City Council - Regular Meeting

It is 6 PM and we're going to wait about two minutes before we start.

I got it. i'll do what you see.

Hello.

I love the fact that we did.

It is 6 0 1 and we will go ahead and start the meeting. Um, clerk, will you take the roll call please?

Deputy Mayor Winkler.

Present.

Council Member Elliott. Here. Council Member Wargo.

Here.

Council Member Barrow. Here. Council Member Thackor.

Here.

And Council Member Walton and Gassick have asked to be excused.

And is there a motion to excuse them?

Yes, I make a motion to excuse Council Members Walton and Gassick.

Is there a second? All right, hear any discussion? No discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes and the roll call is done and we have a quorum. Please stand and join me with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance.

We are up to the public comment session. This is the opportunity for the public to comment on items other than items on new business. We will have special public comment sessions for each new business item. Please remember to keep your comments to three minutes and that you are addressing the council. Is there anyone who has called in or is online?

No, there is not.

Okay. Are there any written comments?

There are no written comments.

Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to make a public comment at this point? I see nobody wanting to make a public comment. We will close public comment and we'll move on to our approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

I make a motion to approve the agenda.

Okay, we have a motion and we have a second from Council Member Wargo. Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes. We are up to our presentation, and we have with us this evening Representative Leavitt, our state representative, who will give us an update on this last legislative session. But before we start, I just want to take a moment to thank you for your help in DuPont receiving $103,000 in the last state budget to help pay for the cost to do our seismic improvements to the Huffman Hill Water Reservoir. We appreciate that help, right? And it's yours.

Thank you. Well, good now my presentation will be about 10 seconds shorter.

Good job.

Well, thank you all members of the audience who are here. Certainly Mr. Deputy Mayor and members of the Council. Great gratitude for being able to be here and talk about the legislative session. I'm Mari Levitt representing the 28th. For those who don't know, the 28th legislative district is Western Pierce County, obviously DuPont. but it also includes Steilacoom, University Place, Fircrest, most of Lakewood, part of Stanaway, part of Graham, all the way out to Elk Plain, including JBLM, and the three islands, Anderson, Ketchon, and McNeil. So rural, urban, and suburban, I think that is one of just a very small handful across the state that have such diversity in terms of landscape and regional differences. So I think we're the best. So that is why, one of the many reasons why we're the best. I currently serve on the Appropriations Committee on capital budget. Post-secondary Education and Workforce Rules, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs for the legislature, and then nationally serve as co-chair of NCSL, which is kind of our trade group, for lack of a better way of saying it, the National Conference of State Legislatures, co-chair of the Labor and Economic Development Committee. which includes labor and economic development, housing, military and veterans issues, and also co-chair the military and veterans task force. And then on the council, state government serve on the executive committees for both west and national. And at the federal level or the national level, we really focus on issues that are impacting states that the federal government maybe do, sharing policy that we can bring back to our state, model policy, and then certainly benefit the residents of DuPont, which is who cares about that tonight. A few things. I'm going to just talk briefly at a high level about the budgets and the operating capital and transportation, and then maybe touch on the highlights from your legislative priorities list that you all put forward and met with us on during session, and then answer any questions that you may have. That's okay. Okay, great. So we finished up our 60-day session. did what we call a supplemental session the first year of the biennium and i'm going to move this closer so i'll have to bend over the first year of the uh the biennium is is our 105 day session that's where we set the budgets for the transportation capital and appropriations and that's our one job to do um in a long session and then the second year is our supplemental budget and our supplemental year finishing up 60 days and that's what we just concluded in middle of march And the supplemental budget is really about adjusting budgets where we need to, either up or down, depending on revenue and revenue forecasts in the state of our budget, but then also moving forward policy that may not have a budget impact or what we often call trailer bills, fixing something or adapting something that we may have done in previous sessions because we learned through implementation experiences that maybe it's not working for some reason. On the operating side, we passed, the legislature passed and the governor signed a $79.4 billion budget, very large. And we really prioritize food, health, shelter, and continuity of government this year. We were, the first year of the biennial, we were down about $16 billion, and I talked to you about that last year. This year we were down about $4 billion. So significantly better, but $4 billion is a lot of money. And trying to figure out how to adjust for that $4 billion was really difficult to do. And consequently, our focus, food, health, shelter, and continuity of government meant that we found areas where we could cut. but not impacting those four areas where we could. And in some cases we did impact a little bit of those areas and it was just something that we needed to do to adjust for our budget challenges. And we worked to fill the gaps also from the federal budget reductions, we had increased caseloads and then growing state liability. So between all of those issues that we had to address and cities often talk about tort liability and tort claims, And that impacts the state pretty significantly. And so we didn't quite figure that out in our budget and in policy. And so we'll be coming back this longer session to address that. But we still had cuts at the federal government that we started to learn what those were throughout session, cuts to Medicaid, cuts to education, dissolving of the Department of Education and what that means for higher education. adjustments to Pell Grants and special Pell Grants, workforce grants for students in post-secondary education or apprenticeship programs. And so as we navigated those things that also included, well, we were able to do the program reductions and then do some transfers that didn't do significant harm. And transfers, an example of that, Cities often talk about public works account. That's one thing that I always worry about during really budget, challenging budget decisions that it often gets quote rated unquote. That's how cities feel. That's the word they use. We didn't raid the account this year. We did some transfers that meant in bond capacity on the capital side that allowed us to sustain the programs that were already in the queue, not adjust for any that have been promised, and not reduce it significantly with the hope that we'll be able to adjust those bond capacities at a later time. We also were able to expand by 230 million the working families tax credit and just for the income eligibility and so that's a plus in terms of food health and shelter. For child care we increased ECAP expansion that's early learning for those who don't know ECAP you may have heard of Head Start at the federal level, we expanded ECAP by 10,000 slots and childcare slots. And we were only able to do that because of the generosity of the Balmer Group, who is giving us $10 billion over a period of 10 years to be able to do so if and only if we don't reduce childcare slots and ECAP. So if the legislature fulfills our promise, they'll fulfill their promise. And that's why we're able to create what we call a pre-K promise account to receive the dollars from the baller group and their generosity, and then be able to expand for early learning and childcare, which is, and I know you hear about that all the time. We had some rate freezes, of course, we reduced TK, which is transition to kindergarten, you may have heard about that significantly. That's been a hardship for families. No families who were in the queue were impacted, but those who thought that they were gonna be able to be in the queue are not able to access that service in TK across the state. In the district, 14% of all TK slots across the state are in the 28th. So it's a hit. It's certainly a hit for Silicon DuPont, where many of the residents, their children go. And then on the Washington College grant for higher education, we were unfortunately able to maintain higher education at existing levels. We didn't have significant reductions. We weren't able to expand, but we're able to maintain. And the reductions that were in higher education, and when we talk about higher education, we mean a pre-apprenticeship, apprenticeship, certificate, degree, all of those things. We cut admin for each institution and gave them a percentage they had to cut. How they figure it out is on them. But the bulk of the programs and the offerings, we didn't have to cut programs that had long waiting lists. And so that was a concern we thought we were going to. And in the end, we were able to find a pathway forward to not do that. And then some additional challenges that we had on economic and food security. We were able to increase our share of SNAP folks who are on SNAP in part because the federal government cut SNAP benefits. And we have SNAP is relied upon. That's a food option for families that is relied on significantly for Washingtonians. and when the federal government cut SNAP recipients that cut a percentage we tried to fill that gap because that was a priority and we also were able to get five million for Lakewood for a food distribution center that will be managed by Nourish an emergency food network that will serve the entire region of Pierce County and certainly DuPont residents will benefit from that On the housing security side, we were able to maintain last year's $118 million of investment to local housing and shelter programs. Again, not reducing, but maintaining. I think maintenance and preservation are kind of the two words that we talked about. Not able to expand anything really, minus child care, thanks to the Balmer Group. But we didn't make significant cuts on housing or shelter. Healthcare continued to be a challenge and access to healthcare and cuts to Medicaid has presented very difficult choices and the state can't cover all the cuts that are coming, have come and that will come. And so we really had to navigate how do we ensure that our families with developmental disabilities didn't lose some of their healthcare access because there aren't a lot of options. at the federal government right now for that. And so we continue to struggle to figure out how to do that. And we'll bring that forward again next session. On public safety, good news. We increased dollars, $20 million for crime victim support and increased 23 million for juvenile the justice and rehabilitation capacity, and then security, another 23 million. And if you think security, Echo Glen, Greenhill, for our juvenile justice involved youth, and I know that that was one of your legislative priorities. And then we increased 6 million for juvenile block grant services that local jurisdictions, counties can access in order to start to build the infrastructure for our juvenile justice involved youth up until they're 21 to be able to start to provide services out in the community under certain conditions and in certain ways. which is important as we think about that. And then finally, we were able on the natural resources side to infuse $129 million for wildfire response and community resilience for flooding. I appreciate council member Wargo was very instrumental in the department of military and the briefings that we had in December and going into January. and there were significant harm caused by um the the flood events and so infusing the 120 million for wildfire response and flood mitigation was great but it's nowhere near that's fitting the need and i know we're going to have to come back and and provide additional dollars in this upcoming session So key bills on the appropriation side that I think are important for residents to know, and those include Senate Bill 6162, which is historic property tax relief for seniors and disabled veterans. Not only did it expand the income, but it provided a cap so that seniors or disabled veterans are allowed to rent out their home. or run out of room in their home get additional income up to six thousand dollars and that's not counted against them and their income eligibility huge huge and so not only did it expand the the eligibility and the income you know provided that cap and removed the cap and provided that as an option but more counties across the state and more residents will be able to access that and it hasn't been changed in this historic significant way and it's historic not by hyperbolic standards, but by data driven standards and the Veterans Legislative Council and others assessors are the ones using that word and they're the ones who implement the program. So that's a big deal. The other one is House Bill 1903. We invested 30 million for energy assistance for low income families. Utilities costs are off the charts. PSC, Puget Sound Energy is always asking that you UTC, the Utilities and Transportation Commission, for permission to raise the rates and raise the rates and raise the rates and raise the rates, raise the rates. So we needed to have some kind of relief valve for our residents who are in low-income. Will 30 million investment cover everyone with a need, who has a need? Probably not, but it's a good first start. And so that bill passed. 5862 for our public retirees got a cost of living increase and their medical subsidy wasn't cut. It was looking that it might be cut significantly, about 25% at a time that they can't afford it, but also that they weren't going to get a COLA and so we were able to do that. And then finally we were, I mentioned the pre-K promise for, thanks to the Ballmer Group and their investment for childcare. On the transportation budget side, $16.5 billion on transportation. And again, focus on preservation and maintenance, highway improvement, rail, ferries, continue to figure out how to resolve those issues, both county-run ferries, which are four. We have a Pierce County ferry out of Steilacoom, and hopefully you've gone over to Anderson Island. and to visit and then certainly on the rail and freight we were able to continue funding for the kids ride free program on all of the county-run ferries as well as Amtrak and by and we were able to shore that up but they were about to cut all of those programs because money was running out on 1st of May so we're able to continue that program at least for another year if it'll go on in perpetuity kind of depends on the challenges of our transportation budget And then again, we focused on commercial truck council and being able to help uninsured motorists and review some of the backlog of the cases that are involved related to that and traffic safety. And then on the capital side, which is my favorite budget, um and i know it's yours or it should be um capital budget is the infrastructure um that funds all good things it funds sewers uh that funds um housing projects and the housing trust fund we when i first started it was 150 million and once now it's over 600 million for the housing trust fund huge investment in just um eight years It also does school constructions for small schools who can't afford very expensive things. It does HVAC projects. I mean, think of it, name it, and it provides those. Also, that's where the public works dollars are in the capital budget. And I mentioned we were able to backfill some of that, housing trust fund. And that's a significant budget. We also were able to really invest in our small school construction assistance program. We call it SCAP and really targeted that focus. Next year we're going to focus on workforce housing and investing in the workforce accelerator program, which is desperately needed. And then we did $14 million in seismic safety and another $6 million for early learning facilities. It's one thing to do TK slots. and expand ACAP and provide childcare options across. But if you don't have a facility in neighborhoods, you can't have children to be served. So we invested heavily on the capital side to be able to do that. And then 46 million on capital for flood emergency response and adjusting for that. Again, it's not going to be enough, but it will make a big dent for our most impacted communities and working closely with cities and counties for them to roll up the need. And so coupled with the state dollars and the federal dollars that we were able to get, I think that was going to go a long ways to mitigating some of those challenges. So good news, it's worth noting that since 2019, so my first session was sworn in 2019, but since 2019 I went back to see how much DuPont has received. While you hear the budget's challenging, I want you to think of the good and remember the good. So over the last eight years, over $18 million has gone, or sorry, Yeah, yeah, over $18 million has gone specifically into DuPont. Some of that is PFAS cleanup of about 6364. Some of that is Chief Lush High School and smaller projects that the deputy mayor mentioned. Some of that was 4.3 million for the As I drove through the expansion into a two-lane highway, that one-mile stretch was over $4 million. Things cost a lot, but it certainly helps, and I'm hoping that we're able to continue that further. We cleaned up Old Fort Lake for some dollars, and on and on and on. So very grateful that we were able to convince the state to bring that revenue in, because there's no way that DuPont, without that partnership with the state, would have been able to fund those kinds of items And then finally, we continue to adjust as we go into next session. The budget's not going to be any better. It's going to be a little gloomy. On the capital side, we'll have more robust dollars available. And I know that you all are already starting to think of projects, and I welcome that. but I always set low expectations just because we're not sure what's going to be coming our way and we don't know if we have to backfill some of the bond capacity that we made some unusual transfers in order to make it all work and that included in higher education to not have further cuts we're able to transfer the capital bonds for some of their projects but I do think it's worth starting to think and take a look at that On your legislative priorities, that's a highlight of just things that we've talked about, and there are several other bills that I could talk about but will not tonight, but certainly able to answer any questions that you may have of any of those. On your legislative priorities, I know certainly AWC, the Association of Washington Cities, is a great fighter and champion in all of your work. but they continue to figure out how to do public defense, how to fund some of their infrastructure needs, how to ensure public works is rated as we go into a longer session. We were not able, if there is a disappointment, I mentioned the good news at DuPont, to me there are some disappointments. and one of them is addressing children dying from fentanyl. We were not able to get those bills. I know that was on your legislative priority list. I introduced House Bill 1159, the first year of the biennial that carries forward. I'll be working with the Prosecutors Association to bring that back. But there was the beginning, what we call the beginning to prevent youth or children from being impacted by fentanyl and opiate exposure. And then there's the end, which was 1159, and that's when there's deaths or near deaths. And we need to adjust laws and provide changes to the laws for both of those. And we were not able to do either the beginning or the end, so that will come back Organized retail theft. I was a little salty. You may have heard about that. And moving forward, I still think we need to work on those issues. Juvenile justice changes to the law. One of the things that you had asked for, as I see the chief and the chiefs have been asking for this, is a change to allow youth to engage in a conversation with an officer on site when things are happening. and law enforcement is not able to do that right now. We thought there might be a fix that worked for both, was a little bit further than the current law, but not as far as maybe law enforcement wanted to go, but it was a good balance of incrementalism to adjust for that, and we weren't able to make those changes as well. But I do think we were able to make some of the priorities of shape that you guys had on your list for housing and development. And we'll continue to bring more. I think housing was a little light this year because we had done so much the two or three years prior to. And we heard from cities, can you hold on? It's too much. You're changing things too fast. But we need to change things fast because we're not building enough housing. So we're going to be back next year to continue to adjust changes to the law to allow more housing to be built in a variety of different places. Public safety, of course, paramount. So with that, happy to answer questions.

If you're open to questions, what if we just go right around the table? We start with the city administrator. Okay, he's going to pass to Council Member Wargo. Okay.

Go ahead.

Same thing. I just wanted to say thank you for helping your part as well as what you do at the state. And I think you have a very balanced approach and we really love that. So thank you for continuing to do so.

Well, a quick summary for me would be thanks for being here this evening and being in DuPont for a lot of events throughout the year, including yesterday's Run to Remember. Thanks for meeting with us throughout the year. It's not just during the legislative sessions. You're always available and we greatly appreciate that. And as Representative Levitt said, we're already, and as we all know, we're already planning for the next legislative session, working with her. So we have our priorities set. I know you say low bars, but somehow with your help and with help from others, something comes through. So we're optimistic. And I would be remiss if I also didn't say thanks for the help over the years on some issues dealing with housing in smaller cities. You were instrumental in working with a number of legislators down there and making sure that carve-outs were there that addressed the limited transportation resources small cities like Dupont has and that will always remain a priority, especially as we work through whatever comes out of Sound Transit in their upcoming meeting. But thank you so much for being here and for what you do.

Thank you very much. Thank you. And I do need to correct myself. I made a mistake, which is not unusual. And I said near 18 million and it's near 12 million. So I'll have to work on that, finding that 6 million for you over the next few years. But that was pretty darn good. So hopefully that helps.

Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And we're going to have Gus come up here next.

Oh, Gus, am I holding up your seat? Oh, there you are.

We are good.

Can I say how excited I was when Gus came back? Just saying.

We are too.

I'm a big fan of Mr. Gus, as my kids would say. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I suspect that one of our requests for next year will somehow be generated by Gus. Thank you.

Thanks.

All right, we're at that point where we're up to a study session on our six-year transportation improvement plan. So I'm going to just kind of introduce the topic a little bit. Okay, it's a study session for those new to the console and for those who are listening in that may not be familiar with the TIP. While it's a six-year plan, it's updated every year and more often if needed, but at least every year. This study session has helped to identify road improvements that we would like to complete in the next six years. We do realize that funding limitations will not make everything that we end up putting on this list possible. However, by creating this list, it makes it possible for Gus and the team to create grants that they would bring forward for us. An example of that would be Center Drive. For him to ask for money for Center Drive, it has to be on transportation improvement plan. and it also helps us identify budget priorities which we will be going into as we go through the year and determine other potential funding sources if there's something that we think absolutely needs to get funded uh with that shirt gus it's all yours

Uh, thank you. Good evening. Let's see what I have in front of you is the, um, uh, draft six year tip or transportation improvement program. Uh, just as a deputy mayor has pointed out that this is a planning tool and. That's I mean, how I use it is predominantly going after grant programs. Uh, but. The other thing is we're required to do it. This is a program that is everyone across the whole state submits by July 1 to Washington DOT, their six year TIP. And what Washington DOT does is they essentially overlay it and see if there's conflicts or other things that goes into there. But for the most part, this is our program. And again, what I use this for is predominantly just that, going after grant programs because if it's not a priority within the agency, and it doesn't show up in the six year tip, then why does it make sense that we go after grants that don't even list them on here? So that's one of the key critical things that we do this. It's sometimes a little bit of a wishlist and if it is, then why don't we just back up the truck and just drop everything in there. But I got to put a little bit of reality in this is even though we pursue grants, typically there's either a 20% match or 15% match and i also recognize that hey it we we may not be able to make those matches so that's why i i stretch these out and and don't um back up the truck so to speak and just put everything in here uh the other aspects is uh uh this is twofold uh last year when i presented this i took a little bit of risk i put down things that i thought maybe had a strong chance of getting funded. One of them was Center Drive Phase 4A and 4B. We're very fortunate Transportation Improvement Board did fund that. And that's been awarded from this body and we'll we'll start work on it June 15th, coming up here shortly. The other thing was the systemic pedestrian safety improvements on there because of timing and post COVID type work, there was a funding shortfall, but within there, we're able to essentially do some other work with Washington DOT and then essentially get that funding shortfall covered. Interesting enough is now that we're on the other side of it, Bids actually became more competitive, and I was expecting things to actually cost more from that point, but I don't think that will happen every time. So that's an example of what happened last year. Going into this year, I did a – I did a couple of things. One is not to make this an eye chart, but in your packet is essentially the list. This is a less tables oriented, simpler looking list than what we've presented in the past. And that has a whole bunch of other components into it. But what I have in here in the rest of the presentations is essentially be able to show you what are these projects. And in a nutshell, it is finishing out the grinded overlay on Center Drive. It is also another segment of federally identified road, which is on Wilmington Drive. And then we start getting into the chip seal program. And what you notice is, and I'll show this in the presentation, is these are the collector roads that I had presented into the... uh last time we had the neighborhood briefs uh but since since then i had a chance to talk with our transportation improvement board engineer they are keeping the chip seal program in their preservation uh funding pot so even though i showed local on here these collector roads are federally identified roads so there may be an opportunity for us to flip those locals into tib uh amounts in here So that's something of a little bit of good news from the training I went to last week. And then the other parts of this are essentially studies that we'll look at. I can tell you everything on this list that we're going to talk through is unfunded. So that's a major difference from last year where, you know, I had a at a a strong suspicion we're gonna get funding for these, but essentially all of these are gonna be unfunded. And because I believe they're gonna be all unfunded, I am essentially stacking them from 2029 and on over. And I'll explain also on why the timing of this from that piece then. Okay, next slide, please. And next slide, please. Okay, so this is the first one. This will be the last segment of center drive that needs a grind and overlay. We started this back in 2015 timeframe doing a grind overlay. So this is even though we call it phase five, it is actually the last section. It's going from essentially the end of what will happen this summer, which is Kincaid Street, all the way to the last time we did a grind and overlay before that was on McNeil Street on there. I list out certain elements. And one thing you'll probably ask yourself, Gus, what, Why are we doing the last item there, replace the loop detectors? We do have a traffic signal over at Haskell Street. So that has a loop detectors and we're going to essentially do the ADA ramps and then the pedestrian push buttons that's on there. The pedestrian push buttons are with ADA is you need to have that push button Uh, for on demand, uh, walking closer to the point of departure in the past, you can, you can actually take it behind you, but now that's, that's what that's for. Uh, one thing I thought was interesting, there's a little bit of overlap onto the previous phase on, on McNeil street is, uh. You may notice on the last time we did the overlay, McNeil, there's parts of McNeil that crosses into Center Drive that the loops didn't get done. So what I'm hoping to do is cover it into this project as well. Next slide, please. So this one is Wilmington Drive. It is a federally classified road. 2016, we're able to do the grinding overlay from where the Union 76 gas station is up to where that dot is, which is about 450 feet away from Palisade Boulevard. And then from Palisade Boulevard will be the start of next segment going on to McNeil. I think my predecessor took this out because as you can appreciate it, that area is our retail corridor. And, and, uh, the amount of coordination just so that businesses don't get too concerned about us shutting down the road while we're doing that work in there. Same type of thing for a grind and overlay. The next slide, please. Can I interrupt you really quick? Yes. For those of us who may not know, what is a loop detector? How does that work? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. So traffic control signals, for most of our traffic lights, there is a metal loop in the ground. You probably see it as you're looking down. It looks like a tar seal on top. And then what will happen is through inductance, meaning a big piece of metal drives over it, it will detect there's a demand. a demand for something on that road. And then it will go into the cycling to say, okay, which side of the intersection should I now make it green, vice red. In our newer locations, specifically at International Place, we do have cameras and in those cameras, We're able to detect an image, meaning if you see a car in that image, then they'll say, okay, the demand is there. Let me switch the green vice red, uh, at that point. So we've got a loop detector. I used to think, uh, you know, I had to get fancy and get high tech and make it all integrated, but I can tell you the loop detectors have been bulletproof. I think we've only had to replace one because of failure, uh, uh, through the life of center drive, uh, the ones in international place. Just a month ago, we had to replace the cameras and a few other things. So I'm not batting too well, so to speak, on the high-tech ones. And I'm actually batting better on the more traditional loop detectors, the wire in the ground from there.

Thank you for the explanation. Okay.

All right. uh let's see so so this looks like a bunch of spaghetti on the ground but it is really just a map of of uh of um of the city and in there is it identifies the collector roads uh that we have there so palisade mcneil bob's hollow uh hoffman hill um RIDGEVIEW, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THEY ARE FEDERALLY CLASSIFIED ROADS, WHICH MEANS THEY ARE NOW ELIGIBLE FOR GRANT FUNDING. NOW, OBVIOUSLY CENTER DRIVE IS ONE, WILMINGTON IS ONE, DUPONT STILLCOMB IS ONE, BUT WHAT I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IN THIS ONE IS A CARRY OVER FROM OUR LAST MEETING TALKING ABOUT NEIGHBORHOOD ROADS. The tough thing with these locations is really the cost. The cost for grind and overlay, taking off the top two inches and replacing it with new asphalt is running essentially half a million dollars a mile or essentially for the four lanes on on center drive it's essentially a million dollars a mile when it comes down to it so so it's it's tough to do that so but proceeding on to the next slide from this is just a recap from our last one is this is where i was really turned on to this i originally i was poo-pooing the idea of of chip seals however this is some if i have two slides in here that show befores and afters from a company that actually executes this work, a company called Doolittle Construction, just like the Doolittle Raiders from World War II or the Dr. Doolittle from the other movies, is to be able to take a road that's like that and essentially put what they did in this one is called a double chip seal, where they actually put two layers of chips. What I'm proposing is we do something similar to that, but we also put a a slurry coat or an oil coat. So it looks a little bit more smoother, but it's interesting in this one. Oh, okay. In this one, you can see the difference and that's 10 years of life. I grew up in Mount Lake Terrace. I'm familiar with this road and I'm just astonished as now my adult life on, okay, hey, how beat up it got. The next slide is you all may have gone to this place because when I go over to Port Angeles, I always stop off at the Safeway to get gas. And you can notice on the left the alligator cracking that you have on there. And then on the right is the product after 16 years. Now, granted, I suspect in that one location, they probably don't get the heavy volume and things like that. For the volume and weights that we're getting on our collector roads, I think the chip seal program is probably the best approach to that, both from a cost and the ability to turn those streets back into it then. Okay. Next slide, please. So one of the projects that's been on the books for a while, and this is something I... I got to talk to other people about this. So Barksdale Avenue, Barksdale Avenue is concrete panels. Concrete is superior to asphalt from a road perspective. And it's doing, it's in good shape. It's doing all right, right? When we did our detection system on there, the city rover, it actually identified it in a lower grade only because it was looking for the seams and the seams the concrete panels was coming up as cracks but it just happened to be that is the seams of the panel what I needed to actually probably take a further reassessment on this one is is if we do any repair on this one should I stick with the concrete or would I go with the asphalt layer on top. You've probably seen that on bridge decks where they have bridge girders and then an asphalt layer on top. But right now, the concrete deck itself is in decent shape, right? We don't have major potholes in there. It's actually the side roads that have the potholes, and those side roads are are more asphalt. So I have this later in the prioritization. Next slide, please. And then this one is, let me explain this a little bit. I'm not sure if you can see this, but there is a image in black, an image of a freight truck. Typically one you see in a moving truck, the longer style. You see two lines. I try to highlight those two lines. It looks like two pieces of spaghetti on there. And there's a program called Auto Turn where you essentially take the movement of a freight truck and see where it goes. And I think we've seen this when every time everyone's gone past Ridgeview and McNeil is you see the wheel ruts that are up on the sidewalk area on the outer edge. So we were able to validate this, that yes, the FedEx trucks, the Amazon trucks, they're doing fine. The length of a trash truck or a school bus is doing fine, but it's the longer, freight trucks, specifically the moving trucks are having the problem. And then the concept with this plan is essentially you would squeeze that center roundabout, make that interior smaller so it could be mounted in that area. And then the outer part of the roundabout would get wider, essentially push the sidewalk and planning strip out. So that's what this project is. The next couple of slides are essentially study. I purposely did not put a slide for the lighting data collection. I didn't have a good picture for exterior lights, but essentially what that is is to collect within our main arterial roads is then with a combination of heights of our street lights and the amount of light output to be able to calculate, okay, are we getting the appropriate street light illumination at the deck level uh so that's what this is this other one actually actually took a picture so if if most people don't know this but there is actually a box culvert underneath center drive it's where sequalchi creek is located uh people can walk underneath this as a as a pedestrian path so they don't have to cross uh uh center drive what this is essentially a study to do essentially an inspection and maintenance of it uh there is groundwater that's seeping through there uh but that's okay i mean it's within the cracks of the existing culvert but uh what i need to do is probably follow up with a more detailed inspection so that um uh for its long-term use if there's any other repairs i need to do uh with this one so um next slide please so this is the listing um of what i'm looking to put Onto the six-year tip, we are at our next city council meeting, we are gonna have a public hearing component to it. And then under new business, we'll have a six-year tip of approval. You will have a version of this table and a little bit more detailed spreadsheet and also an accompanying map that presently is not part of this package because I'm fighting that spreadsheet. It takes me a long time to adjust it. And then there's a company map that goes with it there. And that's all I have for this presentation. I'll answer any questions.

Let's just go right around and see if we have questions. Tom, we'll start with you or if you need a little bit.

No, I appreciate the work on the tip seal. I think that sounds like the way to go. So thank you. I agree.

I just want to say that The roundabout at Ridgeview isn't the only one that these giant semi trucks that are moving vans have problem with. The one that's in the middle of Hoffman Hill, they have difficulty getting around that one as well. And especially because you're making that right turn to go up the hill, it's a little bit sharper there going up the hill. I would look at that one as well. That roundabout definitely is tight. burnside place i know is yeah yeah yeah it's for inside place yeah okay right any anything else no i think this is great thank you very much yeah i have a one suggestion and one question

So on your project listing, the cost, when it says P cost and CN cost, I think just because we are presenting to people and so many people watching might not know exactly what does it mean. So it might be better if we just spell out the full thing, just like if you say funding source and if you say FS, nobody will understand. So what is PE cost and what is CN cost? So next time, if you can just put it full.

Yeah, when you'll see me next on this, that's the larger table that spells every acronym out on it.

And one thing you are talking about, I think bark still on the concrete or asphalt. How do you make that decision? Should you proceed with the concrete or should you proceed with the asphalt on top of it?

That's a topic I've been wrestling with ever since the first time I was here. So in my opinion, a concrete deck is a superior product as a road. The challenge with that is when you repair it, it's significantly longer and harder to do. So we see this on highways and other things. Why does all those turnabouts over at Tacoma and I-5 take about 30 years to get done because it was all concrete and it just takes time. uh one thing i have to do is probably look at this uh with others involved and say hey based on based on the volume and the number of uh people that we have here uh what am i better off doing at this location i did not want to leave off barksdale because it was it is one of our federally identified roads so so i want to keep it in there but it's it's it's it's not ready for execution is basically what i'm telling you at the point

It came through the presentation and Robin brought up a good point. One other roundabout maybe take a look at is the little roundabout right by the clock tower on Palisade because when the moving trucks come through, they always go over the edge. For those who may not be aware, roundabouts are all designed differently now. Like you say, they're lower, they're filled in in the center. But what's happening on that Palisade one is the same thing that's happening on the ones you're talking about, the ones you're talking about. If we can at least take a look on that and, you know, where it would fall on the list. I don't know, but I think it's since we were talking about roundabouts, great information, great stuff. I think we'll all be ready. I think we can assure Gus we'll all be ready for our next meeting and prepared. Thank you so much for all you do.

Just one more thing, sorry. Sure, go ahead. Talking about those roundabouts, you might want to take a look on the McNeil and near the Patriot's Landing. That also is the main corridor where the trucks go through the McNeil and goes on the Hoffman Hill or anywhere else. So near the Patriot's Landing, there's a big circle and every truck goes on top of it. I have seen it every single time.

Yeah. And I think I forgot to mention this. So the one reason why the one at Ridgeview was shown is because it's the one location where you're making this full 90 degree turn. For the most part, like the ones at Patriot's Landing, the ones at Gall or the ones at Clock Tower, most of everyone's just going straight through uh but obviously the ones at ridgeview you you can't go straight anymore you have to turn and that's that's where the thing is and so we can look at yeah we can add uh the other roundabouts i'll just uh adjust that listing to add you know other roundabouts within there uh to see if there's any other adjustments uh to go with it and i realize there has to be priorities and understand your priorities thanks for all the great work you do

And with that shared, we're going to rejoin up there in four minutes. Sound good? So it's 6.53 p.m. And with everyone back in place, we will restart the meeting. And let me double check and see if I'm on the right one. I think we're up to 8.3, 8. We get on the right list here. New business, we're up to resolution 26-016, interlocal agreement, but the town is still looking for law enforcement investigative services. Chief Moore, do you have an update for us? Yes, sir.

Good evening, Deputy Mayor, Council. The requested interlocal agreement is as a result of a current staffing shortage that the Silicon Department of Public Safety is experiencing at the moment. It's created some vacancies in their patrol division as well as one vacancy in investigations. The remaining resources obviously have been allocated to their priority, which is to fulfill patrol positions while they're actively working to hire additional personnel. As staffing improves, the department's intent is to train and appoint an officer to assume a full-time investigative position. In the interim, STILCOM DPS requires assistance with investigative services from the City of DuPont. As outlined in the proposed interlocal agreement, the DuPont Police Department investigator will be on call and assist with follow-up investigations beyond what normal patrol operations can handle, as well as call-outs requiring additional investigative expertise. Our detectives caseload fluctuates, but it's generally very manageable. The DPD staff has determined that our detective currently has the capacity to assist our neighboring city without any disruption to normal operations or the quality of service that we currently provide to the DuPont community. As outlined in the interlocal agreement, the Town of Steilacoom agrees to reimburse DuPont for 100% of the wages and benefits for actual hours worked related to the duties and services provided. The majority of the casework can be managed during normal working hours. However, any additional time needed or call-outs will be logged and billed at the appropriate rate of pay. The term of the interlocal agreement remains in effect through September 30th. However, in my conversations with Chief Yabe, he anticipates in filling those vacant positions, including their investigator positions prior to that date. And I'll take any questions that you may have.

All right. This is the opportunity for the public to come in on resolution 26-016 in interlocal agreement with the town of Steilacoom. Please remember, keep your comments to three minutes and that you're addressing the council. Is there anyone who has called in or is online?

No, there's neither.

Okay. And there's no written comments, is there? All right. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to make comment on this resolution? Seeing nobody, Is there a motion to approve resolution 26-016? Council Member Wargo.

Yes, Deputy Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 26016, interlocal agreement with the town of Steilacoom for law enforcement investigative services.

Council Member Thakkar.

Second.

Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? The motion passes. Chief, we just want to thank you and your entire team for all that you do. We know it was a really busy weekend, especially yesterday. Thanks for being part of the team that made all that happen.

Okay?

Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. And then we're going to move to... The next item, which is resolution number 26-017, awarding an engineering service contract for urban flooding improvement. Mr. Lim, is there any update that you have for us?

Yes, I do. I do have a presentation I'm hoping to show to you. For some of those who have seen it before, this is a little bit of a recap, but it's been a year since I've last shown it. So these are photos I've taken within the historic village, 2016 and 2020. If I remember, those were essentially winters where we had a lot of rain that led to flooding within the historic village. Next slide, please. When we started looking at this, and this graphic is in your packet, it's not meant to be an eye chart, but what this is, is we had studied this area, and what's different within the historic village compared to any of the other villages within Northwest Landing is it doesn't have a stormwater conveyance system underground that dumps into a storm pond. Essentially, they're cells, they're catch basins that fill into cells and then infiltrate into ground. And of course, what was happening during that timeframe is the ground was getting saturated. So therefore, water wasn't being moved in this location. This graphic that we show here is in 2021, we were able to complete all of the blue flagged items, which is essentially renovation of the existing catch basins and dry cells. And also in 2021, two new locations were installed, which was essentially shown there on the right side of the graphic. And that is essentially over there by closer to the entrance of Barksdale Avenue and also over there by Robinson Park area. Last year, we executed another one using the Pierce County flood zone opportunity funds, less than $150,000, $54,000 at the intersection of Barksdale and Pennyman, which is the one that's flag showing completed in 2025. I did cheat a little bit. We did finish it in January of, first week in January, 2026, but it's easier for me to show in the graphic that way. That is an entrance to Sellers Park in that location. What I'm looking to do now is we chip away at this, right? We chip away at this. There's a total of 13 projects identified roughly about 100,000 a piece and we chip away at it. So the next ones we identified is essentially a book ending on both sides of it. One is on brand new wine in Santa Cruz, And the other one is on the other side, which is located on Haskell and Barksdale. And it'll be the similar concept where we're looking to, next slide please, put a catch basin in the ground. And then in that catch basin goes into what's called a settling tank. that settling tank will essentially remove debris and capture oil water before that is then discharged into a infiltration trench where that can essentially move and disperse the water underground. So what you see there is just that off of the page is a catch basin feeding into that square, that rectangle box which is a settling tank and if you have time later on much later after this I'll show you a video it's what's kind of cool about this is it acts like a toilet bowl swirl in there there's no moving parts but essentially the movement of the water is is is swirling which is causing a debris just up to to push itself off to the side and then that forces the water to go underneath similar to a toilet bowl and then pushes out underneath the oil water as the the oil gets trapped underneath a collar uh just uh just below the the discharge point um what's nice about this is hey it's There's a point to clean it, which is essentially dropping a hose in there and sucking out the debris. But otherwise, this type of model is essentially what we're looking to plant within the historic village so that we can improve the potential for mitigating any urban flooding. The nice thing is this past winter has been mild. So we haven't had the amount of flooding that we've seen in the past. Next slide, please. This is just to show you, we had gotten $77,000 worth of opportunity funds from the Pierce County Flood Zone Control District. So this is just their letter announcing that amount that we have in there. So what I'm looking to do is then take that $77,000, marry it up with the $160,000 that was part of the flood zone control, the capital improvement project as a part of the stormwater utility fund that we passed back in December. So $160,000 for this year as part of that, plus the $77,000. And then to go after essentially those next two projects. The next two projects are only gonna cost us less than $225,000. So the nice thing is we're underneath that budget at that point. I don't think I have any more slides from here then. So what you have in front of you is essentially the design, contract development, and then future subsequent construction management inspection for the next two projects showing in the historic village. My recommendation is we move forward with awarding this to Grain Osborne. Grain Osborne was a team that helped us to develop this plan. They're the ones who helped us put together the contract packages for the previous two works. And in this is essentially a package for $44,900,000. uh for essentially design uh contract uh documents and then future award and then construct construction management and inspection uh my intention is essentially once we get design complete we'll advertise via small works roster by july 1. uh i'll come back to you all award uh first city council meeting in august and then start construction in november so we can get this thing done uh by uh end of october before it starts really raining internet subject to your questions at this point.

All right, before we take questions, this is the opportunity for the public to comment on resolution 26-017, awarding an engineering service contract for urban flooding improvement. Please remember that you keep your comments to three minutes and that you're addressing the council. Is there anyone online?

No, there's not.

No written comments either, is it? No written comments. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to comment on this resolution? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve this resolution? Council Member Wargo.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 26017, awarding an engineering services contract for urban flooding improvements.

Council Member Barrow.

I'll second that motion.

Is there any discussion? There are no discussions. Oh, go ahead.

So when you were talking about capturing all this flood water and then is it released through the ground and then it goes back into our aquifers?

Yeah, it goes back into groundwater. Basically, it's being sent into ground at that point. The challenges we had with the previous infrastructure, the older infrastructure, is those infiltration trenches were, lack of a better term, plugged up. So they needed to essentially be cleaned up so that they can disperse underground.

That's perfect. Thank you for saying that.

Are there any other questions? Hearing no other questions, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes. And then we're going to stay with Gus with resolution number 26-018, awarding an engineering services contract for the ADA transition plan.

um gus go ahead all right thank you deputy mayor uh look i need to explain this because it was it took me a little while to wrap my head around uh what this topic was see that so there are multiple drivers she gets to do this one is uh there's an rcw out there uh there's also a federal requirement and Equally important, there's a Washington DOT directive that says, hey, if you want to continue getting federal grants, you better do this as well. So this ADA transition plan is essentially looking at our assets and trying to determine, do we need to make an improvement so that there will be equal access across the board? Now, you probably have to ask yourself, you know, how how far broad is this? Because we can get this so broad we can we can probably never leave the ocean, so to speak, from that. So what this thing will focus on is similar to what the other agencies have done is we'll look at our essentially public right of ways in there. we'll essentially do a self-assessment and then from that self-assessment we'll come up with a a plan for trying to complete that we'll have some public meetings and and then we'll we'll come up with a budget to identify what are those things that we need to do so we can improve ADA access in our public facilities from there. So I put down a couple, within the council packet, I put down a couple websites that have shown this. Some of our brother and sister agencies have already completed this. We just need to complete it. Pierce County, City of Lakewood, and also City Snoqualmie, where they have their products of what they identified. the challenge with this is just like anything else you know once you start looking you'll start finding a bunch of things and and this is this not this is not to say we're going to find we're going to have resources and solutions for everything this is essentially to identify what are the challenges out there and then coming up with a essentially a prior a list of how having to go after it and then also coming up with a price. One thing that will be useful in this process is last year we brought on board transportation engineers from PH Consulting. They will help us execute this work from there. They've done other work like this in other cities, so they'll be able to usefully take on this work at this point. The estimated cost is just under $75,000, and we're looking to probably execute this and get this completed by the end of the year, subject to your questions at this point.

Council Member, just before I ask for public comment, do you have any questions at this time? Council Member Wargo.

So just a clarification. So we, we want to get it done by the end of the year. Is there a due date when we have to have it done?

I'm, I'm, I'm sorry to report that due date has come and gone.

I was wondering about that.

So this is my ability to get this thing done. Okay. Thank you.

One of the many reasons that shared early or we're glad you're back. Okay. with that in mind um this is an opportunity for the public comment on resolution 26-018 awarding an engineering contract for the ada transition plan please remember to keep your comments to three minutes that you're addressing the council is there anybody online no there's not is there any rent comments no there's not is there anybody in the audience who would like to address uh this resolution seeing none is there a motion to approve Council Member Wargo.

Mr. Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 26018, awarding an engineering services contract for the ADA transition plan.

Council Member Thakkar.

Second.

Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Hearing none, the motion passes. With that shared, Gus, I know we would all like to thank you for your work on these and many, many other projects. You're definitely a busy person and we greatly appreciate all you're doing and your great success in getting grant money. It really helps make our city a better place. With that in mind, we're up to comments. I would like to thank the Wear Blue Run to Remember organization, all the volunteers, all the sponsors, and all the staff involved in the run yesterday to honor our fallen service members and their families. I would also like to thank the Chloe Clark chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the George Rogers Clark chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and all the staff involved in organizing yesterday's Reef Lane ceremony at Ross Plaza. And then as a quick update for this week, Councilmember Barrow and I will be attending this Thursday the Puget Sound Regional Council Annual Meeting in Seattle. It will be interesting. Okay, that's shared. Is there any other comments? Council Member Barrow.

Hi there. I just want to let everyone remind you that on June 6th, we do have the 1843 site tour and everyone in the community is welcome. And on June 13th and 14th, we have the historic flag display at the community center. And that's from one to four on both Saturday and Sunday, 13th and 14th.

Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Elliott.

We will be having a wildfire preparedness presentation on Wednesday, June 17th, and it's for people to learn how to protect your home from a wildfire, what to put in a to-go kit quickly, and how to filter smoke if you don't have an air conditioning unit. And this, our fire chief will be here, and it's from the Pierce County Conservation District who will be giving the presentation. But, you know, this is our third year, fourth year of a drought. And so our forests are drying up, even though we had a little rain over the weekend, it's still really dry. So I would encourage everybody to come and learn how you can protect your own home against wildfires.

Where?

Sorry, it's here at City Hall from June 17th at 7 o'clock.

Thank you Thank you for organizing that that's a great service to our citizens customer the car Yeah after

I think four or five months I'm sitting in this second chair. I used to be sitting here for four years in a planning commission. So I took Beth's chair today and it reminded me, especially having our chief out here, we have an emergency switch right underneath our burden in the panic situation or any kind of, you know, Something goes wrong in the city hall during the meeting is in progress, I think we should have some kind of a drill on it, because, first of all, not everybody knows and remembers in our city council and once we do the drill I think we know what to do. And I think even the police will know whether the system works or not. And city staff know how to evacuate in any kind of situation or what we do in that situation. So maybe police chief can arrange some of this kind of a drill. I think that would be nice. That's one. And I think second thing I can say is for... Gus is there a better light we can put it up because we all are getting to a point of having the reading glasses majority of us especially when we are having the study session that's all all right thanks for those and let's follow up on that drill I think that would be um worthwhile and appreciate those suggestions thanks chief for all that you do all right let's turn over the city administrator

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Just a quick thank you to our friends at the Nisqually Tribe. Last Thursday, we had a canoe journey open house So I want to give a special shout out to Hanford McLeod and Jeff Choke from the tribe for their work and presentation on that. I also want to just give a shout out to Amy, Zach, and Emma, who did a bunch of behind the scenes work to make that go off as well. So as we continue to work towards July 31st in the canoe journey, we're excited to continue to share information with the community. With that, Mr. Deputy Mayor, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Is there any questions for Keith? For those who did attend that event with the canoe journey, it was very informative. Our staff will be very busy with that. But with that shared, it's 7.15 and I will adjourn the meeting.