City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you very much and I call to order the Lakewood City Council study session of Monday, August 10th, 2026. We're in council chambers and it is a council member Branstetter's birthday today. So happy birthday, Michael. So first up is the pierce county library system update with miss Gretchen crossetti the executive director, and so you are. Welcome to come on down or you have a presentation to make. You.

Okay.

Excellent. Thank you. Mayor, council members, thank you so much for having us here tonight. I know many of you. I'm Gretchen Casarotti, the executive director of Pierce County Libraries. And with me tonight is Chris Spistovsky, who is our library operations supervisor at our downtown Lakewood library. So we're grateful to have the opportunity to share a A presentation that we're kind of taking to all the city councils in our service area, but also, of course, here in Lakewood speak to some of the unique challenges and opportunities that exist for public libraries in the city of Lakewood. So overall, recap for anyone who doesn't know, Pierce County Library's system is a district that serves all of unincorporated Pierce County, including the 15 cities that are annexed within. That means we are serving getting close to 700,000 people within our 19 branches, 20 buildings across Pierce County, from the mountain to the sound, about 2,000 square miles geographically. Our library system holds well over a million items in our collections and we have reciprocal borrowing with all of our neighbor libraries. So if you work in Seattle, you can borrow from Seattle Public Library or King County. If they live in King County and work down here, they can borrow from our library system. So that means residents have access to, I don't even know, millions, plural, of items within all the shared library collections. And at Pierce County Libraries, as a junior taxing district, we are primarily funded through property taxes. About 97% of our annual revenue comes from an annual collection of property taxes. We're currently at 33 cents per 1,000, so we serve a lot of people with a little bit across the county. And the vast majority of our annual revenue goes to our people. Our buildings would just be buildings of stuff, but it's really our people who build the relationships and host the programs and develop relationships inside the building and outside in the community that make the magic happen in Pierce County Libraries. Since I've been here for the last four years, we've also really worked to build up our capacity to seek alternate revenues in partnership with our foundation of the Pierce County Library, which is our nonprofit arm. And they are helping us raise funds for capital. They have an annual gift to the library. We consider it kind of budget relieving. And so we lean really heavily on them. We have an annual event I'd love to plug, which is the third Saturday in October, which unfortunately is the same night as EFN's event. But if you're not committed to that, we'd love to have you join us for a fun night of trivia and fundraising for the library. And of course, here in Lakewood, we have our superstars, Bob Estrada and the Friends of the Lakewood Library that have stepped up in the last three years to really fill gaps, both in the closure of our old building and to support the new building, but also in getting books in the hands of kids. They have really stepped up to help in our Tilikum branch by way of funds and time and all of their energy. So we're really, really grateful to them. Anybody who's looking to get involved in community by volunteering, 10-10 recommend joining the Friends of the Lakewood Library. And you can support them when you come into the branch by buying some books from their collection up front. So about the library system, in this last year, in 2025, we had about two and a half million visits to our buildings. We are still getting close to, but not quite where we were at pre-pandemic. with people coming in and out of our buildings, our physical buildings, as well as use of the collections online. We consider our digital collections another form of collection. So we've got databases that we've added. If you're interested in learning more about crafts and hobbies, we have a new database called Craftsy that you can have a free subscription access to through your library card. As well as things like Chilton's auto mechanic books and or databases and all kinds of good stuff. Lots of help for students, for anyone who has a young one in school and would like a little extra help. There's lots of great resources as well. Was I going to ask you to speak on the statistics for these two branches?

I'm not sure you were. Would you like to? Sure. Yeah, I'll do that. Hi. Hi. So Lakewood, we had 105,000 visitors last year and we're on pace to be up about 10 to 15% this year. So we're continuing to recover from the building being closed and the pandemic. We see a lot of use in our building for folks who need technology assistance, people who are applying for jobs, who are trying to get housing, people who just need basic scanning, lots of faxing in our building, which is sort of a unique situation as well. A lot of VA assistance, that sort of thing. We have the 26,500 car holders for Lakewood, and we're continuing to grow that. We are still encountering people who are still rediscovering that we are open and available. So that is a great thing for us. Tilikum, a little bit, you know, it's one of our smaller locations, but one of our key ones. um you know everyone here would be familiar with with the community there and how important it is that we serve um serve them there um and that's one of our libraries where we can make the most direct connections with folks um so even though the materials you know maybe don't look like as much as like like oh it's much a smaller community the individual community connections are truly what matters so much in telecom um and we have a tremendously dedicated staff there um

both bilingual and otherwise who are able to connect with members of the community that we just can't do elsewhere thank you council member brandstetter so in the in contrasting the two sites that um it it certainly looks like that telecom has about a tenth of the number of card holders Dave Kuntz, That, as opposed to the library in the downtown here. Dave Kuntz, Yet you know they have. Dave Kuntz, That that ratio doesn't hold true and it talks about visitors. Dave Kuntz, um. So how do you count visitors in both locations?

That's a great question. I'm happy to take that. Great. That's all right with you.

I love it. So we on the most basic level, we have a door counter, so it measures people coming in and out. So we compare that. We also can track computer uses. So the computers in the branch, we can actually look in those computers so we can see how many sessions are being used for technology use inside the building. And then we also do reference sampling. The year where we take like a week and we go through all the different types of questions we have just on that week sample. And then we can see what sort of questions are people asking us? How much time does each individual take? Lakewood and Telecom are unique in the system in that we tend to have longer encounters with customers. Some of our other locations, they may just be coming in, asking where a book is and we help them find it and they head out. But here people truly need like the individual assistance and that's something we're able to do with us.

And if I may, Council Member Branstadter, public is truly public. So you don't need a card to come into the library. And so some of our branches might see more foot traffic than cardholders because you don't need to have a card to come into our spaces.

They might come many times a day.

Sometimes. Okay. Just an anomaly in the statistics.

Yeah. Great observation. Thank you. Great. Some of you know, we launched a new strategic plan in the library system in 2025. And with that came a recentering of our mission and vision and values as an organization. The board approved that in January of 2025. And since then, we've been working to advance our four strategic goals to enhance the library experience, to create welcoming and inclusive spaces, emphasizing strategic partnerships and to build a sustainable future, which for us includes what we call the triple bottom line around environmental, financial and social sustainability. So these goals are realized through all our departments within the library system and particularly with things like goal three strategic partnerships. We're making a lot of progress behind the scenes to develop capacity so that we can be a connector in communities where there may be resources available, but folks don't know about them or can't get to them. So that looks like bringing in Tacoma Pro Bono for free legal services. It looks like different types of partnerships that bring services out into really to all of our branches across the system. So we're continuing to advance that. And in this last year, we completed a 15 month long range capital planning, which has culminated in some recommendations from the consultants, which are not yet public, mainly because we're trying to still tackle with our board going through each of the profiles for all of our 20 buildings. And we're almost done with that. So we're still looking at our long-range capital plans for the library system and overall looking at 14 buildings that are 30 years old needing work as well as mapping the costs for operating the library system with this many locations in our current funding structure in Washington and the needed repairs, maintenance, and upgrades to our facilities. So that does include the city of Lakewood. So the completion of the Lakewood Community Advisory Committee in 2022 resulted in a recommendation to the library that we consider exploring rebuilding on the site or if something else, if it's not able, we'll find explore other options. And so one of the steps that we've taken is to work with an architectural firm called Johnson Architects and completed a feasibility study. for the Wildair property in which we looked at different sizes of the buildings and orientation, looking at city codes. There's a grove of Gary oak trees, for example, along the primary road on Gravely Lake. And so they gave us a lot of great information about what it would take, what it would cost, what our options would be, all estimates, of course. So we did complete that, and that is now being folded into our long-range planning as we look at all the capital costs and needs. I don't have a slide on it, but also continuing to work closely with the Tillicum Woodbrook Community Center Association. We meet quarterly with their leadership, the executive director and board chair to talk about the improvements that they're making on the facility and as a partner offering to help where we can. with letters of support for grants and just improving our internal communication with them. So that is also still in the works in the spirit of the recommendations from our community advisory committee shared with the City of Lakewood. So, Chris, you've got a couple events coming up you want to share?

Yeah, so coming up on Tuesday, August 11th, we have for adults a low-waste living event, which is one of our science and sustainability programs. So we're very excited by that, and we're working on bringing more sustainability programs to adult services. That's something we're still building out a little bit, our adult services programs. Youth and family events, we have a regular sensory bins and toy time. So this particular one's coming up on Wednesdays. story times we have the bilingual story times both on Thursdays at the Lakewood downtown branch at 1030 and we also have them on Saturdays at Tillicum at 1 o'clock so those are regular story times for youth 5 and under and then for teens we have a couple cool ones coming up we have some temporary tattoos for teens where they can create their own temporary tattoo with other teens and make them however they'd like them to be I don't know what's cool And then we have a craft. Yeah, no, I have no idea what my team thinks is cool. And then just here for the crafts. So we have a drop-in program as well. So a lot of focus on the teens and getting them into the building and crafting. And one that's not on here and coming up, which is kind of cool, is the day before Halloween, there's a cryptid crafting event for teens so they can make their own cryptid for Halloween. So yeah, apparently they're cool again.

Deputy Mayor Bell has a question.

Thank you, Mayor. So I was wondering, what is the attendance like on these held in Lakewood? Do you have any sort of kind of previous numbers or something that you could let us know about and how it's being received?

Yeah. So it varies depending on the event. So the playtimes tend to have a few more folks. So depending on which playtime it is, during most of the year, we've been partnering with Green Trike and those are very popular events. To the point we're hitting capacity in our meeting room. So, which is a good 30 to 40 people total filling our meeting room on Wednesdays. Our bilingual story times are a little bit newer here. They've been running in Tilikum for a long time. So we only tend to have like five-ish folks for those currently. Um, and then our team programming, we're still, that's, that's always a struggle. It's sort of like college football recruiting, like you're always recruiting. And then like that class leaves and you're always recruiting again. And so that downtime we had in between not having a building, like we're still building up our team program. So we have anywhere from like three to seven show up for, for a team program right now, but like they're, they're constantly out there hitting and this upcoming high school year, they're, they're going to be there all the time trying to. to build that back up again. But once you get that core group and then they recruit the next core group, it works really well.

I would also add that our staff working outside of the building have developed some really great relationships with the schools. So for particularly teens, when we can get to the school and usually through the school's librarians, then we're able to build some relationships in where they are if they're not able to come to a library independently. which we don't keep statistics on in this kind of space. But just so you know that there's other things happening, especially for teens to have safe relationships with adults and places to go and all of that. So I just wanted to add that. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the completion and conclusion of my presentation this evening. Thank you, Chris, for joining me.

Council Member Randstetter has a question.

Yes. During COVID and during the period of time, and then subsequent to the closure of the main library before the current library was put into operation, that the library was doing a lot of types of events at satellite locations in the city. some businesses, the historical society, some other thing that since we've been getting into the operation of a permanent site, are any of those continuing? Or are there any enhancements of those sorts of things in the future?

Do you want me to start and then I'll pass it to you? Sure. Yeah, they definitely are, though a little less visible, like not here in City Hall, where we were having pop-ups. But staff from the system might come from a branch here, or they might come from our outreach department, which is for the whole library system. And we work in partnership with Nourish Food Bank, for example, where we go to where they have their mobile food stops. and again schools and the historical society we worked with really closely for a while. I don't know if that book club is still going on. I should pass it over to you. But that's part of this new regional model too that we're still in early stages of implementation is to ensure that we have staff that are focusing on the building and staff that are focusing on community partnerships and presence in the community. So yes, although not in the same places.

Yeah, and I'll add that a lot of the work that we did when the building was closed going out into the community has filtered through the rest of the system. And it's really been the whole system is focusing on getting out more into the community and having events across the communities we serve. For us, we focus heavily on opening the building and starting to build back what we what we lost when we closed. So we've been building that for now. And right now, like we're still like building up our entire librarian set of people to go out into the community. Like right now we are hiring one of our adult services librarians to do that. So that's been something we've been missing, focusing heavily so internally to get everything rolling there first. So, but yes, the success that we had out in the community has actually gone through the entire system and is now a system-wide initiative to do so.

And I guess my other question is some time ago, there was a, Dave Kuntz, adjustment. Dave Kuntz, And i'll say i'll call it a personnel policy, but that were. Dave Kuntz, percentage of your staff were being assigned to multiple libraries to we're serving more regionally than just a specific site and haven't heard much of that. recently either from the public or from uh from staff at the libraries that was that something that is uh worked out well or is it at least uh transitioned into a working model that is helping you put people with specific expertise being available at multiple library sites that's what i thought it was kind of one of the focus

Yeah. Yes, great question. So I mentioned we are still kind of rolling that out. So we have a union. So with the collective bargaining unit, negotiations can take time to work through all of the details of moving to a regional model. So some of what I think people have heard was also somewhat premature. When you're in negotiations, there's not a lot that the library can share about negotiations. about the details um until things are done and complete um and so that was recently completed last month yeah i think last month um so now we're proceeding with filling vacancies um getting the folks where they all want to their choices they were given preferences for where they wanted to work So process wise, we're still maybe two or three months out from filling and getting the new staff up to speed for that for the system. The other part of your comment I also alluded to in getting staff out of the building, but it kind of also harkens back to some of the comments I made around our fiscal reality. which is that the library system was built up before a 1% property tax cap existed. And so we have to look at the business needs of the organization, what does that look like, and what our resources are and available to provide the maximum amount of services that we can with the resources that we have. Lastly, I would just add that a regional model is really common in library systems. And to what you were also just adding in your comments was that there are benefits in increasing diversity and increasing equity across a system when staff have the ability to go and work in other locations. It looks like not having to close key center because somebody called out sick, but rather having someone who can go and cover that who also works there and can build those relationships to be able to keep our branches open. So we're still a little early in the implementation, but we certainly are working on evaluations and looking at public you know, opinion, but we're still doing a lot of that infrastructure work. In 2027, we'll have a public opinion poll that'll be conducted, and that'll give us some good information after we've had some time for the implementation to roll out. But we expect that that's going to look like an increase in programs, an increase in impact, an increase, hopefully, in reading levels and inspiring folks to read and connect with community. So we certainly are measuring a lot of different facets of the work that we're anticipating will happen and the work that we're asking the library staff to do. Anything you would add? Yeah.

I would say there's definitely a strength that's come for our direct customer service staff, the ones who talk to people regularly day to day. Before, you were just sort of in your area, and frequently, a lot of the things you did were very similar. Serving the customers in Lakewood are a very different experience than, say, serving in them in DuPont, even though there's a lot of an overlap, particularly with folks who work in the base and what have you. DuPont's much more family-based, and it's a lot more youth reading-based. And here's a lot more technology based and having staff like serve in both. You're using all your tools on a weekly basis as opposed to just solidifying a set that you only used before because you did the same things all the time. And I think that's really added to a strength that really made our individual customer service staff better.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Council Member Lindholm.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation tonight. It's really nice to hear from you. It's nice to see you. Am I right in thinking the temporary library is on a 10-year lease? And if so, if we build a library in five, a permanent one, what happens to the other five years of that lease?

I'll fill that one. Yeah.

All things capital come to me and the board. I would be very surprised if we were able to build and open a permanent library facility in a five-year period. It took us probably twice as long to get that interim up when we worked through all the agencies and the permitting and all the changes in the supply and construction and all the costs. And frankly, we don't have money. We don't have 30 to $50 million to construct

Not in your back pocket.

It's not in our back pocket, which is part of why this needs to fold into our long range planning to understand how we would approach this. And in fact, not tomorrow, Wednesday is our board meeting, and we have somebody coming to speak to the board for development around the funding tools available to public libraries. Guess what? Spoiler alert, there's not very many. So we really need to look at the whole picture. I would imagine, you know, in three years, we're going to have a much clearer roadmap. But I would be very surprised if we were having meaningful conversations. I mean, unless somebody's got 40 million out there, like, come talk to me. But that's roughly where I would say we're talking timeline wise.

If it takes longer than 10 years, what happens to that lease? Is that one that you can renew? Yeah. Yeah.

There's they would love for us to stay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilmember Talbot.

Thank you for the presentation as well. I remember seeing a presentation, I guess sometime what feels like either late 24, early 25, but nonetheless, it was the presentation from the architect with the options on the table. And it seemed like at the time there were three options, and I could be wrong quoting the square footages here, but like 20,000, 25,000, 30,000.

what was the old tensler library how big was that library roughly 35 000 square feet um and not suitable to contemporary codes so easements spaces from property uh emergency life and safety you know exits and things like that yeah You know the exact.

And I will add the effective space at the time of closing was closer to 22,000. There were two basements that was included in the square footage. There was a second floor that was unusable at the time of closing. So minus those, the effective space was roughly 22,000 square feet.

Okay, thank you. And yeah, the reason I asked was because I remember kind of the striking detail of all things kind of affecting the square footage was like the number of parking spaces or something that determined in some crazy way the square footage. So thank you for clarity on that. And then... Correct me if I'm wrong. There were no preferred options that the board has taken from that. It was just for your information. Okay. And then does the actual feasibility study exist as a document or a memo or was it like a series of slide presentations? And nonetheless, have we received that official feasibility study?

um it does exist as a as a study and it is a public record so i have not given it to lakewood city council but i'd be happy to share it i did share it with doug um i think i shared it with you too mayor didn't i did i share that with you doesn't matter happy to share it it's not on our website um you know uh and like i said we're folding it into capital planning so i don't have a timeline when we're bringing lakewood back to our board um we finish all the building profiles in the September meeting. And so then we'll start to go through and look at the recommendations in order of critical, like if this breaks and the building has to close, South Hill was leaking, we need to look at the building envelope in the roof. you know, looking at first critical building issues, and then we'll start to dig in. Lakewood will obviously be high on the list for the board to consider. And that's when I think they would be looking at, here's some, let's talk about the recommendations. And that would include Tillicum. Lakewood is our only city that has two libraries within the city limits.

okay thank you yeah i would like to get a copy of the study at some point um then i'll talk work with our city manager on that uh i guess then along those lines it was also kind of what i was remembering about that presentation was that True, you do have other libraries with more critical capital asset needs and maintenance needs, and Lakewood kind of fell kind of lower as far as the maintenance needs. If and when and however funding

arises um can the prioritization be shifted based on for sure those are recommendations um and you know timing wise the feasibility study hadn't been completed before you know when they were working on some of that um so i anticipate that's an information point for the board of trustees it's not a direction um so i think we need to have honest conversations about capacity and recommendations to relocate libraries um you know that could be 10 plus years for fife if the transit center comes up there and they want to have a you know project or something So, yes, the long answer was that, but the short answer is yes, the board will be able to navigate and negotiate and we'll realistically be creating our own more actionable, probably five-year plans, taking all of that and then making a plan of action, essentially. Okay.

Thank you. Any more questions? Well, the City of Lakewood and the Lakewood City Council look forward to working with the Pierce County Library System in creating a reimagining our library and working to getting our library back up and you're doing a great job in the situation that you're in uh and uh we really appreciate your efforts now it's really important that everybody who comes to visit us leaves smarter than when they came here so i looked up and i see here ai companies caught scanning and destroying thousands of books i don't know if that's true or not but it is august 3rd 2026 And then there's a quote here from a 19th century German romantic poet and essayist Heinrich Hein. I'm sure council member Lindholm is very familiar with this gentleman. Wherever books are burned, men also in the end are burned. So with that.

Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. And we really are very committed to the long-term presence of the library and really appreciate the great partnership that we've had with Becky, working with Doug to work through all of these matters. So thank you. Happy to come back anytime and we'll keep you updated.

I do have one financial question. And I might've missed this. So excuse me if I did. Do you have any intention of going back for a levy lid lift to get it back to 50 cents? Because I think they did that.

Yeah.

That's been a while.

In 2018.

2018.

That's also part of this longer term discussion because if we have capital needs, we will have to have a lot of conversations with our board about the political environment and measures to raise taxes. So I'll keep you updated, but there is no eminent plan or commitment at this time.

Thank you very much for your time and for being here and for your presentation. We look forward to working with you.

Thanks.

Okay. Next up, review of the interlocal agreement with the Pierce County regarding the tourism promotion area, the TPA. This is Ms. Becky Newton, our economic development manager. And... the tpa is approved at the county level but i think we probably because we've got a lot of new members and we haven't talked about the tpa in recent memory as far as i know we know a lot about the ltac so if you could explain the tpa what it is and why we have it that would be a great way to start thank you i was

good evening mayor deputy mayor and members of council we definitely will go over what a tpa is as as you mentioned this is review of the interlocal agreement with pierce county for the tourism promotion area it's an update to pierce county ordinance that was originally established in 2009 and then updated in 2011. The purpose of the update is to increase the rate of collection, to not only maintain but also increase the Pierce County region's competitiveness for tourism. And so before we go into the items and the definition and so forth, Dean Burke with Visit Tacoma Pierce County is here with me this evening and he can correct me and add to the discussion as well as we go along. And so basically this has been a multi-year project to get to this point. And so what is a TPA? So the tourism promotion area in Pierce County is a special funding district that collects an assessment. It's a type of a fee from larger hotels and uses those funds to promote tourism and increase overnight stays. in the county. It's a financing mechanism authorized under Washington state law. It's not a tax. So anything to add to that?

It's collected by hotels 40 rooms and over across countywide and the assessment is collected into a pool that is then used for countywide year round efforts. So you don't see it broken out at the local municipal level. There are seven or eight cities in the interlocal agreement on this. And yeah, so I think that's all, I'll stop there.

Okay, that's great. Yeah, as you mentioned, hotels with 40 rooms or more, the funds are administered through Pierce County on behalf of the participating jurisdictions, including Pierce County, Tacoma, Lakewood, Puyallup, DuPont, Fife, Gig Harbor, and Sumner through an interlocal agreement. Fife is being removed from the agreement and Rustin added to the agreement. The money is awarded through a competitive grant process to organizations that can demonstrate that they will bring more overnight stays to the county. So the funds can be used for marketing, sports tourism, as well as event marketing, leisure travel marketing, and also tourism administration and promotion. The program's primary goal is to generate incremental hotel room nights, as I mentioned. which in turn supports local businesses such as restaurants, attractions, retailers. Pierce County's tourism strategy prioritizes projects that drive overnight visitors, essentially. And built on the traction of events here, target high potential visitor markets and balance investments across different types of promotions. It's designed to be a stable source of funding for marketing and sales and to increase the tourism demand for our area. Funds are used, as I mentioned, for promotion across several categories, leisure, travel, sports events, etc. And they're designed to and created and governed by those who collect the charge. It's funded by a levy and industry imposed charge, which is a fixed amount per occupied room night. So many advantages include the stable funding. Funds may not be diverted to non-tourism programs. There's an opportunity for local governments to support tourism, the tourism industry through a no expense policy decision. In other words, no tax to its residents. Also provides for community growth and is a public private partnership. Why the modification now? Washington State raised the maximum tourism promotion area assessment rate in 2020 from $2 per room night to a maximum of $5 per room night. So Pierce County is currently lagging behind collection rates compared to the rest of the state and have not adjusted since 2009. It helps us to be more competitive with other destinations across the country and also helps us to retain businesses that we have here. Some comparisons, so Pierce County actually collection currently is an average of 94 cents per night, whereas Pierce are collecting up to $5 per night. An example would be Spokane and other municipalities across the state. The agreement is an amended and restated agreement and removes Fife, as I mentioned, and adds Ruston. It's in line with state legislation under RCW 35-101-130. And then on page 20 of your packet, it identifies the different zones. So this is a tiered structure, whereas Zone A would incorporate the downtown area of Tacoma. Zone B would be Tacoma area outside of the downtown, as well as Lakewood, Ruston, and Puyallup. Zone 3 is DuPont, Gig Harbor, Sumner, and unincorporated Pierce County. And then Zone D, which has no dollar value assigned to it, would be other lodging businesses such as guest ranches and other hotels. Yeah, we don't really have a zone D. And then page five, the top chart shows the new tiered rates. So Tacoma is zone A, and they are scheduled to go from $1.50 to $5.00. Zone B, which it would include Lakewood, would be scheduled to go from $1 to $3, and Zone C from 50 cents to $1.50. The second chart below that shows how the rate would adjust upon expiration of the RCW if no other additional changes are and charges are permitted. Any further changes must be made only by amendment of the resolution of Pierce County Council requiring a two-thirds vote. Page 22, just some additional notes. As I mentioned, it's a special assessment. It's not a tax. DOR shall administer the special assessment and monies are distributed to Pierce County on a monthly basis. Use of the revenues, as I mentioned, are for promotion of tourism. I want to stress that this is hotelier driven, this change and the opening of the ILA to raise it to be more competitive and then to be able to distribute those funds out to market the destination. So at least 90% of the revenues collected must be allocated to an organization whose primary mission is a year-round tourism promotion. 10% may be allocated to a grant program as determined by the TPA Hotel Commission. Attachment B shows the schedule. Basically, they started essentially April 2025. And so it's been through quite a process up until now. City of Lakewood has several hotels. that are in the category of 40 and above. That would include Best Western, America's Best Value Inn, Wood Spring Suites, Town Place Suites, Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn, and coming soon will be the Spring Hill Suites. And with that, ask if Dean has anything to add.

I'll just amplify that this is hotelier driven. My position here tonight, even though I'm from the DMO office, is in support of this. We've been helping alongside with the county and with the legal firm that's been helping conduct the architecture for this so that the hoteliers would have their will in this. So I just want to clear that up in my position and how I'm representing this here tonight and just backing that up. So yeah, so any questions, we'll take those.

Does anybody have any questions? So this goes in front of the hotelier sign-off. Correct. Then it goes in front of the county council, actually, to change it, right?

That's the final. It does hit all of the interlocal cities. Lakewood and Tacoma are the last two. And then the county signs off.

Good. Any questions? Michael Branstadter.

In the memo that we were provided under the section on page 15 about advantages of a TPA, one of the advantages is says that it's governed by those who pay the charge. And I'm not seeing that in the ILA.

The hoteliers. Yeah. So. the hoteliers are who are it's calling that them is calling the hoteliers the payer of the charge yeah that's how that's referring to that okay and then um at this Juncture um what is the reasoning that the city of fight is using to withdraw uh reduction um if you're familiar with the types of properties that are in Fife if you've ever been down Pacific Avenue there there challenging. Many, many of them were closed and changed into low income housing or homeless shelters, leaving only a couple of properties really left that are motel facing, sometimes hourly rate based type properties. So it was not a good fit. And they don't have any Any future, they can always come back in later, but there's no horizon that says that that is probably going to happen.

Okay. And it does say that revenues from the TPA special assessments shall be allocated or at least 90% collected must be allocated to an organization whose primary mission is year-round tourism promoting in the county of Perth. Currently, who is that?

That's our office.

And is there any competition for that?

No. Yeah. There wouldn't be normally, no.

And then there are some provisions here for a Pierce County Tourism Promotion Area Hotel Commission. And it says that there would be one person on this, although appointed by the county council, that would represent Lakewood.

That exists now. They meet quarterly and has for years. Yeah, that's the TPA committee.

So who is that? TPA commission.

The TPA commission. That committee exists and has for years. It's what governs it now.

So for Lakewood. Is that a person?

There is a person from Lakewood from a Lakewood hotel on that committee. Correct.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay.

Are there any other questions for anybody? All right. Well, thank you very much. Just looking it up here. It's not quite as easy as I was hoping. Find TPA in here and the general government. Okay. Yeah.

I thought

Dave Kuntz, Next step is the H barn project update and exploration of lease slash facility use agreement with partners for parks i'd like to call on our. Dave Kuntz, Roxanne miles parks and recreation Community service and Community services director and so a lot of hats there is miles. Thank you very much for being here this evening. And this starts on page 31 of our packets.

Absolutely.

Ms. Miles.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. Happy to be here tonight. And as you know, this has been a passion project for many people. We've been very active in exploring different revenue streams and avenues to get it to the finish line. And so one of the opportunities has really caused us to look a little bit differently at what other potential relationship we might want to have with our partners in order to accomplish this project. There we go. Sorry.

A little delay.

So as you know, there has been a recent kind of redesign look. How can we really keep the essence of the barns and what the project has been, but look at some cost savings? And so that created more of an indoor-outdoor design. One of the wings opens out to the plaza where the silos are. and the community activities are and the other one is an open air pavilion so based on that then the project in terms of construction it's a little over 10 million so the whole project is now set at 12 million and so we've been working through our different funding opportunities in order to close that gap So Partners for Parks, I need to clarify, they committed in the memorandum with the city to $3.5 million. So we've been talking about whether we can stretch that a little bit to try to bring it to four. I'm working on the city's second application for the second $2 million allocation for the $4 million commitment. And the state committed $200,000 to the silos. So that still leaves us very much at that $3.8 million mark that we've been trying to look at some opportunities for. We have not heard back completely on our federal ask. We do know that the amount that we asked through the House has been shortened a little bit, maybe smaller than our ask itself. So we don't know exactly what's going to happen through the Senate as well. But we really want to continue to pursue opportunities that can help close the gap. Recently submitted to an Esqually Indian Tribe capital request. And then when we're going to talk a little bit, that really was one of the drivers to evaluate a new relationship is the Building Communities Fund. But we think this relationship is a sound one that I'm going to bring forward to you that might help us in any number of ways. And so through this, most of the resources that we are looking for, our hopes is to get answers back on all of them by the end of the year, which is the same time that you're going to be exploring the 60%. design and taking the next step with the project. So this relationship in order to pursue building communities fund and other ones requiring a nonprofit to apply would require that the partners for parks have more of a stake in site control and site operations. So one of the possibilities and what's in the draft lease and facility use agreement in your packet is that we lease the land to the partners specifically for the development and operations of a community facility. So that will require a lease that has a legally described description. And we actually have received that description back from the consultant team and have it to insert into the agreement. In this, though, often when you lease land to somebody, you give them exclusive rights to develop. And at the end of the lease term, right, they can remove those improvements or leave them on the property. In this particular case, we're contributing to those. We are maintaining our role as the project manager and are making joint improvements to the property itself. And because we are doing so, we're going to be able to continue the contracts that we already have in place, moving forward with taking the next steps with design. And at the end of the day, once the facility is improved, then the partners will have the lease with an improved facility on it. Now, the partners will operate the facility because site control is a part of it, but they're going to only do so for the benefit of the community and the restrictions that we put in the lease. And also because we're contributing, we as the city then will have priority in majority usage of the building. In order to facilitate that, we're looking towards a joint operating board that would be able to set the annual budget, the operations and the scheduling, and be able to bring that forward. So on this operations board, we'd have an equal member of city staff, as well as the partners for staff, partners for parks, and we would create what that looks like, making sure the city's interests are placed first within the building and its operating schedule. The terms of this lease is that expiration of the lease, or if it's terminated earlier. My other party, the land and the facility are solely then owned and operated by the city. We're the only ones that that can revert back to. They can't give it to anybody else in this process in the intention long term beyond the obligations. of the grant is that it maintained being a public facility. One of the interesting things about the building communities grant itself is that it does require that it's open to the public. It does require at least 13 years of public benefits. There's really elements of this grant that requires the applicant to be in what they call a sponsorship relationship with a city that can really guarantee that the public funds invested by the state are used for the benefit of the public. At the same time, they restrict it to only a nonprofit applicant. OK, so just to kind of revisit the timeline and how this this fits right, this is a time sensitive grant. But overall, we reset the project at 30 percent design, which the consultants have crafted around the new open air pavilion and other aspects. They have started the 60 percent design. There's a Park and Recreation Advisory Board update coming up in September. We're looking to a new pre-application permit meeting to define all the permit needs and in particular what it means with this new design and what's required for parking, for example, in September. And then the evaluation of land use and costing updates will be done by the consultant team through October and November so that they are then prepared in December to give you that 60% design and look to, are we at the point for notice to proceed? With that, we shall know on our federal funding, we will know where we stand in the Nisqually Indian Grant. We will also know where we stand in terms of This particular grant, because they do the listing in terms of ranking, is out in October, even though it waits to go through the legislative process. And I'm happy to share it in terms of what they are looking for. Like I said, the public assets, being a public asset, being in partnership with a public agency, we feel like the scope and how this project fits this grant is a very strong fit. Okay. One of the targets that we're looking at, and just for your awareness, is the project, if it continues to move forward, should by February of 2027 be ready to move into permits. The funding from the state would be available in July, so all of that flows together rather nicely. One of the things is there is some changes to the occupancy code. So if we don't submit for permits before May and those new codes going into effect, then we have to kind of relook and that adds a little bit of time to make sure that our designs do meet that code update. So just a little background for you. Our goal then is to really move forward and this is a bit expedited we were able to put a copy of the lease and facility use agreement in its current form that form has been reviewed by partners for parks we do have the legal description to insert into that and put forward on the agenda for next monday in that document itself defines our relationship and it is one of the qualifying pieces that we would need for the building communities fund grant which has a due date of August 22nd. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to take them.

Council Member Pearson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for giving us an update and presentation on this. A couple questions. So what exactly are the minimum requirements of such an agreement to qualify for the grant, I guess? Do you have to have a 20-year... Lee, you mentioned 13. Is there a certain percent control or use that this group would have to have? What exactly are the minimum requirements to meet the grant requirements for an agreement? And then the second question, I guess, is What is Partners for Parks' current capacity with, do they operate anything like this right now? Would this be a new thing, and what does that, I guess, look like?

Yeah, so they're present as well, but I will take a shot at it. And if they want to speak to it, they can. One, I mean, it does say that the applicant has to have site control and operational control. And so the document we're attaching really gives them both of those things while at the same time ensuring that because of our capital contribution that we're retaining certain rights in that. The grant will require 13 years of open access to the public. So to your point, why the lease term is established, some of that is looking at a traditional lease term and also a return on investment. We don't want anything shorter than the grant period listed. but also being able to show that because of the capital monies that are happening, there's a commitment to this facility for 20 years. The termination terms, should it terminate before 20 years, so we said it reverts back to the city and the city will be responsible for all grant obligations up to 13 years. But if the agreement expires anywhere between the 13 and 20 years and the grant's fully satisfied, there's no penalties on anyone for that occurrence. The scope of what Partners for Parks currently does has been around advisory and support and fundraising. i think they like that level of support i think they're very they're comfortable with what's in the document because they see it as that operations and advisory function for the duration of the lease knowing that the city will take advantage of its first rights in terms of majority programming of that facility uh so there's not a deep desire to go further into programming and other elements but they do want to honor the nature of the relationship and the grant terms that we're applying for okay and then what happens if something happened and partners for parks you know disassembles and and before the 13 years and do we have to what happens then i guess we um take over full operations of the site and the grant obligations so there is a there's you know if they become insolvent right anywhere that there's a breach on their ability to fulfill their role of the lease then the lease will terminate and so the land and everything on it returns to city ownership would we have to give back the grant money that we would not we would just absorb the responsibility to make sure we have a building that's open to the public and is delivering on what the grant commitments were for receiving the funding okay thank you any other questions councilmember talbot

Thank you for the presentation. If I may, I need a little walk through the federal funding ask, because as I'm recalling, in our legislative agenda and when we met with our legislators at the beginning of the year and then also at the ad hoc meeting that we held with Partnership for Parks, the federal request at the time was 3.2 million, which I thought we were asking through Congresswoman Strickland's office. And then we were notified in early July that the that the senate didn't go through so i guess i just might have missed an email or somewhere that we are expected to receive 500 000 or is that where is that where did that number come from i didn't take that roxanne

So the House appropriations included the $500,000. The Senate has yet to do the appropriations. We did send out an updated email from our lobbyists that identified that just doesn't, because it didn't come from one senator's office, didn't mean it wasn't going to come from a different senator's office. So that could still potentially be the entire ceiling of the ask. That appropriations bill has just not been submitted, and we don't anticipate that until later this fall. So it kind of look at it the way explained is 500 is the floor, you go up from there, but it still has to go through the full budget process either way.

Okay, but that is still pending. Correct funds. And so if that and then there's 300,000 TBD. And so if that if that funding request falls through, and I guess in terms of all the pending requests, if those if we were successful with the grant, but the other funding sources didn't come through, what would be the funding mitigation scenario for that?

So once we have all that information, really at the end of the year, we'll know the answer to those questions and that really becomes council determination about where we're at. One of the things with the nature of the lease and the terms is should we not rank for this funding or should we not like the terms of it, there is the ability to terminate this lease. And so it's not that we're incurring the lease or even the obligation to move forward with the project at this juncture. So should we rank and accept the grant though, we would be in the position. to then fulfill with the project, but that information would be known. So, you know, at this point, that's part of it. We thought it was important that you knew kind of, there's a lot of things pending, best case scenario, right? They all come through and we have decisions to make, but you know, every funding source also comes with its own terms. So we'll want to evaluate those and bring those forward to you when it's at that next decision juncture.

Got it. And then, um, kind of touch point touching point a little bit on council member pearson's question too so um i had not heard of the building communities grant and when i was looking at the program guidelines um i was you can type in the address of the site and see that we that it's an eligible site so that was And so when I looked further at the guidelines, I'm seeing that the partnership documents, or that the guidelines state that as far as the requirements for the grant, it sounds like if the project is a partnership, then at the time of application, we have to provide a copy of an agreement demonstrating that the partnership lasts at least 15 years and is in effect at the time of application. But this proposed lease in front of us is a 20-year term. So why 20 years, 13, 15? Can you provide a little more clarity on that?

Time could be reduced to the 15 years. That's something that could happen. You said the minimum was a document to your point and having reviewed the guidelines to show that there's a joint commitment between the partners in the city for the duration of what the grant obligation would be. The extension out to the 20 years is just a reflection of the size of the investment going on to a lease and really modeling it after standard lease. If anybody's going to put capital, right, they're fundraising as well, a sizable contribution into a lease and an investment, there's usually a duration of time, right, that people want 20, 50, whatever long term. period of time so really invalidating the lease itself we thought an appropriate lease term that at least met the minimum threshold would be appropriate especially when we have language that allows for early termination of that should either party find that it's not an ideal relationship or it's burdensome to keep the relationship in place that long okay so will you be applying for the grant

this year. But it sounds like you need the lease, though.

I mean, so the lease is scheduled to be before you next Monday, and pending approval, then partners would be able to submit it by the deadline of August 22nd.

So if I just may, if this is a discussion point to lend, I think my only question thought about the lease at this moment is that Partners for Parks does or doesn't have an executive board. And this lease requires an operations board, which has yet to be incepted. And so there isn't an easy pre-existing leadership structure to automate from nonetheless and so this would be a whole new ground up um leadership structure just for this management of this lease and that would and then and that would all have to happen in a very short period of time to pull the trigger on applying i guess is my concern so it feels a little bit like horse before the cart a little bit, but I could be misunderstood.

So Partners for Parks has an executive board and they're functional and it's their board that would be entering into the lease. When you hear operating board that's actually in the agreement itself, that is a future board established for the actual operations of the center once it's developed. So managing the lease all the way up through the development of the project, their existing structure would facilitate that. And that also is time we would use to actually develop the operations plans, knowing that the facility won't really be in operational mode until 2029.

Council Member Branstetter.

So this is going to come before us to consider whether we would approve the lease next week. When is the board of directors or the executive board of Partners for Parks going to consider the lease and approve it on their end?

They have already considered and approved the presentation of the lease that's in your packet. So should there be changes to that, they would need to facilitate that in the next week.

So at the onset of the building's construction being finished and operations are going to begin, the cities find it desirable to have an outside partner do the operations of it that we which isn't something that we could do internally um as has really been the thought process ever since we started working on this process that this would become a city park amenity that would be subject to that and managed by the appropriate department within the city doing that. What's the advantage of having a third party do that rather than the city?

Well, there are many models out there in American 911, like in golf courses, right, where you design and build something, but then you have a management company that can bring in outside expertise. In this case, we're talking about a partner that has historical background, fundraising capacity, and a vested interest in wanting to see it successful. So there... giving us rights back to operate a majority of the facility because they see it being for public benefit and they see that being the city's own expertise so we're not transferring all those rights to them but we will be managing it in a more collaborative role in order to what they brought to the table, but again, this requirement is that they have some site and operational control. So the document identifies the level and degree of that operational control, whilst having the elements of really shared responsibility in there, that the city's goals and interests in this project are at the forefront of many of these decisions that we would be doing together.

so the previous agreements that we have had with partners for parks have focused on fundraising at the very initial we provided them some money so they could build some fundraising capacity and they have worked for now for four years, okay, towards the goal of raising that. And I've been doing a really good job in what was a difficult fundraising environment, I think, given... things that have happened in the 2020s and but they through the history of partners for parks they have been um going on and they have viewed their primary mission as one of providing fundraising and volunteer support to enhance parks and they've done a good deal of work with that and from projects the size of restrooms to activities to go and do that. But to move forward to being having operational control of a multimillion dollar facility is a big step forward both in in their mission, and if we were just looking for a partner to do that, our due diligence would require us to look for an RFQ and look for someone that could demonstrate that they have the ability to actually do that operational tasks. I would be sure we would be looking for someone with some history of doing that. John Potter, And i'm not seeing that level of due diligence that went into drafting this lease okay of taking a look of making sure that we were planning to lease this to a an organization that had demonstrated capacity to operate a facility of this size in the in the Community interest. so i so i worry that we're creating a lease that sets partners for parks up in kind of figurehead status of uh operational control but that we would end up still doing everything for instance people operational crow would mean people who wanted to rent space would go to partners for parks and partners for parks would process an application and would go to do that that there would be a lot of things, Partners for Parks would be collecting revenue for that that would go into their coffers, which they would use to then defer their expenses for providing the operational control. And I guess I would kind of like to see a plan for how they would plan to reorganize themselves Dave Kuntz, and have a plan for how to do that it goes back to discussions that we have previously had about what's the business plan for this facility and it's never been fully. Dave Kuntz, fully put forward, so I guess i'd like to see for that. Dave Kuntz, And I guess The other thing is, is that the least doesn't make any any. Dave Kuntz, mention of insurance. and would we have a requirement on Partners for Parks that they would insure themselves up to the level of risk that goes with being the occupant of a multi-million dollar building and of sponsoring or approving John Potter, Any number of non city events to do that something that would would would would then where they would have a policy that the city would be an additional insured on to do that, or are we retaining that risk. internally.

I can say in terms of the insurance and the risk, so legal has vetted this and it's similar to other relationships. And actually it was patterned some after the McGavock Center where there was a capital investment into that facility and then rights that the city had in returns for that. I think you're right. This is not a, it's a unique situation. So it's not us going out and looking for a management company and then us standing back. It really is honors the partnership foundation that we've put in place. It is a little bit different role for the partners and their board vetted that and understood that they are taking on some responsibility, but it felt like it was important to mature the relationship and grow into what is needed for the success of this project. But also within that, the scaling of the, the role they're gonna take and how that operating board operates in order to limit their exposure or only take on as much responsibility as their capacity allows is the way the language is defined. And to point not every detail is in there, but this framework of us leasing them land And then them operating. But the first and foremost user of that facility is in fact the city and whatever protocols we put in place for rentals and programs will likely be adopted by the partners. in order to keep a common, you know, framework. So there's not any competition between the two, which is why having an operating board that says this is how the building will be scheduled and this is how we will handle rentals and those types of elements.

I guess that I would say that I'm uncomfortable because I can't envision how this would work being put together on a concept being put together apparently in a couple of weeks to try to create eligibility for a specific grant. Dave Kuntz, And i've already been concerned with some of our fundraising processes of this of where we have. Dave Kuntz, A different potential funders, we have presented the project differently, we had some unders that we presented it to as a historic preservation project when we applied for the federal. dollars, particularly Senator Cantwell put in to find out that this was for a community center, okay, and multi-generation going on, which is kind of different than what we thought it would be. And now we're having a different piece over there. So has Partners for Parks that unless we do this lease arrangement to move forward, that they're not going to transfer some of the money that they have already collected to us for the project?

They have not said that, no. Because this is actually above and beyond their contribution.

Dave Kuntz, In the previous agreement they made some contributions and then they were supposed to make three $500,000 contribution over time, I don't know how many of them they they have made. Okay.

Thank you any other questions. Okay, so this is, as I've said before, we were really hoping to really score at the federal level. We'll take what we can get. We're being a little bit more conservative now in our estimation of the federal level. So this would bring the total funding up to $12 million, close to it.

Yes, close to our target. And actually, one of the things that we kind of found out is we potentially could be asking for $2,750,000 with this grant. And as you notice, we kind of put the plus after in the federal allocation, right? We're believing that's the floor and that there could be more there. But we have a deadline before us that's before some of the other notification stages, and that's where the anticipated sources. So to the point, there's still a commitment for Partners for Parks. Again, their written commitment is 3.5 million. There's a belief that should we get it to the finish line, that there's additional donors and interest people will have. to close it out. So, you know, it's possible that any of those other sources could be more or less. So we will be able to come back and let you know where things stand at the end of the year. But this particular funding source is a pretty large time-sensitive potential filling of the gap that's above and beyond what both the city and the partner's commitment currently is.

And the Building Communities Fund is with the Washington State Department of Commerce, correct?

Correct.

And when is that due?

August 22nd. Okay.

And do you know what kinds of things, I'm trying to look it up here, that they've supported in the past? What kind of, have you looked at and spent much time with it?

they do fund a number of community service facilities uh they funded um you know boys and girls club type of facilities you know they have a similar youth recreational facility model and i'll just say honestly i think they've found that in giving to a number of non-profits that don't partner with a public agency that they struggle to make sure that 13-year commitment of serving the community is in place so this will not this still keeps us in the guidelines of ltac where we have to own the building because that's state law Yes, it's still, so even though we're leasing the property, we have ownership rights, I believe. That is something I can take to legal to confer. And so this facility is not unilateral, as we talked about, it's multi-use. So both the local level of serving low-income residents and Seniors is true, at the same time that it is supporting a number of our regional in terms of events. So the design supports both things in the way it's operated would then be supporting both things.

Yeah, I think we need to make sure that we're still eligible on Elton on that because it would be that would really Muck things up. Any other questions for. Okay.

Thank you, Miss miles.

Ms. Speier, Planning Manager, Introduction of the 2026 Comprehensive Plan Amendments. It's on page 58 of our packets.

Thank you, and good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. This topic begins on page 58 of your packet, and then the PowerPoint that I'm about to walk through begins on page 142. So if you recall, this is an annual process. The city council establishes what's called a docket, the fall of one year. And then over the winter and into the early spring of the following year, review is done internally, drafting of certain language that might be required by staff to draft happens. And then the planning commission goes through a process of reviewing actual substantive content for each of the items in a docket that's set by council. They hold up a hearing, develop recommendations, which come back to you. And that's the point we're at this evening for the 2026 Comprehensive Plan Amendments. There were 23 amendments that the council set in the docket last fall. The Parks Department came forward and requested that two be added, and those were both related to Edgewater Park. And then a private application was withdrawn. So we went from 23 to 25, and then with that withdrawal, we ended up with 24 total amendments. Last month, the Planning Commission took action to develop resolution 202606 and within that you'll see that there are not 23 or 24 items for you to take action on per their recommendation there are 11 amendments which are recommended for approval meaning moving forward in adoption there is one that actually is a do not approve from the planning commission There are six that were in the docket, but the Planning Commission took a look at the information provided by the city and found that actually no action was needed on those six amendments. So they at this point would not be something you would need to take any action on. And then the final six out of the full packet are recommended to move forward to a future amendment cycle, either this one that's about to start, the 2027 cycle, or one of them is recommended for 2029. There are out of those 24 total amendments that were considered by the Planning Commission, three basic types. One through 12 were all related to state law changes that at the very least required the city to review and determine whether amendments were needed to the city's zoning, land use policy or regulations. Then there were private and city initiated text or zoning map amendments. And then there were several that were optional. And so they are something that the city council would ultimately decide whether or not to pursue. So this chart and the few following pages summarizes all of them by amendment number. But what you'll see here is the amendment number on the left-hand side, whether it is a state law basis, and if so, what that bill number would have been. the subject, when the city has to comply, and then both the Planning and Public Works Department's recommendation to the Planning Commission, and then the final column on the right summarizes for you the recommendations that came from the Planning Commission itself. So first of all, as was just mentioned, the first 12 are all based in state law changes. You'll see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are recommended for approval, meaning changes were needed within Lakewood's code zoning or comprehensive plan policies to comply with those changes to state law. Amendment number three is the one that is the do not approve by Planning Commission recommendation, and I'll go into that in a little more detail shortly. And then there were two that are continued to this coming cycle. I'll explain that as well. And then you have four that are recommended for no action because the city has already taken the action needed to comply with those bills. The second batch here, again, I'm not gonna go into great detail on topic, but it's there, it's a variety. These are the ones that came from either optional choices from state law or something that was brought forward by city staff or the city council itself. The Planning Commission recommended approval of two, three of those, no action on two of them. And again, two continuations to this coming cycle, and then one continuation to 2029. I'll just touch briefly on the one in 2029. This is related to actually in 2025, The Planning Commission talked about the need to look at horizontal mixed-use development regulations, meaning it's not all in one building, the residential and the commercial. It can be in multiple buildings on a single parcel or within a single area. And so the thought process here from the Planning Commission is let's hold off on this until the whole 2029 downtown subarea review is happening in any event. And that will have the ability to incorporate some things that are happening citywide, as well as take advantage, economy of scale, efficiency and funding, et cetera, to do it as part of the full downtown sub area review. Again, the no action one's 15, 16. It's because the city has already taken action there. The city does not need to do anything else to comply. The number 13, Pierce Transit, was simply called the wrong agency name in our comp plan by error, and so that's fixing that. Then actually the Parks Department, number 14, is Open Space and Recreation being consolidated from two zones into one in order to just be more efficient, clearer in what allowed uses there are in open space and recreational parcels. And so that's included as an approved recommendation. Jumping down to number 18, that is looking at boarding houses, simply removing that term. It's an obsolete term in our code, otherwise no real other substantive change. The last four amendments out of the package, one again, continuing to 2027. And again, I'll go into that in just a moment. The approvals though relate to the recommendation that actually came from council to review the nonconforming use policy land use 10.4. And the recommendation is actually to remove that sub policy because the remainder of policy 10 covers nonconforming uses comprehensively already. And then there's two parcel rezones there related to Edgewater Park. So I mentioned the no action on a number of the amendments, sorry, excuse me, 2026.09 through 12, 2026.15 and 16, because again, the city has already taken those actions. The continuation of several amendments, 04, 07, 17, 19, 20 and 21, moving forward to either this coming cycle that's about to start or into 2029. So to go back, excuse me, get the right button. I'll start back on the first page. Transit-oriented housing development, which is amendment number four, that's recommended for continuation because the Department of Commerce is developing some guidance at the state level. It's expected this fall. Because it's not finished yet, the city staff felt it would be better to wait and see what that recommendation is. Compliance isn't required until mid-2029, so there's no timing rush here. And so we were hoping to wait as a department to be able to view commerce's guidance and see how that might blend in with city's priorities and existing transit oriented planning. Number seven is also continued to next year. And this is the idea that if the city wants to, this is not a mandatory item, but if the city were to choose to, it could go to the Department of Commerce and ask that that agency or that department review our housing element and say, yes, this is in compliance with GMA. And if that finding is made, then they then assist in any legal challenges of the housing element. So it is something that, again, we just simply did not have the capacity to get through this last cycle. There's no rush on it. It's an optional program. It can happen at any time. So taking a look at that in this coming cycle is what's recommended. Jumping to number 17, this is a matter of needing and wanting to do some additional public outreach. As you know, probably food trucks in Lakewood are not allowed to stay overnight in any particular place, and multiple food trucks are not allowed to be placed next or near to each other. This is an idea to explore what are called food pods in some other places. and maybe bring that forward as something that could happen in the downtown, in the station area, or somewhere else in the city as either a permanent or semi-permanent idea. And we've actually had some exploratory conversations with developers looking to maybe bring this type of use to the city, but at the time, we couldn't move forward with that because it's not allowed in Lakewood's code. So the reason it's continued, again, is to allow for some additional community outreach talking to interested homeowners, not homeowners, business owners, yeah, homeowners in the downtown, and then also reaching out again to those developers that expressed interest earlier to get their feedback. The other one here is an optional process as well. And it's also continued because the template or the guidance that actually Lakewood's been involved in helping develop wasn't done in time. This is to allow the city to say, these however many plans, building plans for an accessory dwelling unit design are pre-approved. the applicant doesn't need to come through and have building go and review the actual design of the structure. There would still need to be the land use review, but this would say if you pick this menu of pre-approved plans, that part of the process for you is taken care of and done. So again, this fall, we hope to get the recommendations coming from SHAPE, which Lakewood is a member of, and get the practices out of that to bring forward as the next packet. One more here. The private application that was there in number 21, it's a little bit wonky and convoluted, but please bear with me as I try to explain. What the property owner was trying to do was take a parcel from commercial to neighborhood commercial in order to allow some residential development on that parcel. At the time the application came in, there was a bill that had just passed the state legislature but wasn't in effect yet that said the city has to allow residential uses in commercial areas now. So we couldn't say yes under the state law because it wasn't in effect yet. And now that it is, we could take a look at this and either tell the applicant, given what state law now mandates, this is something you don't even need to do as a rezone, or proceed with the rezone analysis with that background as well from the change and whether or not they need to go commercial to neighborhood commercial. So we just needed to hold off on that essentially because of a change in state law which had not yet gone into effect but is now in effect. One thing to note too, in the packet, if you've had a chance to start to look at it, starting on page 60, excuse me, Sorry, it's page 80. You'll start to see a new layout for the application amendment language than you've seen in the past. What the department has done is created just one amend, sorry, by going by code rather by amendment number, you're gonna see, even though there may have been that would have affected a certain section of code, this now shows you all of those tied into one listing of the one thing so if you look on page 80 and you see the first thing there is well let's go to the second one city zoning map consolidating the OSR one and two into a single zone and also rezoning to parcels for inclusion in Edgewater Park so that's a total of three separate amendments and by providing an updated map to show all of those changes having been passed. So the intention here is to make this easier to actually read the draft amendments. If by some reason, as we move through this, this needs to be reorganized and provided to you in a different way, please let us know, happy to do it. But the intention here is to make it easier to navigate. So just a note there. There is that one recommendation that came from the Planning Commission in its resolution as well to note, and that is regarding Edgewater Park. With the expansion of the boundaries and the new designated adjacent parcel owners as a result, There was some testimony provided to the Planning Commission where property owners were saying, please let us have some input into the type of access that people will have to Edgewater Park and how that is separated from our private property. And so there's just a request here from the Planning Commission to make sure that that sort of communication happens. Keep those public excuse me, private property owners involved and engaged and able to provide feedback on how Edgewater Park and its public access would be kept separate from private properties. The other item just to spend a little bit of time on is why the Planning Commission recommended do not approve on an amendment. This is number 202,603. This is not the pre-approved accessory dwell at unit plans. That's a separate amendment. This is one where the state has allowed cities and counties to say if they want to, this is voluntary, first of all, that if a certified A credentialed architect says, I certify that this accessory dwelling unit plan is good to go under your code. The city does not have to re-examine that plan. They can go with the architect's guarantee, if you will. it like the other one with the pre-approved plans it does not address the land use frontage improvements if any the infrastructure improvements that need would need to happen this is strictly the design of the accessory dwelling unit itself but that would be an option the city could say okay we are going to say if you are a certain credentialed architect you can bring us an approved your approval on an accessory dwelling unit plan and we will go with that This was a recommendation of do not approve because of what you see here in your packet, as well as on the screen. It's the requirements of the voluntary program. The city would have to develop rules to the program, conduct audits of applications, not all of them, but occasional. There would need to be tracking and penalizing architects that fail an audit that was conducted. There would need to be new forms created for the program. There would need to be a monitoring of architect insurance, and then there would need to be reports provided to the Department of Commerce. So that administrative burden, when the commission weighed that against, at this point, the number of accessory dwelling unit applications that are coming in, they just didn't see the benefit. They felt like it was more a negative than a positive for the city. that's their recommendation to you it's somewhat unusual to get a do not approve out of the commission so i wanted to make sure i brought that forward to you and there was a concern voiced by staff that even if you have a certified architect saying this this plan is good to go and they would ultimately be the ones held liable if a legal challenge were to happen should something go wrong with that ADU. The city would, if not actually have to deal with liability found, would have to go through the process of legal defense to some extent and get engaged however far down that legal process, which again is a burden, cost, time, resources. So all in all, the Planning Commission just didn't see the upside being more than the downside for this optional idea. The last two here I wanted to touch on very quickly are the Edgewater Park rezones. One is to just make sure that the main parcel, which is Edgewater Park, is both designated open space and recreation and then zoned open space and recreation. And then the second one is the parcel that would be the expansion to the park. It's the 9132 Edgewater Drive Southwest. That has already been redesignated through the city's Shoreline Master Program update to be eligible for this use. And then now this would be the land use rezone to allow it to be incorporated into Edgewater Park for the city. So the schedule, tonight's the study session, a week from now would be the public hearing, and then action is scheduled for September 21st. Any questions, Mr. Mayor?

Thank you, Ms. Speer. Any questions for Ms. Speer? Council Member Lindholm.

Thank you, I'm really excited for how this conversation is gonna go for public comment. I think that's gonna be really important. 202,603, this is a policy question and I think it's a really important one. I understand why staff is cautious here, but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes it easier to build and develop and make things newer and better in Lakewood. But it also raises the question of liability. And so I don't see our city attorney here. but one important piece to this is an owner a contractor and an architect have to agree to indemnify the city you're having a professional maintain professional liability insurance you're auditing 20 of these anyway and so one argument could be and i think this is what staff is saying is look we only have we only have oh there we go We only have two ADU permits from beginning of January to end of April. Why are we bothering? Another way to approach that is we only have two permits for ADUs for four months when the state legislature has bent over backwards to make this easier. In my view, I'd be very curious to hear from Ms. Wachter what her sense of the residual liability could be because unless it's significant, these are the types of policies that I think we want to move toward from a policy standpoint.

I'm not sure I totally understand the question about liability on that. Yeah, I can clarify if you like. Yeah.

So what is the residual liability to the city after the owner, the contractor, and the architect have signed an indemnity after professional liability, after architect accountability, and after mandatory audits?

So you're saying that all of those things would protect the city from being drawn in? Is that is that the question? They certainly help. Yeah. They help.

However, clarify, we I don't want as a city us to not do things because we're worried we're going to get sued, even if they're the right thing. We're going to get sued.

We're going.

So that part is correct.

Yeah, and I think as far as your question is, are we going to get sued anyway, the likelihood is very high that we could get sued because we are perceived to be a deep pocket. With regard to how the insurance and other protections that would be in place through the course of the development of the real estate go, those things... hold sometimes, don't hold other times. People find new and creative arguments. I don't think I would try to second guess whether you're going to be protected by those agreements that are done in the development.

I guess we as a city just have to decide.

Is it worth council member? Yes. That's what we're saying.

Is it worth being sued to do the types of things that create the community we want to be? We can approve no permits. That's the safest thing, is to approve nothing. We won't get sued. Well, even then we might get sued. The question is, what kind of city do we want to be? Do we want to be one that's improving itself? Do we want to be one that invites folks in to make things better or not? Jeff, I see you've taken a seat here. Come join.

Thanks. Really I just wanted to talk about this a little bit. The CBO had come and spoken to Planning Commission when this came through and I wanted to clarify it's not just about legal liability and what we're looking at. The number of ADUs across the state of Washington that are being built are not high. There are jurisdictions that are already ahead of us that have the pre-built ones that we're already looking at that they're selling for $400 or offering the plans up for free. They're seeing very low builds as to what we're looking at. So ADUs, while they are an option that are being put out there, they're things that are being used more as like the mother-in-law unit that's built on site. They're not things that are really being built for secondary units for people to sell, even though that is a split lot option that does exist now. other thing about it if you look at the numbers and where we're at it took 39 days was the longest one we had to process an adu that was not stopped by building or slowed down by building it doesn't matter if we approve a building permit it will not move until the land use that's associated with it as well as any of the infrastructure setbacks forward road rage improvements the driveway sewer every all of that still moves So even if you move to the point where an architect automatically, it will still have the same holding time because that will not be constructed until underlying land use is approved. So you need to keep that in mind also in what we're looking at. It's not that building is slowing down ADUs. It's the land use portion of what we have to do with ADUs because you can't site a home just anywhere. It has to have infrastructure and approaches and everything to go with it that are considered. That is not cleared by the state for the architect to sign off and say this is where it goes and this is what we do. So all of those responsibilities still exist. So we will still process it minus the building portion being looked at. And then have to add on top the other audit and everything else that goes with it. We would rather focus on moving those through in a timely manner than building an entire another program we're looking at that doesn't have the effect of actually moving the ADUs out any faster.

Sure. Is it more or less predictable to the builder developer to the homeowner if they can get an architect to self-certify?

It's more predictable.

And predictability is one of the things I hear constantly from the development community. Sometimes they don't submit a permit if they can't be sure that it's going to go through or go through in a timely way. Is it more or less likely to have fewer rounds of review or no rounds of review if you have architects self-certify?

I would say that's based on our experience and what we've had. There's really not an effective change. 39 days is the time that we've had with the 18 we've done.

Right, but you're not reviewing the building part at all like you just said, right?

No, we are reviewing the building part. It's 39 days with the ADU reviewing the building part.

So the architect self-certifying does what?

So what do they do self-certifying?

Because they're self-certifying in a way that doesn't require the city to do this thing. What is that thing?

What does it do for us?

No, what is the thing that you're not reviewing as a result of the architect self-certifying?

Simply the building. Everything else is storage.

Right, the building, right? So they are less likely to have more rounds of review on building if they can self-certify through the architect.

Yes, it won't remove.

Okay, so we're adding a certain amount of predictability and we're adding a certain amount of, rounds of review is another one I hear constantly. Maybe it's 39 days, maybe it's not sometimes, maybe it's three rounds of review, maybe it's one. But these are the types of decisions we as a city can make that are as painless as they're going to be. There's gonna be pain here for sure. Anytime you start a new program or take a new policy direction. Are we taking direction in the way that's going to allow people to build and make Lakewood better?

So the one thing that I would say to that and what we're looking at is we're already working on the others where it comes forward with ADUs that are the pre-approved and what we're looking at. Those would be ones that have gone through and that is something that group efforts have been done across Washington state and what we're looking at. There is an additional burden and load associated with reporting to Department of Commerce in the state that is associated with this also, as well as tracking all of the background and everything that's needed for that with the architect to then report it. So we're not losing the body of work and what we're going to do internally. It's no less work for city staff. There's not a gain to city staff and what you're looking at in any way. because they'll still have to do all of that tracking to go ahead and push it back. The one thing that you're looking at, and I do understand what you're speaking to, is that they can say, the building permit portion is good. I still, I just have to worry about the other portions.

So on that, one of the things that was mentioned as, you know, a thing that the staff is going to have to do is they're going to have to monitor architect insurance. Is that just simply the architect submitting a certificate of some kind, or what does that involve?

No, that would be them submitting and then us gathering, ensuring that they're still covered before anything goes out, and then reporting it back to the state.

So let's assume the staff burden's the same. Is the experience better to the builder, developer, homeowner?

I would honestly say there's probably not change.

if they don't have to go through that round of review?

So in 39 days, it has never been building that has been the holdup on an ADU and what we're looking at. Of the 18 permits we've done, it is not building that has held it up. It has been land use, sewer setbacks, things of that nature, frontage improvements. It's not building.

And I guess I just hear different from the development community where predictability around review are really important pieces, so I would encourage us as a policy because that's the question before us. Do we want the kind of policy that responsibly allows these types of things to move forward, or do we want to continue with what we're doing does this feel good.

You know, if I may, one thing you should consider as you look at something like that is it doesn't alleviate in the field inspections. So if you have a development with unapproved plans or self-certified plans that don't go through that secondary review, you may face a very, very costly correction out in the field.

Developers that I speak to are far more concerned. They're far less concerned with the inspection. then the cost of rounds of review and the unpredictability that comes with it.

I'm just saying, if there's something that goes through because of self-certification and the building inspection happens out in the field, that may require the developer to go through an extensive process that could have been caught through the review process.

A process of correction of some kind, yeah. The feedback that I hear regularly is that The rounds review that are coming back, they're getting new revisions on rounds two, three, four. And so they would make that trade all day long and twice on Sunday if they had the option. And this leads to another thing I wanna talk about, which is 202620, the horizontal mixed use. I understand the recommendation is to push this to 2029, and I see why. There's a certain expediency that comes from that. My concern is if we have a problem with our mixed use policy, because what this is talking about is are we too prescriptive with our horizontal mixed use? If we have a problem, we're saying that we're going to wait until 2029 to talk about it. I don't love that. We have an annual comp plan review for a reason. I suggest we use it. My personal recommendation would be let's push it to 2027, but not to 2029. It's just too far.

Can we, Ms. Spear, I think you're going to speak to that, because I don't know that I understand that, what it says. Update the downtown development horizontal mixed-use development.

City Council Chambers, yeah it's it's horizontal it's the regulations governing horizontal mixed use development and, first of all, the city has already taken action in part to answer some of what happened. City Council Chambers, That engendered this conversation at the planning Commission there's been changes to the code already that defines. City Council Chambers, horizontal mixed use differently than it had before, and so there is more flexibility to do horizontal mixed use development now than there was in summer 2024. What this is suggesting is that rather than take this piecemeal step between now and 2029, which is the next time the city will be doing a front page to back page look at the plan and its related regulations in the downtown, let's do this all at once. So certainly the city council could tell us to do it faster, but the idea was if you take one piece and start to pull on it out of the sweater, what does that start to do and how much potential, I don't wanna call it confusion, but just what does that start to do with other questions that start to pop rather than having it done all at once?

Thank you for that. Any other questions for staff?

councilmember pearson thank you mr mayor um what would what would a band-aid look like on that situation because i i think that you know we've heard a lot that mixed use is a challenging thing to to require and try to hit you know when when folks are doing development and so i i i agree with with councilman lintelm about That's a long way to kind of be at a stalemate, you know, of not doing something. So would there be a band aid that we could could do, you know, to help us our projects getting killed right now because of this, you know, act like, are we aware of projects that have been halted by this or

I don't think so. And the other thing that this was all done last fall into the spring with this last legislative session and House Bill 5148, that may get blown out of the window anyway, because we now have a bill that says we are going to now tell jurisdictions that you can only require mixed use in up to 40% of your commercial areas anyway. So what's in our downtown, what's in our sub area plan for the station district, we may need to be rewriting that in any event because of House Bill 5148, which will be part of the 27 review, 27 comp plan cycle. It's just, I don't know how to explain it any better than that. Thank you.

I appreciate that. And kind of on the similar point, 2026-17, Is that the, yeah, the food truck. So I think this is a really good opportunity. And I think that I personally would take this lens at our entire kind of code of saying, you know what? there's a lot of other jurisdictions around us that are very restrictive on certain things and i would welcome folks to get rejected in tacoma and come to lakewood and say wow you know it was really easy in lakewood and they really worked with us and and we had flexibility in our codes to allow for those kind of things there's places that you know i i've heard of one like uh the dick's burgers they takomo i think wanted them to they had to have a drive-through or something well that's not their business model they don't do drive-through they do walk-up orders and so they they weren't you know so having things like that in your code that'd be great if if folks come to lake with me like oh we don't care if you have a drive-through you got a great business here we would love to have you in in our city and so if there's things like that that we're missing or like those are the elements that i would want to be making sure that we're we're addressing those to to stay open for business and stay flexible and bring in you know cool places that have been rejected elsewhere so can you talk about that food truck one then sure so um

Because people will be interested in that.

Yeah. Some of you have maybe seen it down in Portland. That's the one that always comes to mind for me. There's an area where any number of food trucks are there all the time, or it gets filled up even more for a special event or something. And so you have the ability to walk from truck to truck, and effectively you're going from restaurant to restaurant, various food types all right there, hooked into infrastructure, water power, wastewater. And so it's just a way to let... a small businesses start to grow. It's a first step for some. They start in the truck and then they end up coming to mortar and brick type of restaurants. But it's also just an experience that would be available for residents and tourists to enjoy. So to me, Personally with the priority that the City Council has on the downtown and economic focus here and the idea that you now have a Motor Ave area and a downtown park and the idea is to let people live work and play in the same area having a food truck pod somewhere in this Part of the city makes a lot of sense and or near Fort Silicon Park when you got big events so The idea is to have an area, a geographic area, where however many would be allowed at a particular time, either all the time year-round or maybe there's seasonal things or other time limits, where the city would say, you can park your truck, hook into the various utilities and operate how permanently or however long it would be allowed and then it would be essentially um the developer setting up the surrounding well they would hook in the utilities but then they would also maybe set up tables hardscape landscaping around where these food trucks are located so it becomes a little destination in and of itself okay so this would be wildly popular i guess right um just because right and so

Why continue to 2027?

Because we need to be able to talk and get the experts at the table with us. The staff just didn't feel ready to throw it out there without some additional conversation with other jurisdictions and then those that already do this in other places. Okay. It was no sense of this is a bad idea at all. It was just we need more time to talk to the right folks.

So on the calendar, then, the council action is?

September 21st, I believe.

And that's to approve them all, or that's just approves the?

That's to set the docket.

That's to set the docket.

And that's the other thing.

Step process on comp plan.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. And if I could, that's the other thing, is the city council has the prerogative as well, where if there's a docket item that you want to handle separately and have on a different time frame, we could pull one out and do it separately. It's just, again, a matter of resources and your schedule and your meetings and that sort of thing.

Council Member Talbot.

Ms. Beard, not to put you too on the spot, but if we did want to advance and continue or be more aggressive in the conversation of 2026-17, do you have... property proper resources in the 20 in the approved in the 2026 budget to complete the work and subject matter expertise that you need and or would you need resources in the upcoming biennial budget um because it'd be good to know so that we could work to help staff to come get there

I would say that we do have right now sufficient resources to draft the code and bring that to you like the docket. If you were asking for implementation of some kind, that's a different animal. But in terms of prepping an option for you to look at as counsel, we can do that.

Any other questions for staff? Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Ms. Silva, review of preliminary draft encroachment permit framework. This begins on page 155 of your packet.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. If this body recalls, back in May, we had a discussion, an overview of several jurisdictions who provided some type of right-of-way permit process for encroachments, those ending in lakes as well, and what those jurisdictions, whether that was Chelan County or City of Seattle, and how they approached that. from that may study session council asked staff to prepare kind of code amendments in this right-of-way permit process not a lot of feedback on exactly what that would look like so tonight is intended to be an overview of what a preliminary draft could look like initial feedback from council but also any suggested revisions to include in that this is not We expect questions, we expect refinement to this, and there's a lot of different policy aspects of this as well. And on the slide deck that is located on page 196 of your packet. Next slide, please.

So specifically, let me get my zeroed in version here.

What the framework is built to do. So what's in the preliminary job before you is again, keep some major principles, keep the right away public. So the temporary encroachment permit is supposed to maintain the public ownership of all public rights away, whether they end at lakes or throughout the city. It's intended to allow limited temporary use. So these permits are temporary and revocable. in addition to identify clear criteria for its approval and its review in the application itself also make clear through an encroachment agreement but also the permit conditions it conveys no property rights It's intended to preserve removal authority so the city can remove this temporary encroachment in the right way if needed for public purposes, et cetera. And then last but not least, one of the policy topics here for discussion is prohibiting street vacations, meaning vacating right away at street ends that terminate in the lakes. And again, to preserve that public access and public asset. On the next slide here, this draft code is broken out into four different chapters and they all have its intent and purpose. So chapter 12.01 identifies several, about six different definitions to clarify what that meaning is throughout the code revisions. Chapter 12.4 establishes the right-of-way permit. So we have other right-of-way permits in code as well as other engineering. It distinguishes between an annual right-of-way permit, a single annual right-of-way permit, and now what is proposed, a new encroachment permit. Chapter twelve point five is intended to identify what that agreement encroachment agreement and what that recorded document would be on the property to ensure that this main is maintained for public access in the future and all other things like demification covering insurance, maintenance, removal, you name it. This is also a chapter that has some language prohibiting street vacations for street ends, again, those that are right away ending in lakes. And then last but not least, 12.06, this is kind of the meat and potatoes of what that permit looks like, the content of the application, the review criteria, in addition to the decision criteria the director would or designee would impose during that review. The encroachment permit as drafted is intended to be an administrative permit reviewed by the department, but that would be appealable to the Lakewood Hearing Examiner, similar to many other permits that the department processes. Other elements of the permit itself, a maximum of five years in duration, The city could determine a shorter term in some of the draft language before you. It clearly defines what is a temporary and removable item in the right of way. So for example, when it comes to structures, nothing more than 400 square feet is one of those criterion. If you would like to renew an encroachment permit, it sets forth the timeline in which that renewal would be. It's also discretionary and it does not matter if you had approval before it doesn't mean it'll be granted in the in the future so it sets forth those considerations i already mentioned the administrative approval but there is an appealable route it also includes as part of that condition of approval for a recorded agreement especially for private encroachments and how that would be recorded on title and be carried through the property as well And again, just reiterating, this is intended to be temporary and revocable. So within 30-day notice, the city can provide that and say, hey, we need to have this right away for a public park or a sidewalk project or ADA facility. That would be part of the noticing procedures with that applicant or adjacent property owner. Next slide, please. So kind of just delineating what it is and what is not in your packet. So what is considered fences, walls, gates, hedges, landscaping, irrigation, or vegetation, steps, patios, decks, driveway extensions, sheds, or smaller, similar, about 400 square feet or less, removable structures, or removable recreation or waterfront properties. What is not in the draft or not eligible in the draft, permanent buildings or foundations, permanent utility structures, significant improvements, private storage, or exclusive private occupation of the public access areas. Next slide, please. And again, this is one of those big policy topics that's been before this body for many years, but this is a draft and subject to change. So part of what's in the packet before you is draft language that vacations along street ends, again, rideways terminating at lakes, would be prohibited. city would not entertain a petition or application being submitted would not go through the typical process which would provide a department staff report but ultimately a public hearing for the before this body and a decision before this body it also makes clear that there's no new encroachments i'm not talking about historical or legacy encroachments no new encroachments on those street end right-of-ways In addition to existing encroachments would have a heightened review of existing uses. So looking at all historical documentation on its approval process, is it removable? Is it consistent with public access and safety and determine the appropriate path forward on that? Next slide, please. Here's some additional items with the preliminary drop does not do as well. It does not convey any ownership of the public right away, create any permanent property right, eliminate the city's authority to remove for public use, vacate any right away or street end through this draft proposal, or guarantee any approval of existing or future encroachments. And it does not propose any separate changes to our city fee schedule resolution on what that encroachment agreement should look like or that permit fee. Next slide, please. So one of the many policy discussions, I'm going to say one of many is to kind of brainstorm if this is moving forward in the process. And what's not in your packet is how we structure the fees. There's a lot of different ways you can slice that loaf of bread. Here's some ideas. Option A, a single flat fee, very easy to implement, but does it account for the price per land market value or something of that nature? Another option, using more little formula, area-based. Take the area occupied, multiply the rate per square foot. Use a valuation, market valuation, for example, or assessed value to help determine that. Another idea, option C, land value formula. Take the assessed land value per square foot and times it by area and times a use factor, whatever that may be appropriate. As we move through this slide from A, very simple, straightforward to more complex formulas, option D is far more complex. Different rates by encroachment type from landscaping through water access, and that can be very subjective, or we can get to some real life, this is the cost of what that may look like today, and extrapolate that over a five-year period. Next slide. again like any development regulations this is not the time you adopt this any draft code amendment that amends our development regulations must go through the appropriate noticing and process so that includes planning commission review public hearing before that body as well as deliberation and recommendation that will get forwarded to city council for their consideration and we do that dance all over again with a study session a public hearing before you would take action on any ordinance um during a regular business meeting with that that was a lot there's a lot of content here i'm going to open up for conversation and discussion and you can yell at me now council member council member lindholm

A couple of things ending this, and I know we've had so many conversations that have brought us to this point. I look forward to the opinions of my fellow council members. My personal view is I'm cautious to add additional rules that handcuff us potentially in the future, which to me means I'm cautious to say we will never, ever, ever under no circumstances vacate. We may never, ever vacate, but imposing arbitrary rules on ourselves for no reason that I see just doesn't make sense. We have enough rules.

Council Member Talbot or Council Member Pearson.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. That's kind of one of my points of emphasis here is that we already have state law that says that we can't get rid of shoreline without well you can but there are certain requirements that you have to abide by if you vacate some right away you have to do put that money and do improvements along the shoreline and there's some other things in there so there already is state law that kind of governs what we can and can't do and how this this can work i don't think that there's really any value of of hamstringing us that or particular sites or like there's there's there's many situations where like I'll bring up the 100th Street. I think that if we can get to a point where they can carve out a chunk of the right-of-way to make their lot and their house a legal lot, that'd be a great use of a street vacation. And we can preserve the shoreline element of it, but that still is a right-of-way vacation. And my understanding through this is that that wouldn't be allowed. And so I don't think that something like that would be a, That wouldn't be doing the public any good for us. Those those requests already have to come through Council and through the city for review and and as Councilman Lindholm said We, we can deny them. It's not not to say that, you know, we're going to approve a right away vacation, but it comes through here, it goes through the process and someone can make that request. And I think they have the right to make that request and and one other element of it is if I was living in a situation where a part of my property was in the right of way, whether it be my garage or my part of my yard or something. And I think the yard is a little bit less of a case for doing a vacation. But if you had an overhang or your garage or carport out in the right of way, and the city had the ability at any time to cancel my permit that I went and got because they were going to come in and axe off the front of my You know or half of my my covered driveway or whatever it is. I wouldn't sleep very well at night, knowing that I you know the part front part of my garage or my you know carport could be taken down at any time and. You know if you heard of rumblings that you know some improvements were going to be made, you know now you're like oh gosh you know, I hope that I keep my permit right and so. I like to, as much as we can, provide some sort of finality to these various situations. And I think that by saying that we shall never vacate is doing us a disservice when there's already state law and process that's clearly laid out that it has to go through to do that. I would be much more comfortable with language that said something to the effect of vacation and public rights of way that a body of fresh water shall be governed by and comply with the RCW the state the state law and As now enacted and, uh, what was the next thing? And then the city shall prioritize. This is like, I think the important part is that the city shall prioritize preservation and enhancement of public shoreline access when considering such vacation. So. That poses, you know, that makes that sure that this is a priority for us to maintain public access to shoreline. But it also doesn't say that thou shall not ever vacate anything. And I think that that's the important part that we want to protect the shoreline and the public access to the shoreline. But I think that there's another way that we can kind of thread the needle that allows folks to potentially come in for a vacation when it makes sense.

Mr. Remak, do you have some comments?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

I just want to be clear in what we're looking at and what we've brought forward and what we've drafted. This is after we've been back a few times and what we've heard and what we've brought in. This conversation and anything we take away from it is really more between the council and what they would like to see and not the department. I just want to be clear, the department we're looking at is if you tell us no, we'll draft no. If it's no, give it limitations, we'll give limitations. I just want to make sure They're all on the same page that this is a conversation as to what the council would like to do, not what the department has presented necessarily or where our stance is. But then how can we blame you? Yeah.

Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, but when we first came forward, we came forward with a framework that identified when we would consider those vacations. And that realistically wouldn't have needed any code change. Is that correct? Because it was just as a policy framework to come through and is at that time, then the permit process came up, but the initial framework identified, you know what we would look at and then essentially be removing all the other encroachments that weren't of that.

So I like the idea of the permit process. I think that's a, that's, there's multiple solutions here, I think. And that's, that's where my opinion is like, there's a lot of different solutions, you know, many ways it's going to cat, like, you know, this would be one of them vacating a portion of right away would be another one. And I would keep them all on the table. And I think that this would, would satisfy, you know, some of those goals. So.

Council Member Taubo.

And my thinking about that too. My concern with keeping all options on the table is that then you create a code that... has everything in it and so there's not enough clarity that staff needs to enforce a revocable permit when something is revocable versus vacate the the or or deal with the vacation when that application is on the table and so then we would still so then that still allows i mean that still kind of maintains the status quo so that In the status quo is is protecting the ownership today, but what the status quo doesn't do and what I think the the permit process does a little better is that it protects the public, where I think. of vacation just just allowing and carte blanche at that just it doesn't preserve it doesn't preserve the right of way adequately that's into the future councilmember brandstetter um

I think that the issue of vacations around water ending street ends is actually pretty clearly restricted by the state law that tells us what to do. And the state law doesn't say never. The state law, though, says never. Dave Kuntz, If. Dave Kuntz, That the revenue generated will be used essentially to compensate on the same body of water to be able to go and do that.

Dave Kuntz, Regarding.

saying that there'd be no vacations is I think that we need to have an allowance for partial vacations, where it's not an entire right-of-way to be able to go and do that, but for someone rather than going through a permit process that is less permanent, But that makes sense because of the existing conditions that there ought to be a way for a property owner that has an encroachment that isn't significantly hampering the public's or the city's use of a right-of-way to be able to make a permanent change essentially to the boundary of the right-of-way. to be able to do that and add it into their property. And I think that there is a line that we don't want to do is that we don't want to say that the city won't issue any permits for someone to create an encroachment. that I think that's an important element, but that we owe some consideration to property owners and successive property owners to where prior to incorporation, essentially the county blessed certain types of encroachment. And I don't think that we that maybe in you when you look at a Dave Kuntz, tiered approach to permit fees or a tiered approach to how long specific permits are authorized for to include making them permanent easements that consideration should be given to ones that have existed. Dave Kuntz, Since prior to incorporation, where they were done. Dave Kuntz, Maybe not in writing, but with the. Dave Kuntz, allowance of the county that goes on, because successive property owners have relied upon those. Dave Kuntz, To do that, and I think we want to be able to go and do that. Dave Kuntz, So, and then regarding your chart about what. Dave Kuntz, The process to use it looks like the one that's that's a square footage fee just makes it the easiest and the comment, rather than trying to get into what kind of an encroachment is it if someone wants to get a permit for 200 square feet. Dave Kuntz, No matter what what what what type it is. Dave Kuntz, And then the last thing is the subject of vacation is usually someone applies and wants to vacate it, I think we need to have some policies to where, if the city wants to. sell uh portions of a right-of-way and and we have history of having done this on on on pacific highway we actually went out and we made offers to property owners all along to say would you like an extra eight or nine feet in front of your of your property after we did improvements over there and determine We're never going to use the whole width of that right away and wanted them to do that and get it into their lots and onto the tax base. And the same could be true of some of the street ends that we just can't envision any public use to do that. That the process of getting with them isn't to wait to someone or a neighbor to want to vacate it. The idea is we ought to be able to go and ask people would they sell it, which is likely what we did on the street and on Lakeland in the past.

Council Member Pearson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree with many of Mr. Brancetta's points, and I think that the PB, John Gerstle PB, David Ensign — He, Him, Coming up with a with a policy or something you know how we want to address many PB, John Gerstle PB, David Ensign — He, Him, Unopened you know right away or or excess right away and go through that process would be, I think, useful. I don't know. PB, John Gerstle PB, David Ensign — He, Him, How you would go about Because the process typically is that someone applies for the vacation, but that would be interesting to kind of do the opposite of that and go through an auction or something, you know. So yeah, I don't know what that process would look like.

There already is in code a resolution process for the city to initiate a vacation if that was their desire. It's not something that a city would normally do.

Gotcha.

I mean, I guess that is like the complete... Sorry, that is the complete... end of the spectrum why we brought this whole concept forward in the first place was to try to avoid and ideally avoid getting into the business and dealing and being in the business of selling anything that is a public asset because that was the outcry that filled this council room for various meetings before the new members were on council. So if folks are willing to entertain that again, then... But I think the point is that at least when I... When I brought up the idea and the notion of moving to a permit-based evaluation review, it's in the spirit of maintaining and preserving the public asset and the public right-of-way along the lakes and water bodies, but along the lakes because... historically yeah recognizing that pierce county has has that we inherited pierce county's decisions from decades and decades ago but nonetheless we still live with absolutely limited access public access on the lakes and so this was simply a mechanism a idea to Be fairest without penalizing. That's the thing. Without penalizing. It's just trying to be fair and equitable to both sides to recognize that, yeah, there's an impertinence in the right-of-way, and we're not... and we still as the city we maintain and we want to hold the right to the authority to ask you to remove it but recognizing that when that's not possible that there's a process to go for that to go through that and deal with it because otherwise just just vacating uh that portion of the street and letting go of right of way that potentially could be um uh the council's decision 50 years from now state that they still have that authority and and and to make to act on that decision so that's the intent of where this came from when i asked when i asked for this work and i really am appreciative to staff for all you've done because i know this was a lot but more than anything i really also appreciate the peer review and time and effort uh that you in in the time that you spent consulting with other cities that's not lost on us so thank you

Councilmember Lindholm.

Thank you. No, and I really appreciate that. I mean, what I hear you saying is that we want to future proof this to do right by the community. I would just suggest that the way we future proof making a decision is having the right to make it, not by losing it altogether.

Any other comments. Okay. So thank you very much. I think the permitting idea is a great idea. It's ingenious. I'd never even heard of it. I know it's used in other cities in the Northwest. So it's been proofed legally and all. Can you tell me what cities use it and how they use it?

Part of our previous peer review, I believe, was Chelan County, Sammamish City, as well as City of Seattle is in the packet. I might be missing one more, but we did look at those and what they had. I would say a lot of them did it a little bit differently, but there were some common themes, like the encroachment permit was an administrative permit issued by the department, but still an appealable path. Um, each of them reference shoreline, you know, just because you get an encouragement permit doesn't mean you don't get any other permit, especially if it's along a lake or or saltwater body. There might be other permits related such as shoreline permitting that still would be required and triggered. An encroachment agreement was also a pretty common element in that, that would be recorded to title to make sure that there's clear understanding, regardless of if the property owner changed hands or not, that there was a clear understanding of what those requirements would be when it comes to removable and revocable and the terms and conditions of that.

So no new encroachments, is that something you see in some of these other cities

I would see that was predominant in the city of Seattle who adopted separately through policy resolution, but also through their code said, hey, don't apply. We're not going to consider that because this is for future public access.

Okay. And then vacation is prohibited.

That would be the mechanism to relinquish that public asset to the adjacent property owners. So that's why it's crafted in the manner.

But did these other cities have that language in there, or did they leave it to their option?

City of Seattle took the strongest policy stance.

Okay.

I'm sorry, sir?

That's what this would be, the strongest policy stance? Yes.

So did any of the other smaller cities use that, or did they just use the permit and assume they're not going to give it up?

Um, Shalann and Sammamish used still retain vacation rights and the separate due process that would go through and also had the encouragement permit. So again, Seattle took the strongest policy stance.

Okay. Okay. I think the key word is asset and I agree with Council Member Talbot. I think that the permitting is a is a great idea and a good idea. Um, I, um, And I like the, I'll go along with an area-based fee or a single flat fee. Probably an area-based fee is better. I think you just get into the land value formula just seems to me like an endless argument, right? The landowner's going to say, well, it's not worth anything until they, you know, if they could sell it, they would sell it for a million dollars, but they're not going to agree. And then the tiered flat fee, I don't know. That sounds for different things, and I don't know that I... That seems to me kind of confusing and a lot more arguments. Again, I just, I think it needs to be something that... So that, yeah, that's kind of where along the way, and we'll have to debate about the vacation thing because that vacation is prohibited, is restrictive, but I get where they're coming from because they're looking at it as an asset. We kind of keep talking about trying to sell it, which worries me. We always bring in almost every conversation, we talk about a street end, like, oh, we can sell them all and make millions or something. Like there's oil at the end of it or something. So I do, I am concerned by that that may be too restrictive, but we, but I don't know for whatever reason Lakewood we have this dream that there's all this fountain of money at the end of the road at the end of the street so And I, and I personally think that we Dave Kuntz, Did not do well on the sale on the lakeland that it was a mistake to sell it, then, in the end, we voted for it, I voted for it, but I just don't think that was the right thing to do.

So so for clarity, just in what we're looking at as we're having a conversation what we're taking away permit system definitely yes. And then a variation looks like there might be a split between what we're looking at for. No vacation, yes vacation. So we would need to look at two pathways on that that we'll bring forward. Is there anything else we've gone over as we're looking at this? Because what I'm trying to do is be best prepared we can when we bring it forward, that the council can have the discussion and make a decision as to when.

Yeah, and Council Member Laura Sell isn't here to speak for himself tonight either, and he has pretty strong feelings on it.

And so the reason I'm asking, is there anything else about what we've looked at that you want us to look at adjusting or moving?

Go ahead. If you were to zoom out, do you feel like what we're doing here, grandfather's folks in that have not knowingly or willingly violated our policies, or do you feel like we're treating an existing policy like it's a new violation?

I believe that it's given a mechanism for things that we may not yet be aware of for a person to still be able to retain their encroachment that exists. The decision when you look at it as to whether you decide to block vacation or allow it that's still in the end, both to me or a policy decision by the Council. And what we look at whether it's a policy decision upfront or it's a policy decision, piece by piece. It's always that when we bring it forward, even with a recommendation under current code for any sort of vacation. I think this gives protections for no new encroachments and then gives an avenue to address encroachments that exist now and potentially allow for that continued use if it's not a detriment to the public.

but it still forces us to go site-specific, right? You're not looking holistically at every single right-of-way and go, we're going to make this policy determination. We're going to zero into the facts and what that pre-approval may be or maybe it wasn't. They just put some rocks or they're landscaping out there. There is a path forward and it's clearly delineated compared to what the code has today.

which I do feel is the most appropriate based on not every situation is the same. So the allowance and what we have for looking at the permanent associated with the encroachments, is it a larger body of work? Do we not know what's potentially coming? Cause we haven't seen all of the street ends. Yes, but it doesn't take a blanket approach that mistreat potentially mishandles a scenario going forward. It gives some options.

Council member Pearson.

So how does enforcement get involved in this now since we have since we actually have permitting requirements that people need to comply with. If you have say your entire access and your driveway goes down a street end, and that is your prime, you know, do they Do they have to get a permit for that? Is the city going around to the street ends and writing up people for citations? What does that process look like if this permitting situation is brought forth?

Under the preliminary draft, it has a heightened level of review when it comes to existing encroachments and that the director or their designee or city engineer really dives into exactly what that encroachment is. It's structural. What is this? What I'm hearing the body as it relates to no new encroachments or street vacations and right away, it sounds like we got to go back to the table and try to thread the needle on something a little bit in the middle. we can delineate a process for that encode and draft that encode. So, hey, here's a permit process for temporary revocable encroachments. And this is what we're gonna define what that temporary revocable type is. But if you're anything in the permanent, we're gonna direct you through the street vacation process, because that's the most appropriate, whether that's a partial or full or whatever the circumstances would be. So if it's structural, that is my driveway, or it's the foundation of my house, that thread of the needle, I'm gonna throw out a concept that would be more appropriate for a street vacation process versus this temporary. But in terms of the enforcement aspect and the draft, there is a way to revoke this if you do not adhere to the conditions of approval so that would be a co-compliance action and that permit could be revoked but if you didn't agree to that you can go to the hearing examiner hey angie silva assistant director doesn't want to they're talking about they shouldn't revoke this i'm going to challenge that and ultimately the hearing examiner is going to render that decision i i believe he's asking how do we get someone to engage and get the

yeah so you have folks that have never had to have a permit for say 50 years they've been living on a street end and all of a sudden now now the city comes knocking or or does the city come knocking i guess is like the question and you know and now they have to start engaging with this process i like your idea of driving the car okay you have you know you're a y on the road this is a this is a temporary whatever you said you know type of encroachment that can go through the permitting process this is a permanent thing that we really do want you to get fit like it's better for your you know parcel your your legal description all that to get cleaned up and and have a proper you know un um I don't know what that term is, but an encumbered, you know, lot and you and we want you to go this way. And so I think that that would be, I guess, where I would be really looking to to go for this while still preserving, you know, and prioritizing the enhancement of our shoreline. So that's where I think that the 100th Street example, you've identified a permanent situation. we're identifying that the vacation would be the best process to resolve this. We preserve the shoreline. And, you know, that's like a win-win, I think.

I think when you look at it, it's kind of like anything else that we enforce through the code. In the end, we try to have a conversation and get voluntary compliance. Voluntary compliance is always the first option where we try to go, explain what the benefit is, what we're looking at, what that is. in the end for enforcement or causing someone to engage, there aren't a lot of options besides true code compliance and then citation, things of that nature when you go along. When we come to things like code compliance, we do not normally actively look for violations unless it is something flagrant or as you look at it. The majority of what we get is a neighbor calling us, someone calling us, someone drove by and saw it and then relates it to us. And so we do our due diligence. We go out, we look at where we're at and things of that nature. We know right now what we're looking at for the four waterfronts that we have in the street ends. We didn't know any of those. We looked at it because council said, can you take a look? We want to do a pilot program. We got a survey and now we're aware of these things. So we would move forward to have a conversation about that and where it goes from there. But I don't think there is any Other option besides like, hey, we work to try and be voluntary and explain why and find resolution and hope that the person also wishes for resolution. Right. I mean, I would if I own the parcel to have a path forward for something that I had that I now knew about I wouldn't want that out there, but not everything goes that way right if it doesn't then things naturally when it comes to the municipal code end up in a code compliance type scenario. And that can be long and legal sometimes and sometimes it's quick and it's fast, but that is the process for cities and what we look at if we have a violation of code.

So. This is different than just general right-of-way, right? We've got hundreds, maybe thousands, I don't know, probably thousands of miles of right-of-way in the city. I don't know what the – someone should know that in here. But anyway, so what is it? 900. Okay. Thank you.

Just under 1,000. Perfect.

There we go. I appreciate that. So, this, this is different because you can count on just a handful of hands, how many specific sites, we're really talking about, and someone could go drive all those sites, and, you know, start opening up code compliance issues as soon as this thing passes and now you know it's a whole situation that folks are are going through code enforcement and and they're just trying to enjoy a coffee in the morning and they're like i've been living here for 50 years now i'm in so you know how far back i think there needs to be a lot of like discussion and clarity in code about you know if I bought this and I've been there for 10 years, 20 years, five years, 50 years, how far back do we go to say that, okay, this isn't a new issue or this is recent enough that we do want you to remove it or whatever. So I think that there needs to be some clarity around that and that would help code enforcement Take out some of the ambiguity.

And I understand what you're speaking to and i'll just say that's a policy decision that we would have to understand where to put it in where the where the Council wanted to draw the line at with that. I don't know that I have a ready suggestion for where.

wrap up here because we're getting close to 10 o'clock and we've got another item scheduled, but let me give you, for instance, the where we're putting the. where we're doing our first street end improvement. You guys go out and do the survey. The fence for one of the landowners, I guess the other landowner was fine, but the fence for the one landowner, all of a sudden down by the water, they're eight feet. The fence is eight feet within our right of way. is that okay so how would your thing work in this case because i mean clearly we want that property but now we're getting a suggestion if the fence has been there long enough we should just give it away right as as is laid out it would be revocable under the permit and we would take it back if we go down the road of like a number of years or what the different caveats i don't have an answer for that because i don't have a date that i'm looking at

That's something staff would have to really think about and look at and where you choose to draw the line in the sand, because there's not a clear delineators to what I would look at for that.

Okay, and.

councilmember tell them and that's why, for me, just no vacations of the waterfront of the of the lake street ends was the clear line, it has is the clear line in the sand for me.

and and i think that's the the purpose and intent in in in the seattle in the seattle way of things too so do you have your marching orders it sounds like there's some areas of strong agreement there's an issue around this vacation thing the seattle model might be a little bit too restrictive so maybe we might want to look at some other models yeah i i do have the concern about saying they're, you know, like, hey, it's up to us, we're okay with selling it, means they're all for sale. That's my issue. And Seattle did everybody a favor, you know, sounds draconian, doesn't surprise me with Seattle, but it also is like, we're just done talking about this. But it sounds like other have said we're talking about it. So we'll have to decide that, but The Seattle one might be a little bit too draconian. If I may.

Just very quickly, I want to be on record saying I want to be very careful taking policies from Seattle. But second, there is a line to be drawn here. Instead of trying to say, okay, is it 10 years old, 20 years old, or not having the conversation at all, we can simply ask, and I think you are in some ways doing this, is this a new encumbrance or is it existing? And you start to do that here. That's what I'd like to see.

No, I just want to, I think we have some marching orders on coming back with ever but to this body clarify you want to see another bite at the draft language before we head through the formal process.

I'm going to see head shake.

So we have some ideas that we've been cooking about like this body we just debated internally how to craft this and so many different ways. So we'll bring back some other ideas for another reaction.

councilman grants that are you look like you're ready to say something yeah i would say that while we're continuing to work on a long-term permanent policy i wouldn't want that to get in the way of finishing the west lake project We do when when when we put in sidewalks on on onyx, for example, not a street and but there was a lot of encroachment by landscaping. And we just informed people that it's encroaching, and we're taking it out, and we put the sidewalks in. And I've not really heard much back from that. And I think when we're actually engaged in an actual public works project, move forward with the way we have been with getting things to do that as we're experiencing on Custer. So I wouldn't want that particular project to get held up while we're trying to deal with that. That's going to talk about street ends generally.

Yeah. To be clear, any project that's already submitted a complete application is vested to the current code and would not be held up by any decision that is made by the council in the future. That includes any vacations that would have come in already or any permits that we have like with Westlake and what we're looking at.

Well, I think you're about three quarters of the way there. So next step is a follow-up on the review of city council goals and priorities, city council retreat follow-up. Again, council member, Laura Stella isn't here tonight to be part of this discussion. So, and it is getting late. So why don't we do this really quickly and then we'll get the council member comments.

A reflection of what we, the council came up with on the retreat. I want to put it here eventually it'll come plan for it to come forward next week for final adoption, but want to put it for the study session first to see just reflect what people thought we discussed. And so it could be really quick or if it's not what people thought we discussed, we can.

Any questions for the city manager. Councilmember Taubo.

I think my only just a question for clarity is that is it your, is it the intent that, okay, so these are Let me phrase another way, are we going to have like additional discussions in addition to our regular meetings about budget priorities or we're we're using this as the frame as the platform framework for our budget priorities.

Well, we try and tie different initiatives into budget work just as a natural practice in terms of where goals are at.

I think we should all answer for you i'll answer. I think we should have a budget priorities discussion place I work for during the day does we just haven't scheduled any of that and I've talked to the city manager it's well it'll be based on this if we go way off on this, but we'll get more into nuts and bolts on the budget like what do you want to. I mean, what are you willing to pay for on public safety public safety is just okay I can I can fill in public safety. The downtown park and multi generational community development. How much money are you willing to put towards that. I mean, that's a that's a goal, but it's not. I don't see us spending a lot of money in the next Two years on on that because we don't have anything yet. Right, so

yeah you know, as we have go through the budget process and we bring it back, you know if there's things in there, we can highlight where those put in, I mean the flock cameras are a great example. You know that was something that was demonstrated to have had a great impact so when it came time to move forward with some of our discussions previously we tie that into Council goals for public safety. As we look at anything. You know, related to legacy planning, for example, and there's opportunities and tie that back into the budget component, but You know, I don't see, especially on some of the forecasts. I'm hearing a massive redo of the budget in terms of some of the forecasts, but where we can tie these in. It definitely does it, you know, For example, for looking at opportunities that come forward on, you know, let's go can't Murray, for example. You know, likely be part of legacy plan part of water access part of open space partnership, you know, you tie that in. Why does that project make sense and in moving forward. Well, it's tied into multiple goals that we have. It's not just something that we're bringing out of nowhere to the discussion.

But what I would expect is when the budget arrives. we would receive something that shows us how these things are tied into the budget. Is that too much to ask? That's okay. Okay. Yeah, I think you guys can put that together.

You know, and some of it, you know, some of it will tie in, some of it will tie into, or let's say advocacy, for example, Bridgeport Drive. you know we probably won't have funding in the next biennium for well we may um you know as we talk about planning for other big projects but that could fit into potential for a raise grant or for a different planning grant through any of the potential sources that we have so you know those will come in in different areas as well so it's not just the budget or not exclusive to budget

Dave Kuntz, Okay, so I do want to keep the reason this is on the agenda is to talk about. Are there any things that you you you think staff missed or you want to change, not whether or not we're, I don't want to get into a budget discussion tonight. Councilmember ran center.

Dave Kuntz, Where I believe that the the memorandum that we have that talked about as a retreat follow up with a list of things that we all spoke positively about in some ways at the retreat, but I don't think all of them actually fit into the realm of goals. I think some of them are just Good ongoing operational ideas, you know, for instance, grants prioritize grant and grant funded projects are in line with the city plans. That's not really a goal. That's just an operational way that we want the city to run. So it's kind of guidance to the city manager to do that and The same could be true with saying operational efficiency. Operational efficiency is not something that's broken that we want to say this is a goal that we want to get fixed in the next two years. Operational efficiency is not broken. It's just something that can always be improved or should at least always be being assessed and seeing where it can go.

So there's four goals from what I see.

Yeah, well, and then below that, I'm just confused because I'm not quite sure that there's something on this list that we want to make five or six, okay, in terms of goal. As far as a, that it's specific enough to be able to go and do that. So I think the difference between goals and good ideas. And we're going to publish a goal statement, whether it's these four or there's a fifth one that we want to put on there to do that.

I think the top four are goals.

Yeah.

And I think we can work with that. What we want to call that other stuff is, yeah, that's kind of a kitchen sink of financial stewardship. It's like, no, who here is opposed to financial stewardship? I mean, it's that kind of stuff, right? We've kind of covered it. All our bases, so I don't even know what you want to call it again. I think the public can understand those first four go at the bottom of.

The first page put in there, the Council had consensus on the following additional areas of specific areas of interest to incorporate into the gold Program. So, you know, some that's kind of these areas of interest for kind of like the bullet list above didn't really fit into a specific goal, but where he's ventures. I think the council talked about several years ago. So we're free.

The Deputy Mayor says it works for her. So, Any other comments. Councilmember Stilwell

I think the only thing I just want to put out on the table is that one thing I don't feel like we really got much to talk about in specificity at retreat was economic development citywide and downtown. And I think that's because that is kind of assumed in here, but there's still, I think, a whole... level of foundational discussion. And even understanding really a foundational understanding that I don't, I'm not sure that we've heard enough that we got. And we got to hear enough from staff at retreat about what really is the economic development downtown strategy for all things encompassing transportation, housing, development, growth, and the plan that brings that together. I mean, yes, we do have a downtown plan, but we also know that there are just pieces and components and properties out there in their own little situation. And so to me, I would like to try to get to a point where before the end of the year, we could get to a point where we're hearing a story And we're on an understanding and we're kind of in agreements of what the story is of the state and the future of an economic development view, a viewpoint and goal and where we are today, where we should be, where we're trying to get to. where we're making those steps, and certainly the Green Street Loop is a component of that, but at the same time, there's still the whole conversation of Bridgeport, which isn't baked into, which is part of the conversation, but it's not the Green Street Loop. And so we need a way to reconcile with those. And so I just put that out there to say that I just don't want to lose sight of the foundational underlying viewpoint of what our strategy and what our bigger picture thinking is.

Council Member Pearson.

Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I could be wrong, but the last time we did one of these, did we get like a supplemental document or something that kind of outlined the... Is it?

Okay. Okay, I may have missed it. Okay, I'll go look through it. Okay.

So I think that the, the ranking of the goals is important because I think it tells a story of what are, you know, we've got our priorities and whether you have four or six, like the rankings, I think matter. And, and I, I agree with, um, Council Member Taubo's comment about the. The green street loop and and kind of extending expanding we've had a lot of discussions about how can we expand that into bridge board and kind of create this you know. This more vibrant entry way into the city that is really our kind of main entry into the city this kind of beautification of bridge board project. And I think that that could be included in goal number four, but I would like it to be. If you know if everyone is on board with that I would like there to be you know. a bit more um to that rather than kind of just talking about the raise grant but using the raise grant as one element and and how that can be expanded you know into this other you know kind of bridgeport beautification project and those kinds of things but i think that that would be really important to to loop into goal four and honestly um that to me is more of a project that does like we need to stay focused on early and often the the senior center and stuff is a big hairy goal and it's gonna be you know a massive undertaking and you know that's a awesome goal to have i don't know if that would be my number one goal personally. So, um, but I, it certainly is one of our top priority goals. So I would like to see goal number four shifted up to number one. I don't really, you know, the rest of them are, if you're not first, you're last, but, um, you know, so

I don't think any of the four are in rank order because I think we're just trying to get the four main things that someone said. But I think wordsmithing, you want four wordsmiths into Green Street Loop.

It talks about the Green Street Loop, but I really would like some expansion into the Bridgeport beautification kind of project that we have talked about as long as everyone else is on board with that.

I think council member was mentioning that too. She also brought up economic development, which we just have not talked much about the last two or three years. And I think we really need to start bringing this thing forward, but I'm not going to argue for it to go on there tonight, but I do think that having, um, and it gets into touches on some other things that we even talked about tonight, like the permitting areas, um, So, Believe that for now, but I think there's needs to be some words smithing on number four.

And obviously going to be filled in somewhere that means like I guess. You know, when you have specific goal components, we can put those in like we're in that last document. But honestly, I'm just following the process that was done last time.

Oh, okay.

This is pretty much the memo at the work session that was brought forward very similar to the last time. So I'm following the process.

Oh, I see what you're doing. Yeah.

I just added in those other areas of interest. You know, you incorporate those in, and we can look at doing that in the same type of document that you're referencing for the finalization. I have no problem doing that. And then I'll incorporate the other areas into up above, you know, in addition to the four goals, commitment to the following areas. I can move those areas of interest into there. Some of them are duplicative. I'll remove those and put other areas into, as in the downtown, you know, Westlake and Camp Murray and those. I can incorporate Bridgeport into that. So I will do that before bringing back the final one for adoption.

Council Member Ransteader.

My only thought is that I'm fine with the four goals. If I was really going to add one, it would be around neighborhoods and maintaining the integrity of neighborhoods going on because I think that has to do with more though with the vision of the community. We have a vision that is expiring this year. So I think we need to get and reassemble our vision. And some of the things we're talking about are more vision type things than they are specific goals. And I think these four goals and my expectation is that when we get a proposed budget, I can see these goals in it.

OK. We got it.

city manager reports uh just briefly um we'll have our sister city here this week wednesday at 9 30 at city hall is the first event thursday at 4 30 is the social and then thursday at six o'clock is the dinner That leads into Summerfest, two events where we'll have Mayor's remarks are at 11.30 at the international stage and at 4.15 at the main stage. And then just a couple other items. Wednesday, Resorts on the Driveway at Lakewood Playhouse for the downtown neighborhood. Obviously next Tuesday, the legislative platform meeting. And then on the 22nd, youth council has their kickoff at Fort Slocum Park.

How do you see the 930 Wednesday meeting with Kim Hay? We're just going to meet him at the door?

Yeah. General chat, I don't know if you've heard any more from Sister City related to it, but it's really just kind of a I just say that just I hope that we I mean, I will be there. Yeah.

Do we have flowers? Do we have things like that? I have no idea. I hope they have. I hope they have. It was just such a, it was just very beautiful when they greeted us. So that is why I say that.

So are we relying on the sisters? Okay. Okay. Because Mayor Boakie really doesn't know. He's much, much better in a beer hall than he is greeting international guests. So, and he's going to he's going to step up big time, but he He doesn't have been arranging all of this.

Okay.

Okay. Well, I'll be I'll be here early then. Tea. It's Monday night and this is going to happen on Wednesday. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. Council Member comments. Council Member Pearson.

I never know what your order is. I will abstain from comments tonight. I'll buy my time. Thank you.

councilmember talbo i will just keep it quick by by saying and thanking all the uh how all the homes hoas apartments type of spirit in in our neighborhoods that would really be excellent so just thank you to all the bus will then go up all the way

But we also are basically being kicked out of the 574. They don't have enough room anymore at the Lakewood Transit Center. So they told Sound Transit that the 574 has gotten So there's also some other changes, but I'm not going to go into that because I don't know that I care. But as light rail starts to move down this way, there are going to be changes to the bus thing to Seattle is going to get a lot more challenging. So the 574 would start at the Sounder Station and then go to the 512 Park and Ride. So if you caught it here before, you got to catch it at the 512 Park and Ride probably, especially if you're on a Pierce Transit bus to try to catch it. Yeah. And so this is what the letter is going to say. Like, we don't agree with any of it. Right. But they've kind of figured this out at both ends. We're kind of although and then they are going to. But we are going to get more. I don't know. It's going to start running every 15 minutes or something. So we will get more coverage. It just won't be in the place we want it to be going to the place we want it to go. But, you know, it's like, well, you get more of it. And it's like, well. Exactly. It's like it just becomes that much more. And so for a guy like me, and I've taken the 574 a number of times, you know, if it's early in the morning and I ask my neighbor, hey, can you take me to the bus stop right now? I'm saying, well, can you take me across town? And I might not be willing to do that. I might just say, well, I'll just drive. I don't know that they factored.

Well, they didn't factor it in, I don't think.

So anyway, that's a problem. Then I've got some questions. Has the police department received their certification from the state of Washington under the SB 2015? That's the certification we need to be able to get the one-tenth of one percent sales tax that we have passed. Have we received that? Okay. Okay, we, we have Oh, okay. I guess I missed it. And then, and then have we applied for the grants that we can get under that because the grant period is almost done. I think it's the end of the month. And it's Okay. Okay, because I just looked at one that was sizable from the county that they're going to ask for and I mean, and I haven't seen the list, but there's been recipients who have received millions of dollars. So we may want to be involved in that.

And it's soon, though.

It's like end of the month kind of soon. So maybe before, actually. So, okay. Beyond that, we got all these events this week. We also have Desserts in the Driveway. Who's planning to go to that? Was there two this week? There's one Wednesday. Who's going to go to the one Wednesday? You're going, yeah. Okay. Okay, I don't know if I'll make Wednesday or not.

Okay.

With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.