, moving on to committee reports. Does anyone have a report from a committee or commission? Okay, moving on to agenda review and the city manager's weekly report. Allison.

Thank you, Mayor and Council, for your awareness this evening. There is no ceremonials on tonight's agenda. There are no modifications to tonight's agenda. There is one opportunity for public comment this evening. That's under regular public comment regarding motions, resolutions, and ordinances on tonight's agenda. I feel like I'm saying tonight's agenda a lot. Please let me know if there's any questions related to tonight's agenda so that staff can be prepared to respond accordingly. And for your review attached to the study session agenda is the weekly report to Council. Thank you, Mayor.

All right, thank you, Allison. At this point, I'd like to entertain a motion to convene to an executive session pursuant to RCW 42.30.110, sections 1-1, to discuss pending litigation not to exceed 30 minutes. So moved.

Second.

Moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no. Thank you.

I'd like to call back to order the City Council study session of August 18, 2026 to adjourn. Thank you, everybody. Have a great day. Bye-bye.