City Council - Regular Meeting

Wouldn't mind making a motion to amend council member Trenary, go ahead.

Yeah. Mister mayor, I'd like to amend the consent agenda of item four g, the excusal of council member Warden for personal obligation. Council member Warden is on the line.

Second it.

The motion and a second to remove the excusal of Councilmember Warden since he is with us online. All in favor, please say

aye. Aye.

Anyone opposed? Hearing none, that agenda has not been modified. Any other proposed amendments this evening?

Rose Pepe.

I move to approve the agenda as amended.

Second.

Councilmember Rose Pepe, second by Council Member Morrissey, I thought I heard over there, to approve the agenda as amended. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone close? Hearing none, the agenda has been set for this evening. We are to our first citizen comment period. Anyone wishing to address the council, please step to the microphone and identify yourself for the record. And if there's anybody online, use the raise your hand feature and the clerk will bring you into the meeting.

Should I restart? Okay. Well anyways, I'm Katie and Cornell and I'm a I grew up in Port Orchard, Washington, graduated from South Kitsap High School in 2007. And it's an honor to be before you today and just to meet you. Wanted to introduce myself. I'm I currently am resident of Geek Harbor, but I'm running for the House of Representative position.

Sorry? We're aren't allowed to have a political

speech here. Oh, no. Sorry. Oh, yeah. I just was told to introduce myself. I'm so sorry. That's fine. Oh, thank you. Well, I just wanted to build it. I'm not sure what's allowed, but

You can introduce yourself. You just can't refer to any current

Thank you.

Election issue.

Oh, okay. Well, I just was saying that I wanted to get to know you guys, and I'd like to hear what's important to you guys over this next season. So that's all. That's that way if I reach out to you and talk to you, you know who I am. You saw my face, and I wanna know what's important to Port Orchard. That was all. Thank you so much.

Thank you Katie. Thank you.

Alright. Anyone else wishing to address the council? I don't see anybody online besides council member Warden. So I will close the first citizen comment period. We have an approved consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve? Second. By council member Morrissey, a second by council member Diener to approve the consent agenda as amended. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the consent agenda has been approved. We have a presentation. Adam's special guest, Adam Smith is here. He's a local artist, and he has given given us a proposal to do a mural downtown, and he gave me a bunch of information about different art styles and and things. And I'm not an artist, so I figured it was better to have Adam come talk to us about this, what this mural could look like, and talk about his proposal. So, Adam, welcome.

Sure. Thank you guys for having me. So how did this all how did I get looped into this? My friend, Josh Johnson, I was locking up my art studio here in Port Orchard for the night. As I was sitting out to the vehicle, he's like, I have an idea and I was wondering if you'd be able to help me on it.

And he explained some of the big events that are gonna happen over the summer here in the Puget Sound and that we may have some visitors come into the area. And one idea was could we paint a mural next to the park downtown facing the water? And he showed me an AI mock up of what appears to be a boat similar to the Carlisle at a sunset with like a bird in front. AI doesn't make great birds all the time. But that's the image.

And so that was liked. Conversations began. And then the question was, you know, how much to have an artist paint something like that? Like, what would it cost? And so I needed measurements to try to give Josh an estimate.

And he told me it's approximately 290 square feet. And so then I went through the process of costing out the the three phases of this wall, would be getting a primer that would be weather appropriate for an outside to to prepare the surface for painting, the type of mural paints that we you would need to get a good long term outdoor mural. And then the the sealant that you would need to put on there long term also to protect against vandalism. So I costed that out because I painted a mural not that long ago in our new Pacific building here in town. I had a approximate idea of how long it would take me, and so I did some calculations and tried to get the number down as far as it possibly could considering that this is a favor to the city, so to speak.

And so I came up with that budget based on this type of a concept. So then as questions aroused, I was like, well, it might be helpful if I was to define a couple terms just to give context for how much things can in terms of time can take and in terms of how that translates into prices for artists. And the best way I could describe that is it's kind of falls in this wide bucket of kind of impressionism because it's it's based on realistic sort of realistic shapes and realistic lighting, but it's not at the point where it is photorealism per se, where it like you look like a photograph. Right? And it's also not abstraction, which is the other end of that spectrum where it's like you couldn't tell what it is.

It just looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. Right? So that that impressionism work sits in the middle, which is what the bid was based on. If you go towards the photorealism spectrum, time becomes the the challenge. Right?

Because you have to make a lot of tiny micro decisions. And to put it in context, you could go to any gallery in Kitsap right now, any decently established artist. And if it was a, let's say, square foot painting, which is a decent size, something like that may take upwards of a hundred and thirty hours in photorealism to complete and would have a price tag approximately 10 to $20,000 depending on the reputation of the artist. So if you did the math, 290 is just more than 12 square feet. Right?

It's a massive territory. So I don't think photorealism is the right term to use. I would think it falls most closely in line with an impressionism style. Now in terms of my capabilities, I was trained at Olympic College initially. I went on to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

They had a bachelor's degree in media arts and animation, both in a traditional style as well as three d digital art. And on when on the traditional side, the thing that's interesting about animators is we have to have the ability to draw any character in any style just as good as the person next to us. And so preparation for that training, you do tens of thousands of drawings to model, which means I can draw pretty much anything in any style these days. My current portfolio represents a body of work that I've been building since 2018 to separate myself in a really radically crowded art world and have something that feels like, hey, Adam Smith must have made that versus some other body of work like photorealism or abstraction or some other thing that my that I'm capable of but that my peers make. And so what I wanted to do is highlight examples of my portfolio that are somewhat near what the proposed ferry mural could look like.

And so I just picked out a couple samples just so you can see some of the work that I do. I use more of a pointillism type approach, but that's just an approach. Like the mural shows, there could be sections that are completely smoothed out nice. But this gives you an idea of my ability to use color, lighting, accuracy, things like that. And you can flip through them pretty quickly. I just included different styles. You could see realism. This is more of my general style, but something like this is highly detailed. This is a good example of lighting. Most of these paintings, if they're not already purchased, they're typically on display at my wife's animal hospital here in town.

Like, that one's on display right now. But, yeah. So, similar colors, similar style, similar vibe. And that's why when Josh showed me that initial concept art, I thought this is right in my wheelhouse. One of my reason I thought it'd be a cool project is we have a lot of kids.

My family and I have my wife and I have six children, and many of those children have played at that park facing the water. And my friend Danielle painted a mural there years ago of that ship with the the text. So having a mural next to hers at a city I love and then a playground we adore made a lot of sense to me in terms of stepping up to raise my hand and say, I would be willing to take time away from my main businesses to help the city in this way. But I'm also humble enough to say there's plenty of talented artists throughout Kitsap that could do just as good of a job, if not better than me. But I am qualified to do the job, and I really like to do this type of work.

So if you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to address any of that.

That don't wanna talk. I just I just felt it was appropriate to bring Adam here and speak to his art versus me trying to talk talk speak to Aaron's Adam's art. Perhaps more.

Go ahead. So in your slide about photorealism, you say that a large public facing piece is a hundred to three hundred hours or more. Yeah. What did you estimate the the the mural at, the ship mural at?

Based on the concept art, I think I can get that done in about sixty to eighty hours of work, including the preparation phase, getting the art done itself, and then sealing it. Hard part sometimes is you don't know what you know until you get in there. And so right? So some some pieces, like, the paints I would use are not the paints I use every single day. I use golden acrylic paints inside of a studio setting.

These would be closer to house paints, if that makes sense. And so when it comes to the translucency of a color, some things may take multiple coats, and I won't know that till I get in there. So

And just to follow-up, you you had mentioned that if you look at the Carlisle Yeah. Painting or Can example

you go back to that, Brandon?

You had said that was more of of an impressionism piece or

would it Slow search impressionism. Yeah. I think the the heart behind impressionism when Monet and those guys initially founded it had a lot to do with giving a sense of everyday life realism, but focused on moments and lighting. Ultimately, that's a good summary of impressionism. The mark making style varied rapidly within the impressionism movement. Mhmm. But it's not limited to that by any means.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Adam, we know we know this is AI generated.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And and you as an artist, how what are you envisioning creating there? I I it won't look exactly like this. I know that.

Sure. Well, I think part of the appeal has to do with the fact that it's it's clearly a local scene that has a beautiful sunset that we see regularly. The colors are opposites on the color wheel. They're complementary, and so that creates a lot of contrast and just dynamic imagery to begin with from a from a color theory perspective. What I would hope to do is stick close to that because that's what started the conversation.

But the parts of the AI image that would need more clarity, and I would be working on a concept sketch if hired, would be clarifying the Carlyle so you know exactly which boat that is. It also fixed the birds. I might add some other birds. And then because of that shot, he just put Sinclair Inlet into the prompt, but we faced Bremerton. So I probably would add hints of things of the Bremerton ton side, including, depending on what shot we're we're looking at, potentially pieces of PSNS as well as, like, the crane.

Sometimes you see the Bridge. Just depends on which way the the camera is pointed. So I'd go down to the waterfront. I'd take several images to work from. I'd also get get really precise measurements, and then I would have a very complete mock up done that I could present again and say, hey, this is actually the one I'd like to paint up there. But it would be close to that just because that's the one that got the conversation rolling.

That's my friend.

No. I appreciate your you coming here and explaining more about your artwork. Sure. I think, you know, the mosquito fleet, the walk on ferries, that I mean, that says downtown Port Orchard. And I really like also making sure that we have seagulls in it because I was telling Shira that what is it over thirty years we've literally done a seagull calling contest downtown And so that's a I think seagulls are a big part of us too.

Yeah. It's a core part of our identity, think.

But, no, I love the the ferry scene that what you can produce for us.

Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Heidi.

Mhmm.

Casimir Rose, Bobby.

Nice presentation. I really do like when you look at the AI generated in example one that you have. I really do like the example one. It's more realistic to a degree instead of a photograph. My real concern is timeline because I know it's gonna be weather dependent.

Absolutely.

And how does that fit in with your business? Because just looking at your business page, you're a busy guy.

I am a busy guy.

And so that's of a concern, because I know we wanna get this done to not just in time for World Cup, but even before then to generate some interest in the community.

For sure. Yeah. So whether no matter who did it, right, would be a factor. So I would be looking to start as early as I can as appropriate. I would be investigating drying times or temperatures for certain things to see is there a range where it's really not advised to use this type of paint outdoors, but I'd get cleared around that.

My guesstimate is probably around spring, we're gonna be warm enough to begin an outdoor process like this. What I would probably need a little bit of help with is some level of temporary barrier cones or something to around the proposed part. It doesn't have to block off the whole walkway, but just the part that protects it as we go through. Because, obviously, I couldn't get it done in one day. Right? So it'd have to be a phased approach over a few weeks. But throughout that process, can I believe I can deliver on it because I did that at the Pacific Building?

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Council member Warden has his hand raised.

Yeah. Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Just fine? Alright. I just wanna say thanks for coming tonight, Adam. I've known Adam, jeez, probably my whole life in Sherfield. We we both grew up in the area. Our families are extremely close. So I do appreciate that Adam is a local artist. I think that adds a lot to it. I just wanna know, there's a lot of prep work that goes into working on concrete. So I do appreciate you taking us on at the cost that you are because it's an amazing amount of work. So I I I feel it's it's basically giving back.

Yeah.

But my question is working on concrete, it's not like working on a building, right, where the backside of the wall is a is an office space. The backside of that wall is soil. So you're gonna have moisture. It do you have, like, a plan for that to try to prevent, moisture from messing with the r? Is there some sort of technique that you you're pretty familiar with on doing that?

So I'd say one thought is I'm envisioning this a little bit like a sandwich where the base layer would be a primer. And so I think Yeah. Primer from that first side would protect it from the backside, if that makes sense.

Yeah. For sure. Mhmm.

Painting would be applied to the primer, and then the seal coat for that exterior would go on top of that. So to me, I think the mural would overall be fairly protected. I've been watching Danielle Rimbert's mural, which is next to this, for years, and I feel like Mhmm. It's held up pretty well. And I don't think that she was using quite the same materials I intend to. So my expectation is this thing would last decades. Yeah.

Awesome. Thanks. And then one last thing. And I I hate to even bring this part up, but it's just it's just you gotta be real about it. Is there some sort of a sealant that you can put over the top of it to help with graffiti or something.

Yeah. Absolutely. That's sort of what I was hinting at a few times during the speech.

There's I couldn't really hear your speed. I'm sorry. It was kinda Yeah.

It's quite

my fault.

Yeah. There's a sealant that's very it's it's specifically designed for this

Okay.

Purpose and it's widely available. There's probably even multiple brands of it. But that would be the final step is just completely clear coating this deal to get protection multiple ways from moisture, from sun, as well as potential graffiti.

Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Thank you for thanks, Adam, for coming tonight.

No problem.

Councilmember Morrissey.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Smith, thank you for another attempted investment in our community. Just first and foremost, wanna start there for you volunteering your time, efforts, and your talent with us.

Much appreciated. I think I share some of the same concerns that councilmember Warden does. We might ask you to work a little bit with director Ryan with his staff who might have some knowledge and and be able to help with that so that we can make sure that we can preserve this for a good long time. My only question to you would be and I think you you you kinda roundabout answered it, I think, is what I heard, around you'd you'd give us a projected finished product on on maybe a sheet of paper so that we could see I know my conversation with the mayor is, I love that picture. Right?

Like, again, the the things that it's AI'd. Right? But if we something that was just that color palette with our Carlyle, didn't even think about the seagulls until we talked about it tonight, and so I would agree with those comments. I think I had originally seen some work that looked much more impressionism. Yeah. And so I I think people would love that. And so maybe a little less on that impressionism side of things when it comes to I'm not an artist, so please Dabbing. Yes. Okay. I have to say the pinpointing dabbing is the right word. So that would be my only 2¢ on

that. Yeah. Don't have any intentions of doing the dabbing on a piece like this. Okay. Like I said, I think the thing that started the conversation was the initial wow factor that that has, and I don't wanna lose any of that. Yeah. My personal style has a very different purpose to it, which is to again, in a very crowded marketplace in the world via Instagram and art shows, art fairs, is to make sure my style this is an Adam Smith piece. But is this in my wheelhouse? Absolutely. It's just a matter of making less stabs and more smooth strokes.

And and I say all that. I don't expect it to be photorealism per se, but just No. More like what we see.

Absolutely. That part's it's just it's a very simple adjustment.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah. No problem.

I'll just double down on what John had to say. When we talked about this last week, I think everybody liked that and would love to see something as close to that as possible.

Sure.

I just wanted to provide one last comment. You talked about maybe reorienting this a little bit so that you could see the shipyard, but I would want you to maybe also consider, I would ask you to consider keeping the Olympic Mountains in maybe the left side

of the

escape as well so that you've got maybe the boat breaks up the shipyard from the mountains as an example.

It's a good comment. I like that Scott.

Ms. Marfetti, you have another comment?

Yeah. I saw a print of yours that had both of the walk on ferries and that was a really cool one.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah. Because you saw both of them right there.

Yeah. That was a commission from a Navy family that spent time here and then PCS to another location. And every time they go to a new location, they decide, let's get a local artist to do something that was meaningful to our time there. And for that person who wrote the Admiral Pete every single day back and forth to work, that was how that one was selected. Yeah. But yeah.

It's good.

Council Murchenary? Yeah, Adam,

thanks for coming. I just have a couple questions about length of service the UV that you put on it, protection coat.

Is

that something that would have to be reapplied on an annual basis, biannually? And does that help provide some UV protection for the paint colors themselves, so we don't get natural fading?

I think that's a great question. So I think each product is probably gonna have specs that discuss that. It's definitely not an annual thing. Typically, these things last quite a while as is. If you drive into pretty much any city across The United States, you're gonna see lots of murals. And I know that for a fact, those mural artists are not re clear coating that thing every single week. So I think that the it does last quite a long time. As a guesstimate, it might be as much as a decade. But, I can get very specific with that once I know which product we would use.

Yeah. Thanks. And, I echo the Olympic Mountains in the background a little bit more.

They're gorgeous.

Bring it home.

It's a barometer, right? Every fifteen, twenty years. I mean, I'll be bringing a contract forward for the artist to come and touch up the mural on the library. Think it's been fifteen years since it was last done and I think from the original painting to when we touched it up the first time was much longer than that. And maybe we shouldn't have gone as long because if you touch it up more frequently then it probably doesn't have to be done as much done to it.

But are we comfortable with me negotiating or bringing back a contract in a couple of weeks, you know, maybe potentially at our next meeting. Depends on how fast our attorney can get get something like this done. But we're working on a contract right now with for the other artist also. So I guess council member

I think I'm the only person that likes your impressionism.

Thank you, Sarah.

Impression for you

quite a

bit. K.

Thank you, Adam.

Yeah. We'll look

forward to very much.

Yeah. You guys know how to reach me. I'll be available. I'm gonna go cook dinner now, so I'll

see you guys.

Have a good evening. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Adam. Alright.

Excuse me, Adam. Adam, do we have does Adam have a card or do you have a card or anything or just online? Okay. Oh, I'll I'll

Well, we know how to get ahold of you. We know

where to find him. Store three days a week. There you go. We know where to find Go in

and buy some dog treats.

Yep. He He puts his phone number on here.

It's on the

It's on here.

Yeah. Back on the Yep. I saw it.

Yep. Alright. We don't have a public hearing this evening, but we do have three business items. The first of which is an adoption of a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a professional services agreement, with Geocentic, consultants for environmental services. Mister Ryan, this is you.

Just doing a sound check. I have a new microphone. So can everybody hear me online?

Can you hear Dennis online there, Eric?

Apparently not. No. Uh-oh.

Yes. I yes. I do. I was muted. I apologize.

Just checking making a sound check there. Thanks.

Alright. Thank you very much. Before you is a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a professional

Councilor Mercenary?

Yeah. I move to adopt a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a professional services agreement with Geosyntech Consultants Inc. For environmental services in the amount not to exceed $63,410 and for the term through 12/31/2029.

Second.

Motion by council member Cheniere, a second by council member Fenton. Just some additional information. This, you know, I think we alluded to. This used to be our public workshop. There was contamination there.

We're responsible for the cleanup. That cleanup happened. Just this last year, just as a precaution and to make sure that there aren't any additional because the contamination is diminishing, but not as fast as we would like. So we sent had a machine come and do ground penetrating radar and to make sure that we didn't miss years ago, didn't miss a tank that was still in the ground. Likely, the the source of the contamination that we're still getting was what is the property across the street that the port is cleaning up and and the tide is pushing that across the street.

But that's kind of we don't know that for sure. We've got monitoring wells, and and then we've you've seen those tanks on the back of the property there. That's injecting enzymes in there to to help eat up that petroleum products that are in in the ground there. So it is our responsibility to continue to monitor it and actively get this to what's called an FA letter and no further action letter from the Department of Ecology. And we're getting closer but we've got to continue to monitor it for a few more years until we get to that point. So any questions?

And it sounds like we have to do that up until 2029. That's our kind of our deadline when we'll know all the results.

Depends on the contamination level and it's dropping and it's when it gets to that threshold that ecology will approve then we won't have to monitor anymore.

Question on the Mirena on their side, are they doing what we're doing?

They've dug up the contamination. Don't know. I don't believe they're putting enzymes in the ground like we are. They've they've got a their own Ecology? They've got a brownfields grant, which is a federal grant, and they would they they did a lot of excavation and removing the soils.

I'm I'm not from The cleanup here predates my time so I don't know what steps we took. I know we removed tanks and I know that there was a the marina the gas store the convenience store that was there that was an old gas station and one of the contaminants they found when they took the convenience store out the hydraulic cylinder for the lift was still in the ground and all of the contaminants were in there. So the List family who owns that parcel helped clean up their parcel and probably our parcel too by removing an additional source that was identified there.

Okay. Thanks.

Other questions? Go ahead. Councilmember Morrissey.

Yeah. I see our contract's for 63 some odd thousand dollars. It says it's about $16,000 a year. How much are we gonna need to expend this year?

It's time and materials. If we get a hot hit, we'll have to do additional testing. It's very difficult to project.

Okay. So do we have enough budgeted? Is that something we need to add to a future?

Believe it should be budgeted because this is something we've been doing for many years.

Okay. Thank you. Peter?

No. He asked a question and I think you addressed my earlier questions about what it looked like in the past, so I'm good.

K. We're moving in the right direction. Yep. That's what we know. Alright. Any further questions or comments? Alright. You'll be voting on a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign a professional service agreement for my environmental services. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the resolution passes. We're on on to item b, adoption of a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a contract with SCJ Alliance for on call engineering staffing assistance. Mister Ryan, this is you again.

Mayor explained a few weeks ago with our short staffing within our engineering department. The public works department is experiencing the shortage of the staff critical due to the Excuse me.

I'm gonna

start over. Excuse me. The public works department is experiencing a temporary shortage of engineering staff due to the extended absences and vacancies which have affected the project delivery in the permit review process. To address this gap, we propose entering into an on call agreement with SCJ Alliance for engineering support Following the qualifications based selection process through the MRSC consultant roster, SCJ was identified as the most

Mister mayor, I move to adopt a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a professional services agreement with SCJ Alliance for on call engineering staffing assistance. Second.

Motion by Council Member Deener, second by Council Member Rosepeffi. Council Member Deener, have a comment?

Director Ryan, could you just give us sort of a brief overview of what work you'll expect this position to begin with?

So we have very, our capital project pipeline is very extensive. We have over I think it was 40 active projects in our pipeline works. Bay Street is getting ready to potentially launch. Capital projects, we are planning additional we discussed today preservation projects that you haven't been made aware of that will be coming

Capital projects down to permits.

Thank you.

Not to mention the work with our utilities. We storm water

and and sewer support, parts and engineering. Thank

you. Yeah. Thank you, director Ryan. Couple quick questions. So we allocate a total is it three or four FTE for engineers? It is four, and we're currently down to one. Is that what I'm hearing?

We just got a second one back from medical leave, so we're at two, but we were down to one for a period of time.

Okay. And how many do we want?

We're We're authorized to have

So we've already been behind, I'm sure, so I'm sure there's somewhat backlog. Is this going to be enough authors? I guess you can always come back for more. I would tell you, I know the city's been working through getting things down and out timely, and if we need to be cognizant of that and and add more to this to get through that backlog of work, I would I would say bring that back to this body. At least here, you you have my support.

Additionally, a $100,000 is not going to cover two engineers, don't believe. So that that that that's why I'm saying that and and making sure we get through that that backlog of work. And is this the same company that we contract? Because we also is that and that contract may be owned by director Bond's group? Or or am I making this up in my head?

Hope not.

But please keep us apprised on your backlog and the progress we're making on that. Thank you sir.

Yeah, so this is a stop gap because we're actively recruiting on the permanent positions. So council member Dedmon, I think you had your hand right. Did you not?

I did. It was I was just kind of curious as to what other clients they had in the roster. And you said they worked with city specifically. Do you know any other?

Any other cities that use SCG?

Yeah. Or just big employers.

I'm just

kind of curious

to know who they're used to

Dennis, I just wanted to echo John's comments. When you look at the amount of $100,000 you're probably looking at their hourly rate somewhere in the neighborhood of five to seven hundred hours, which can go very fast. I would echo the saying, please bring it back sooner than later if needed to keep these projects on their schedule. Much appreciated.

You for

that support. Can I just ask a clerical, we don't have to take any motion for you guys to reallocate those dollars that are coming essentially from the FTE that we're not paying, right? We don't need any resolution.

Yeah, we have those budgeted dollars so we shouldn't need a budget amendment unless we exceed these dollars.

The dollar amount.

And then we'll be talking. Okay, thank you. Any further questions? I think you'll be voting on the adoption of a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a contract with SCJ Alliance for on call engineering staffing assistance. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, resolution passes. We're to our final business item, adoption of a resolution adopting AWCRMSA member standards. Ms. Wallace, this is you.

Yes, good evening mayor council. Let me get my slideshow here. Staff report. So as many of you are aware, the city has been a AWCRMSA member for over thirty years. In 2013, RMSA implemented member standards for its members to help reduce property and liability losses.

The standards are based on historical driven claims in hopes of gaining compliance to either eliminate or greatly reduce exposure to its members. Over the years, the standards have been advisory in which the city council met or was working towards those compliances. This year, updates to the standard is to now be required by council adoption, and they went from advisory to required. The following are some new required standards, which is leadership is now required to review and ensure both compliance and understanding of all those standards. And just as a reminder, the complete booklet was attached to the staff report and prepared for you, prior to this evening as part of the packet.

The, other new required standard was vendor audits, cybersecurity regarding IT support, driving policy, repeat claims by the same driver. Staff has reviewed the standards and are either already in compliance or working toward meeting them. Staff recommends adoption of the resolution adopting AWCRMSA's member standards as presented.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. I move to adopt a resolution adopting the Risk Management Service Agency, RMSA, member standards as presented. Second.

Motion by council member Morrissey and a second by council member Rosopepe. And I I I've touched on this a couple times in my mayor's report that this was coming, that these standards were in place. They were shoulds. Now they're becoming shalls to because many cities weren't complying. I know we've got a we're mostly mostly compliant.

There's a couple of areas like our disaster training that was which is planned for later this year. And pulling drivers as abstracts, we already do that when somebody first starts, but we need to do this periodically now. Something that Debbie our Lund made me aware of is that we need to bargain that because we we so we'll have to talk to our unions about that. So in that in the in this interim period, somebody got in an accident, we could be subjected to a small deductible, I think it's $2,500 if we haven't pulled an abstract in the last three years. It's just not something we get to do.

We'll have to bargain that and get permission to do that on our public works, in particular our representative employees. We're working through that and this is all with a lot of new information for staff to digest and make sure that we're compliant in all areas. So councilmember?

Yeah so this risk management service agency for one is it gonna cost us more since it's mandatory that we do this and it's all no?

It's not gonna cost us more so we are part of an insurance pool. I can't remember how many members. This

is

an effort to keep the cost of our insurance down because some agencies, I happen to sit on the board for our insurance pool, aren't don't have good fiscal policies and controls, and the the the pool is continually paying claims and behaviors aren't changing in those cities. 99% of the stuff that we're already compliant with this stuff were one of the shining stars in the in the in the pool. There there's a few things that we need to address to make sure that we're a 100% compliant with, but there were just some of the small cities in particular out there weren't take they you were you were supposed to be doing things because they were shoulds, then now they're becoming shalls. And it's to protect all of us from claims if, being continually filed a result of bad behavior and not correcting that behavior.

I do kind of recall for you saying how we're the shining star because we do, you know, we apply by everything. And so this is all basically just going for all employees.

It's well, some of it relates to employees and and and monitoring, like, drivers records and things of that matter. But we're all we're one of, you know I don't know there's probably near the We're

gonna call you out on that mayor. You should know how many are in that pool.

I don't know off the top of my head. There's two eighty one cities in the state and not all of them are members of the pool.

113

agencies, 65 of them are cities.

I wasn't too far off. And we are the largest city in the pool. The Gig Harbor is the second largest. So alright. Any council member?

Yeah. No. I I did a cursory look. I didn't go super deep into some of the stuff in the packet, but it all seemed like things that make sense for the city to be doing, including taking care of the same people that continue to get in car accidents. Maybe they shouldn't have driving privileges. So it it at least made common sense to me, by and large. Was there anything from anyone in staff that just kinda was a head scratcher or something that maybe we didn't wanna I know we're going to do it. I'm just curious if there was something that we didn't particularly care for.

It it it's it's you know, Brandy's our risk manager. I sit on, the board. Well, we talked about it here. Not everybody that works at City Hall is at this meeting. And so Debbie Lund was a bit surprised. You know, she goes, what do you mean? I just finished these union negotiations, you you know, but we didn't know and and and I didn't know till December. And so she was well into those. If anything know Brandi and I could have done a little better job, Debbie at Blund in particular communicating some of these needs. It's not that we're not gonna I mean some of it is around having cyber policies that everybody should have and protecting your data and your network.

There's cities out there that don't have those things and that's scary.

So it's constantly changing as

well. Yeah. Council member Diener?

Thank you for this. I thought this was very interesting reading. It's it's to me it was a little interesting. Heidi, I think of this as performance based insurance but like, for the land use that if you wanna do a moratorium, you've gotta consult with them first. If you wanna roll it over, you gotta consult with them. That means there must have been some big actions in the past. But stuff like that, I I found It was interesting how deep into the weeds they got with some of the practices the city's engaged in. So but it sounds like it's a good thing.

If we wouldn't if we terminate somebody and don't consult with them first, we don't have coverage. We've got to it's not that we can't terminate somebody, but they wanna make sure that we've complied with all of the employment law before we just arbitrary it. We've got a very good HR department. We're like I say, we're the largest member in the pool. Some people don't have some most cities don't have in in our pool don't have, as many directors or as skilled directors that we have. So we're fortunate.

One follow-up question. So when do we get a report card on how we're doing with all of these initiatives or policies?

Go ahead, Brandy.

So so typically every year we have an assessment come an assessment done, and they will go through and inspect our property. So they'll look at our standards and see if we met those as well as other safety issues that may arise from future claims. They do that annually. Sometimes every two to three years just depends on their workload. They'll come look

at our buildings and make recommendations about might see a handrail that needs you know sometimes we can't see the forest through the trees. It's here every day and to have somebody from our insurance pool come and walk our buildings with us and you know every few used to they take a look at you know we give them values. Are those values correct? Because our pool is gonna pay to replace those and they need to be insured at the proper values.

So is that audit is that is that conducted entirely on-site or is there part

of Yes. Okay. So March or April, I have to submit a report from all the departments collecting information that they want that is based on our membership, our premium. So they look and ask specific IT questions, cybersecurity. They look at the fraudulent and finance department to make sure that we're managing our cash, I guess cash and credit cards, how we're managing that to sidewalks improvements.

Pretty extensive and then so they'll take that based on our previous history and then usually late summer they'll give us a report and then if they wanna stop by and do an inspection I coordinate with the departments to give them an on-site inspection. They typically don't do on-site for three to five years just because we're not inquiring a bunch of structures that quickly. But as far as an annual assessment written we'll get one.

It's purposeful that the name of the city is the Risk Management Service Agency. They're very hands on. We only insure cities and special purpose districts. I feel we're in the right place. Our pool, our the base rate went up 4% this year.

And Charlie was sharing with me double digit. Some of the other pools out there, their rates were up double digits and that's just based on claims experience and what you need to carry in reserves. And then from there, the base is 4%, can go based on your experience factor and your claims whether you're doing the right things, you can go up or down from there. In the last couple of years, our experience factor has actually brought we've been below the base rate increase because of our claims management and our practices here at the city.

One last question then I'll be quiet. Why aren't there larger cities?

This pool is really designed for smaller cities and a larger city has more claims more things to manage.

Yeah there's two other groups out there essentially. So there's larger cities are self insured right? So Seattle is self insured, King County is self insured, Tacoma. And then the other larger cities have formed the Washington Cities Insurance Agency, WCIA. So that's the other big risk pool in the state. And then there's the water sewer district risk pool, there's a variety of different pools out there. But the larger ones, particularly as it relates to police enforcement and and SWAT coordination, they all are consolidated in WTAA.

And one last question, then I'll be really quiet. When do we trip that threshold and

going Thank into a larger you.

There's no size requirement it relates to the pool. You pick the pool that gives you the benefits that you want and arguably the smaller pool has the ability to give you more customer service attention than a larger pool. I think that's one of the reasons that I've heard quoted here.

Maybe the better question to ask Ms. Archer is where is that breakeven where it makes better sense for us to be in that pool versus where we're at, you know, just for planning purposes. While we are the largest, we're also the one of the fastest growing cities in the entire state. So that that's

Yeah. And it's definitely not a legal question. I mean, can when I'm asked to provide input on insurance procurement, we'll absolutely provide that from our own claims experience, but cities move back and forth all the time. So city of Medina, one of our clients just moved from WCA to RMSA. Another city I had that's about 10,000 went from RMSA to WCA three, four years ago. So cities move back and forth or they go to Honduras. They have a variety of options out there. Typically you review that on a every ten year cycle or so if you like. There's no requirement that you do that.

Okay. Maybe this is the best way to ask this question. What is the average size of the city that resides in the other pool?

In the other pool? Yeah. I can try to find that. I don't know that off

the Okay.

Perfect. Thank you.

If we were having excess claims and the pool could ask us to leave, but because we are they value us as a good client and recognize that we're very much appreciated in our pool. The other and there could be a time but right now that other pool is not in the place the space that we're at and that's why our rates increases have been because we're taking steps like this and requiring our members to do certain things because if we don't control these things then we're going to need to increase premiums to everyone, and and that's what we're trying to avoid.

Yeah. No. I I don't think that we need to change. I'm just curious for when we should have that on our radar to be thinking about those said things. I also know that, you know, in in most of these types of things, especially the big fish in the pond helps carry the load for a lot of the smaller fishes. I don't feel that today, but doesn't mean that can't change in the future. So

Fortunately, I have a front row seat since I've been asked to serve on the board and I was just reelected to the board. Yeah. Council member Dedmon?

Has there ever been any negotiation since there are competing pools to see like for better rates or anything like that?

We could get a rate quote from another agency. It's a multi year process to leave one pool and to go to the other pool. There is no it isn't a negotiation process. There's a cost to the service and the only variable that we can control is our claims and our claims experience and in managing the city the best that we can. Like I said this past year I believe it was 4% rate increase, if we had a poor claims performance there's a multiplier that goes on to that.

So there were agencies or cities and special purpose districts that saw much more than 4% because they were adversely affecting the pool. We're not.

Sorry I just wanted to clarify what I was asking. Do we at any point ever look at these two pools and look at the rate difference and say from a purely monetary I was going say fiscal point of view whether which pool we want to be in do we ever do that?

We haven't recently and because I've been sitting on the board I am knowledgeable of what the rate increases have been on the other pool and right now we would not be better off being in that other pool because they're not as healthy as our pool is and that's why they're having to charge more in premium because they've had that experience and then they have to have certain minimum requirements in reserves. Okay. All right. Any further questions? That the most conversation we had on any of the items.

Alright. You'll be voting on adopting the member standards for our insurance pool, RMSA. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? And the resolution passes. So we are to our discussion item. Miss Archer is gonna give us a riveting presentation on open government training.

I know I like that.

Thank you. Well it is riveting to me. It's one of my favorite topics as many of you know. So appreciate your time. I will try to keep this to thirty minutes so I'll get you out of here by eight I promise. Questions depending. We may go faster but this open government training covers both the OPMA and the PRA and I have a slide. This slide deck will be circulated to everyone so you have it as a resource but we always identify ourselves for the purpose of this training. As you know, I'm your city attorney and you have our entire law firm as your resource for legal guidance. We offer these sorts of trainings for risk mitigation and simply to educate, but I'm also always available for conversations about open public meetings and public records.

We as you know track legislation. I do know there's two great bills still alive related to public records, one of which excuse me, one's public records, one's OPMA. The OPMA bill will allow us to waive certain noticing requirements during emergency conditions and this is likely in response to the flooding events that occurred in the fall where many of my agencies struggled to notify folks when they were going out to do emergency site visits and those sorts of things. This bill would allow us to do site visits, to get briefings without having to notice it as a public meeting when a quorum wants to gather. I will move quicker than that.

We'll cover both OPMA and PRA this evening and please interrupt if there are questions. Just to remind you why we do this, your trainings are required ninety days from taking the oath of office. I know our newest council member has already done the formal training. Multiple times. Multiple times, wonderful. This is gilding the lily. This is me offering my perspective as well and the rest of our council members are required to do refresher trainings every four years. I'm sure your insurance would embrace doing it on an annual basis, and and Brandy and I have, just scheduled it and, you know, told the mayor we're gonna do it every year. So that's what we

There was a lengthy discussion about that at the insurance whether or not we were gonna require

it. Oh, well there you go. Okay. So we're gonna start with the Open Public Meetings Act. What constitutes a meeting? A meeting is when a quorum of the gathering body including any kind of or certain kinds of committees gathers with the intent to transact business. The key takeaway from the OPMA is if you were to gather as a quorum and the meeting itself not to be noticed, the action taken is itself void. It's invalidated. So that's the risk we run if we don't comply with the OPMA. Our actions are invalidated.

There are other risks as well but that is a key one because we want our work in the interest of taxpayers to be done legally. Meetings I want to flag do not require physical presence. Post COVID the meetings can occur by telephone, email, text, or other electronic media, but as you all know, we still have to have a physical location for the public to gather. Even if all of you I work with agencies where the entire board is remote, but myself and the clerk are in a room with no members of the public ever come, but we're there, because that is a requirement. So what types of meetings are out there and are subject to the OPMA?

You all know this is a refresher. We have regular meetings. We set these by resolution at the beginning or the end of the preceding year. Your workshops are considered regular meetings so you could take action at your workshops because those are regular meetings and these meetings, these Tuesday night meetings are regular meetings. Special meetings is any meeting other than a regular meeting, so when you have not established by legislation the date and time and location of that regular meeting.

Special meetings have certain rules. Notice must be done in a very specific way and twenty four hours notice is the absolute minimum you can provide. The key for special meetings, we cannot take any action, any final action that is not listed on the agenda, There was just two cases involving this topic last year. One where the agency was too descriptive in their special meeting notice and said the action will be a vote to select five candidates for this position. What they ended up doing was only voting for one person and the court said that was invalid notice because your notice said you were going to vote for five.

The other said we'll do what we want essentially. We're going to do agency business and the court said no that was too vague. You have to be more descriptive than that. So Brandi does a great job making sure our notices are kind of in that middle special meeting standard. Emergency meetings are rare.

Those are to deal with emergencies and there are less regulations and if the OPMA legislation this cycle passes, they'll be even less and that will assist us in addressing emergency conditions. Executive sessions are a subset of regular and special meetings. We all know and we'll talk about those a bit more in a moment, but those are the only times when we are allowed to exclude the public from our discussion. I use the word discussion vehemently. We cannot take any action, any final action in those discussions, so executive sessions are limited to discussion.

A closed session, I believe we recently had one of these related to bargaining. Statutorily there are four specific reasons you can hold a closed session. We typically treat them like executive sessions but they are specifically identified in the OPMA as meetings that are not subject to the OPMA. Unlike an executive session which is still a meeting subject to the OPMA, they're separate from the OPMA. Some key reminders I like to highlight in this training.

All meetings of our agency must be open to the public without any conditions for attendance. I often get the question, can we require folks to sign in, give us their names and addresses because we want to communicate with them? Absolutely not. We cannot require they identify themselves, where they're from, we can't limit public commenters to folks who live in the area, we cannot place any conditions on attendance and that's by a statute. No meeting will take place.

The OPMA is not triggered if you lack a quorum. So anytime there's only three of you discussing with the exception of specific committee meetings, there is a lack of quorum and the OPMA is not triggered. As I mentioned, regular special meetings have differing rules. Twenty four hours is the minimum amount of notice we're required to give for both. Executive sessions as you know must be specially noticed so the mayor has a very specific script that he must say, we must announce the statute that applies, that is the topic, and we must limit the conversation to that specific topic.

You've all experienced me saying we need to get back on track. That is my role in those executive sessions. Voting by secret ballot is prohibited. We're not allowed to vote. All votes must be taken on final action items out loud. Meeting agendas must be available online and we must maintain minutes except for executive sessions. Those are specifically excluded from the requirement that you take minutes. Minutes to the recommendation Jurassic Parliament makes is action minutes. You'll notice our minutes don't say council member said this, council member said that. Our minutes focus on action.

Speaking of which, what constitutes action? Because again to remember, the OPMA applies when the council, when quorum gathers for the purpose of taking action, for the purpose of doing the public's business. This term is used to describe discussions, to describe briefings, to deliberations. Anytime you're gathering to do the people's work, is considered action. Final action which is a distinct term used throughout the statute is a very different thing and that's when you collectively take action, take a vote to do something.

As I mentioned, final action shall only occur in an open meeting. It cannot occur in executive session. There was a case on this last year where a council gathered in executive session to discuss selection of a potential candidate. You can only under the executive session rule discuss qualifications. They came out, the mayor announced we made a decision, we're voting for this person. Clearly they had made a decision in executive session and the court admonished them for that. You cannot make a decision in executive session. Who has to comply? Again, the governing body has to apply. That can sometimes include sub agencies or commissions.

The planning commission does adhere the OPMA and notice all of their meetings. Your civil service commission similarly does although they sometimes sit in a quasi judicial posture which we'll talk about in a moment. The agency, its sub agencies, and then certain committees and here's the key, when committees are delegated official responsibility by the body to take final action and I do not believe any of our committees have been given that delegated authority. Larger agencies sometimes do that. They'll actually take a body of work that is the council's purview and say committee, you are now in charge of deciding this issue for us and at that time then that committee is subject to the OPMA.

Most agencies notice their committee meetings as public meetings anyway because it's in the interest of transparency. Agendas posted twenty four hours. One of the things I always like to highlight is for regular meetings and so this would include your Tuesday night meetings and your work study workshops, you can do what you need with the agenda during the meeting. You could add items, you could remove items, you could move items around. For special meetings, again the ones that are noticed specific for a topic, you cannot add items to the agenda.

The sole exception to that is if you have noticed your agenda to say we are going to discuss and take action related to a personnel matter for example, you could add an executive session during the meeting if you needed to do so. Other than adding executive sessions, we are not allowed to add any final action items to special meetings whereas with regular meetings we can do what we want. Executive sessions, as I mentioned there's limited topics. These are a few of the ones that come up most commonly. Real estate, one of the things to highlight is case law on this is very clear.

The statute related to when we offer property for sale as opposed to when we choose to buy it, when we go in to discuss offering property, we are only allowed to discuss price associated with that property. We cannot discuss in executive session any other aspect of the sale because the price is the confidential information that we're protecting because we want to make sure that we keep market competition in place. Appointment of elected officials, that's another topic and this is one we highlight because again when we go into executive session, can only discuss qualifications of the candidates. We cannot say things like I prefer this person or I will be voting for that person because we cannot vote or take final action, in executive session. We only discuss qualifications.

Litigation, is one I'd like to highlight. There was a case last year, that reminded us all of the import on the litigation statute and this is subpart one, subpart I of the statute. Legal risks of a proposed action is commonly what we refer to when we enter executive sessions to talk about litigation and legal risks. A lawyer must be present for those conversations and an agency was dinged last year for failing to note in their minutes that a lawyer was present and there was no other way to verify that a lawyer had been present. That's just an aspect of that one I like to highlight.

Then there's a lengthy list at 40 two-thirty one-ten of the other reasons, but the courts continue to shrink those reasons and so we are very careful to make sure that we fit within those parameters. As I mentioned, the mayor has a script that he has to read in advance. Sometimes he kicks it to me and I also read that script. What types of meetings are not under the OPMA? We've got quasi judicial proceedings.

We actually have one of these coming up, I believe at our next meeting. A quasi judicial proceeding is where we are sitting as judges rather than as legislators and the appearance of fairness doctrine applies to you when you're wearing your judge hat. That means we have to refrain from ex parte communications, that means we are evaluating the case based on what's being presented to us in the moment. Because quasi judicial proceedings are outside the OPMA, we are allowed to go into what appears for all intents and purposes to be an executive session for you to have your deliberations. You can do that in private because a judge would be doing that in their chambers in private.

You're allowed that same privilege. Collective bargaining discussions are also one of the exceptions to the OPMA that I highlight. You can meet with your staff to discuss collective bargaining strategy in a closed session away from the public because that is in your best interest from a negotiating position. Public comment at public meetings, I just want to flag because this is a question I get quite frequently. Until 2022, there was absolutely no legal requirement that any agency had public comment during their meetings.

Your meetings are your business meetings and there's no law that said you shall have public comment with very limited exceptions for specific public hearings on budget, on certain forms of legislation franchises. Everything else, no public comment was required. Most agencies offered it because they wanted to engage with their constituents. But in 2022 the legislature said now agencies you are required to have one opportunity for public comment or for a method for the public to reach you at any meeting where you're going to take final action. What that means is you could offer the public the opportunity to submit written comments in advance.

That could be all you do and that would be in compliance. You could offer one public comment period at the beginning of your meeting. That would be in compliance. You could offer one opportunity at the end of your meeting after you've done all your business. That would be compliant. You can limit the length of time of any public comment period. However you see fit. It must be reasonable. City of Bellevue for example, thirty minutes is all they give. If there's more commenters than thirty minutes allows, I'm sorry, come back at the next meeting.

You can require comments relate to a specific item on the agenda. You can make sure that there's a nexus between what's being said and the action item on the agenda. You only need to take public comment at regular meetings where final action will be taken. At special meetings you are not required to take public comment. There are exceptions for public hearings as I mentioned.

These rules are the baseline of what's required by and this agency obviously goes above and beyond that to make sure that you are transparent and hearing from your public during your business meetings. You have two public comment periods. Meetings outside meetings. Just to highlight this, we want to always be aware, this is the concept of serial meetings. Be aware of public meetings that may occur unintentionally.

When a quorum of you is gathered, there is the potential risk associated with an OPMA violation even if with the best intentions. So we want to always be careful to avoid attending social events in groups of more than two, more than three. If you know there is the seagull calling event or there's another event where more of you are likely to attend, we let Brandi know so that we can make sure and notice that as a quorum, not necessarily as a public meeting but as a quorum. So we've crossed our t's and dotted our i's. Yep.

So my casual understanding of RCW is that we're not there there are certain events that the council may gather at say a Christmas party that you don't have to to notice for. But I think we take the extraordinary step of noticing for everything.

Well extraordinary, I wouldn't characterize it as extraordinary. I would say you can Google special meeting notices out there and see how many councils when they're traveling to a conference, they're noticing it as a quorum. When they're going to a social event, they're noticing it as a quorum. It gives you that protection. Compliance with the OPMA is a good faith effort, so arguably if there is no evidence that the four of you at a social event were discussing city business, the risk is likely minimal, but we do notice it as a precaution and we ask for that advance notice so that we can make sure to prevent that if it occurs.

Just along those lines, I thought so too. Thought, maybe it was Jennifer, you know, your colleague said, you know, like at a perfect example is Christmas party, maybe, you don't know if you're gonna go or not, but you decide to go, But you're not talking business, you're just at a social event. Right. And so you might have four or five people, you know, throughout the the city or whatever, but so so that's okay. But we always do say yeah, I'm gonna go, but sometimes you just don't know yeah, I'm in town, I'm gonna go down.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great comment. Think if you attend, the baseline guidance from us is don't discuss city business, right, if it's a group. We just take that additional step to ask you if you know in advance, please let Brandi know. But if you all end up at an event together unintentionally, that is what it is as long as you've taken that risk precaution not to discuss city business. And when in doubt, always I'm here to help.

So so, I mean, you know, it's better safe than sorry on that. And just for clarification, the mayor is not part of the requirement of the noticing because he is merely a facilitator of our meetings, so it's just the city council that is of concern.

Correct, yes. Thank you. Serial conversations between smaller groups as I mentioned have been found to be meetings and that's why we do that additional noticing to just sort of be as transparent as possible. Always want to flag that serial meetings can occur via various fora. So a serial meeting is where there's not four of you gathered, but as a result of multiple conversations in a sequence, a quorum has been created.

One example would be if council member A texts B who then calls C, who then faxes D. Those are all different methods of communication but collectively if the discussion was focused on the same topic, you have the risk associated with a serial meeting. There was a recent case that was helpful for us on this where essentially the implication by the fact that there is evidence through metadata of four conversations occurring, that's not significant enough to overcome summary judgment on a potential claim. There has to be knowledgeable interactions documented in some way. So you know we we we don't want to we wanna be above report reproach and make sure we're not having those serial meetings, but know that if if you're calling one and then you're calling another on a completely topic, that is a nuance to this that does not imply a violation.

But if it's on the same topic and it's a topic pending before council for example, we don't want to have any serial communications. The leading case on this involved I believe the city of Seattle where a staff member, a personal staffer for one of the council members called all the different council members and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Took a little tally and so they knew what was going to happen and it was on the attacks that was really controversial in the city, so the city was dinged for that. What's the risk of violations? As I mentioned, liability for the city and potential invalidation of our actions is the key takeaway.

You can also have personal liability, so individuals violating the law can have civil penalties, dollars 500 for first violations and 1,000 for subsequent violations. Additionally, even completely invalid OPMA lawsuits are still lawsuits. They still have consequence for the agency so this is why we take those additional steps to be above reproach. Lawsuits even blatantly false allegations of OPMA violations can't undermine public trust and confidence in the agency.

I think that compels me and my thoughts a little bit more on that so I appreciate that. Just avoiding the possibility of

Yeah.

And one of the agencies our our firm works with, they've had one like that and it's gone on for two years. So you know, they not only do you lose that public trust, but it takes staff resources and time. So Public Records Act basics, we're gonna switch gears to the Public Records Act in very short. I have eight more nine more minutes.

Can extend your time by asking just a quick few questions before we move on

to One,

what is the expectation of the law when it comes to a quorum? I think, for instance, we're gonna be meeting with our legislators next week down in Olympia in a private meeting with counsel. We're just letting people know that we're meeting in a place but they're not open to attend. Correct. So that's a nuance but you're

allowed to do things like that insofar as you're noticing it as a quorum and it is noticed as a private event outside of the city limits, there's some large agencies in the city or in the state that will remain unnameless where they always do their retreats in California because for that reason. They're noticing it as a public meeting and if anyone were to want to fly there, then they can, but they don't.

Okay. Then the idiosyncrasies between closed session and executive session, and this is just purely from my basic knowledge, executive session obviously is attorney client privilege type stuff. Does that same apply in a closed session?

Yes. So the attorney client privilege applies whenever a lawyer is present. Some of the executive session topics do not require a lawyer, but you have that confidentiality statute that over arches it. But closed session topics, both of them that you typically do, quasi judicial and bargaining, I mean I'll occasionally attend bargaining ones for my clients, but sometimes I don't. So the attorney client privilege would not apply if I wasn't there, but that confidentiality rule still would.

Yep. And then I think my last question, you said something around not being able to limit folks. They have to identify themselves or we can require somebody who wishes while we can't stop them from attending our meeting, if they do wish to speak to us, can ask them to identify themselves.

We can ask them, we can't require it.

Oh, okay.

One other nuance I forgot to mention is I have many agencies who have stopped allowing online commenting because of Zoom bombing. Zoom bombing. Yeah. And so you don't have toif you allow public comment in chambers, don't have to allow it online as well. You limit it in that way.

Okay, I'll give you three minutes back.

Okay, thanks. I'll be quick. Public records is easier. There's just a couple things I want to highlight. We all understand that a public record can be anything, any writing. It's not just an email. It can be your handwritten notes, it can be a text, it can be WhatsApp messages, it can be your Google search history, it can be the prompt you put into AI. The universe of what is a record continues to expand. If you have questions about that, always feel free to reach out. We talked about those already.

Charlie, just a quick question. That includes draft materials as well?

So draft materials themselves are yes, are public records, but by and large drafts are what we refer to as transitory in the sense transitory is the wrong word. They are subject to a retention of keep as long as necessary for the agency's business. My recommendation is get rid of drafts as quickly as you no longer need them. They don't have a preservation value. Drafts also have an exemption that applies certain types of drafts, up until the legislative body takes action and then the draft is no longer exempt. But if you've deleted it because it's no longer necessary for the agency's business, you've moved on to the next draft, then we don't have to even deal with exemptions. But yeah, drafts are public records.

Okay, thank you.

Yep. That leads directly into the electronic records concept. This is the one I always want to highlight for my boards because this is one that you will grapple with the most. Electronic public records that you may be asked to retrieve from your own personal devices or from your accounts and provide to brandy would include your text messages, online communications, Facebook, Instagram posts, tweets, whatever other app you may use, WhatsApp. I think I briefed the WhatsApp case out of Sammamish for the council at last year's meeting, but that's a great one to read because that involved council members who used WhatsApp to communicate, and were required to turn over their phones to identify those records.

You are obligated to retain your electronic records in accordance with the retention schedule. By and large, most electronic records are in that same boat that I just described. You keep until no longer necessary for agency purposes, so you could be deleting your records on a regular basis and utilizing good hygiene by making sure that those records are deleted on a regular basis. Before you do that, please make sure to talk to us, Brandi and I, because we want to make sure that we're all in compliance with the retention schedule which is set by the state. I got

a question. How long do public records does the city keep? How many years? That's a

great question. The state auditor's office has what's referred to as the core retention schedules. There's one for local governments, there's one for local law enforcements, there's about 30 of them and they are each about 50 pages. So each different category of records has a different retention schedule. So litigation files for example, is it ten years?

Ten years after the case ends, you have to keep that. Certain emails, it's as long as you need it so you could delete it immediately. So it varies depending on the record itself. Those core schedules are available on this auditor's office website. We can also send them to you if you'd like, but your records are likely to fit into that keep until needed bucket, but if you ever have a question about a particular record, reach out to us because it is so nuanced.

Right, okay thanks.

Yeah. So how are requests handled? I want to highlight this for you. Brandi has five days to respond to a request and a request that comes to one of you is considered a viable request. The public records laws do not allow us to dictate to the individual how they submit a request.

We can recommend they make it to Brandi or on a form online, but we can't reject a request if it doesn't come through that form. So if you were ever to get an email that appeared to be a public records request, please immediately forward it to Brandi because that five day clock is ticking quickly. That is five business days, not calendar days, which was one nice give from the legislature. Once Brandi gets that request, she will then evaluate the scope of the search. That scope may include you.

It may be a request for all council member text messages. It may be a request for all social media from council members. She will then turn around and ask you to search those things and give her back the records and complete what's referred to as a Nissen affidavit. We call it a Nissen affidavit after the Nissen employee, I think it was in Puyallup, who was asked to turn over their text messages and refused to and so it led to court case. It was the court case that fundamentally said your text messages, your documents, if they are in furtherance of the city's business are public records and you need to give them to the city and attest to the fact that you've done a search of your device and these are their records.

Brandy will give you that affidavit, she'll ask you to do the search, fill out the affidavit and then return it to her. This is the affidavit used by all agencies in Washington. They're very standardized at this point. When you are asked to do that search, we want to make sure that we are conducting an adequate search and searching all potential records locations. You cannot by law limit to one area, limit to one device, limit to one drive.

So if the request says I want all records you have related to Pine Street, if you know you have records on your C Drive but you only search your email, that is not a valid request. You need to search all locations where it is reasonably likely for records to be found. In addition, we cannot play games with the search parameters. If somebody, a requester misspells a name, if we know who the person is that was intended to be that name, we need to search for that. We reject the request because it's not letter perfect.

The court has said that. We have to use our reasonableness, our evaluation skills to determine what is meant and we can clarify with the requester to make sure that we get the request clear. Personal devices, I know I say don't use them and I say that mostly, but I know there's a lot of nuance to that because a lot of agencies still use them. So instead of saying don't use them, say to the extent you use them, expect to be asked to search them and expect to be responsible for retaining things that are on them. Many agencies are moving away from personal devices and using city issued devices that can be backed up by city software, SMARSH, other programs that will automatically back up your devices limits your liability and the agency's liability.

So we want to get in the mindset that even if we are using a personal device, we still have that obligation to retain and then we will be asked to search. Text messages of that Pierce County, it was a Pierce County prosecutor, that is the Nissen case that led to that case, that expectation that you will provide us with an affidavit. This speaks to that affidavit. Your affidavit needs to be submitted in good faith so you are signing it, attesting that you did in good faith, an adequate search and you are providing the records that you found. Social media posts, just to highlight social media posts are considered public records.

We have a number of cases in Washington that reiterate this. Arthur West, I believe he's litigated here, he is a prolific public records litigator across the state. His name is attached to many of these cases. Because of his work, we now know social media is, public records. It is public record when it meets a very specific test.

The test can be known by the acronym POUR. Was it prepared, owned, used or retained by the agency? Those are very specific court defined terms but for our purposes if it is something that furthers the agency's interests, that is something that can trigger the retention obligation for a social media post. So that one. A couple of ways we can limit this are ensuring that we utilize disclaimers on our social media posts.

This is not me speaking on behalf of the city, this is me speaking in my personal capacity. We can ensure that we are merely passively passing on information about the city, we're forwarding posts that are about meeting times as opposed to engaging in discourse about legislation pending before the body. And one of the other things I like to advocate is embracing official accounts and official devices that are backed up by software or adopting a policy that requires the council to back up personal devices or prohibiting the use of personal devices. That is something that many agencies are shifting to.

Yeah. So before we get too further into ending this, one of the things I learned long ago is just that just by putting confidential on the email subject line does not make it necessarily exempt from PDR searches. I think some people may overuse that thinking that they're safe, but they're in fact not necessary.

Yeah, I actually did a training last year with Sarah Dorr from MRC on privacy under the Public Records Act because it's misnomer that there's a privacy exemption. There's the concept of privacy but it itself is not an exemption so there's no confidentiality privacy expectation. There's only very specific statutory privacy and confidentiality provisions. One of the things I always say that people are shocked to hear is if you, Councilmember Diener, were to email your personal phone number to Councilmember Fenton, your phone number is not exempt. I can't redact it even though you don't want anyone to know it necessarily if it's personal.

You've put it in a place I can't redact. Employee phone numbers, official phone numbers are only exempt when they're in personnel related files, but if you throw it around an email unfortunately I've seen this in the past where if you send an email about business and then in the next paragraph I'm really struggling with this medical condition, I won't be able to redact your comments about your medical condition. I simply won't because there's no relevancy exemption if they're looking for the business but they're not looking for the medical, it's my legal opinion that we can't redact that medical information. Combining personal and city in records is a dangerous game.

Miss Archer, I might just add to further your comments around any type of social media. I have straight from AWCRMSA. This is a personal account of John Morrissey, and all opinions expressed here are mine. That is directly from our lawyers that say to do that. You just never know when you might be doing something. I mostly only post stuff about my kids and dog and things like that, but you'll see that person is, when is this street gonna be closed? You're just trying to be a nice person. You don't wanna have that be misconstrued, and so if you have it, I would highly suggest you to put that on there even if you don't think you're talking city business.

Yeah. Absolutely. So okay. So because the city currently allows for the use of personal well let me say this a different way, the city doesn't allow you to do anything. You self police, so you decide what policies apply to you.

The council currently utilizes personal devices and has not made any indication to me that you plan to change, which is absolutely fine, but because of that we just need to make sure that you understand those retention obligations just like the questions were asked. I strongly encourage, I've embedded in this PowerPoint which I'll circulate, some of the retention schedules for common documents that you'll encounter. Your notes that you may take during a council meeting, those are retain until no longer necessary for agency business. You could throw them away as you exit tonight and you've met the retention obligations. This slide has a clip from a handout from the Secretary of State about transitory records with minimal retention.

Some are transitory, some are just with minimal retention. These are the ones that we want to have good record hygiene and be deleting on a regular basis to make Brandi's life easier when she's having to cull through reams and reams of records. This is a practice we want you to get in the habit of doing. The flip side of that is we want to make sure you are retaining the things that you're obligated to retain. The Secretary of State has another great handout on that topic and a number of other handouts that I can circulate.

Social media posts for example, most of them are all retained until no longer needed for agency business, so there is no retention obligation on your social media post, but some of them have a longer period. If you were to engage in a social media conversation that appeared to be customer feedback, so constituent complaints and your response to it, that has a three year retention schedule. So we need to know as council members that we are obligated to retain those social media posts for at least three years. Most social media programs I understand have that retention feature, so I encourage you after this training, go home in the next week to just check the settings on all of the apps that you utilize. Verify what your deletion setting is on WhatsApp if you use that to communicate city business, on Instagram, on Twitter, whatever it is that you utilize, check those deletion settings and then we can have a conversation to make sure that we are compliant.

The reason I'm hitting this is because this is a hot button issue right now and I'm seeing council members across the state litigating this exact issue, including unfortunately a city in Eastern Washington where the council is currently suing one of the council members because the council member won't turn over their records.

Yeah. Again, just mentioned city business, So personal Facebook accounts, much like John said, you know, with his his disclaimer, you know, if we're generalizing or giving a personal opinion, that wouldn't meet that threshold, would

it? So again

It's a little you know, it's fuzzy.

It is fuzzy, and and just to give you an example, when I get a question about social media posts, I will have to go and I will look at the account and I will actually review each post because the analysis depends on the content of each post. So even if you have that personal disclaimer is a great way to make clear for the public that it is not a public comment. It is a personal statement and in my legal opinion that's probably going to be dispositive for the court, but even if you have that disclaimer, if you then say I plan to vote this way on this item and I I'm going to have support on this topic and I'm looking for your feedback constituents so I can share that. And then comments come in with constituent feedback. There's a decent chance that that would meet the prepared, owned, used or retained test, but it's very post specific.

Okay. So I mean if you're putting out stuff like, you know, Seagull contest or, you know, a city meeting or stuff like that, that would be none.

That would likely not pass the test, yeah. And the West versus City of Puyallup case actually dealt with that exact issue because she was passively forwarding notices of public events. That likely does not pass the test, but it depends is there additional commenting, are you getting constituent feedback, so it is very post specific.

Thank you.

Absolutely. Alright, a couple of hygiene points. Oh I'm over. Segregate your emails and your communications if you utilize a personal device, that makes your searching obligation easier. I work with agencies of all sizes.

Some agencies of the smaller size still use Gmail accounts for all their electeds and so they actually have to segregate within their own personal Gmail account. We are not at that level. You have separate email accounts, but let's make sure we segregate so that searching is easier and ensure that any physical documents you get or electronic documents are isolated on your devices. I believe all council members were issued laptops, so if you use just the laptop or the device for city document business then we won't have to worry about searching your personal device. That's a great way to segregate.

We're going to comply with those retention time periods and if we have questions we're going to reach out to Brandy or myself. We're going to be prepared to produce public records if Brandy reaches out. We do have that five day turnaround requirement and then we have to continue to fulfill the request in a reasonable relatively quick timeframe. So if you get a request for you to search and produce records from Brandy, please please try to respond within a week with your affidavit if at all possible because she's got a time crunch as well. The model rules for public records are still potentially going to be changed in the next year.

It's in the process with the Attorney General's office and that is going to potentially inject this expeditious approach language which we'll have to grapple with in the courts, but expediency is inherent in the Public Records Act so please please respond as quickly as you can. Consequences for the violations similar to the OPMA, potential personal liability and costly litigation and liability for the city and that significant loss of trust even when a claim is entirely meritless. The Public Records Act has more significant fees than the OPMA. The fees are set based on the improperly withheld or lack of production document per day, per page, per document. So these fees can be really significant.

We saw a recent decision in city of Tacoma. It wasn't that many documents, but the the fee was up to 2,500,000.0. So alright. Thank you. Yeah. Another question?

So I know that this is something that the legislature wrestles with every year. What's what's new on the horizon now?

Yeah. So the the new bill that I saw recently would be another exemption which would be kinda helpful for demographic information solicited through survey tools that agencies utilize. Currently if you solicit information and it's not anonymous, if it's attached to a name, there's no exemptions that apply to the name, to the information solicited, any of that. This would create an exemption for demographic information when there is a name associated. That'd be a helpful exemption because again there's this concept especially from constituents, that we are able to assert privacy on behalf of them.

In large part we are never able to do that when constituents, for example, submit a code enforcement complaint. The universe in which we are able to redact the complainant's name is a very small universe but I think there's an expectation that I'm doing this privately. This is another privacy tool. The other one that thankfully thanks to the Chief we don't have to deal with is there's litigation and associated legislation with the FLoC cameras which are the cameras that are license fleet readers. Most of the agencies I'm aware of have bagged their cameras until it's worked out because the camera's retention and production capabilities do not necessarily match Washington public records laws.

But we don't have to deal with that. Thank you.

I'm glad we only considered those cameras and we didn't invest in them because we were close and we didn't pull the trigger on it.

All right.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

I'm gonna run through the rest of our agenda. Council committees are next. Economic development tourism hasn't met yet. Have you guys established a meeting date yet? I believe so. You don't believe so? Okay. Alright. I'm just checking in. Utilities, I heard this evening that your February meeting's been canceled and that transportation is actually gonna meet on that night for a quick meeting. Finance, you're scheduled to meet in February, I believe, the third Tuesday, and we're still waiting for feedback from a couple of you for time. Transportation met tonight. Congratulations, council member Warden. You're now the chair of the transportation committee, and do you have a report for us?

I do. Can everybody hear me?

Just fine. Yep.

Alright. So tonight, we discussed the Tremont, multiuse pathway. We had a a really nice presentation. Several options, things to consider, which direction to go. We're in the process of narrowing down the two options based off of the footprint and the cost.

We're gonna bring those, I'm pretty darn positive, to the February work study. So we're gonna bump up our meeting to February 10, a week before. That way, we can discuss it one more time before we bring it to the committee to the council, I apologize, in the work study. Our goal is to, give you guys the best the best available options, with everything that we need to consider. The Tremont and Sydney, we discussed pretty interesting, roundabout options, for the future, with the footprint topography that's there.

There's an option for, like, a peanut type of a roundabout. It's pretty interesting, but it would really work out really well for pedestrians as well as the traffic. And then we discussed the Bay Street project. The raising the road in the federal dollars. And I kind of want the mayor touch on that part of the federal dollars. Are you okay with that, Rob? Mister mayor?

Yeah.

Alright. Please go ahead. Please.

And I think I touched on it last. And I got an

email did.

You did. Mhmm. Date. So right now, that's through the you're going through the budget process. Well, I didn't hear this evening from senator Cantwell's office. I got an email from James Bray who's representative congressman Randall's staff. And the budget the federal appropriations passed through the house this week. I don't know yet whether or not we were in that. We should I hope we are. And hopefully by our next council meeting or before, I'll have some more information.

And it's this next week, the Senate is supposed to be working on their form of the budget. So that's one of three of the first few steps on that $3,500,000 that I hope we can receive. What I know at this point is the house is done. They're part of it. I hope that we're included in that. It's a much bigger bill than I can assimilate myself. So

anything else,

That's really all. If I Mark and Scott, if I missed anything, let me know. But I do look forward to next month's work study. Yeah. So great presentation today. Lots to consider. So

yep. Alright. Thank you for your report. Land use, I know you haven't met. Have you identified a meeting date so we can report that

out?

Right now, we're the third Wednesday of the month, but I'm trying to confirm that with Jim Fisko. We can get going in, elected chair, etcetera.

Lodging tax is a long ways away. Sewer advisory, that requires coordination with the west sound folks. I'm not certain that the date's been selected for that yet. Outside agencies, Kitsap Transit met on Tuesday. The majority of the meeting was related to the extended bus and ferry service related to FIFA, and I think I've told all of you guys that PowerPoint presentation.

A couple of those slides were relevant because they give you the dates and times of the games. And then there was a slide that showed, I think the service goes till midnight, the extended bus service and ferry service. There was also a discussion. You know, there was a grant money that Concept Transit took for the designing a new facility down on our waterfront that didn't move forward. So they're gonna return those those grant dollars for that design.

So mayor's report, I'm sorry. It's lengthy. We've been busy the last couple weeks here. So first, I'd like to I know that council members have been invited to the McCormick HOA meeting on March 28. Four of you have asked they actually indicated to Brandy you'd like to attend. If I have four council members, then I have to send a staff member to take minutes on a Saturday. Are we sure the four of you want to attend? If you are then we will make appropriate I'll be there. Okay.

What was that date again? I'm sorry.

It's March 28 and Scott, Shira, Jay and Mark have all signed up and I'm just confirming that all four of you do intend to because if we do, we have to notice it as a public meeting and and send someone from staff. So

I think, Mayor, that we'll have to consider that as just a part of doing business in the future with with

Alright. I'm just con just checking in.

So I guess that would be a question. Charlotte, one of us take minutes?

So the minutes can be, again, action minutes. So if it's just a conversation, the minutes are literally just Yes.

Yeah. The the this is their meeting. A meeting with the board. Right. We get asked informational, you know, like what's happening with this or with that.

Right.

It is never any action taken or asked how we were voting on something.

Right.

It's almost like listening to the mayor's report some days.

Yeah.

So I Do you do do minutes for these normally?

Are you noticing We the haven't attended

previously. No. We we yeah. We've we've only had two of us there Okay.

But when they attend other agency meetings, do you We just notice it as a just do a notice quorum.

The mayor or the lobbyists create minutes

and give it to me. Okay.

That's the normal practice we would do is just the action minutes would be attend the meeting. You wouldn't need the action meetings to describe the individual conversations.

So could one of us do that as opposed to having a staff member come in and be paid is my question.

Oh, I see. Possibly. I think it just depends on the reliability for agency liability. If one of you were to take that responsibility on in an official capacity and say I hereby attest I will do it, then I think that that would be a reasonable shift of potential impact.

I'm really

glad to sign up for this

Good. That's how

Or the secretary.

Planning a community service day to step up our downtown ahead of FIFA. I met talked to Sam about this, and I would like to be closer right on the cusp of FIFA because weeds grow in the spring and things. She's pushing for May 16, which is the weekend before mosquito fleet. I'm fine with that date. It's close enough to the FIFA activity.

The one challenge to that date is, and I really don't want to go any farther back in May, it's the same day as Armed Forces Day Parade in Bremerton. And so is there serious concerns with that date? John John is posturing that he has a concern with

that.

I'm I'm on that board. I created that organization. This actually will be the first time I don't lead the parade as its chair, but I will be in it for sure. So other than just a conflict, no.

And and we do have some RSTC folks that the junior RSTC that that volunteer.

I I was gonna say, the only other thing I will add, your school marching band won't be there. There's 40 some thousand people that attend that, so I do believe you just won't have great turnout.

Can we ask Sam to do it the week before? The night?

I had a conflict with that date myself. So and we start I'm already farther back from FIFA than I really wanna be because then all we all of a sudden, now we gotta do something again. You know? And so Whatever you guys Just trying to balance.

Yep. I'm okay with that, Dave.

Okay. I just wanted to communicate that. Friday, I met with port commissioner Gary Anderson, Sam from the Merchants Association staff. We all the the new port manager, Tim what's Tim's last name? We just know him as Tim. He's the new James Weaver. He was down there. Walked walked the waterfront. The port is committed to the banners that Josh identified to hang on the light fixtures. They're gonna replace some garbage cans, Gary said.

They're gonna make repairs to those benches that you don't like, Scott. I'm sorry. It's a big project to remove them because of the way the timber is going on the ground and all the concrete work there. We have got some ideas. That $100,000, about half of it will get based on the desire of the merchants, having more seating opportunities.

Those picnic tables that we want are about $5,000 a piece and that adds up fast. Benches are about $1,000 a piece. So we're close to $50,000 right out of the gate. So I'm gonna hopefully by the next council meeting have a list of all the things that we're proposing to do to share with you guys. Sam owes me a list of some other things that the merchants want to do too. So I gotta make sure it all fits. We talked to Adam. I've got another artist touching up the mural. There's about $10,000 right there between those two so it's going pretty fast.

Was there anything in the draft letter I sent to you that with the pictures that you sent on that

I sent whole thing to Dennis did to Tim to address.

What kind of lipstick are they putting on those benches?

Replacing some of the boards on them. At

some point we might wanna push for modern furniture. It

is their property and they're so we raised your concern. I shared the picture.

If they like them, we'll switch with what they got on the other side of the water.

It's a major project to remove them. Was

the Kinda costly.

They're embedded. The timbers on it are about this big around embedded in

the water. I mean, we cut them flush and

I

I

don't know that that's a solution. The light fixtures were more of a safety concern that are next to them. They're on wooden posts and in portion so they were looking at those going we've got to address that and there's other things that they're going to do for beautification.

What about the notion of putting a site plan if you will of the new breakwater So when people are walking the Transient Marina, they know this is not

It wasn't part of our conversation on on Friday. So we Alright.

Well, if that was sent on if that letter was sent on, then they saw it.

Yeah. One of the things we identified, we built them a beautiful dumpster enclosure on the end of our generator, and they're not using it. And they didn't know that's where their dumpsters were supposed to go. So yeah. So there was an easy fix there.

So and not they've got four dumps three dumpsters for trash, one for recycling. The goal we talked about was getting a bigger one bigger dumpster that fits in that just in in the space that we created for them in in our project and eliminating at least the trash on the dock at the end of the dock entrance to the dock. So it was a good meeting. Got the input from the merchants, what they want to see and a number of I think we're gonna take the existing benches down there and repurpose them and then put smaller it's not benches, picnic tables. The picnic tables that we have on the pads on the grass remove those because they're big and long and put two picnic tables on each one of those pads.

We can accommodate more people and more seating options. Doing a picnic table with a checkerboard on it and in the middle of the observation deck and three benches around the perimeter of it. And then think Mark's gonna talk to the Rotary Club about the benches and the picnic tables at Editorner Park are twenty years old and they're recycled plastic and they're not in good condition. If they will tackle the benches, there's two picnic tables there that we would potentially then, know, as part of this process, clean up the waterfront.

Those picnic tables under the next to the amphitheater would go away. Under the pavilion.

The overlook.

Not the overlook. The picnic tables at her At her James Park.

Yeah. I think those are good to

There's no picnic tables under the gazebo. There there's benches built into the perimeter of it. The bench the picnic tables are on the pads.

There's something somebody's grass. There's two tables.

Yeah. In underneath the

Somebody isn't taking it.

Yeah. Oh. I'm not aware of that. We'll also go by then look look

at that. Yeah. If you

look at anything this city or where the Rotary Club put

in there. They're in pretty bad shape. They're old recycled material, and one's got a severe sway in it. The at

by the bridge at Blackjack Creek?

No. No. Under the pavilion there by the parking lot.

You're you're talk okay. We're talking about two different locations. Okay. You're talking about Sauroptimus' Overlook?

Not on the overlook itself. The

other one where they have

The Marino. Music.

They have the band stuff. Yeah.

Oh, the picnic table's under the okay.

Those are in pretty bad

shape Whatever I don't know what there is something over at the covering at Edith Turner, but regularly when it's raining, there are folks there overnight.

So, okay. So anyway, we had a great meeting. Got lots of ideas. Lots of ideas were shared, and I'll be back. I hope Sam knows I need the list because we gotta get going on this stuff. This picnic tables on those benches have a two month lead time and we've got to get them ordered soon. Four of us went down for AWC's action days on Friday. Highlights at least for myself. The state's budget is bleak. Keep it at that.

The governor's proposed budget sweeps the public Works Trust Fund to the amount of $75,000,000 John and I spoke to our delegation on this very matter. I think that's poor policy and we're pushing back on that. Some are already conceding the fact that the trust fund will be swept and are trying to negotiate a deal that the sweep is delayed because if the sweep is delayed, if they do it at the end of the legislative session and sweep those funds there's 36 projects that have been awarded to cities that would be clawed back and that would be horrible to think that your project got funded and now it didn't get funded. So we are planning on using the trust public work trust fund for our Cold Clifton Water main project and the difference in interest rate from what NOAA can get in the bond market to the Public Works Trust Fund is about 2% and that has a direct effect on our rate payers. So we're pushing very hard that we shouldn't be considering when to sweep it, we should never be considering.

This is a revolving fund that cities get a loan from, they pay it back and then those funds are redeployed. We it we were at a AWC put on a fabulous reception on Wednesday evening. John and I got to have had an opportunity to talk to the mayor of Pullman and it's pretty bad. Some folks are really hurting out there. Know makes us feel makes me feel I go to these events and talk to people and we have challenges but nothing like some of these other folks. They prepared a budget for 2026, dollars 1,000,000 less than the prior year.

Has to cut $7,000,000 this year in this year's budget. I told Francis' story over and over again today.

They had already planned for a million dollar reduction and it's way worse than that. And they're they're a border city, you know, so everybody's going next door to Idaho to buy their gas. Their their jobs are moving over there. Their restaurants are moving over there.

They lost two jet sales because Boeing moved it across state line, and the sales tax that would have hit the city that helps offset the difference in the services they provide for all the college students, cause there's 40 some thousand people that live in Pullman, but only about a little over 15,000 that are permanent residents. So that was a huge hit.

Like I said, sometimes we think, you know, we have challenges, and and there's there's a lot of other stories out there. And it's, like, really great conference, Great Paulsbo put on a they're they're calling it now the Peninsula Caucus. They have Skig Harbor at Bainbridge, Paulsbo. Bremerton didn't attend, did they? No one from Bremerton attended.

We did. And the only representatives were that came were the 26. So we we got some really good one on one time with with our with our senator and representative Richardson Richards. And so that was and then in the morning, John and I spent most of Thursday morning up on the hill in in meetings with all of our delegation and and talking about our ask for Old Clifton, hammering home the no housing mandates. We need a breather there and talking about the Public Works Trust Fund.

And speaking of legislative things, next Monday we're scheduled to be done in Olympiad, and so I need a head count. Who's going? Who's planning on going? One, Monday. It's Monday evening. We're having the twenty sixth delegation and what's the time?

Oh, that's on

Thursday, isn't it?

No. Monday. Did notice that but it didn't have any information on it so I didn't know if it was still happening. I had, like, a something penciled So

I'm just so we are where are we?

I don't know if it's accurate. My calendar shows 06:30.

I think it's six or 06:30. I'll I'll I'll confirm that time. Here we go. 06:30. It is 06:30. Patient? I'll get you the address.

Sure. That's all the way in Olympia?

In Olympia. Yes. Is. Okay. So Scott, 53. You out?

Yeah.

Eric, are you in?

Yeah. I have a I have a doctor appointment and bill you at three. I should be able to make that.

Sure. From

yeah. I should be able to make that. So I'm I'm I'm gonna say yes to

that. Some leftovers.

I'll let you know by tomorrow for sure.

Okay. Just if please so tentatively share you a maybe. Yeah. Okay. If you could let me I told Shelley I'd give her answer tomorrow. K. I'll push it off till the end of the day.

I mean, I'll say yes now. I'm just saying y'all know I have young kids. It's a yes until it's not.

Are there any dietary restrictions?

Yes, gluten free, dairy free. Anybody

else? Just that there's food.

Good food.

I didn't get lunch today.

Okay. Alright.

Alright. Moving on. We wanted to talk about potential dates for town hall meetings. Did everybody bring their calendar? Yep. K. So and I somebody threw out Thursday, so I focused on Thursdays. Yep.

Well, I like Thursdays.

K. And so I went spring, summer, and early fall. And so the first group of dates I've got, first one is March 26 followed by April, or sixteenth. Any of those dates not for me?

I'm sorry, say that one more time.

March 26, April 2, April 9, or April 16. Tell me what. If any of those dates don't work and

And what what is the like April 2.

Oh, don't work.

Tell me what doesn't work. Yes.

Twenty sixth does not work.

Perfect. I did not I didn't offer you the twenty sixth, so that's good.

No. You said no. You said March 26.

'20 Oh, I

say it.

Yeah. You did. I'm sorry. I did say March. Yeah.

You did. I was just saying.

Okay. So now we're to April. April 2, ninth,

or sixteenth?

I can do that.

Yes. Oh.

Prefer the second.

Prefer the second.

Second's fine.

You're in the second? Second? Prefer the second. Alright. We're gonna go with the second. Alright. Look how easy that was. Yeah. Somebody said it couldn't be done.

That's also the day of the annual key to annual meeting.

I I

saw that. Body normally goes. We get a table.

Over at one

It is. I'm just saying Yeah.

Just Yep. It'll be a long day.

Oh, this is our first town hall, you mean?

Yes. It is. Oh, we'll get to locations. Listen. We're working on dates first. Yeah. One thing at a time. My bad. June now I'm looking at June 4, eighteenth, or twenty fifth. Any of those dates not work for anybody?

Is for Got a hold this time already for the first

Yeah. You're still working on putting the first one in.

Yeah. Is this for another second

one? This is we're I'm I'm I'm thinking we're gonna three this year.

Summer, spring, fall.

Talked about something downtown, something out towards Bethel, and something in McCormick.

Yep. Okay. I'm sorry. Did you say June what?

04/18, and twenty fifth.

Good for all.

Oh, well, June no. That would be okay. Mhmm.

Any of those have a conflict, Eric, you think?

Like the fourth. I mean, it work.

You don't like the fourth? I like the fourth. You like the fourth. I'm hearing that some now now we're at what we like. Nobody spoke up against June 4. Everybody good with June 4?

Mhmm.

K. Like it earlier on. Now we're to September.