City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone. It is Tuesday, September 15th, 2026 at 6 p.m. And I'm called this Lacey City Council regular meeting to order. All council here is present. So if you're able, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, I would also like to acknowledge that we, the city of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Treaty of Medicine Creek, including the Nisqually Indian Tribe and the Squaxin Island Tribe. With that, can I get a motion to approve this evening's agenda and consent agenda?

Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda as published. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Is there anyone opposed? Then that motion unanimously carries. We have adopted this evening's agenda and consent agenda. First up on our approved agenda is public recognitions and presentations and proclamations. And we first have a presentation from the Fire District 3 community update. Chief.

And I didn't practice this so wish me good luck here Feel very blessed to have had such a great audience a little stage fright I wasn't expecting everybody here, but as I shared with the city manager and mayor I'm going to spend just about 15 minutes talking to the community the council about the state of the district We like to come out and address the bigger community about once sometimes twice a year and we figured now was a good time with the fall upon us in 2027 projections and what's going on at the fire district. So I'll be brief and then possibly even open up for questions if we have some at the end. So let me see if we move forward here. All right, very good. I won't spend a lot of time. I think the district is recognized for being not just serving the city of Lacey, but also the greater community outside of that. We take a lot of pride in our service with excellence motto, but also that we're trusted professionals and that our goal every day is to be out there and available to our community. If you ever follow us on social media, you'll see that we have the LFT Three Way, which is really an important document, not just because We abide by it, but we believe that our community should hold us to these standards. So I'll talk a little bit about that as we go through the rest of this presentation. I think everyone thinks of the fire district and they think of fire and EMS response, and we absolutely do that in this community. We partner with a lot of agencies, which I'll talk about, but I think it's important that the community knows that Lacey Fire is more than just fire and EMS. We are one of the few agencies in the county that has a lot of specialized teams. We have a sort team, which is rope rescue, confined space, trench rescue, collapse. We partner with other agencies in the county to provide that. And that probably doesn't mean a lot day to day, but if we ever have a major event from anything from industrial to even a major disaster, those are skills that you're gonna want your fire department to have. Other things that I like to brag on about our proactive approach to community service is our water rescue program. I think when you think about Thurston County, the sound, the waterways, specifically the city of Lacey and unincorporated areas that we serve, we have a lot of lakes. We have the Nisqually River. Believe it or not, that is one of the highest call volumes outside of fire and EMS that we respond to. And we are, I would say, kind of the lead in the county. We actually respond all throughout the county, all the way down to the county line, even into Mason County. and beyond, so that's something we can all be proud of as far as what we provide. A couple of things that I'm just gonna mention here, but I'll talk about them later. Some proactive approaches that we have to first response is our community risk reduction, in which we've been working with the city for some time, and I'll talk about that in a minute. And then the other one that I wanna give a little bit of a tip of the hat to is our support services and our community social work program. Partner agencies, you would all expect that we would work with the city, which we obviously do and have been invited here, but I think it's important that everyone knows that we actually have mutual aid and ongoing automatic aid with our city partners, so Tumwater, Olympia Fire, but also other fire districts. People don't often realize that South Bay has its own fire department, East Olympia has its own fire department, Southeast Thurston, and so I share that because we have ongoing relationships where it doesn't matter where you live in our service area, We have partnerships to make sure that everyone is taken care of and that we train and have ongoing relationships to provide the best service. I referenced law enforcement. We're obviously closely embedded here with Lacey PD. We've got partnerships, ongoing conversations and training with them. But also we have areas that we serve that are in the county. We connect deeply with Thurston County Sheriff's Office and even Washington State Patrol as we have I-5 running right down our service area. Another important mentions is Medic One. They actually coordinate and help support EMS response for the whole county. And then obviously our 911 dispatch center, which is TCOM. I'm not gonna go into depth. I throw this map up for those of you that don't fully understand how the fire district supports you. This is a map of our service area. Each color represents a different fire station or zone, which all Lacey Fire covers all of these. Specific to the city, if you look at the yellow, the blue, and the pink, those are the higher, more dense areas that we serve. And the reason I like showing this map is it highlights all five of our career stations that we operate out of. This means that we have people 24-7 in all of those locations. And it's very not typical for fire districts that have come up over time through partnerships to have such a great spread of service area. And we're really proud that there's a fire station pretty much in every nook and cranny of the area that you would want us to serve. So I'd highlight that because that's great efficiency for our community. Now, something I did want to talk a little bit about, and this is really important, you're going to hear us talk about this on social media, but certainly with our partner agencies. If you don't know this already, Lacey Fire is the biggest fire department in the county. I think people often look at the city of Olympia and assume that that fire agency is the biggest. It's not. We have the biggest service area. Like the city, we have the biggest population, also the highest call volume. If you take every other fire district in the county, combine their call volume, Lacey Fire would still have more. Now, I share that because in the last 10 years, we've grown 43%. And I think all of us know from the work that we do and the way that we serve the community, no one's surprised by the increase in call volume. may be difficult to see from your seat, but one of the things that we've been doing, our Board of Fire Commissioners has been looking at, is what are the trends? There were years in 16 and 17, and then I think 18 to 19, where our call volume grew almost 1,000 calls a year. That's a big deal. That is not just our need to continue to improve our services, but it's also an impact to the community and what their expectations are of us. I mentioned that, actually spoke to a person here this morning, or I'm sorry, this afternoon and evening, about impacts of COVID. So I'd like you all to forget about that drop. And during COVID, even though it was EMS heavy, a lot of people stayed home and our call volume went down, which was help for what we needed. But then our call volume continues to increase. I share that because Several years ago, my predecessor, former fire chief Steve Brooks, we sat down and we planned for the future. And one of the things we looked at is as call volume increases, it's very easy for fire organizations to add additional engines or to add additional medic units, thinking the more calls you have, the more units you need. What we did is we did an audit and we looked at our community and said, what are the needs? Call volume was going up, but the call volumes were not necessarily things that our responders needed to do on fire engines or on medic units. We looked and our community needed a lot of help with social work. We had an aging population that had needs for support with whether it was finances, access to medical care. Our members were responding to fires where maybe their resources weren't readily available. I put some pictures up here so you could see it, but on the left of the screen there as two shiny faces, these actually are leaders in our support services division. They were hired in 2021, specific with backgrounds in counseling, social work, and even chaplaincy. They came in and we're the only organization in the county that provides services where when our firefighters go out and they meet a family that has specific needs, they can go back to the fire station, they'll let this group know, and we do house calls. We go back out, we connect them with other groups in the community that provide great services, and we help Stop calls before they start if someone is a fall risk We send a team out to figure out how to make their home safer if someone needs access to Ongoing care we help connect them with services that might provide that now I share that because but paired that Along with our community risk reduction which you might have heard at previous City Council meetings that group goes out we've paired with the city and they look at opportunities to get into the business community to make our community safer and And our goal is to prevent calls before they start. So when we look, and I'm gonna go back, if it'll let me, maybe not. Nope, I'm just gonna keep going forward. I don't know if anybody can fix that for me or not, but I'll just keep talking. If we looked at our call volume increase, what, there we go, well done. I don't know who's my... I hope we're there, but I owe you a coffee. So if you look at that call volume increase, what we're really proud about is that our call volume stopped jumping 1,000 a year, and now we're seeing small increases. We're seeing a couple hundred. We're seeing maybe 500. What we can't account for is how many calls we're not going on, but we know that not only are we providing great service to our community members, These groups also provide great service to the responders so that they know that what they're doing is purposeful And and they feel valuable when they know that they're not just fixing the one immediate problem But perhaps ongoing problems that might be prevented so I share that with you all And I wanted to jump into a really important topic that I wanted to share now It's going to be difficult to see this and I kind of hope that you don't see the associated agencies that are on here because I'm not trying to call out our partner agencies but just do a demonstration. We could probably spend an hour talking about how fire districts are funded, but ultimately we are funded by property taxes. We have levies, a regular levy rate, and you'll see kind of in the center of that top graph, levy rates, and you'll see Lacey fires called out in blue. Our normal levy rate is $1.50 per $1,000 of your assessed value on your home. We do have an excess levy on there for six cents, but if you look at that far right column and the numbers mapped out, Lacey Fire is at $1.56. If you go down now, you'll see that a lot of the smaller districts are about $1.50, and that's pretty average. That's a healthy range to be in. I'm not calling out the other agencies that are in yellow, but our point in bringing this up is that, again, it's important for our community to know that as much service as Lacey Fire provides, the size agency, we are one of the best values in the county, and we're very proud of how fiscally responsible we are. If you look down further, you can see that we actually compared ourselves to like agencies out of county, places that you've probably heard of, East Pierce, West Pierce, Central Kitsap, and Gig Harbor. And if you look at their rates, 207, 217, 221, and then even West Pierce is $1.41, but they have another funding mechanism. Again, Lacey's very proud of the fact that we continue to stay below, well below, comparable agencies. Now I wanna take a minute, and this is something that if you're paying attention as you drive through our north of I-5 area, every single person that knows that Hawks Prairie area knows how much it's grown. If you think back 10 years, we could never have imagined, perhaps the members of the city council would have known this, But we have had so much growth and development, things that actually probably are wonderful for all of us, but then also brings congestion, traffic, and increased call volume. And so I bring that up because the fire district actually procured property north of I-5 off of Britton Parkway, knowing that this area is continuing to grow. I've got a red star on this heat map. Again, you'll kind of see the black little markers that indicate our fire stations. And the heat map, the darker colors that you see are higher areas of call volume. And you see that a lot of our stations are positioned in good areas for response. But that red area is an area of concern for us. It happens to be where our property is located. And we believe not just with the predicted growth from just our development, but also as we believe that the Nisqually Tribe has property in going through a fee-to-trust process with the federal government. unknowns are important for us to plan for and so we bring that up because our goal long term is to add an additional fire station which would be a station 36 right where that red dot is at also looking at a training facility and logistics warehouse and i could spend a lot of time explaining the needs for those but again that's behind the scenes i think what our community cares about response times and having emergency responders in the middle of emergencies. But all of those things that we believe are not just needed immediately, but we believe in the next 5, 10, 20 plus years these will be things that help our community not lose progress and to be ready for everything that we are excited to see. Another project that I'll mention, if you look down to the far right, there's another red dot. That's our most rural fire station, the station 32 off of the Yelm Highway. We opened that to full career service at the beginning of 2025 because we saw this edge in growth. If you'll notice, there is not a lot of heat map activity down there. That fire station is actually a manufactured home. You can kind of see in the picture there, And then right there in front, there's a small bay that's not connected to the manufactured home that is so old, we actually have a hard time fitting fire engines in there. And I tell people with all honesty, we literally have inches to spare. It's difficult to find apparatus that fit in there. Now, I bring this up because we've recognized it's not ideally located. If we move this just to the west, and so if you look on your map, Just slightly to the left, closer to Station 33, you'll see that it'll absorb more of the call volume. It'll actually help, kind of through a cascade effect, alleviate some of the call volume. We always wonder, well, I don't live out in that area, why is it important? Well, fixing that area will help alleviate all of the other stations and making our apparatus, our crews, available for what we'll call the core area of Lacey. And so it is important that we look at the bigger picture. And that's another area of growth that we're trying to plan for looking at property and building a fire station that represents that community, but that can properly serve the greater area that we serve. One of the main things I wanted to make sure that we got out and shared with the community, we do have a bond that's gonna be on the ballot November 3rd. You probably have got the abbreviated version of what we've been releasing on social media, through our website, and basically our goal is to make sure that our community has the facts. We are advocating for everyone to get out and vote in whichever way you think appropriate as far as your engagement in the community, but ultimately letting everyone know what our goals are. Our goals are to grow at a rate that's appropriate for our community, but also knowing that we're being fiscally responsible. Our plans include the two fire stations, a training facility, and logistics. And we do believe that we're doing it early enough that our community will only see improvements and not see any sort of recession or step back from the services that we already provide. This is the mailer that you will all see coming out in the near future, likely in October. And then the other important part, and I think this is probably the most critical part. Again, I was talking prior to the meeting and I was sharing that as you drive by and you see gas prices, it's not lost on me that every single person in our community is looking at How do you budget? How do you plan and prioritize what's important? What we wanted to bring forward is if you look at a home assessed of about a $500,000 value, the impacts monthly if you end up voting yes on this bond would be about $8 to $11. And I think that's important because as you look at what impacts your family might have, it's important to know that that would be the impact to help provide these services improvements and assets to our community. I don't know where I'm at in time, but again, trying to be responsible because I know we have a lot of other important items. But the last slide I wanted to pull out, this looks very reminiscent of the slide that I showed a little bit earlier about the financial responsibility of the fire district. I just wanted to share that if the bond happens to be approved by the community, I wanted to give you a look again about how we would match up with other comparables. So again, looking at that first graph, the blue line, And across that would put Lacey fires overall costs at $1.79 per thousand dollars of assessed value still well within the norms of the county and still under some smaller districts that serve communities just outside of ours. If you look down at the bigger picture outside of Thurston County, you'll see that we would still be well below what comparable agencies look like outside of us. So again, I just wanted to give a general update and understanding of what Lacey Fire does, the community and bigger area that we serve. I wanted to offer, I've been the fire chief for two years. And in that two years, I've been very blessed and grateful to be able to sit in my seat, but also I've joked with many people that when I stepped into my role, I felt like a trust fund baby. And I say that because the fire chief before me took a lot of great care and planning. We are not marching into a time where there's doom and gloom, but rather opportunity to stay at the pace with what our community already expects from us. And I'm very proud and grateful that our community has always been so supportive of us. I thank you for your time and then I would just love to offer that if anybody, any council members, any other members of the city and certainly our community members, we've got a QR code for access to a lot of the information and the facts. We also have a series of, unfortunately me talking to a camera, so I apologize for that, but a series of videos that helps break down projects, costs and all of those things. Please do engage on us with social media, with our website, and I would be glad to take any phone calls, emails, or even in-person visits from anybody that wants more information from us. Did I do it?

15 minutes? Yep. You're absolutely great, Chief.

Okay. Very good.

Really appreciate it. Any questions for the Chief? Well, thank you. That was a great presentation, a lot of great information, and we really appreciate hearing from you. And We expect nothing less with a fire district named Lacey. So keep up the great work.

Okay, very good. Thank you very much.

So next up on our agenda is a proclamation for Hispanic and Latinx X Heritage Month. We'll start with the proclamation.

City of Lacey, official proclamation. Whereas during Hispanic and Latina, Latino, Latinx Heritage Month, we honor the rich heritage of the Hispanic and Latinx community and celebrate their countless achievements and.

Whereas the observance began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week and was enacted into federal law on August 17, 1988, calling upon public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to observe this time with ceremonies, activities, and programs, and...

Whereas the city recognizes and celebrates the diversity of community members that this month commemorates, honors, and pays tribute to individuals who speak Spanish, who are descendants from Spanish-speaking countries, are descendants from over 26 Latin American countries and who may speak a variety of different languages. And we recognize the Latinx identity also encompasses people in indigenous, black and African, Asian and queer communities and

Whereas Washington has grown more diverse over the past decade, with the Hispanic community now representing 14.2% of Washingtonians, with the Hispanic community in Lacey representing 12% of the population, and whereas Hispanic and Latinx community members have made immeasurable contributions to the advancement of the United States and the city of Lacey, including, but not limited to, serving in our armed forces as elected officials, public servants,

essential workers, agricultural workers, teachers, business owners, and cultural and creative industry leaders, and Whereas 2026 honors the theme Pioneers of Change, Shaping the Future Together, highlighting innovators, leaders, and changemakers across fields such as science, arts, politics, and community activism, and Now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, Mayor of the City of Lacey, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby recognize September 15,

through October 15th, 2026 as Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month in Lacey. Encourage our community to celebrate the strengths that emerge from diversity and participate in activities to learn more about our Hispanic and Latinx communities, their histories and contributions to our city and society. Signed by myself, Mayor Andy Writer on this day. And now we're gonna bring up our poet laureate to read a poem.

Good evening, everyone. Can you all hear me? My name is Sonia, and I am the current Poet Laureate of the City of Lacey. And in honor of Latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month, I wanted to share a poem from a Latin American writer. As some of you may know, Latin America is home to many very important artists, writers, poets, and has a very strong cultural tradition around poetry that I've always respected and enjoyed and appreciated, and so in selecting a poem to share with you all tonight, there was a lot to choose from, and I decided to share this story, The Teller of Tales, by a Chilean poet. Her name is Gabriela Mistral, and she was the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and she was from Chile, and she was born in 1889, and died in 1957, and during her lifetime, she was an educator. She was a tireless advocate for children, for women, for indigenous peoples, and the oppressed. She lived all over Latin America, serving in various roles as an educator. She also lived in Europe, and she served on the League of Nations, as well as the UN, and she also spent time living here in the United States. So I hope you all enjoy this poem. the teller of tales. When I'm walking, everything on earth gets up and stops me and whispers to me. And what they tell me is their story. And the people walking on the road leave me their stories. I pick them up where they fell, in cocoons of silken thread. Stories run through my body or sit purring in my lap. So many they take my breath away, buzzing, boiling, humming. Uncalled they come to me and told they still won't leave me. The ones that come down through the trees weave and unweave themselves and knit me up and wind me around until the sea drives them away. But the sea that's always telling stories, the wearier I am, the more it tells me. The people who cut trees, the people who break stones, want stories before they go to sleep. women looking for children who got lost and don't come home, women who think they're alive and don't know they're dead. Every night they ask for stories, and I return, tale for tale. In the middle of the road, I stand between rivers that won't let me go, and the circle keeps closing, and I'm caught in the wheel. The riverside people tell me of the drowned women sunk in grasses, and her gaze tells the story. And I graft the tales into my open hands. To the thumb come stories of animals. To the index fingers, stories of my dead. There are so many tales of children, they swarm on my palm like ants. When my arms held the ones I had, the stories all ran as a blood gift in my arms all through the night. Now, turned to the east, I'm giving them away because I forget them. Old folks want them to be lies. Children want them to be true. All of them want to hear my own story, which, on my living tongue, is dead. I'm seeking someone who remembers it, leaf by leaf, thread by thread. I lend her my breath, I give her my legs, so that hearing it may waken it for me. Thank you.

How amazing it is for Lacey to have a poet laureate. Thank you so much. So now we're going to bring up Paulette and Gustavo to accept this proclamation.

Mayor, council members, city and community members. My name is Paulette Perez Burgos and I'm honored to serve on the board of the Hispanic Roundtable of South Sound. I'm joined tonight by Gustavo del Castillo Ramirez, a City of Olympia employee and another of our Hispanic Roundtable board member. We are grateful to be here as we receive this proclamation recognizing National Hispanic Heritage Money the City of Lacey. Thank you for inviting us and for your continued commitment to uplifting the diverse community that's called Lacey Home. The Hispanic Roundtable was founded in 2002 as a nonprofit to improve access to community resources, services, economic development, education, and employment for Latinx people in the South Sound community. Our vision is a stronger Latino community and our vision is a stronger Latino community and our mission is to be the stronger partnership, education, community building, and cultural representation. Our board includes 11 members with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and age. Our diversity is one of our strengths. You don't need to speak Spanish or be Hispanic or Latino to join us. We welcome anyone who cares about our mission and wants to support the Hispanic community.

Since its second year founded, the Sparky Roundtable has sponsored a Latinx Youth Summit. Over the years, the summit has grown into an annual event serving more than 500 Latinx high school students from five counties. Hosted are rotating colleges, campuses, it's a day centered on college readiness, career exploration, and health and wellness workshops, each one culturally informed and celebrating our identities. For the 25 and 26 school years, we made a very difficult decision to shift the summit from an in-person event to a virtual event. This was in response to the difficult political and social climate in which the Latinx students and families we serve has been targeted for harm right here in our own community. Their safety remains and has always been our highest priority. The decision served as a reminder of why it's so critical for local jurisdictions to keep doing everything possible to ensure the well-being of all community members, especially those who are the most vulnerable. The summit thrived because of a strong partnership with colleges, educators, businesses, and community members who believe deeply in our youth. We're always looking for new board members, new roundtable members, and new volunteers to support our efforts. please feel free to reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram, or on the web at hispanicroundtable.org.

In conclusion, I would like to remind everyone how important and vital is that we protect a space of joy, a place where culture is honored and community is strengthened. Events like the Latinx Youth Summit and its uplifting LACI community forums on October 16th helped us to celebrate our diverse culture, our numerous similarities, and our collective humanity. This kind of work build community, it help us. At this time, when Latinx and Hispanic community has been dehumanized by harmful rhetoric and practices, one of the strongest responsible is called connection, human to human. So we invite you to show up. We ask you to support this cultural gathering and local businesses. We implore you to protest our ability not to just to assist, but experience joy, community, and strongness.

As we accept this proclamation, we do so with deep gratitude and with a call to continue fostering a community where everyone can be safe, connected, and able to thrive. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, everybody. And we're really happy to be here. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Now we'll go on to our next proclamation, which is National Border Registration Day.

City of Lacey, official proclamation. Whereas, registering to vote empowers eligible community members to exercise their right to vote on Election Day. And...

Whereas, the City of Lacey is committed to strengthening democracy by encouraging voter registration and increasing participation in all elections. And...

Whereas, civic-minded people and organizations have collaborated to establish September 15, 2026 as National Voter Registration Day. And...

whereas the goal for the 2026 National Voter Registration Day is to create awareness of elections and motivate eligible community members to vote in the coming months, and whereas the strength of our democracy depends on the willingness of our community members to participate by choosing those who will lead us and voicing their opinions on important matters that will come before the voters on election day, and whereas the Thurston County Urge Your Neighbors to Vote Challenge aims to encourage voters to reach out to their neighbors with the tools and information they need to feel informed and empowered to turn in their ballots.

And now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, Mayor of the City of Lacey, on behalf of the Lacey City Council, do hereby recognize September 15, 2026 as National Voter Registration Day in Lacey and encourage all eligible community members to register to vote, to vote when they receive their ballots, and to inspire others to vote. Signed by myself, Mayor Andy Ryder, on this day. And we have a member from our auditor's office here.

Here's your proclamation.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Lynn Watanabe. I'm an election supervisor for the Thurston County Auditor's Office. Thank you for recognizing National Voter Registration Day. We appreciate you helping the Auditor's Office raise awareness of registering and participating in democracy. Voting is a cornerstone of our democracy, but you can't vote if you're not registered. 2026 is the 13th National Voter Registration Day in Thurston County, and voter registration has never been easier. 16 and 17-year-olds can pre-register and receive a ballot as soon as they are eligible. If you have missed all the ways to automatically register, you can go to VoteWA.gov and follow the prompts to register online. You can also register all the way up to 8 p.m. on Election Day at one of our two voting centers in Thurston County. For everyone who is already registered, please take the time to make sure you update your voter registration information when you need to. You can also sign up for text to be alerted with the status of your ballot after you turn it in at one of our drop boxes. Again, thank you for your support and partnership on this and so many other important issues.

And we have one last proclamation. It's a really important proclamation because it's come from one of our Lacey Youth Council members who approached us about having a Youth Leadership Month. And so this is her proclamation. Council Member.

City of Lacey, official proclamation. Whereas youth are valuable contributors to the community through their leadership, creativity, civic engagement, advocacy, and their ability to influence positive change, and...

Whereas the City of Lacey is committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming community so young people from all diverse backgrounds and communities are valued, respected, and empowered to have their voices heard, and...

Whereas youth leadership opportunities such as the Lacey Youth Council empower young people to develop leadership skills, civic knowledge, confidence, and a strong sense of responsibility while contributing to their community. And whereas youth bring unique experiences and perspectives that provide valuable insight into better understanding the challenges and opportunities facing young people and the broader community. Ann?

Whereas young people are not only important community members today, but are also shaping our future through their ideas, leadership, and connections they bring to our community. And?

Whereas recognizing and supporting youth leadership strengthens our community by empowering young people to become engaged, informed, and confident leaders. Ann?

Now, therefore, I, Andy Ryder, Mayor of the City of Lacey, on behalf of the Lacey City Council, do hereby proclaim September 2026 as Youth Leadership Recognition Month in the City of Lacey. I urge all community members to celebrate and acknowledge the impact of youth by mentoring youth, creating youth leadership opportunities, listening to young voices, and recognizing their achievements in supporting youth-led initiatives. Signed by myself, Mayor Andy Ryder, on this day.

Isabella, we can accept this proclamation.

Great job. And the floor is yours.

Good evening Council and everyone who had the chance to be here. I'm Isabella Valerio, a senior at River Ridge High School and our Lacey Youth Council Mayor. I am so thankful that I had this opportunity to develop and share this proclamation. I'm also beyond grateful that I had the chance to be on the Youth Council for the last three years. It has not only provided me great opportunities like these, but it has taught me how to express myself and advocate for what I believe in. There were some things that I had never opened up about before that I developed the courage to share through the safety and love I felt not only from our community, but from council members on both councils. That is my why. I believe if I can gain the courage to show vulnerability to my community and city and still receive nothing but support and respect, so can more young people like myself. Recognition of our voices and our impact through service, compassion, leadership, and many other contributions with unique projects like these don't just validate our experiences as youth, they help us grow and give us hope. Thank you for allowing me to speak today and be a part of this important accomplishment for our city.

That was awesome. I absolutely love our youth council. Thank you for everything you do to give back to our community. And what a proclamation. Thank you so much for bringing it forward. So next on our agenda is public comment. And we had a couple people signed up for public comment, and they made it under the deadline. But then we had a couple more people sign up for public comment, and they just missed the deadline. I sort of made an executive decision to allow them all to speak. Thank you. So let's go forward with the remote public comments first. And I'll leave it up to, first we have Ed Pohl. Can we bring Ed in first?

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you. Thank you. Just introduce yourself, Ed, and you will have three minutes for public comment.

Thank you. I didn't realize that my comment was actually accepted, so I don't have my comments in front of me.

That's right. If you can just paraphrase it, then we'll go from there. Thanks, Ed.

Okay. Regarding the Friends issue coming up, I'm very disappointed that... The council has decided to divest its responsibility on a $3 million project to another city council and to Waihai, which both are not representative of... good management or good policy, especially in the area of homelessness. I recommend strongly that the City Council vote no on this policy and withdraw from the organization with Olympia, Thurston County, and Tumwater. I was on the Homeless Committee for Lacey back in the days in 2021. And I learned a lot about homelessness. The inability to solve hopelessness is quite evident in that in five years, the Olympia has failed miserably to reduce the homelessness in the city, and Lehi has failed in the... in the Lacey unit that they have and has not performed adequately. Thank you.

Thank you, Ed. I appreciate your public comment. Let's see if we can bring in the next person. Is Tila available?

Hi. Thank you, Mayor Ryder. This is and I am an Olympia resident. And I am joining you to encourage the council members to approve funding for Franz Anderson. Homelessness in Thurston County is a regional crisis which requires cooperation from all jurisdictions to address effectively. Fran Zanderson will add 50 units of emergency housing to the region and does not eliminate the 20 units at Maple Court awaiting improvements. While our 2025 point in time count identified 883 homeless individuals, OSPI numbers are sobering and indicate numbers we cannot ignore. with an enrollment of 6,193 students saw a 3% homelessness rate among students, which is 185 students. Olympia had a 2.5% rate of homelessness among 9,666 students, which is 241 students experiencing homelessness. North Thurston Public Schools has a rate of 6.2% students experiencing homelessness, and with a 15,154 student enrollment, that is 939 students in North Thurston District who experienced homelessness in the last year. This is a crisis that is not going away. And while there are certainly valid questions and concerns about how money is spent, that can be addressed through oversight and working together regionally with the Regional Housing Council. And in this case, if Lacey does not approve this funding for Frames-Anderson, then Lacey will be the jurisdiction which prevents 50 units of emergency housing. This is not the Lacey I know. I know that Lacey values its residents and that wants to address this homelessness crisis and be a participant in eliminating homelessness. Franza Anderson is an essential step. The funding for that needs to get approved now. If it does not get approved now, that's 50 less units we will have to assist in this towards a positive outcome. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next, we have Heidi. Hi, Heidi.

Hello.

Introduce yourself, and you'll have three minutes.

Hi, my name is Heidi Benianthis, and I'm a Thurston County resident. I live in Olympia. I am also the Lived Experience Housing Steering Committee Chair of Thurston County. I serve as a voting member of the Homeless Services Advisory Board and a non-voting member of the Regional Housing Council and I also serve on the Washington State Department of Commerce, Homeless Assistance Unit, Lived Experience Advisory Council. I am commenting tonight as the Lived Experience Housing Steering Committee Chair. I am asking you to approve the Lehigh and Franz Anderson project And I'm going to bring a little bit of a lived experience aspect to this because I'm hearing things that are not of lived experience, which I do have. And I want everybody to kind of remember a movie most people have seen, which is the Titanic.

And it was pointed out that there are not enough lifeboats on the Titanic.

And what I'm seeing in Thurston County and even in the state but specifically our county is we're sinking ship right now. We do not have enough homes for people and those are the lifeboats. So to not have those lifeboats is to deny a veteran who served his country and signed that blank check to offer his life up to provide all of the freedoms that we have, or an elderly person who helped build the community, or a single mother who is fleeing domestic violence and has nowhere to go but to go out to the streets. This project and the other projects that are also in the ILA is a matter of life and death. And yes, there may be concerns, but if there's concerns about operations, please put accountability measures in the ILA to address those. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We have one last person online, and that's Sarah Morris.

Good evening, my name is Sarah Morris and I'm a Lacey City resident and I am here tonight. I just wanted to stop by as someone who has kind of been in the trenches and done a lot of work in homeless advocacy. I just have so many concerns about the Franz Anderson project. And the biggest one is just the fact that we keep giving our tax dollars to Lehigh. I understand that they're like the only game in town when it comes to who is running and overseeing and actually technically owning these buildings that are being built with taxpayer dollars. And it's very, very concerning to me that there aren't the measures in place. Looking through the online, like the amendments that are coming and that, I just don't see anything that is holding Lehigh accountable with actual ramifications. And that's what we've seen with Maple lane, that's what we've seen at unity commons. That's what we've seen. We have built Lehigh hundreds of millions of dollars of housing, and there is no metrics that we can look at to show that it's taxpayer dollars being used properly. And I am all for, I want to say that the two comments that were here in favor of this, I agree with everything they said. We absolutely need to continue to look for a solution in this, but throwing more money at Lehigh is just throwing good money after bad. And I just feel like as a Lacey City resident, there is so much that we could do with $3 million instead of entrusting the city of Olympia and Lehigh with our tax dollars, with no guardrails, that I see in place. Again, I just wanna just reiterate that I understand the problem. I have been in the fight with the solution for years and what we are doing is not working. 50 units and the price tag of those 50 units is people should be concerned about this. And the fact of the matter that we don't retain ownership of any sort, Literally we build this building for the biggest contributor in the homeless complex. It is now a money-making business. Lehigh is the thing that we should be fighting against and instead we are funding them. So I hope you guys all dig in your conscience and vote against this or your constituents of Lacey.

Thank you, Sarah, and thank you for your public comment and getting in. OK. Do we have anyone else online? I don't think so. OK. Then let's go to people who signed up for public comment. And let's get Wendy out of the way. Wendy, you signed up for, real quick, to talk about a community event. Yeah, why don't you come on up. tell us about it and come up to the podium. Go ahead and introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes.

Thank you. My name is Wendy Guzman. I work with Together, a nonprofit organization based out of Thurston County, and I'm joined

Jocelyn Moreno, I'm one of the site coordinators at the clubhouse program for Leo Hawk Elementary.

Now Together consists of three different programs, community schools, host homes, and clubhouse. I am the co-director for the clubhouse program. We had the honor of receiving a grant sponsored by the city of Lacey, so we thank the city of Lacey for your continued support. We will be having a community event October 31st on Halloween for the Day of the Dead. And we invite all the community to come and join us to celebrate our past loved ones. And, yeah, I think that would be all. We're not going to take up too much of your time. But we have some flyers up in the front sharing the location. We will have vendors. We will have food trucks. We will also be... collecting funds for our clubhouse program. We serve two elementary schools in the North Thurston public schools and two middle schools and any funds will be going towards continued support to our families and our youth in those programs.

Great, and can you remind us again the date and time for it?

Yes, of course. So it will be October 31st on Saturday, starting at 2 p.m. until 5 p.m., and yeah.

And at where, where at?

Oh, sorry, at Lydia Hawk Elementary.

Great, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, have a good night.

So next up on our public comment, people signing up for public comment is Bob Kagey. It's really good to see you, Bob. Come on up, and you'll have three minutes. Introduce yourself, and you'll have three minutes.

Thank you, Mayor Ryder. I'd like to address the council based on the Franz Anderson project, and I'm going to speak in opposition to it, and I'm speaking for several reasons. First of all, I was on the Lacey Homeless Committee, and we met for over two years, and I was asked to be a spokesperson to this council by the committee, and I made a report that was here and there, but nonetheless, I learned a lot about homelessness and the processes, procedures, vendors. I mean, we looked at a vendor list that was this long, you know, collecting money to deal with the issue. And one of those vendors was Lehigh, and they're currently doing a project in Lacey. As you all know, it's Maple Court. It's kind of an open drug market. I don't know if you ever go and get a fish burger at that Burger King there and just pull, because they don't serve them, they cook them, so you've got to wait. So they park you out there and you just sit there and look at it. And you could, I mean, right in the middle of the day, I mean, it's pretty obvious. So what I'm talking about, the reason I'm speaking against it is, It doesn't make sense to me to invest in an organization which we've already invested into and which has not actually resulted in the outcomes that we want. Now, are they capable of doing that? I would assume so. They're a huge organization. They have lots of money. They need to fix the area that we've already invested in before we invest in them again. It just doesn't make sense to put $3 million in and the one they have is not really functioning. we could take half of that money and pay for the changes that they wanna make and turning it into a permanent housing situation, which I'm not really speaking to that issue, but that could make sense, it could not, depends on the accountability measures and the responsibility to fix the problem. I mean, cause that's kind of their issue and it seems, do not make sense to me, once again, to put another three million before they've actually fixed this one. The other part of that is that Lacey's money should really stay in Lacey. I mean, that's kind of a fundamental thing. I'm not really opposed to regional things. But if we haven't fixed the issue, then You know, we need to invest our money there first. Now, lastly, I just want to talk about the issue of accountability. The Housing First model, which Lehigh is using, is, you know, been a fairly touted model. Am I out of time? You are out of time, Bob. But I'm just saying we need to have more accountability in that model. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, thank you for coming here tonight. Next up we have Veronica. And it's great to see you.

Nice to see you too. This is my first time, so.

Yeah, no problem. Please introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes.

Okay, thanks. Hello, my name is Veronica Shriver. I live outside of the Lacey city limits, but I consider Lacey my primary community as I work and do most of my shopping there. After reading the article from the Olympian regarding more funds for Lehigh, I highly discourage any more funding to go to France and the Maple Court in Lacey. At this point, putting more money into a system that continues to fail appears increasingly fraudulent to a taxpayer. The system appears broken. Holding nonprofit organizations accountable seems to not be working, as there is the impression that taxpayers' money is fruitful. Thus, there is no need to work hard for it. Reality needs to be set in place for any organization like these. A simple Google search shows in 2021, Lehigh executive made $300,000 a year. Now she makes an annual salary of $338,000 a year, a $40,000 raise in just five years. Something doesn't look right. Homeless is on the rise, yet she's being rewarded. I can't imagine making this kind of money while working for a nonprofit. I would be ashamed to make this kind of money while others are suffering. With housing nonprofits continuing to pop up around Puget Sound, all showing similar patterns of failure, while paying high salaries as taxpayers' expense, it's hard not to see a pattern. Nonprofits were once driven by people giving their time to causes they believed in, often for very modest pay. Today, some have become highly compensated businesses, raising concerns about how much funding reaches those in need, without any accountability from the top to the bottom. Hard questions need to be asked, especially to Maple Court. How many residents have been housed at Maple Court since opening? How many transitioned to permanent housing? How many have successfully gone through rehab training and work placement programs? How many staff has been employed and what is the turnover rate to date? Who is the current manager of Maple Court? Is there any supervisory person or counseling staff residing on site? We need measurable and documented numbers of success. There needs to be goals in place to ask for more money. Has Lehigh met those goals? Are residents of Maple Court required to participate in drug treatment or other supportive services? Or is there simply a revolving door policy with no real expectation or accountability? I drive by Mapleport Court often and see shopping carts filled with garbage, people begging on corners, and individuals who appear severely drug impaired. It's a very sad situation. Providing housing without meaningful treatment, support, or accountability is not compassion. It's enabling people to remain stuck in the same cycle. Perhaps we should hire a reputable nonprofit or private company that can deliver results while partnering with our local churches. My husband and I volunteered for years at our church's overnight shelter. Each person was required to be sober to stay overnight. Even our churches have strict rules. I encourage you to ask questions and seek more information before giving a check to those at the top. If no supporting information or evidence of successful results are provided, I recommend voting no. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next up on our public comment sign sheet is Nick Dunning.

Are you a stranger? It is not my first time. But it is my first time writing this down because I think it's important. But while I was here, I did want to mention something. I would urge the council to pay attention to the Lacey voters who are speaking today. All too often, there are people coming from outside of Lacey telling us who we should be, what we should do, and how much money we should give them. But these are your own Lacey voters who are talking to you and telling you what they want. So I would advise you, people will watch this and determine where the loyalty lies. Mayor, council staff, my name is Nick Dunning. I'm a Lacey City business owner. I'm speaking on item 8E, the Franz-Anderson interlocal agreement and how it affects Lacey residents. Do not authorize the city manager to sign this. The packet is clear. Lacey would send $3 million from the general fund to Olympia. Olympia pulls it with the county and Tumwater to pay for Low Income Housing Institute to build a 71 unit project on Franz Anderson Road in Olympia. Lacey does not own the land, Lacey does not run the building, Lacey residents do not get those units, but Lacey writes the largest check. That money is general fund money. It's the same pot that pays for police, streets, parks, and the rest that the city residents use every day. Once it's wired to Olympia, it's gone from the Lacey budget. The same operator, Lehigh, already runs Maple Court and Quinault Drive in Lacey. That conversion to permanent supportive housing is not finished. At the September 1 work session, staff told council Lehigh still needs another $1.5 million to complete it. Lehigh has already received $4.25 million from the state, $1.1 million from the regional housing, and $3 million from right-of-way funds. The gap is still $1.5 million. This amendment does not close that gap. It commits Lacey to treat Maple Court and the other municipalities as a regional priority, but does not specifically fund it. So tonight's $3 million is not the last dollar attached. The unfinished Lacey site is written to this deal that's $4.5 million committed to a company that has not shown the capability to manage its money, manage services, and manage projects properly. Look who carries the risk. Lacey, Tumwater, and county funds are drawn first. Olympia approves the draw and Lehigh just invoices. The original public timeline for this building was early 2026. The draft now points to 2028. When this project was created in 2023, the council, city, and state were in a different place. Lastly, Lacey already put years of staff time, neighborhood impact, and regional money into Maple Court. That project is still $1.5 million short. Signing this sends another $3 million out of Lacey General Fund to the same operator for a project Lacey will not own on a schedule that has slipped two years while the site is in another city. This is not the best use of Lacey residents' money. This is not what Lacey residents voted for, and quite frankly, it would be reckless to approve this project. Please put Lacey first and vote no on this amendment. Finish the Lacey project and keep the general tax fund dollars in Lacey until our project is funded and delivered. Thank you.

Thank you, Nick. Next up, we have Emily Klaus.

Hello. Okay, you caught me off guard a little because I thought there was one more person after Nick. That's all right. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. My name is Emily Klaus. I am a Thurston County Commissioner and the Vice Chair of the Regional Housing Council, but I am not speaking on behalf of either of those bodies. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. I also ran a nonprofit prior to becoming elected, and we served unhoused individuals in Thurston County. I'm here to ask you to approve this amendment, and I want to be direct with you about why, because many of you know that I share some of your same frustrations with Lehigh's operations and management. Lacey's concerns about Maple Court were legitimate and documented. Those concerns were taken seriously and changes were made. We negotiated a performance-driven contract with Lehigh and we walked that building. County staff walks that building every month with Lacey Fire to create a monitoring report for us. And the most recent monitoring report rates every category satisfactory. Zero life safety findings, 16 positive exits in three months, and invoicing is being cleaned up. Funders, including the city of Lacey and the county, wrote accountability into the contract and enforced it, and the building improved. This amendment brings the same discipline to Franz Anderson. It includes quarterly reports to all four jurisdictions, site verification before any dollar is spent, and a 30-day review right for every jurisdiction on every contract before it's signed. What a no vote does with the money, Lacey's $3 million comes back to you, but $15.5 million in tax credits and $3.9 million in housing trust fund money goes elsewhere in the state. It could go to Pierce County, it could go to Spokane, but it likely will not come back to Thurston County. Those awards took four years and two failed applications to win, and these 71 units don't get built anywhere in this county for years. And think about what that no vote does to Lacey. Maple Court is here. Its residents are second in line for Franz Anderson. This council asked the region for a Maple Court answer in January. And in section 1G of the amendment, all four jurisdictions commit to fund and advocate for converting Maple Court to permanent supportive housing. Voting no means that commitment dies with the ILA. You'll keep a 120 room enhanced shelter open with no conversion plan and nowhere for people to move on to. The money will stay in Lacey and so will the problem. I'd hate to see Lacey walk away from the thing that Lacey asked for. You don't have to love the developer to keep $19 million in this county, give 50 people in tiny shelters a door out, and keep this council's leverage over Maple Court. Regional collaboration is what brings accountability to the conversation. I would urge you to please vote yes. And that's the end of my written comments, but I want to add a little more because I have 30 seconds. This project, like I mentioned in my remarks, Lacey had a lot of concerns that were taken very seriously, and changes were made, and those changes are now included in this amended ILA. So I'm confused about what the problem is because we've done... a lot to collaborate with Lacey and take your concerns seriously. I share the same frustrations about Maple or about Lehigh, but right now they are all we've got and these units are riding on this decision. 71 units, 71 people that could be housed. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. And then we have one more person signed up, Robert.

Good evening. My name is Robert Dandy. I've been a resident of Thurston County for a little over 10 years. And I also serve as president of the board of Interfaith Works, which partners with Lehigh on some projects. And we work with Lehigh in the long standing battle to try and improve the lives of those who have the greatest need. What we have here is a simple issue. We have great need for permanent supportive housing. Every single unit that we can build, we should build. Each of us should think back to the comprehensive planning that we've had to do, each city, each municipality, the county, and think about how far we fall short in every single municipality for what we expect our housing needs to be. And we are all looking around us, watching as the cost of living rises, as people's stress increases, as the general conditions are getting worse. Life is getting harder. The kind of help that a permanent supportive housing project like this can offer is hard to overstate how important that is. We need as many of these units to be built as possible. And I have confidence in this governing body and the governing bodies that you guys work with to ensure that that will be done ethically, reasonably, and responsibly. But don't squander this unique opportunity. What it takes to commit to building these many units, that is something that is hard to come across. We're not going to have many opportunities like this. And the more that we wait, the more that we let this issue balloon, and more people be left without support, without housing, the worse it's going to become. And I think that it's very, very easy to get bogged down in just a few issues and allow a very large problem to continue to balloon. I urge each of you to think about what it means to be a good neighbor, to think about what you want your neighbors to experience. And I hope that you'll realize that voting yes on this pushing this forward will lead to the result that you want. I know each of you serve on this council not because you're trying to enrich yourselves, not because you're seeking glory, but because you care about your community, because you care about your neighbors, and because you care about the future of Lacey and Thurston County as a whole. So please, don't squander this opportunity. Please vote yes.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to address the council on this? Please come on up.

I came in a little bit late, so I didn't sign up. But my name is Kathy Martin, and I am a resident of Lacey. I live in Jubilee, and I know I represent many, many people that live in that community, taxpayers. And I think that we are all really passionate about homelessness and making sure that people have a place to live. I know I am. It breaks my heart when I see people out on the street, and I know that people are going through difficult times. But I have to say, I think that you as council members have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of Lacey and of Thurston County. And this is amazing to me, to hear so much information that I didn't know about, that there's some kind of a grant that you received that I don't think that people have a clue what's going on. And it baffles me as to why This information hasn't been shared with the community in a way that they could, they're not gonna come to the city council meetings. I wish they would, but they don't. And I know that so many people don't even know what's going on. So I think that's very concerning to me that here we are, you have to make a vote when there's information that people don't even understand. But there should be accountability. There really needs to be accountability. And you should have answers to all those questions. I did have some questions that other people have... you know, commented on, but really we need to know what's going on with the current housing, the Maple Court place. Why is it successful? Is it not? And what's going to make a difference? If you give more money, how do we know that that's going to be successful? I don't know. I just really have some really uncomfortable feelings, and I think other voters will as well, because we don't need another tax increase. But I'm very interested in the money that you're going to lose if we don't approve this, and I know nothing about that. I really don't. I'd like to know more. So that's what I'm going to say. I'd vote no.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to address the council?

Hello. I'm Juno and I live in Olympia but I come to Thurston County to Lacey a lot since I work in the area and have for a long time. I encourage the council to vote yes on approving the budget for this housing project because I think at the end of the day it's very simple. The reality is that the longer that we wait for this to happen, the more people are thrust deeper into poor living conditions, into getting closer to death, because it really is a life and death issue. And someone earlier here was talking about having lived experience, I think a couple people were talking about having lived experience with homelessness, and they listed their achievements, what they went on to do after they were able to get out of that situation. And another part of this is that when people are provided housing, when they're provided an opportunity to get back up on their feet, they can come back and contribute to the community further to make projects like this in the future easier. And this has taken so much time and effort to even achieve. this funding, that again, I think it would be a waste to let it go somewhere else. If the need is here, why not approve housing in this general area? And all of these places, Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey, were all in reality connected to each other. People are saying to put Lacey first, But we can't thrive if the entire area is not thriving as well. So yes, again, encourage the council to vote yes on approving this project.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the council? Seeing none, then we'll go on to our next agenda item, which...

Ask a question? Please. Yeah, I see that there were nine written public comments.

Yes.

Were any of them for or against the ILA?

So, yeah, those all are part of the record. You can click on the links to get to those public comments.

Oh, I see. Okay.

Yeah, got that? Okay, yeah, and they're a part of the record. So now we're going to go on to our next agenda item, and our next agenda item is the Lacey Youth Council Advisory Board Representatives. As we know, it was great to see our youth council here earlier, and the youth council then chooses amongst themselves to be on representatives on several different boards, for the City of Lacey, the Commission on Equity, the Historic Commission, the Library Board, the Parks, Culture, and Recreation Board, and the Human Services Commission. And so there is a slate and a Table A for the recommendation for the 2026, 2027 Youth Advisory Board representatives, Michelle to the Commission on Equity, Julia to the Historic Commission, Louis to the Library Board, to the Parks, Culture, and Recreation Board in harmony to the Human Services Commission and my motion that we look at that Table A and have them, we approve their addition to serve as advisory representatives for those boards and commissions as it's stated in Table A.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? Then that motion unanimously passes. I also have one more. It's the reappointment to Kimberly Guts for the Historic Commission. I would move that we reappoint her for another term. Second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion unanimously carries. Now we're on to our public art donation policy.

Good evening, council members, mayor, deputy mayor. My name is Chanel Pierce. I'm the city's special projects administrator, and it's good to be back here again with you tonight. Tonight, I'm revisiting the public art donation policy staff first shared with you on April 28th again, and then again on August 18th. On April 28, during the council work session, staff noted that the current policy doesn't specify how the city should handle private art donations. Recently, some community members had expressed interest in donating objects such as statues and monuments, revealing a gap and promoting the creation of this new subsection. On August 18, during the council meeting, staff sought additional guidance from the council on maintenance responsibilities and approval thresholds for the proposed subsection. At the August 18th meeting, the council provided direction to amend section 4D so that all art donations will be rather than may be reviewed by an advisory board to ensure consistency in the process. This means that whether the city manager or the council is acting as a decision maker, both parties will seek recommendations and input from an advisory board before making any decision. Also at the August 18th meeting, the Council provided directions to edit Section 5 as shown on the screen. The edit was to remove the sentence, because the City must be able to provide proper storage and care, no objects requiring extensive or extraordinary preservation and care will be accepted. and replace the sentence with, the City will maintain all donated objects, however at its discretion, the City may request the donor to establish an endowment or a maintenance agreement for objects that require substantial maintenance. And lastly, the Council seemed favorable towards a proposal from staff to eliminate all language from Section 6. Therefore, it is the recommendation of staff that the council adopt resolution 1186 concerning the policies and procedures manual regarding private public art donations.

I would move to adopt resolution 1186 concerning the city council policies and procedures manual regarding private public art donations. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? I just want to thank you, council. This is... something that we hadn't quite, you know, dived into. And I think having policy is really important, especially when this is such a really, I think, important part of, you know, what we're trying to do here in the city of Lacey is look at arts and culture and look at the ability to, you know, have that in our community. And so it's great to see a policy that goes around that. So I appreciate all the work that's been done on this. Any other discussion? Then it's been moved and seconded to adopt this resolution 1186 updating the City Council Policies and Procedures Manual regarding private public art donations. All in favor of that motion signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Is there anyone opposed? Then that motion unanimously carries. Thank you much. Next up is our Lacey Park summary recap. Good to see you, Sue.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Sue Falash, and I am the Recreation Manager for the Parks, Culture, and Recreation Division for the City of Lacey. Thank you again for having us back to do a summer recap. I think I want to start it out by saying I think I have a much more enjoyable job than the rest of you have for the rest of the evening. I get the pleasure of talking about all the successes that my staff has done and everything that they've worked for for the community, and it's a lot more exciting and a lot more positive and happy, so I'm really grateful for that. Real quick, it was a very busy summer. I'm not going to go through everything. Even though summer is our busiest season, I do want to recognize the fact that my staff worked tirelessly year-round to provide recreation opportunities and youth sports and events for the community. It's not just one season. They're working year-round to make sure that this community is a great place to live in. We did 23 events this summer with over 45,000 attendees. We had 345 different recreation offerings. The RAC hosted over 18 tournaments, 350 teams. RENTALS, THE COMMUNITY CENTER, JACOB SMITH HOUSE, THEY HAD 117 MEETINGS AND 63 BANQUETS, SO THEY'RE EXTREMELY BUSY YEAR ROUND. AND VOLUNTEERS, THOUGH IT'S NOT FOR THE SUMMER BECAUSE WE DO THEM QUARTERLY, FOR THE SPRING WE HAD 131 COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS FOR 641 HOURS THAT CONTRIBUTED AND GAVE BACK TO THE CITY. Gonna talk through about each of the events. Special events, the biggest that I'm sure you're all aware of is the 3rd of July, the Fireworks Spectacular. We had over 45,000 people there this year. We did increase, we doubled the vendors for the food. It was a great success. I don't think you can find a better showing for the City of Lacey than for that. We also offered our Lacey in Tune, which is the Tuesday and Wednesday. We have the children's days, and then we have the lunchtime concerts. This is the 33rd year for this celebration, so it keeps going and growing, and it's also been a great success. We get a lot of different people from the community coming out to Hunnamer Park. sit down, get to watch a free show. Friday nights, we also do the, there's some of the pictures, but we also do the movies in the park. They do a concert, then they do a movie. It's been a great addition. We're trying to work hand in hand with the depot's events so that they can go sometime at the depot, grab some food, come over to the park, enjoy some music, watch a movie, free movie with the family, and kind of just relax and enjoy your community. Aquatics, we, some of you may or may not know, we operate the North Thurston Public School high school pools during their off hours. Scott's done a fabulous job growing the program. We've gone through some lulls and he's definitely bringing things back. We've offered more swim lessons. than we have in the past years. We had 478 participants going through swim lessons just in the summertime. We do offer year-round. He brought back the parent-taught swim program. He brought back teen swim lessons, adult swim lessons, and the aquatic fitness continues to be popular. We have group lessons. We have lessons on your own. It's a great opportunity for people to get out and exercise. Community Recreation, it's our classes predominantly. We've got Teen Adventure Club, Playground Pals. Playground Pals is a free summer lunch program, and then we do activities afterwards. It's free to the residents. They have to register, but they get a hot lunch, and they get activities for the afternoon. It's been full. Every session is full. We did the team biking to destinations. They sign up. They learn about how to do bike maintenance. They go out on rides. And if they complete the course, they get to keep the bike. And we do that in cooperation with Intercity Transit. It's a great program. We're going to hopefully will offer it again in the winter, kind of the March area. We wanted to try to get one in this fall, but we didn't have an opportunity to do so. But our community recreation classes are still a great opportunity for folks. Here's some fun pictures because it's always fun to see them actually doing something instead of hearing the words. So it's a, these guys used to do a great job. Reservations, not nearly as exciting as some of the other special events, but shelter reservations are up. We brought in over $4,100 for the different shelters, the Jacob Smith house and the community center continued to thrive. They're continuing to grow every year. Here's some fun pictures of our shelters and whatnot. And the RAC, RAC's always fun to talk about, because you know everybody seems to like going to the RAC. We had a number of tournaments, the soccer complex was also the home for the second year for the USL. We did the women's and the men's home deals. We had touch rugby, the Gaelic games, Polynesian Festival, Juneteenth was out there, and a number of youth sports camps utilized the RAC for their facilities. So here's some pictures. There's the touch rugby. We have Ultimate Frisbee that's out there, some of the different activities. Oopsie. I'm going the wrong way. Help me out. Good job, Shannon. Go to youth sports. Okay. Anyway, youth sports, great program. We have Lacey Little T-Ball. We had a large number. The biggest group we've had this year. It's one of our biggest volunteer groups as well as the youth basketball. We utilize the parents as their coaches. Jake Parr at Rainier Vista. Great. We're a feeder program. It's great to see the little kids get out there. It's all about fun. It's all about enjoyment. Volunteers, second quarter, like I talked about, was supposed to be spring. Served hours, youth sports had 48 volunteers serving 3,563 hours. As you notice, that is our biggest draw for volunteers. Special events had 50 volunteers and served over 446 hours. Here's some pictures. And some of the museum highlights, the grand opening opened up this year. We had over 140 people there. It was a lot of fun. I was there. We had music. We had balloons. We had snacks. It was a great thing for the community to come out. Saw a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time. Really excited to see where that goes and where we're at. With that, and I did get my Lacey shirt, because you know I was born in 1966, so it was very important that I got a sweatshirt, you know, to commemorate it. So well, that's kind of it. Any questions?

Any questions? Sounds like another amazing year. Thank you for all you're doing.

It is, but I just want to emphasize that year round they're doing all this stuff. And for whatever reason, I know summer's the busiest time, but you know, they're busy all year round. All right, thank you so much. Thank you to all of your work.

One more thing.

Okay. We couldn't do the summer without the park maintenance.

Yes.

Great, so now our next agenda item is the France, Anderson, and local agreement amendment authorization. Ryan.

Yeah, good evening, Mayor and Council. Ryan Andrews with the Community and Economic Development Department. So in front of you tonight is a proposed Second Amendment to an interlocal agreement for the Franz Anderson Permanent Supportive Housing Project. At previous council work sessions and at a regular meeting on September 1st, the city council has briefed on a proposed amendment to an existing interlocal agreement authorizing the future transfer of $3 million from the general fund to support the development of the Franz Anderson Permit Supportive Housing Project in Olympia. The council has fully briefed at a meeting on September 1st when the council gave direction to staff to amend the proposed draft ILA and communicate the proposed amendments to the other parties of the agreement. The City Council directed amendments are reflected in the latest draft ILA, specifically section 1G related to all parties of the agreement supporting funding requests and advocating for the conversion of Maple Court to permit supportive housing regionally and at the state level. Modifying language in section 2C related to sharing with all parties of quarterly reports for the Franz Anderson project. Section 3, modifying language in Section 2C related to utilizing CMAR or equivalent service provider at Franz Anderson. Section 4, at the request of the City Attorney after review, a suggested modification to language in Section 2B to remove the reference to reimbursement. All of the parties to the agreement have been briefed on the Lacey City Council's proposed edits and have agreed to the modifications to the agreement. The draft amended ILA now returns to the Lacey City Council and partner jurisdictions for final review and formal consideration. With that, the recommended action is to pass a motion to authorize the city manager to sign the second amendment to the interlocal agreement. With that, staff stands by to answer any questions.

So I wasn't here on the last work session where this was talked about, but it sounds like the council directed staff to make a bunch of changes to the ILA for consideration because there was concerns about the original ILA. Staff has made those changes, and so now we're back here. for consideration. Is anyone wishing to speak on this ILA?

You want a motion on the table first?

That's typically how we do it. That's your prerogative.

I'm not making one.

Is there a motion?

I'll go ahead and speak if not.

I would move to approve the amended ILA.

Second. So there's a motion and a second. to authorize the city manager to sign the second amendment amending the and restating the interlocal agreement between the city of Olympia, the city of Blasey, the city of Tonwar, and Thurston County for pooling and transfer of funds to support permanent support of housing projects at Frank Anderson Road. Now there's discussion. Councilmember?

So I don't usually do this, but I have a lot to say tonight, so I did decide to write down my comments. I think everyone is pretty well aware of my position on this issue. I'm a solid no vote when it comes to wasting $3 million of taxpayer money. But I want to offer some additional thoughts. You've all heard from our constituents, the Lacey residents, excuse me, constituents asking us not to support this project. They are people we work for, and this is not how they want us to spend their money. Remember, the money we spend here at the city is not ours. It is the taxpayers. And they have elected us to represent them and to be fiscally responsible with their money. Some council members have been sharing incorrect information with members of the public. They've said that this money is not Lacey taxpayer dollars. That is incorrect. These dollars are Lacey tax dollars. They are not ARPA funds. They are general fund revenues that the city of Lacey has that can be used for any purpose because they are general revenue dollars. This is clearly not a responsible use of tax dollars. Let me throw out a few other options on how this money could be better used to support our constituents, the residents of Lacey. Option one. Last week we heard from our finance director that we have a $4.6 million deficit going into our 27 budget. Staff is working hard to reduce this to probably about $3 million. It just so happens that not sending this money to Lehigh for a project in Olympia would free up $3 million and cover our 2027 deficit. This would be the most fiscally responsible way to use the money. But here's a couple other options. We could use half of the money, $1.5 million, to complete the transition of Maple Court from a shelter to permanent supportive housing, as was always the plan. Although this would still be funding a Lehigh project, at least it's not starting a new project with them and actually completes a project here in the city of Lacey, where our taxpayers are. The other half of the three million could then be used to help offset the balance deficit. But here's another option. We could take half of the three million, fund the completion of Maple Court, and use the other half to enhance our commitment to social services here in Lacey. In this option, we could double the funds that we currently are using for human services grants. As you all know, we currently budget $300,000 a year to be distributed to nonprofits doing good work right here in Lacey. We could use $1.5 million to double that commitment for each of the next five years. That would directly impact and help our residents. These are just a few of the options on how we could better use these funds. There's dozens more, and I could spend all night going into them, but I won't, because I think that gives you enough ideas. But please, help me understand how any of these options is not a better use of LACI tax dollars than funding a Lehigh project in Olympia. It's not about being good regional partners. It's about not giving more money to a failed institution. Our bosses, the people we represent, should be listened to, and these dollars should be spent to help them. This is not political. It's just fiscal responsibility. We heard from quite a few people today before our council meeting, at the beginning here in public comment, and you may have noticed that none of the ones who actually live in Lacey said to vote for this. All of those telling us to vote for this were people who represented nonprofits, the county commission, but none of them were Lacey residents. They all said, don't spend our money. Thank you.

Is there anyone else wishing to speak to this issue?

What do you have?

I mean, yeah. Thank you, Lenny, for the words. I appreciate you taking the time and writing down your thoughts because there's so much here to unpack. Looking through our packet on page 173 in our first ILA, one of the whereases is, whereas the parties do not have sufficient resources to address the ongoing impacts and needs of unsheltered homelessness without mutual cooperation, Homelessness doesn't know borders. Homelessness, like, if you have an encampment in Olympia and you are, say, closing that camp, those people will move elsewhere, and that could be to Lacey, it could be out in the county, it could be to Tumwater. We need to be able to pool our resources in order to actually start making a dent in some of the issues that we're looking at. And that is another whereas that is just... in the new ILA. And I think we heard earlier from Emily about all of the things that they've added because of our worries. I think it's on page 211 of this packet. Parties agree to confirm that this joint project is only possible through collaboration and contribution of each party. So again, we still have to work together to solve this issue with everyone. And then just below that in Section G is parties agree and confirm that the conversion of Maple Court to permanent supportive housing is a regional priority project. The priorities hereby agree and confirm that they will work collectively to support the funding requests for the conversion of Maple Court to permanent supportive housing at both the regional and state level. So I'm seeing that we are that by cooperating with them, we will be able to work towards getting permanent supportive housing at Maple Court, working towards building that ecosystem of housing that we are always talking about. And then under the Section C, we will ensure that Lehigh will utilize CMAR community health centers or an equivalent service provider to provide behavioral health services for the tenants in the multifamily housing units that will be constructed upon the property. What I've heard mostly is the failures of Lehigh is not about how they build buildings. It's about the services they provide. This particular point keeps us from having to rely on Lehigh's services. And so I feel like they have made Almost everything that we have asked for, every worry that we brought up during our last meeting has been addressed in the new ILA. Additionally, I keep hearing about the failures of Maple Court and how we don't have any true reporting. We don't know any numbers and things like that. I went back and I read the MOU that was signed in 2023. And part of the structure was Thurston County, Lacey, and Department of Commerce and Lehigh will form an operations council that will meet monthly. And the purpose of the meeting is to track progress, identify issues, monitor activity, take corrective action, and plan for future improvements. As far as I'm aware, we haven't been having those meetings. And that's not just on Lehigh. That's also on all of the parties there. And so part of this is making sure that we are following with our own MOUs and we're following on our own contracts. So that way we can make sure and hold them accountable. That's then the other refrain that I've heard is we have to hold them accountable. And we have methods in both the MOU for Maple Court as well as in this ILA to hold them accountable. I understand that it is in our current budget. It is very, very... attractive to hold on to the 3 million and be like, well, this is going to help our residents. This is for our people. But also some of our problems don't know our city boundaries. They don't know where the city ends and the next one begins. So I feel like By saying voting no on this, we would be throwing away not only years of staff work across the whole region. We would also be short sighted in terms of how we are attacking and how we are working on this problem. So that's where I'm sitting at is that I feel like I have to vote yes because this is a problem that affects Lacey, it affects Olympia, the county, Tumwater, it affects everyone here. And we have to be able to work together collectively to actually address these issues.

Council Member?

So I came into this meeting still trying to weigh information because I can't speak for other council members, but I've been hearing from people who said no and also people who said yes. and very strongly, and I think it's unfair or inaccurate to portray that the people in Lacey don't want this, because there are people in Lacey who do want this. I appreciate that the accountability measures have been strengthened, that the ILA is much stronger than it was initially. I still have some questions about accountability. One thing that I'm thinking about is the testimony that we received from somebody last week. I think her name was Stephanie. And I think part of what she was saying is that it would be good to have some sort of like a residence council. So in addition to having... maybe an operational council or having the quarterly reports or having Olympia go out and actually verify what's going on or what's not going on, hearing from the people who live there, some sort of residence council, or either having residence on one of these operational councils, I think, would definitely strengthen the accountability. I also have questions about accountability when I think about all of the provisions in the new contract, whether or not they're cosmetic. And let me tell you what I'm thinking. So if, for example, there's a problem and we go to Lehigh and say, you know, you're not providing the support that you're supposed to that is outlined in this contract. What can really happen if they're the only game in town? That's a question I have. And even though, let's say they don't have the staffing patterns that they need to have in order to support the work, if we point that out, how does that solve the underlying problem? If they don't have the resources, they don't have the resources, and pointing that out, unless you can tell me that we will pull the contract if they can't meet the needs of the contract, then what's going to happen? So I have a question about that. And I'm still not clear. This is permanent supportive housing, but is this also housing first? Well, then the question I would have, because so many times people talk about how Housing First doesn't work, and then every time I hear that, I think about program fidelity. If it's not working, it's because you don't have the resources to do it the way it's supposed to be done. So you can't tell from my comments whether I'm yes or no, and I'm going to leave it like that, because I'm still weighing information. But those are my concerns. I don't know if you can answer those now.

Well, maybe speak to the last one. The other ones. So the question, maybe for some clarification, are you asking about Maple Court or Friends Anderson? So, you know, there are specifications in the agreements that basically say that the first 50 people will be coming from the tiny home village to occupy the permanent supportive housing. And then the balance then would come from Maple Court. So I don't know if that's housing first or not. I don't know, based on that definition, if this would qualify or not. But that's where the first residence of Franz Anderson would be coming from.

Okay, so I don't know who can answer the question about perhaps having a residence council.

For this project or for Maple Court?

For Franz.

So, you know anything that that would be brought up for suggestions to be added to This agreement would need to go to the other parties to be considered So certainly we something we can bring up in discussions But if the council wants to modify anything that's within this it needs to go to the other parties for confirmation My understanding is the Olympia Council and the Tumwater Council are both acting on this tonight as well. I

So I know it probably would make people a little bit nervous if I said, well, I think it's worth having a conversation about the Residence Council, even if it holds us up a little bit. I know we need to get all of this done by the end of September. I think it's important to have the lived voices of both places voiced so that we don't just hear from staff, but we hear from the people who actually live there, whether or not things are working well.

As Ryan mentioned, if you want to have that formally incorporated into this interlocal agreement, then the council would have to make a decision to ask for that change. We would have to reach back out to the partners, have them consider it, and then bring it back, which would take several weeks to be able to process that through. Another option would be is to reach out parallel to an ILA if there's action on this ILA that reach out parallel requesting that that be incorporated in the oversight program by Olympia on administering their future operational contracts. That could be one other option. Just to kind of clarify on the housing first model, as Ryan said, the Franz Anderson intended to be that second tier of housing. Housing First has a premise of getting people housed and then wrap around services for them. And like you said, many of the problems with Housing First model is the resources for that services is not adequate to provide that role. It's a negative misnomer or negative connotation to that program. This since it's permits word of housing. It'll be a place that will take people that already been stabilized somewhere else to be transferred into that housing so I Wouldn't be the the initial entry level for somebody coming off the streets to be able to be housed there and provide Provide services in a housing first model Councilman yeah, wait before you move on do you mind if I double tap on that I

Just real quick, so if the tiny home are coming out of tiny homes and going into Franz Anderson, and a portion of Maple Court is going there too, then we just fill in those spaces, which gives us 50 spaces there and maybe 20 spaces over there, and that's how we would flow? Correct. Okay, and that's the ecosystem, how it's supposed to work? Correct.

Thank you, okay This was never going to be easy. I mean, it's a long eight-year journey that we've been on to get to where we are today with this I Am confident that our partner jurisdictions Olympia and Tom water will be approving this ILA tonight as well. They've agreed to every request that we made to amend ILA They've honored that. One thing I'd like to suggest is that perhaps we could explore other ownership options for the Franz Anderson project, rather than having Lehigh both own it and operate it as has happened with Maple Court. We lack leverage over Lehigh. with this arrangement, and so I'm just wondering if we might begin a conversation about how that could happen. I mean, I share the frustrations we all have, but let's learn from the mistakes that have been made with Maple Court. If we do that, I think we can have a better project with more accountability than we have today. If we say no and walk away from this project, we're walking away from hundreds of thousands of dollars that would come in from the state here. And if we say no to this tonight, then what? I mean, Franz Anderson doesn't get built. Those people are just left on the street. This is not just an Olympia problem. It's not just a Lacey problem. It's a state problem. It's a national problem. And we have a responsibility to our unhoused population. And I think given the amended ILA, this is a good step in moving forward to honor that responsibility that we have.

All right. Man, this has been a long road. When I got on this council in 2020, Um, we, we were addressing this issue and, and things progressively got worse. We had, uh, what we called Hamburger Hill over here, uh, right on Slater Kinney where, um, McDonald's and all that stuff is. It was just packed with people. Um, and, and, uh, we also had the... I-5. We got plenty of phone calls and emails from all the business owners and local in that section over there. A couple of them just moved out and went to set up shop in another city. It was kind of sad to see. And we knew that we had to start really addressing this problem. I don't think when we started addressing this problem that I was thinking that we would achieve perfection uh... we did get lucky because we're shovel ready and we're able to the the governor was able to uh... help us with with maple court uh... and for a while there we were all happy we're all uh... you know kinda thought that our problem had uh... some resolution to it uh... and and I think just like any other relationship, the longer it goes on, the more you tend to pick at it and find things wrong with it. I try not to do that in relationships, but I see it happen and I see it lead to places where relationships ideally go to die. You know, as we've mitigated the situations that has happened during this time, we've had different places come. Safeway has been here. Big Lots has been here, you know, talking about their frustrations. And I've kept in touch with those guys over this last couple years. I saw John from Safeway two days ago, and I asked him, John, how's it going? And he's like, Malcolm, it's so much better. What did you guys do? We stepped up patrols. Big Lots moved out. Crunch moved in. There was less retail theft because there's nothing to steal from Crunch Fitness. We also kind of stepped up some of the action items at Lehigh at the location. You know, the residents are now responsible for cleaning the grounds. We kind of brought in the county manager, Lacey, city manager, and the Olympia city manager and sat down with Lehigh and said, things have to change. We cannot accept what we are seeing. Again, not looking for perfection, but looking to make improvement. During that time, we sat down with our regional partners and we said, you know, this has to be a collective effort. And honestly, it was the mayor's idea. I wish I could take credit for it. I can't. But he saw that with these dollars that we had coming in, if we didn't pull them together, we weren't going to be able to address this problem regionally, which was our goal from the day one. We've always thought of it kind of as an ecosystem. As many rooms as we can possibly get. And then Nisqually came and said, hey, we're building a facility where we'll be able to give medical and dental to unhoused people. And wow, what a great addition to the ecosystem that is going to be. And CMAR is also part of that ecosystem. So... You know, we've had Lehigh in here talking, and one thing that I didn't like about those conversations with Lehigh was that they could not really give me on paper positive outcomes. That's all I'm really concerned with. When people go in... And then they move to 30, they move to 50% AMI. When do they get out? How do they get out? Show me on paper that they got out. Because I am not interested in creating some kind of place where people get trapped that has never been the goal the goal has been to get them off the streets rehabilitate them get them back in the workforce get them into a positive outcome get them back to life i have taken so many of these people to lunch i can't i can't count them anymore right and i go and i talk to them and i say you know what what happened how did you end up being homeless And as I'm sitting there talking to them, and I'll take them to wherever they want to go to lunch. I don't care. And oftentimes, it'll be I see them outside of a restaurant. I'm like, hey, you want to go inside and have something to eat? Let's just talk. A lot of their responses were oftentimes First of all, it's rare that they smelled like drugs, smelled like alcohol. And they didn't appear to be on drugs in a lot of cases. But life just beat them down. Rent went up. I used to go take my Saturday mornings and go down to Ensign Road. And it would be a great excuse for a motorcycle ride. Go down there, park, and just kind of talk to people. I made friends down there. I made a friend named Mike, a girl named Nine, and so on and so on. How did you get here? Well, my dad died, and we lost the house, and all I got out of the deal was this trailer. Things like that. And so I don't see... fewer rooms as our solution, any more than I see fewer roads as relieving our congestion. What I do see is, like Council Member Cox said, I don't like the operational portion of this. I do like the continued building of the ecosystem that we all agreed on that needs some tweaking but works for us. We are not receiving emails from all the business owners saying, They broke into my store again last night. There's a guy out here with a machete. I don't know if you guys remember that one. I don't receive those emails anymore because we have started working towards fixing the problem. We were fortunate enough to get some right-of-way dollars from the state. But again, I never expected perfection. I expected us to start heading down a direction that we could continue going down and add to and tweak until we got to a place that we were at least... dealing with the issue. And so, all that is to say, I am not happy with the operational portion of this. Yes, we do need the units, and once Nisqually opens up their center, we will have another addition to this issue that we've all been trying to address for the last seven or eight years. So, again, is the solution that we came up with the best solution, or is it perfect? No, not even close. Do we give up? I don't think so. We have to keep working at this. And if we go, I don't want to see us silo ourselves and lose the regional support that we've spent so many years gathering and cultivating over many, many, many meetings. We meet every once a month on a Friday. We have a three cities meeting this coming Friday. So that is where I stand. We've worked so hard to create this, and I don't wanna say we're taking our money and leaving, and I don't wanna say here's some more money for you to produce the kind of results that we are not exactly happy with. We have got to be back at the table and making sure that we are crafting and completing something that holds everybody accountable to our standard.

Well, first of all, thank you, council. Everyone made very, very good points. This has been a long process to get here. We started talking about Franz Anderson and adding more units back in 21. And it's been a long time to get here. Some of that speaks to how difficult it is to build permanent sport of housing. It's really expensive. There's a huge need all across the United States. There's a huge need in Lacey. After this will be built, there's still gonna be a huge need. So this is not going to solve the problems at all. This is just going to possibly add some more units in our region. But for me, I keep coming back to What is the most important issue facing the city of Lacey when it comes to this issue and permanent supportive housing? And I keep coming back to Maple Court, right? The wrong model was put into a building that we've seen a bunch of problems. And we all, from the day one, say, We need to convert that to permanent supportive housing. Lehigh is the owner of that building, will be the owner of that building tomorrow and in the future. And so that is the organization that we're going to be needing to work with. And so for me, I keep coming back and it's like, what is the best way to make sure we as a community not only can build units, but solve the Maple Court issue, because it's a dire issue. We've seen some improvement, but we're a long ways from actually getting it to permanent swerve housing. And just putting $1.5 million, as Councilmember Greenstein put it, which is a number that's been used to say what's left to get that to permanent supportive housing, just putting money towards it won't get us there. We need the state and commerce to agree, along with Lehigh, to switch that to permanent supportive housing. It's not just going to happen automatically. It's only going to happen, really, if the region gets behind it and puts pressure on commerce and works with Lehigh to convert that to permanent supportive housing. That's a long process. That's not just a money process. That is a process that we need to work out with all of our regional partners in the state. And we all need to be on the same page with that. And so I keep coming back to how do we see success there? Do we have a bare chance of success of going on our own? Or do we have a bare chance of success if we can make it a regional priority for all the partners? And I wasn't a part of all the discussions that this council had on the ILA amendments. But this council sounds like you unanimously recommended these improvements to the ILA. And I would say that this amendment dramatically improves the ILA, specifically around the language when it comes to Maple Court and making sure that we're all on the same page when it comes to funding. Funding's important, but that the actual conversion, which is not guaranteed at all, unless I believe we have regional support to do it. So can we do that on our own? If we take our money and say we're not happy with the provider, do we have a better opportunity to put pressure on that provider by doing it alone or by having a regional cooperation? Because we're going to have to work with that provider no matter what going forward. I believe we'll have better opportunities on getting the outcomes we want regionally if we're all on the same page regionally. So that is really important to me because I do believe fixing Maple Court has to be our number one priority. And so what's the best way to fix it? On our own or with a regional cooperation? And there's the question I think this council needs to answer, right? Is it better to try to do this on our own Or is it better to have all of our regional partners be on the same page when it comes to the future of Maple Court? Well, congratulations, council. You put it right there in the ILA. You're saying we're only going to go forward with Franz Anderson if we have a commitment from the rest of the region when it comes to Maple Court. And without this ILA, we have nothing. Is that better for the city of Lacey? I don't think so in the end. I think working together with our regional partners and coming to consensus is the better solution. And the only way you can do that is through an interlocal agreement that all the partners sign, which this council directed them to do, and now we're back here saying, well, we've directed in this ILA for you to make all these changes and for you to guarantee support of Maple Court. But now, I don't know. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this council's making them go through changes in the ILA and now coming back and saying, well, maybe I don't want to pass this ILA. going forward. We should have probably had that discussion further and just said, hey, we're out, than going through this process of making everyone go through the ILA amendment process. That seems to me would have been the way to go if the majority of the council was really against this going forward. And again, I keep coming back to, I don't think anyone on this council thinks we shouldn't build more permanent supportive housing. We're all concerned with the provider. And understandably so. I think everyone should be concerned about the provider because they've shown several examples of where they haven't, I believe, met our expectations. And that is a concern. So, again, do we have a better opportunity for them to change their operating procedures, not only at Maple Court, but they need to change their operating procedures at their other facilities, too. So we're all on the same page. Do we do that together regionally as a partnership? Or does Lacey just say, nope, we're going to arrest the jurisdictions, you guys figure it out on your own, and we're going to do our own thing, and good luck. I don't see any success in doing it that way, personally. So... I agree with the council's recommendations on this amendment for the ILA. I think these are very good recommendations. Would I, if I was a part of that conversation, want to add a couple more things in there that we've discussed? Yeah. Probably. I'd probably want even more accountability put into it. We can get there if we can continue to work with our partners. If we say no with this, we have no partners. We're doing it alone, from here on out. And I don't think that's the way to go. That's my opinion, so I will be supporting this ILA amendment. Council Member.

I've got several things I heard that I'd like to address. For starters, I'll start last first here, I guess. I'll start with some of your comments, Andy. The agreement has always been for that to be converted within three to five years to permanent supportive housing. That shouldn't take any new MOU, any new agreement, any new ILA. That should just take the additional money needed to make that transition, which is a million and a half dollars, as we've discussed, that we have sitting here ready to put into that project. So we'll start there. I think it was Malcolm who said, that we could get more positive results and hold them accountable, but we can't. There is nothing in this new agreement or in the original agreement with Lehigh for Maple Court that holds them accountable. There's zero teeth in this agreement. It doesn't give any consequences for them not doing the things that we say we want them to do. We say we want them to report, give us reports. They don't do it, there's no consequence. We, at this point, our staff can't even tell us who the manager of the location in the city of Lacey is right now. We ask that question. Our staff doesn't even know. That's how much turnover they have there that we don't even know who's managing the facility that's sitting in our city. Come on, guys. This is a crazy idea to give $3 million more of our money, plus Olympia money and county money and everyone else's money and state money, to an organization that has failed miserably in helping with this issue. They are not improving people's lives. All they've done is take people who are struggling with drugs and mental health addiction and move them indoors into a facility where they're not getting rained on, but they're not doing anything to help these people. These people are not getting help. We're not seeing positive results. You mentioned that we're not hearing from the businesses anymore. I've talked to several of those businesses. We're not hearing from them anymore because they gave up, not because the problem went away, because they gave up. That's what I'm hearing from the businesses that I talk to. I think it was you, Ryan, who talked about, and Maren both, talking about accountability and that, you know, maybe we could have a different owner. I think that was actually a Carol in New Orleans. If we agree to this, they are the owner of this property. Just like they're the owner of the one here in Lacey, they will be the owner of the one in Olympia. We can't make the agreement and then change it. It doesn't work that way. We can't agree to this today, vote on this today, and then expect changes to the agreement. That's not how it works. Once we vote on this, it's a done deal, guys. They get the money, they go forward with the project, and they fail us again. That's what happens. And the last thing I'm going to bring up, well, actually, two more things. One is I keep hearing about partnership, and partnerships are great. I am all for working with our jurisdictions around us when it's in the best interest of LACI. It should be in the best interest of all, but first and foremost, it should be in the best interest of the residents of this city. Every one of us was elected by the residents of Lacey, not the residents of Thurston County, Olympia, Tumwater, the residents of Lacey. That's who we work for. That should come before partnerships. Sorry, but it should. That's who we work for. That's who we're responsible to. And the last thing I'm going to say, and this came from actually one of the public comments from our commissioner, talking about the county staff and the fire district walking that property and seeing no problems anymore. That's not what I heard when I had a conversation with the fire district. they see this facility and the area around Maple Court as a huge problem for them. So I don't want to disillusion anyone, but you're not getting all the information, and maybe Council Member Turner is right, that we ought to put this off and figure it out before we go voting on it.

That's all I have to say. Thank you. You had a couple things in there that I think really need to be answered because they're good questions. Will Maple Court automatically convert to permanent supportive housing within one to five years. All they need is money.

The MOU between the Washington State Department of Commerce, Thurston County, Lacey, and Lehigh is that the acquisition of Maple Core to set up for the original right-of-way initiative program was for it to convert to permanent supportive housing within three to five years. As time has evolved and the right-of-ways, the I-5 corridor that has been cleaned up and the encampments removed, the right-of-way initiative program converted into what's called the encampment removal program. And there are some staff at Commerce have said that under ERP that it would not be able to convert. And we're working through those conversations with Commerce. And we've had support in those conversations with Olympia and the county working on that effort together. as a group, but we have that MOU that is set up under that original right-of-way initiative, and it's been questioned, and we've got our active conversations with Commerce to work through that issue, and again, we've had the support of Olympia and Thurston County in that effort. Now, it is intended, and we're continuing to work hard on that approach to make sure that the original agreements are maintained and that, in essence, Commerce keeps their word. and we'll continue to work that and have those conversations going into this legislative session.

Hold commerce accountable to their word.

So the question was, will it automatically convert to permanent score of housing? We have an MOU that says it was going to, but we know that we have people in commerce right now who are not quite sure that's what's going to happen. That's why we go to our legislature. Let me finish. So there's my concern, right? There's my concern. The conversion of Maple Court to permanent supportive housing, I think should be our number one priority. It's affecting.

So let's do it.

Are you going to let me finish?

Yes, go ahead.

I know you're passionate. I know you're passionate. So I think that should be our number one priority. Do we have a better opportunity of going it alone and trying to convince our regional commerce and the state? Or do we have a better opportunity as a region to make sure they'll hold to their word? I think, again, that is what this keeps coming down to. Do we do it alone? Or do we do it as a regional partnership? And I think, personally, we have a better opportunity of holding them to the original MOU and actually getting it done as a region, all on the same page under an ILA that says we're going to do it, not just hope we're going to do it, but the ILA specifically says we're going to do it. So there's that.

Can we respond to that?

Well, just a second. And then, you know, the other thing you mentioned again that that this Franz Anderson is going to be a done deal. I don't know if Franz Anderson is still going to be a done deal. Even if we go through his whole ILA, agreed to all this, there is still a lot of unknowns because it's still up to the private sector to invest and the process that will actually bring the final dollars and that's going to build the majority of these units. We are trying to set it up to put this project in the best possible light so the private sector dollars, which is the majority of the dollars, will come in to do this, but there are still no guarantees that these will ever be built because we put a deadline on here or there where these have to break ground next March. And if not, it's ILA and we're done, unfortunately. And so do I think even if we put these dollars in, they will be built? I don't know. I think it's a flip of the coin. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But it's not a done deal. I know that for a fact. It's not a done deal. So that's my response. You can respond back to me if you want.

Thank you. Yeah, I do. So I agree with you that it's not a done deal because of that. Our part in the deal is done, though. If we vote on this tonight, our say in how that MOU is done or ILA or any of that is done because that's what we're agreeing to tonight. You're right that the private side of it hasn't been finished yet and may not. And the whole thing may go away and never happen. The $3 million would come back to us. But you just said we shouldn't operate on hope. That's operating on hope. It's not operating on hope to hold accountable Commerce to the agreement that Commerce made, take the $1.5 million and finish Maple Court. That's not hope. That's reality. We actually have that agreement in writing from the state. All we have to do is hold the state accountable to what they agreed to. And I have no problem going up to the Hill and talking to our legislators. I know you don't. You've done it many times. And I don't think any of us on council would be afraid to go talk to our legislators and demand that they do what they promised they were going to do. That's not hope. Hope is giving $3 million more to a failed organization and hoping they do a better job. That's hope. And that's a ridiculous way to spend money.

Yep, go ahead.

So as I'm listening to all of the comments and just processing them, I'm reminded of one of my favorite proverbs. It's an African proverb, and it says, sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.

So when people work together, you're stronger.

If you have your own one single stick, you're not as strong. I want to make sure that what I'm hearing is correct. If we agree to move forward with this ILA, we have an opportunity to strengthen the accountability.

Not beyond what's in the ILA.

We strengthened it two weeks ago.

That's it. What you see is what you get.

Two weeks ago, I still would like to see a residence council, but it seems like there are options for bringing that up.

Yes, going through the original ILA proposed to the council two weeks ago and the council's feedback, the updated draft now has strengthened the accountability piece with the quarterly reports going to all parties of the agreement as well as the purchase sale agreement that Olympia has with Lehigh also incorporates that language as well. In terms of a residence council, if that was to add now, we'd have to go back and we want to incorporate that into the ILA. We would have to go back to our jurisdictional partners to see if they would offer that as an amendment. Otherwise, we would reach out to them and say this is very important to the Lacey City Council and we'd like to see as we develop the agreements going down the road that this would be incorporated in those agreements in the future.

Go ahead.

I have a question.

Is the ILA the only paperwork on this? Aren't there other contracts that would happen with Lehigh?

I can speak to that. So as part of your packet tonight, there's also a purchase and sale agreement between the city of Olympia and Lehigh to purchase the property from the city of Olympia for that. So yes, there would be that agreement. There would be future agreements about operation as well. Lehigh as the operator of that property and the contractor for that as well. And obviously, I think it's assumed this is being the second amendment to the ILA. There's also been previous versions of this ILA that have gone before this as well.

Would the latter there be an opportunity to write in even more accountability in the operational?

Into the purchase and sale agreement?

No, the other one you described.

The contract for operation.

Contract for operation.

Correct. But that's between the entity signing the contract and the entity providing the service. So, you know, we would have to, as staff, we could certainly make some recommendations on what that could include. But it's between those parties, not directly something that we would be involved in the signing of that agreement.

And who are those parties? Who do you think those parties be? The City of Olympia and...

Yes, yeah, and then if there are funds associated with operation of the Permit Support of Housing, if there's state funds, those kinds of things, I could also include Department of Commerce or other entities that provide that service.

Okay. So do we need to decide that we'll make that recommendation for resident input down the road in future contracts? Do we need to decide that now?

I think when it comes to, you know, Again, I keep coming back to we're trying to implement not only change at Franz Anderson, but change of the operation of Lehigh across several properties that we have in our region. I think there's conversation going on at the Regional Housing Council. There's other opportunities to sort of get on the same page with our regional partners when it comes to accountability and some of these other things. And again, this personally, I just keep coming back to, I'd rather be at that table, those tables, with our regional partners, having those conversations, than trying to do this on our own. I just don't personally see that long-term success of changing behaviors of this operator and adding accountability and other things that we all care deeply about and we want to see, I think everyone wants to see. Do we have a better opportunity of doing that as a regional coalition or on our own? That's what I keep coming back to, and I think we need to work

What I keep coming back to is I think we need to hear the resident's voice.

Yeah, sure.

That's what I keep coming back to. That's not in the contract. It doesn't have to be just from that property. As you mentioned, there's several properties. And so maybe there's a coalition of residents that will give us feedback. But I think that's a missing piece when it comes to accountability. So that's what I'm going to keep coming back to.

Sure. Is there any other discussion?

I'd like to make one more comment. I mean, there's been lots of hyperbole about this, but I think in the end it all comes down to, you know, we're a big, broad community with lots of different opinions on the best way to proceed here. And I want to thank everybody who came tonight to speak on both sides of this. And I know I can speak on behalf of the council that we all have skin in this. We've all have worked hard on this for a long time. And I really appreciate what the mayor has been saying about the regional cooperation. That's been sort of my cause since I've been on council, is trying to build those regional relationships to help us tackle problems that are too big for a single entity to handle. So, I think, I really hope that at least most of us will vote to go ahead and approve this tonight. And again, thank you to our staff for working so hard on this and turning that around so quickly.

Okay. I think everyone has their resources. vote in front of them. We don't usually use the mobile vote, but since it's been sitting in front of us this whole time, let's...

Mine's not up there. Yours is not up there? Where is it? It was, but it's not now.

I'm new. What's up?

Mine is. What's a mobile? Where is it?

That's all right. We can do this the old... Did you all go to the meeting? We can do this the old... We can do this the old... We can do this the old defatuating. It's... There's a motion to authorize the city manager to sign the second amendment amending and restating the local agreement between the city of Lacey, Olympia... City of Olympia, City of Lacey, City of Tumwater, and Thurston County for pulling and transfer of funds to support perinatal supportive housing projects at Franz Anderson Road. All those in favor of that motion, please raise your hand or say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Opposed. The ayes have it. Shocking. Thank you. Thank you. So now we're on to our next agenda item, which is the city manager's report.

Let me get readjusted here. I do have a couple items I'd like to report out to city council. Some great events that happened last week, some in a good news order. The first item, I'm waiting for a slide to come up. Last Thursday, Chief Almada and I had the opportunity to attend the American Legion post 94 Lacey annual law and orders award banquet and they put this banquet on every year to honor first responders from different disciplines as employees of the year and This year we got to recognize and be there to support our sergeant Josh Dumont who received the law enforcement officer of the Year award and it was a great event and So you have a screenshot of Sergeant Dumont and his wife and also Sergeant Dumont with Chief Almada. Again, this was a great event and a great honor, and we're really proud of Sergeant Dumont.

Rick, I appreciate the field promotion, but he is a detective.

He's a detective? Yes. Keep someone saying detective right up there.

Oops.

The old stuff, so it's all right. Thank you for that correction. I actually did know that, but I had different notes in front of me.

He's one of our actually most senior detectives. He's about done with his current tour. did some amazing work on our double homicide last year as well as several other cases. So quite the leader in our detective unit.

He has a sufficient foot in his mouth there.

Yeah, so Detective Duvant, my apologies. Ploy of the Air, like Chief Moss said, he's... Been leading some significant investigations. He's also serves as leading investigator as a capital, metro, and independent investigations team, and as the Northwest Internet Crimes Against Children's Investigator. Also, he serves as the department's less lethal instructor, a member of the Thurston County dive team, and peer support officer, and as a former field training officer. And one of the things that really stood out with his Employee of the Year nomination, because to qualify for the American Legion Post Award, he was nominated as Employee of the Year for the Lacey Police Department. And some of the things that really stood out in his nomination was his positive leadership and willingness to help others. And so he's done a lot of mentorship of new officers into the program, teaching them about the practices and protocols, as well as kind of our culture about community policing. So again, I want to recognize Detective Dumont for the significant honor in receiving this Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award from the American Legion Post.

Congratulations detective.

Yes, and the next item I want to mention is last Friday Lacey Fire District 3 held a commemorative event to recognize and remember 9-11 and Chief Almada and I attend that event and I would want to say that it was very well attended by area first responders and local community members and have to say that Fire District 3 and Chief Schmidt did a fantastic job of organizing that and the words they spoke of that day to remember some of those that had fallen on 9-11 and then reflecting on what that means to our service today. So I do appreciate that and just wanted to recognize Fire District 3 for that event and The last item I have on my report out is we have a development project that's going to be, in essence, breaking ground. When I say breaking ground, I'm actually going to start clearing trees tomorrow. And it's a pretty significant spot, and I think council's aware of the yard project that's going to happen right at 7th and College Street. And I want to turn it over to Vanessa to kind of give a quick highlight of what to expect, and some of that work, I guess, is going to begin tomorrow. So, Vanessa?

Thank you, Rick. Vanessa Dolby, Community Economic Development Director for the record. And as Rick mentioned, the literal groundbreaking, i.e., we are moving dirt and potentially removing a number of trees on the site for this development, which is a tap house that's going to be a new addition to our midtown area site. that includes outdoor games and recreation, seating areas, as well as some fire pits, and it's gonna be a great addition to the new residents that live in that area and nearby in terms of the college students and others in Lacey. A part of, can you click the next slide? It's a little hard to see, but this is actually the piece of the permit that talks about the grading itself. And what I'll say is, looking at the slide, the white areas around the outside are preserved trees. There is a number of trees that will be retained on this site. It's not a full cleared proposal. A pretty large swath along College there. And the other white spots are also tree protection areas. The gray is where we're going to see grading and improvement in the project. And if you flip one more. Um, this, this plan set shows where the structure is going to go and how that does align with those areas where you see the tree removal in the previous slide. So overall there's 49 trees on the site and it will result in 23 of those trees being removed. So still a fair number of trees will be retained on this property in order to accommodate this new development. With that, I'm open to any questions.

Oh, that's exciting. We've been looking for that area to, you know, develop in Midtown. And specifically, it's obviously the yards really geared towards, you know, St. Martin's University and their students. And so this is going to be another asset that we have in Midtown and another reason for people to come and come to Midtown and check it out. So I'm really looking forward to when it gets open. You can see the pickleball courts there across the street. That's really cool. I was wondering what they were going to do with that piece of property. So I look forward to that being built and enjoying the outdoors and everything that's offered there. So thank you. Which one is College Street?

It's on the left there?

The right hand side. The right hand side?

That's it, okay.

And that's, up is north? That is right where the new roundabout's gonna be. But up is north? Up is north.

Yeah. Did they agree to the branding of the Midtown branding portion that we talked about so many times?

Well, and this is MJR going, you know, this is an MJR project.

As soon as I heard about this project, I asked about it multiple times. Can we please do some of the Midtown branding and the signage?

So there are, yeah, Deputy Mayor's been asking questions about the signing type at this site, and of course, the right land use approval, there'll still be sign permits that we come future in the project. But one of the things we do have with MGR development is the MOU along with St. Martin's Abbey for the construction of the roundabout and looking at some type of entry feature there. So we have some language in that MOU that talks about that entry feature. And I know MGR is supportive of that. We just haven't had the direct conversations of what that looks like yet. We'll be starting that more likely at the first of the year. Gotcha. Okay. Thanks. Are you done? Yes, that concludes my report. And knowing some of the fellow employees, far too long, and I can't keep up.

That's all right. So now we're on to the mayor's report. Last Friday on 9-11, I was able to take part again in Foo for Raw, which is an annual event. partnership between the Thurston County Chamber Joint Base Lewis McCord and so the business community and JBLM and Olympia Yacht Club where they take out you know young soldiers out to a day of celebration and it was a It started in 1960, and it's a really amazing event, and I've been very fortunate enough to be able to take part of the event just as the mayor of Lacey in celebration, and then for the last several years as a captain, bringing people out there as well. And so it was another successful time. The weather kind of was eh at the beginning of it, but the rain held off, and we had a great time. celebration and lots of thank yous and a good time to go around and to celebrate all of our soldiers right here at the JPLM region. So that was great. And then on Wednesday, September 9th, the Transportation Policy Board met. And we had several items on our agenda. The first was our annual 2027 to 2030 draft regional RTIP amendments. And these are things that we do every year where basically if you're a project that has federal funding or funding it, you need to be a part of that regional RTIP. And so it's basically the next four-year plans that show us all the big, you know, projects that have funding coming their way, state or federal funding coming their way, and so we updated that. We got our final review of our public participation update that the TRPC has been working on for a long time, and, you know, heard several of these reports out as they've been working on the public participation, and, you know, not surprising that TRPC is struggling along with a lot of local governments and everything else on, uh, trying to get information out to the public, um, about, you know, what they're doing and the projects that's, that's going on at Thurston regional planning council or the transportation policy board where all the regional planning happens. Um, and, um, and so they've been really working on a public participation, uh, plan. Um, and there's, we've, I've heard several different versions of this, and they're all trying to do the same thing, like how do we best connect to people to make sure where they're getting input, so we're making good decisions based off good public input. And so this is their first time they've had a public participation plan, and we'll see how it goes. I'm sure those at TRPC have been obviously advised of that as well. Then we had an update from our human services transportation plan. So basically a coordination plan that happens between all those service providers that have a transportation element in their mission. And so it's trying to be able to coordinate all of those different service providers to make sure they're sharing information and and we're making sure people can get from point A to point B for services that they need and trying to find strategies around how to make that happen easier. For example, with our Lacey Veterans Services Hub, we have worked with Intercity Transit to get additional vans, and we now use those vans to take people up to appointments up north And so it's part of that whole process of looking at what providers are doing and how we can regionally coordinate for that. And then the majority of the time was really going over all of our call for projects for the grant for our annual federal dollar allocation that's going to be coming up. We heard just a brief overview of every project that is requesting dollars that are going to be rewarded or voted upon at our next meeting. And so it's just quite a bit of time going through each project and talking about the specifics of the project. The next step of that is there's a subcommittee, which since I'm the chair of the Transition Policy Board, I'll be sitting on that will go in depth and sort of look at each of these projects and try to look at the scoring that's been on it and try to help. staff come up with a recommendation on a funding package because the need, of course, is always considerably greater than the dollars available through our federal dollars that get allocated to our region through the Thurston Regional Planning Council. So I have a long afternoon on Thursday that I will be spending ongoing doing a deep dive on each of those projects so we can form a recommendation. the full council to consider and so that is my report

Uh, Dr. Mayor? Uh, one quick one. LTAC did meet, uh, last Thursday, uh, and we began application review this coming Thursday. We will, um, have applications scored in consideration for funding, um, to bring a recommendation to the council. So, um, we did have to cut two, uh, applications from our consideration. One of them was a fundraiser, so we don't do fundraisers, but Um, we still have, I think 20, 21, 22. Yep, to consider for further asks. FYI, the city of Lacey reduced the number of asks that they would normally have, so Fun Fair wasn't in there. Several different city things were not in there so that they could make a little bit more room for other entities to get application and hopefully have success. We do have a lot of new applicants this year. So I think there were seven new applicants this year, first timers. wanting to put on an event in the city and bring some kind of activity to the city. So that was really exciting. Each one of those will get interviewed, brought in for, I won't say questioning, but... brought in to discuss their event and, you know, just kind of talk about why they should get funded and so on. So we'll meet again this Thursday, and hopefully we'll have all the scoring done and begin to come up with some recommendations for the council. And that is my report. Thank you. Council Member Greenstein.

I have no report.

Council Member Cox.

I have a short one on the September 9th LOTT Board of Directors meeting. We began the evening discussing legislative priorities for the upcoming session and heard from our contract lobbyists about what they're seeing and hearing. The two major thrusts from LOTT were to lobby for the State Public Works Board to provide stable funding for public works projects. and support for LOT's Class A Plus Reclaimed Water Demonstration Project. Our lobbyist advised that the state is projecting a $4 billion deficit for the 2027-29 biennium and $10 billion for 29 to 31. We passed the resolution of support for the Deschutes Estuary Restoration Project. We continued some policy update discussions. We authorized staff to release the proposed 2027-2028 budget and capital improvements plan for public review. And I trust we have received now the proposed rates, Rick, for lots

I believe so, yes.

Yeah. If it's not here, it will be shortly. And then we approved two construction bid awards for infrastructure projects at the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant. One project, which is... upgrade of the supplemental carbon system went to a Puyallup firm called Prospect Construction. This is a contract that makes a pilot project a permanent installation at the facility. It was for $683,530. And then the second bid award was $979,000. awarded to BES Electrical Services of Olympia. And this project involves replacing switchgear transformers and breakers at the substation AB at the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant. These have reached the end of their useful life. And it should be noted that both projects came in within or below the estimated costs for that. So that was good news. That's my report.

Thank you. Council Member Turner.

Yes, I attended the all-day retreat at TRPC last week, and I'll have a full report for the council later, but I wanted to comment on something that you said. One of the things that we talked about was definitely public engagement and communication, and in the subgroup that I was in, that was our number one priority. We were asked to rank, I think there were, I don't know, 20 priorities, and that was our number one priority. And we talked a lot about the fact that we have to do a better job of going out to where people are and not just always expecting them to come to us. And one thing that I put on the table was when we're talking about transportation, we're not just talking about systems and infrastructures and vehicles and routes. We're also talking about the human experience. And so my recommendation was that we do a little better job with trying to capture that. So anyway, that's on the table. And like I said, I'll bring another report later. I also want to report that I gave an interview to On the Record to talk about the city council vacancy. It's on the Tony Taylor podcast. And I did my best.

You did a very good job. I think for people who are interested in applying for our open city council position, that was the topic of your discussion, and I think you did a really great job. And so if you haven't, if you're interested, please go take a look at that interview. There's a lot of very good, insightful recommendations there on what it takes to be a council member. You can see it's all fun and games.

How many applicants do we have now?

We have 21 as of today. We're on those close at 5 p.m. on Friday. So if you're still interested, you have till 5 p.m. on Friday to get in your application. Council member, see you.

I don't have a report at this moment. I Orca met last week, but I haven't had a chance to review notes and create a report for you all. So I'll have that for you next week.

Great. Well, now we've reached the end of our regular agenda. We're going to be adjourning to an executive session to possibly discuss a selection or site of the acquisition of a real estate, which is why we're going to an executive session. So that will last 15 minutes, but we're going to start that. We'll give the council like a seven-minute break. So we'll enter that into that executive session at 8.55, and we'll meet for 15 minutes. And, of course, if we need longer, we'll all come back out and extend it. But until then, we're going to adjourn to the executive session. Thank you. It is now 9.10. We have just left our executive session where we received an update on a possible acquisition of real estate. No decisions were made. So we've reached the end of our agenda. Without objection, I'm going to call this meeting adjourned. And it was a great conversation tonight. I appreciate the passion this council has. And as always, you keep it classy, Lacey.