City Council - Regular Meeting

You should Mr. Evers, can we start now? Councilmember Evers? Okay. Thank you.

Alright. It's funny. Oh boy. I call the meeting of 05/18/2026 to order at 6PM. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I would like to call on pastor Chris Lumpston for the invocation, please.

It's unmuted now. Evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Would you join me in prayer? Heavenly father, we thank you for a beautiful day. We thank you for the sun, our city, for safe sidewalks and parks and a downtown where people love hanging out in a a city that people love to call home. We thank you for this place. I pray for the council tonight that you just give them wisdom.

Many cities around us have changed. And Sumner, Lord, we just thank you that that so many people call this place home, are invested here, care about this city, and we pray just your wisdom for the council as they navigate changing times, a growing city, and a city that still wants to make this place, an amazing place to live.

So I just pray you'd give

them wisdom. I pray you give them joy too. I know they're tired. They they are investing their own time and energy to be here, away from being at dinner with family and doing whatever else they might do this evening, would you give them a sense of the privilege of serving the city that they can do so, with a smile and with, just a great sense that they're they're doing a good thing for this city. Lord, we just pray that you would bless this time and just give us, just an enjoyable evening, serving the city of Sumner. In your name, Jesus. Amen.

Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Alfer's? Here. Ebers? Here. Hochstadter? Here. Kenna? Council member Kenna is absent. Malcolm? Here. Reinke? Here. Wilsey? Here. All members except for Kenna are are here. Thank you.

Council member Kenna is absent per council rules. He has notified myself and the city administrator. Is there a motion to excuse him? Council member Reinke.

I will make a motion to excuse council member Kenna tonight's meeting.

Thank you. Can we get a second?

I'll second.

Thank you, council member Malcolm. So we can get a vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. The outcome is six in favor. Thank you. Alright. Will the clerk please read the consent agenda?

Item

number one, a second amendment to the 2013 YMCA Services Agreement. Item two, Resolution number 1751, Interlocal Agreement with Pierce County Flood Control Zone District. Item three, Resolution number 1750, stormwater capacity grant acceptance. Item four, Friar Avenue Trail Project property acquisition, Roman one LLC. Item five, Friar Avenue Trail Project property acquisition, Liberty Property Development Corporation II.

Item six, Friar Avenue Trail Project property acquisition, Lewis Landmark LLC. Item seven, Friar Avenue Trail Project property acquisition, Pierce County. Item eight, Valley Avenue Water Systems Improvement Construction Contract Award. Item nine, Resolution No. Seventeen forty nine, Wash Debt, Updated Right of Way Procedures.

Item 10, neighborhood traffic calming and intersection data collection consultant contract award. Item 11, 63rd Street storm improvements project change order number two. Item 12, Operations Facility, Puget Sound Energy Gas Easement Item 13, Heritage Park Remediation Design Consultant Contract Award Item 14, approval of the minutes from the meeting excuse me, approval of the minutes from the following, 04/20/2026, regular council meeting, April 27, study session, and May 4 and May 11, council budget retreats. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Elpers, would

you please make a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to adopt the contingent agenda for 05/18/2026.

Is there a second? Councilmember Hochstetter.

I move to second.

Thank you. Seconded by Councilmember Hochstetter. Would any council member wish to remove an item? Okay. So all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Council member Evers would like to say something.

Okay. I first wanna thank our city clerk, Michelle. That was probably the longest consent agenda maybe in the history of summer up there. So, thank you for that. And just want to say that a lot of that consent agenda was the city finished purchasing all the property needs for the Friar Trail project. So I confirm that with Michael. So I don't know how long that's been going on, but I know it's been kind of a long process to acquire the property so we can expand the trail. So I think that's worth noting amidst the consent agenda tonight.

Thank you, Council Member Evers. Alright. That will, move us on to public hearing. So we have nothing tonight for a public hearing. So we'll move on to regular business. So unfinished business. Ordinance number two nine six six vacation of 63rd Street East and a portion of State Street. Council member Evers, would you like to make a motion?

Thank you, madam mayor. I'd like to approve ordinance two six two nine six six vacation of 63rd Street East and a portion of State Street.

Alright. And can we get a second? Council member Elfers.

I'll second that.

Thank you. So it's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance number two nine six six vacation of 63rd Street East and a portion of State Street. I'll now call on deputy city attorney Doug Ruth.

Thank you, mayor. It's been a few weeks since I gave my presentation about this ordinance. So I'm gonna give the presentation again, but I don't wanna bore you with it giving it the same way. So I'm gonna spice it up this time, I'm going go from the back forward just to make it seem a little different to you. So we're going to start with the final slide, maybe this will not be possible to spice it up. Yes. Why? They might need to point this somewhere else at you. Okay. Yeah.

Certified. Alright. Sorry about that. Thought that was gonna go a little easier. So the final fifth slide will show a few, show the overview of where this is located, and that's, at the wastewater treatment facility, and, the fifth slide would show that it was 63rd Street, which is right in front of the facility, and that fifth slide would also show three of our current security fences circled in red and then a proposed security fence circled in blue.

There's every reason to get rid of the three security fences and just have one at the entrance to the facility, but there are limits in law to closing down a publicly accessible roadway. We probably could do it here because there's no one that's residing or has business here, but it's easier just to vacate the roadway and then we could get rid of the three security fences. Considering all the circumstances, in the next slide or the fourth slide, I feel like I'm talking about Star Wars and the progression of Star Wars. We'll show you the other circumstances. Here you can see what's in the right of way there outlined in red, and of course we have some utilities in there which aren't going to be a problem here because the roadway is just gonna go from our hands as a roadway to the city's hands as a piece of land.

But you can also see that many of the buildings, portions of the buildings, are also in the right of way and certainly portion of the parking lot. Any time that the facility wants to make changes, they have to consider that it's in a right of way. This makes additional permitting and operational considerations. It's better if we just have it all be city owned land. Then the next slide will show you a third consideration, and that's just basically that, well, this shows you the outline of the details, and the next slide shows you that it's basically the road is a drive aisle for a, parking lot, just like our previous vacation with the private parking lot, same is true here.

It becomes just a drive aisle. There's really no reason to not vacate it and make it what it is, a drive aisle for the parking lot. So those are the reasons behind that, and we the city has met all the statutory requirements to have this vacated. It has passed a resolution initiating the vacation. A public hearing was held. It was properly noticed. No one was at that hearing objecting to it, nor have we received any correspondence objecting to this vacation, and since there is no other adjoining office, property owners, two thirds of them can't oppose the vacation. So it is properly before you for, vote tonight. And I'm open for any questions.

Well, first, since a public hearing already occurred on this matter on 04/20/2026, there will be no additional public comment taken this evening. So do we have any comments from the council? You're good to go. Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Alfer's?

Yes.

Hochsutter?

Yes.

Reinke?

Yes.

Hubbard? Yes. Wilsey? Yes. Malcolm?

Yes.

Five six zero.

Thank you. All right. So now we'll move on to public comment. Michelle, did anyone sign up for public comment tonight? Okay.

And, so miss Burnett, if you'd like to come up, I'm gonna read my rules for public comment. They're somewhere somewhere here in

my staff.

I'm gonna read them. I'm sure they're here. Yeah. Found them. Alright. Let's see here. Well, before I read these, Jeff, is there anybody on Zoom? Okay. Thank you. Alright.

So the purpose of these meetings is to conduct the important business of the city, and that often means the city council is making difficult policy or budgetary decisions. With that said, I want to share a few rules and reminders that I will be enforcing to encourage respectful and orderly public comment. As a reminder, the public comment section of the meeting is a time for the council and myself to hear from members of the public on topics, not on tonight's agenda. And while it may feel awkward, this is not a time for the council or myself to answer questions or engage in back and forth debate. At the conclusion of your comments, I may request that the appropriate staff member contact you for further discussion.

Number one, please keep your comments relevant to city business and about matters over which the city council has control. Number two, all council members and city staff deserve respect and dignity. Please refrain from disorderly or disruptive speech or conduct, personal attacks, name calling, rude or offensive statements, obscenities, derogatory comments directed at individuals, and hate speech. If you don't comply with this rule, I will interrupt you with a reminder and then may choose to suspend you from continuing or have you removed from the meeting. Number three, we have behavioral expectations.

We will all model courtesy and respect. This includes those of us on the dais, and members of the public are expected to do the same. Audience members, to ensure every speaker feels comfortable speaking, please do not clap, boo, or speak while another person is addressing the council. Number four, please speak into the microphone. Comments are broadcasted and recorded via the mics. If you leave microphone, your comments your comment time ends. Now that I've reviewed the rules that will apply, I invite the first speaker to the microphone. Please start your comments by stating your name and the city in which you reside for our records. You will have three minutes to speak. Thank you.

Thank you. Tina Burnett, I live in Sumner and I'm really sorry I didn't attend your council retreat. I heard it was great. It was a lot of information and I especially was happy to hear that the city council members asked some darn good questions of the plans. What I'm hoping is that the public also gets a chance to ask questions and get some input before you carry on especially regards with Heritage Park which I know it was on the consent agenda and too late for that but in the design phases I'm hoping that you get some public input on what you're doing, and I especially wanna address one thing.

I heard a rumor that you wanna put astroturf instead of grass in the park, and I'm really hoping that was just a rumor because I I took the grass I didn't have a lot of grass in my backyard because I have a swimming pool, and I didn't like the grass getting into the pool. So I put in AstroTurf. I've regretted it almost every day since then. So please let that be a rumor. AstroTurf, and I'm sure you guys would buy much more expensive AstroTurf than I paid for, but it gets very, very hot to the touch.

No bare feet, no dogs roaming around. It is hot. It's just like the sidewalks where you crack an egg and fry your egg on the sidewalk. It gets as hot as hot sidewalks in the that weather. And I know it's great for maintenance, you know, but if dogs do their business and people don't pick it up right away, it's not as easy to clean as grass.

So there are issues with Astroturf. And if you do proceed with that plan, I hope you take these things into consideration and not make it fake grass in a fake park because there's not much grassy area in there anyways. So I just wanted to make that comment. Please, please, please put in real grass in a park, not AstroTurf. Thank you.

Thank you. And do we have anyone else? Is that it? Alright. Thank you. Alright. So we're gonna move on to new business. So appointment of the Sumner Lodging Tax Advisory Committee for Ms. Crick. Council Member Willsey, would you like to make a motion?

Yes. I'd like to make a motion for the appointment of Sumner Lodging Tax Advisory Committee for miss Crick.

Thank you. Can we get a second, mister Reinke?

I will make a second to that.

Thank you. Council member Reinke made the second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the appointment of miss Crick to the Sumner Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. So, I see communications director Carmen Palmer is back from abroad and she's right here in front of us. So, thank you.

I am. Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you. I am a little jet lagged so hopefully I don't nod off in the middle of presenting to you, but I am pleased to ask for your confirmation of Kylie Creek to the Sumner Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. Unlike our other commissions, this committee is regulated by Washington State Law on who needs to serve on there, and that is a chair who is, one of you that you, Deputy Mayor Elfers was selected when you did all your committee selections at the beginning of the year, and then two people who represent organizations that could spend the money and two people who represent organizations that collect the money. Obviously,

Ms.

Crick is representing one of the people who would collect the money as the general sales, I want to get her title right, the regional director of sales and marketing for Sumner Hotels LLC. With that, she serves both the Holiday Inn Express and the Candlewood Suites, which is kind of nice to have someone who's representing both hotels that are on Sumner's North End generating this lodging tax for us. If you recall back in April, everyone else was a reappointment, so we did them back in the April reappointments, but we had this one vacant position and Ms. Crick stepped up. She did send her apologies, she is currently at a work conference in Atlanta, otherwise she would be here in person and I believe she mentioned something about maybe trying to drop in on a future council meeting to say hello, although I won't make any promises on her behalf.

So we look forward to someone new, it is a very nice actually a nice setup that the state gives us so that people who collect the tax and have to look at the people who are spending that money every time they reserve a hotel room have some input as well as the people spending it to know what will really generate more tourism if we do this well. This source of revenue should be continually replenishing itself because it should be generating more overnight stays that then pay back into this fund. And the ultimate thing, the reason that you want to put heads in beds is because that's the ultimate way to get people spending more money in your entire community with gas and dining and not just lodging, so that is the goal.

All right, thank you. Do we have any comments from the public? And do we have anyone on Zoom? Okay. So any comments from the council?

Oh, boy. Alright. Well, will the clerk please call the roll?

Alvers? Yes. Malcolm?

Yes.

Wilsey? Yes. Alvers?

Yes.

Hochstadter? Yes. Reinke? Yes. Pass 60.

Thank you. So as stated, miss Crick is unavailable at this time but we would like to wish her congratulations. Alright. So next appointment to the forestry parks and arts commission of mister Thomas. Council Member Hochstetter, would you like to make a motion?

Yes, I would like to make a motion to appoint Forestry Parks and Arts Commission for Devin Thomas.

Can we get a second?

I'll second that.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor Elfers gave us that second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the appointment of Mr. Thomas to the Forestry, Parks and Arts Commission. And I see he's already here but I'll call on community and economic development director Ryan Windisch.

Thank you mayor. Good evening city council. It's my privilege to present to you a, candidate for the confirmation for appointment to the Forestry Parks and Arts Commission, Devin Thomas. The Forestry Parks and Arts Commission as the name would imply provides guidance on parks, the urban forest in Sumner, public trees and management, as well as arts in the park and in parks and around the community. The commission consists of 12 members, they're appointed by the Mayor confirmed by the City Council.

We currently have two vacant positions that Mr. Thomas would fill one of those. And he lives in Sumner with his family. He's a co owner of the new Pilates studio downtown. He's very interested in serving on the commission because of his background in visual design and art and he believes in the importance of art and its influence on the community and the quality of the community as a whole. Mr. Thomas is here tonight, and that's all I have. So happy to answer your questions.

Do we have any comments from the public? All right. No one's on Zoom? Thank you. Any comments from the council? Council Member Hochstadter.

Yes, I've had an opportunity to work with Derek or I mean sorry Devin, and I just want to say he'll be a great addition. Many people may not know but he was the graphic designer behind the mural that is when you're coming into town over the railroad tracks and it says greetings from Sumner. Devin himself designed that. He worked with the Arts Commission to get that mural up for our town. It's been a huge success. People take photos in front of it. He did that when he wasn't even on the commission. So I can only imagine all his efforts once he gets on the commission. So I think he'll be a great addition.

Thank you. Council Member Evers.

I would just like to thank you for your time for this. It looks like it's tough now. We have three commissions at one, so hopefully you're ready for that. And I just want to say finally, my wife loves your Pilates studio. She she like three times a week maybe or I I keep track but she's a big fan. So thank you for that.

Alright. Will the clerk please call the roll? Oh, deputy mayoral first. There you go.

Yeah. Was just gonna say, hey, thank you for, for your interest in the commission. I think about ten to twelve years ago, I it was my first, opportunity to be involved in the city, and I and I think it's just a great opportunity to learn about parks. I think I saw you had a couple kids here, which I think is one of the things, Sumner, we really want to be a place where families are excited to be here and parks are a big part of that, trails are a big part of that, arts are a big part of that. So thank you for your willingness to serve and, yeah, look forward to having you in the community and part of this.

Thank you. Alright. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Malcolm?

Yes.

Hochstadter? Yes. Wolsey? Yes. Reinke?

Yes.

Alferz?

Yes.

Evers? Yes. Pass six zero. Thank you. So, mister Thomas, you are here tonight. Would you like to say a few words? Yes. Thank you.

Press anything up here or

okay. Nope.

You're on.

Cool. Well, I just wanna say thank you guys for having me. I'm really excited to join. Like you said, I have two kids. We've moved here in 2017, so we've been here a while. We're invested in Sumner. We love Sumner. We have a business in Sumner. So all that said, we're just very excited to help and serve in any way we can and hopefully that is designed using the skill set I've had for a long time. So hopefully I can use that and help throughout the town with that skill set and yeah, just be a helping hand. Thank you.

Thank you very much, congratulations. All right, our next appointment to the Forestry Parks and Art Commission is Anne Marie Matthews, council member Evers would you like to make a motion?

I think I may be looking at Anne Marie now, I've never met her, but I think I'm pretty sure by deduction I thought that was you. So I would love to make a motion to appoint Anne Marie Matthews to the aforementioned Forestry, Parks and arts commission.

Thank you. Can we get a second, mister, Council Member Malcolm?

I second it.

Thank you. Seconded by Council Member Malcolm. It has been moved and seconded to approve the appointment of miss Matthews to the Forestry and Parks Commission Parks are and Arts Commission. Again, we call on community and economic development director Ryan Windisch.

Thank you, mayor. Member of the city council, Anne Marie, lives in Sumner. She served on the Cultural Arts Commission since 2020. So as you all know, this is kind of transferring it is transferring Anne Marie's talents to the Forestry Parks and Arts Commission. Anne Marie believes that encouraging the arts in the community is important to create an enriching and beautiful environment for all. She plans to use her love of the arts and her personal experience to benefit the work of the commission and the people of Sumner. And as Mr. Evers pointed out Anne Marie is here tonight.

Thank you. Any comments from the public? No one on Zoom. Okay. So any comments from the council? Council Member Hochstetter.

Yeah, I got an opportunity to work with Anne Marie on the Cultural Arts Commission and I just want to say I appreciate how good a team player she is. She doesn't give up on things. She sees things through. So she's got a servant's heart. And so I'm excited to see her transfer from the Cultural Arts Commission to the Forestry Parks and Arts Commission.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor Elfers.

Yeah. I'm, just wanted I had a couple opportunities to meet, with Anne Marie at just a couple events, so we had some good good conversations. I think she's a great listener, ask good questions, and, and so I think she really cares about the community, so I'm excited to have her be part of of it. Thank you.

You. Council member Evers.

Just a quick welcome back, guess. We wish wish thanks for staying with us and adding two more commissions to your schedule. Just a quick question for mister Windisch. You said that we were down two and we're adding two today. So does that

that mean

fill those two down positions. So it'll be it'll be full up 12 total

We're good to go. Yeah. Good Yeah. You. Yeah.

You. Anyone else? Alright. Will the clerk please call the roll? Oh, Frankie, are you good? Okay. Thank you. Alright. Will the clerk please call the roll? Elfers? Yes. Frankie?

Yes. Malcolm? Yes. Others? Yes. Hocksetter?

Yes.

Wolsey? Yes.

Pass 60? Thank you. I see Ms. Matthews is here tonight. Would you like to say anything? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for recommissioning me. I have really enjoyed serving the city for the last five years, and I'm looking forward to learning more about our parks and the forestry and learned a little bit already in a meeting, just some really interesting things that the commission does already. So it'll be I think it'll be a great collaborative effort to bring arts into it. And we already we already worked together with the parks on some things with our chalk art festivals and our music off main. And so it'll be just great, I think, to have it all together. And, yeah, thank you for allowing me to serve.

Thank you very much. Congratulations. All right. Now we'll move on to item D, Park Phase three and four Consultant Contract Amendment. Council Member Reinke, would you like to make a motion?

Yes. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the Heritage Park phase three and four consultant contract amendment.

Can we get a second? Deputy Mayor Elfer's.

I'll second that.

Thank you. So it has been moved and seconded to approve Heritage Park phase three and four consultant contract amendment. I call on public works director Michael Cosa.

Good evening, mayor, members of the city council. I'm happy to be before you to present this item. This is Heritage Park phase three and four consultant contract amendment. So it is design amendment number five for the Main Street Vision Project, Jet Landscape and Architecture. Worked with the city from 2022 to 2023 to reimagine Rubin Knoblauch Heritage Park as a more attractive and functional community space.

In 2024, J. E. T. Completed design for Heritage Park in Hop's Alley, and that also included a 60% construction documents for the event building and the entire park. So in 2026, the city completed the construction on phase two, which is the point of the park and Hop's Alley.

So, next slide, please. So design amendment number five, the deliverables for this amendment is an updated site survey bringing that 60% design that already exists up to 100, which would be ready to bid construction documents. It, will provide a permit, a building permit drawing submittal as well as an updated cost estimate and updated architectural renderings. And the total cost is $644,739. So, that is the negotiated amount that we are presenting and, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Okay. Do we have any comments from the public? All right. No one's on Zoom? Thank you. Any comments from the council? Deputy Mayor Elfers.

We had pretty extensive conversations about this, in the public works meetings, and then we had a couple of weeks of council retreat, and we talked about it additionally. So I just want to mostly just make public a couple of things that we had talked about so the public is aware of it. I think I'll ask you a couple of questions, Michael. So number one, who's paying for the design, the 60%?

So the 60% design, it would be funded by the city. Up until now, the design had been funded through Pierce County LTAC grant, which got us all the way to 60% and also got us the design, to get heritage, the Hops Alley and Point Of The Park all taken up to 100%. So all the funding to date has been through Pierce County LTAC. This would be a city fund. Okay.

And my understanding is that the additional cost is a lot of it's related to just adding that 3rd Floor to the building. Is that correct?

That's some of it. We are at 60% design phase for, yeah, and that you can imagine that has a certain level of detail. It identifies the spaces. It identifies the overall plan for the building, but doesn't go down to the details that really need to be put together in order to construct the building, all the different little parts, whether it's trim and any sort of piece of the building that needs to be specked out will be specked out in this next phase.

Okay. And it's about a $600,000 adjustment to the contract, so pretty significant. But my understanding is it's funded by a couple of different sources, not general fund. Is that correct?

A good portion of it is general fund.

Was it partly REIT, partly impact fees?

Yes. There are those other like parks impact fee sources.

So there are

other sources that's better

way to represent it. Got it. Okay. And I think we're when we make this vote, we make a decision. I think one of the things we are concerned about is it kind of locks us into a design. And then if we say, oh, this is I think we came up with somewhere between 20 somewhere in the near in the ballpark of 30,000,000 for finishing the park as well as building this building. That's a pretty big expense. So there's some people in the community have expressed concern about that. Are we deciding today to build this thing? Or what's the difference between our decision today and that?

Sure. So what we're doing what is presented before you today is to take that design from a 60% design to a 100% design. That process will take about six to nine months. At that point, we will have bid ready construction documents. So then it will come back before council to decide how funding that will work.

And there may be between now and then, there will be probably opportunities for the city to seek funding from other sources and maybe even at that time as we get close to 100% design there might be additional time to seek funding and then that funding is more set after that as we decide if we elect to move forward and put it out for construction.

Okay. And I think just one more thing. Just wanted to clarify. So I think my understanding is we can't really get a good cost estimate and really can't go after grants and a lot of funding until we have a full design building. Is that right?

The more information, the further along you get, the more real the project gets and the better that is a target for granting agencies. Anybody nobody who wants to fund something that is just a pie in the sky idea. When you have a shovel ready project, that's when your project has the most ability to garner additional funds through whichever authority you've got. Cause they know it's real, they know it's right there and all they have to do is make a choice to help fund the project.

Okay. And then I guess just to reiterate, I think this is something that few people have been like, what's going on? Is a new thing. Is this a new idea that's been in the last couple of years or is this something we've been looking at for a while?

So this project has been conceptualized since the early 2010s and over the past fifteen years we've gotten to this point. So it's been in comp plans, it's been in parks plans, it's been in a multitude of planning documents. There's been public outreach over the years during the visioning of the town center plan and then also the main street visioning that occurred. So this is not the first time that this has come up. We've been designing it since 2022 to some extent. So it's been a long process.

And I'm just going to comment that we did wrestle with this a little bit. I think the city everything is expensive. If we redesigned it and spent a lot of time rediscussing it over and over, I think the design cost goes up. But also guaranteed we add a year or two of the project and the cost goes up 5% a year or so. So I'm just going to be supporting this. It took a little bit of work to get me there, but thank you for going over that Michael.

Thank you, Council Member Malcolm.

Thank you. First off, I'm very grateful for the hard work that the staff and our consultants and everybody's put into this. It's been a long trajectory, and I really, really, just wanna say thank you for this big effort. It's been amazing. But I'm gonna be the anti anti and I'm gonna vote no against, against this tonight.

And my reasoning why is just that I feel like we're conflating two kind of pressing issues right now. We've got a a huge need for city council or not city council, but just city hall type of space for our people. And we're also, needing to finish out Heritage Park, so we have this very viable, fabulous park space that supports our main street, our events, and whatnot. And I think what we're trying to do, it seems like in the last few years, we've morphed into this trying to ease the burden on our space requirements and our you know, we're pushing at the seams in City Hall, you know, on top of finishing Heritage Park. So I'm voting against this because I would love to see these two severed.

I'd like to see us think more about a a more, smaller budget that still gives us a first class pavilion space, and also gives us an opportunity to use what funds, you know, expenses that we avoid by doing that to be thinking, putting a need for a city hall refurbishment, rebuild something, you know, on the front of our radar. It seems like it's been kinda in the back. So I'm gonna be voting no, you know, knowing this probably get a pass anyway, but I feel, you know, strongly that we're completing the two and that the two efforts being combined like this are kind of shortsighted. We're overbuilding the pavilion space and we're underbuilding, you know, our our kind of growth needs for city hall. So, again, thank you and that's it.

Okay. Thank you. Any other comments from the council? I'm not showing it. Hang on a second. Council member Evers. Got it.

Thanks thanks, Michael. I've grappled with this as well-being new on the council. It was our first public works committee back in January, and I see this for, 650,000. And I followed Heritage Park as a civilian, but I didn't know enough to know enough. And just talking about, you know, obviously, the pavilion is gonna be wonderful, and just talking to lots and lots of people about our staffing issues and I'm on board.

Of course, once we pass this and that's done and we expect you to go get a bunch of money for us, Michael, if you can. I know that we have some sale some golf course money left over, which will be a good chunk of that. And I trust so far you've been doing nothing but bring money in every public works committee meeting I come to. So I know there's some money out there and we'll see what this comes back with. But I think I agree with Councilman Malcolm, but a little bit, but I just think this is we're going to have staffing needs for space we have now and in the future and I think this will this is hopefully maybe a cheaper and quicker way to address that.

So I'll vote yes.

Thank you. Any other counsel comments? Okay. Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll? Reinke?

Yes.

Alferz?

Yes.

Malcolm?

No.

Wilsey? Yes. Evers? Yes. Hoxetter?

Yes.

Pass five one. Thank you. Alright. We'll now move on to ordinance number two nine six seven system development charges calculation. Council Member Hawkstetter, would you like to make a motion?

Yes, I'd like to make a motion for ordinance number, 2,967 system development charges calculations.

Thank you. Can we get a second? Deputy Mayor Elpers.

I'll second that.

Thank you. It has been moved and seconded to approve ordinance number 2,967 system development charges calculation. So I now call on development services director, mister Doug Begle.

Mayor, Council, good evening. This is Joe Fessler. He's for the city is our development services engineering manager and he's going to help me with this presentation tonight. So we're here to talk about system development charges. When an applicant proposes a change of use of an existing building, we give them a sewer credit for the old use based on their utility account.

We have found that many utility accounts were were being under build so that the crew sewer credit was much smaller than expected which has stopped projects. To resolve this issue, this ordinance proposes to recalculate the sewer credits based on the current use instead of using the old utility account. Current use will be defined as a permitted use or the current unpermitted use that can be proven to have been in effect for the last ten years. This ordinance can encourage economic development and conversions of old vacant buildings. So we're happy to answer any questions.

Do we have any comments from the public? No one on Zoom, correct? Thank you. So any comments from the council? I'm seeing oh council member Malcolm.

It's not necessarily a comment but a question on how you're going to calculate these new rates for what's the methodology that you're using to do that to get to these kind of new rates and make it easy for everybody?

Yes. So our current our current code provides for the the methodology for calculating the the sewer impact fees today. Twenty, thirty years ago it was a different method, which resulted in a lower number and that's the problem that we have. So today we'll utilize the new method for recalculating the old buildings impact to give an apples to apples credit towards the new facility. All of the methodology is pretty simple.

It's all based on square footage and what type of use you're doing in that particular building. And moving from a one use to a more intensive use would be a higher impact for example. Correct. And really correcting for the previous numbers that were too low and that and that created a an unexpected cost for new developers that we want to encourage.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor Elfers.

You might have just answered my question, but I just wanted to hear a little bit, like, from the public. I think we are in an environment, I think it's it's increasingly difficult to do business. I've heard that a lot from people doing business in Washington, including myself. But just how does this impact new businesses? How does this what does this do as far as our environment in summer? How does that compare with other cities? And do you have any feedback on that? Well, can only help

with new development coming into town and redeveloping these old unused buildings. Because the old unused buildings had an existing credit that was low lower than it should be, this ordinance will provide a higher credit. So that will incentivize and encourage this redevelopment in these buildings, these old buildings. The methodology that we use is similar to other cities around us as far as the today's way of calculating the impact fees or the sewer ERU count, the units of sewer. And the problem that we're hoping to resolve here is the spread, the difference between the way it was calculated and the way it is calculated now.

And by doing so, we'll reduce those impact fees for the new development coming in to encourage development. We've seen the opposite where that high impact fee has actually turned people away. It was unexpected and that's not something we want to have happen. Thank you.

Council Member Hoxteter.

Yeah, thank you Doug and Joe. This came through community development committee which I serve on and I got an opportunity to ask quite a few questions about it and just to kind of reflect this the way I understood it was somebody, let's say, a mom and pa, cool ice cream shop wants to come downtown. There's older buildings. They come in. They're on their tight budget but they got a heart to open a business in town, the old building, the credit is wrong compared to what we calculate it now.

Then they come to the city there with their hearts and dreams on the line and they say, oh, well, there's a impact fee that's through the roof and it's based on a miscalculation kind of how it was versus how it is now. So it sounds like what we're doing here is reducing kind of an unfair hurdle when it comes to businesses coming in and getting hit with those impact fees. So that it got a due pass through, the community development committee. So yeah, I'm in favor of it. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Thank you.

Any other comments from counsel? Alright. Will the clerk please call the roll? Thank you, you guys.

Alfer's? Yes. Malcolm? Yes. Reinke?

Yes.

Wolsey? Yes. Evers? Yes. Hochstetter?

Yes.

Passed. 60. Thank you. Okay. We'll now move on to report. So we'll start with the council. So we'll start tonight with council member Wolsey.

Thank you. And congratulations to those who had, appointments today. Mine is actually short and sweet. This weekend was great downtown, even despite our silly weather, day, our Washington silly weather day, we had a lot of people shopping. So it was really fun to see everybody kinda out and about, and Sunday cleared up a little bit.

So we had a lot more people coming down for the sidewalk sale. Just wanted to remind the community, rhubarb days is coming up, and then immediately after that, we've got, all of our fun summer events, the, you know, the the music off main and and chalk our art festival is happening in August. So keep an eye on your schedules for, the, rhubarb days that kind of kick off to the summer. Rhubarb days is June twentieth and twenty first. That's everything. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Malcolm.

Again, congratulations to the committee members. It's always exciting. It was fun when I got appointed and really enjoyed it and so I'm really glad to see people stepping up, especially people really get our backgrounds because I love that sign. I think it's beautiful. I look forward to seeing more of that kind of impact on the community.

Happy forty sixth anniversary of Mount St. Helens blowing up day. I grew up 25 miles from the mountain and remember how crazy it was, and it just made me very thankful about our lahar drills. And every Monday at every first Monday at noon when I hear that alarm go off, I'm just like, glad we're prepared. Also, I'd like to just talk a little bit about it's been a few weeks, I attended the Puyallup twenty twenty six Housing Summit, kind of to hear some of the challenges and opportunities that are lying ahead for builders in the region.

It was really interesting. We had people from the state there, we had builders there. They had an open kind of presentation talking about what they felt were the challenges. The state was really interesting here. The state say, hey, we really want to try to clean this up and make it easier for people.

So I saw some willingness that I was new to me there. And also there was a presentation around just the economic vitality of the Puget Sound region and as the South Puget Sound region, Pierce County, we're actually I think faring better than our neighbors to the north, which was kind of cool to see. So I appreciate getting that kind of insight and input. And also just the just, I guess, sharing that I'm gonna be working or not working, but joining up the Main Street Association has a economic vitality committee. So I'm sitting in on that to kinda hear what they're thinking and seeing if there's anything that we can bring forward to counsel or we can, you know, at least clean, the needs of the, local, merchants on our main street and see what we can do to help out.

And that's my report. I'm sticking to it.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor Alferz.

I have a couple of things. So I think I have, first of all, last week, couple weeks I went to an economic summit, for the National Association of Home Builders. Really interesting couple of facts I thought were mostly the economic data for the country is really not great. I think there's a 40% chance of recession I think is what they were saying. And then the other takeaway that I had from that was they had an interesting fact. They said from ages from men from the ages of 25 to 55, right now like one in three is not in the workforce compared to twenty years ago when ninety percent of men in that age bracket were in the workforce. Workforce. So that was actually really that was like shocking to me. Was like, well, that's a lot of men who aren't working. So I'm not sure what

to do

with that, I just think that's like it's meaningful to me as I got three boys, and I'm like, gosh, you guys go work. But I don't I just see that as not a positive thing. And then I did have the opportunity on Friday more locally to be part of the grand opening at Friar Flats just right next to the library so that they have they've been leasing units and it's a beautiful building, a lot of amenities. They had tours. So I do think it is a great asset to our community and a really nice ownership group. It's a family that has multiple generations and really does care about the community. As a person who knows a little bit about the industry, I just I don't feel like they're doing that for they're not making a huge profit on it, but they really do care about the community. So I really appreciate them. They're great community folks on that. And it's a pretty big investment in the area.

So I'm thankful to that, and it was a great event, had good wraps and food and stuff. So a couple of reports from committees. The Public Works Committee met on April 21, so we haven't met for a little bit. We missed our last meeting. I think almost everything on the agenda today was on that. The only thing we approved, so it doesn't really do any good to talk about it because we already reported it. But there's one item that we didn't mention. We did once a quarter, we do a joint action committee with the city of Bonney Lake because we share the sewer plant. So we did a meeting on with them on the twenty first. And I think the two things we talked about there's nothing more exciting than talking about waste load reports about like how much water is coming in, how the sewer is doing and how the last year is.

I don't know, Michael, you live in that world. I prefer like line by line stuff from the accounting side, but I mean, I'm trying to appreciate your world. So anyways, I think most of the takeaway was that we had a very December was a crazy month and it really threw off all our data from other years. And so we're just trying to make sense of how we just kind of get that blip off of everything so we can figure out how we're doing on improving. Most of it's just state reporting. And then we got that biosolids equipment modernization project, which is moving forward. I think we last meeting we did, we approved the bond and so we're I believe that was the bond for the biosolids. Anyways, we're moving forward on that. And we just did that vacation today. So I mean, we're doing a lot of stuff over there at the sewer plant.

It's a big deal. Next item on the Finance and Personnel Committee, we met on May 12, so last week. And this had a couple of things. One, we had a but we haven't voted on this yet. We had a sewer rate adjustment ordinance that's coming up, which is just basically we have some folks who are on our sewer system that are outside of city limits, and so we don't have a policy for commercial. So we just had to create we're creating a policy to just we basically give them a 25% premium because they're not in the city, and we don't have a policy if I do that. So pretty straightforward. And then we're surplusing a couple of cars. We did the sales tax report. The sales tax report, I think I'm tracking pretty closely.

We just added that new TBD district, so the Transportation Benefit District of a tenth of a percent of sales tax last started, January, and we're supposed to use that for roads. I think the anticipated revenue was $800,000 a year, and we are on track with that. Also, so that's good to hear. And we're, really glad that we don't have to push on property taxes or utility taxes, and we also get people who don't live in town to kind of start paying for the road. So that was good to hear. That's on track. We're doing well on that. And then general sales tax collections are also up to date. We talked about recruitment and negotiation, not really any negotiations happening. And a lot of jobs, I think it's a two double sided piece of paper with all the different jobs.

We've had a reorganization, so a lot of them are internal, just adjustments and transfers and stuff. But anyways, I think that's all I have, and I really hope it stays sunny. It was kinda weird. We got used to summer weather, and all of sudden, I wore shorts the other day, and that was really cold. So, I'm really glad it's sunny again today. So thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Evers?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Before I have two fun things to talk about. First my first thing though, we had a gal from a childcare business and some of that was talking, I think it was about traffic impact fees. And then I met a friend yesterday who's putting a coffee shop in town. Do we need more coffee shops?

I guess you can never have enough coffee shops. But anyway, he had mentioned that his impact fees and anyway, I think our city administrator said that we might be talking about that. I would just like to learn more about that because I just I think that was passed or changed a couple of year or two ago. And so I guess I would just like to have that as a discussion someday. So I don't you don't need to but I just wanted to bring that up because that was like the second person that had been talking about that.

So on the on the sports side, I guess I I I got called on before Michael Hochstadter who's gonna say this, but so anyway, I I the Sumner Baseball team, they won the SPSL championship. They won the West Central District championship, and so they're the number two seed, at the state tournament. And, so we have little ways to go, but there's been three teams in Sumner history that have made to the final four, and one team placed second. So, this team looks really good. I was called upon to be the PA person there, which was the funnest time of my life, calling games for them.

So they play at Heritage Park up in Puyallup on Saturday, and their first game is against Moses Lake. And if and if they win that game, then they play another game right afterwards. And if they win that game, then they're in the final four up in Everett next week. So it's a good baseball team. I think there's like seven or eight college commits and anyway, so Saturday at 01:00.

I checked the weather. It looks good. So go up to Heritage Park, run up the hill and support the Spartans. Soccer, boys soccer, they won the SPSL. They were second at the district tournament last week, and they will be hosting Lewis and Clark on Wednesday at 07:00 at Sunset Stadium. So all these games we're in the playoffs now, so everything is loose wraps. So, wishing, the baseball and soccer team, good luck this week.

Thank you. Alright. Council member Reinke.

Thank you, madam mayor. First of I'd to congratulate both the appointees tonight. I appreciate you volunteering your time and being involved in the city. I think you both do a great job. It feels a little weird to be here. We haven't been here in, like, three weeks or more, I think, with the retreats the last two Mondays on May fourth and eleventh. I do wanna thank the mayor and the city manager and all the staff that put on the retreat. It was really well done. This is my second one. I was appointed a few years ago, so I got in on the the first or that was my first one.

But in preparation for the 2728 biennium budget, these are huge. But, I mean, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of taxpayer money, and we gotta figure out how to spend it. We had a lot of different subjects both days. We talked about some of them tonight. The Heritage Park, a lot of park things, a lot of development, a of things going on in Sumner. So it's gonna be a pretty stout budget, I think, and I think, things are looking good financially. I also attended the ribbon cutting at the Fryer Flats. I was pretty impressed with that complex. All the amenities and things that they offer, it's a lot different than back in the day when you're in an apartment.

They have all these different things for pets, and everything. It was pretty amazing. But, I don't think I spared any expense on, you know, design and, you know, pretty nice fixtures and everything. It was pretty well done, and I enjoyed that. And for me, coming up this next week, I have public safety on Wednesday, the twentieth, Pierce County Regional Council, Thursday on the twenty first. And then next week, I just wanna remind everybody that Monday is Memorial Day to, remember our veterans and, for their service. And, if you get a chance to go to the cemetery over here or, an event, there's a lot of different Memorial Day stuff going on through town. So that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Hochstetter.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to congratulate Anne Marie and Devin again, your heart to serve. I really appreciate it. I think number of people up here started on commissions and somehow found their way serving on council. So you just never know as you continue to follow down the path of service in Sumner. So thank you for that. I want to follow-up on council member Reinke talking about retreat that the council and the staff and was on the last two Mondays. It was not much of a retreat. No one was getting a massage or anything like that. It was six hours on a Monday, a working lunch, well prepared information from our staff.

I wanna thank the staff, the transparency that they show, the information that they give. We have seven people in the mayor that have a heart for Sumner. We're in a position of privilege being able to make decisions, but we're only as good as the information we get, and the staff has been wonderful in presenting the information for us as we make these decisions. I wanna also thank council member Malcolm for his no vote today. This is part of the process.

Different points of view, diverse way of thinking, rigorous discussion, and not always agreeing. I voted in favor of it, and that's how that goes. But I do I do really appreciate the debate and the discussions that the council had over our twelve hours of retreat on those two Mondays. So again, thank you to the staff.

Thank you so much. I'll now call on city administrator Jason Wilson.

Thank you, mayor and council. I'll echo, we, as staff, were very pleased with the way the retreat turned out. Was great to hear, from all of you and your thoughts on the various plans and projects we've been working on for a long time.

Very valuable, and I

think I've started talking to the mayor. We'll probably do another one later this summer as we get closer to kicking off the budget process with you all because there's so much going on and a lot of decisions coming up. Speaking of upcoming things, we do have Memorial Day next week. As a number of you mentioned, there is no meeting, so there will not be a Tuesday meeting in place of the the Monday holiday. So the next time we'll see each other is on June 1 for the regular council meeting.

You'll be considering that ordinance that deputy mayor Elfers mentioned a few minutes ago regarding sewer rates for commercial customers who are outside of the city limits, doing a construction contract award for the 2026 sidewalk repair program as well as approval of amended employment agreements. A number of you mentioned the early learning center traffic impact fee discussion that is scheduled to come back to council on the June 22 study session. I know council member Evers, it sounds like you have some other questions regarding traffic impact fees that council adopted in 2025. I'm happy to meet with you offline to discuss those. I'll just say for the the public, there's very few opportunities for us as staff or U.

S. Council to adjust traffic impact fees without filling that fee with other general fund revenue or looking at it holistically like we did in 2025 when these fees were set. Also, I want to address a rumor that we've gotten today on our rumors page about hanging baskets. Why aren't the hanging baskets up? They're coming. A little colder weather, it takes a little while to get those things started, but they will be here. They'll be here soon. We already have the staff seasonal staff member hired that's gonna keep them watered and and fertilized. So they are coming. No worries. Probably in the next few days to a week at most. Wednesday. They'll be here Wednesday.

Look at that.

Service. Any questions? Perfect. Go.

Oh, council member Reinke.

I just wonder if you could fill us in for, chief Morecki's thing probably on the twenty seventh.

Thank you.

I was gonna say something, but I figured you would.

Well, I am going to. Oh.

Oh, sorry, ma'am.

Do want me to do it, mayor? Do it. Okay. We are holding a public open house to honor, chief Brad Maricke. It's next Wednesday, the twenty seventh, four to 6PM in this room. There will be some prepared comments and also just some some time of fellowship with with Brad. As I mentioned before, Brad spent twenty five years serving this city, and he has some stories to tell about his first day and when he was a a sleeper, volunteer firefighter living here in this in this building. Probably working with you council member Reinke. And then was a dispatcher and before he became police officer and then ultimately the chief one day. So it'll be great to honor him next Wednesday,

the twenty seventh, public as well.

And we've noticed it as

a meeting so Paul, the council can attend.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. So I'll see if I can wrap this up. So thank you for your service, to both of you. It was a pleasure to be able to be on that panel talking with you, and it is greatly appreciated. So ditto, ditto, ditto.

I echo everything they said and, look forward to, working with you in the future. Then I do want to thank the staff for all the hours put into the presentation material at that, retreat. It's, would be hard for, probably many people to realize how many days and hours that took. We put a lot of effort into talking about what the council should and would want to see to make some of the decisions that are gonna come at you, you know, in that retreat. So it wasn't taken lightly, and I would just say it's probably a very expensive presentation that you all saw.

There was a lot that went into it, but people care that the council gets all the, information they need. So, I wanna say that. Then, I'm gonna, talk about the fact that I do still sit on the Tacoma Pierce County Economic Development Board. So, we met last Friday. It's funny those meetings, they come quickly. We meet every month. And the people at that meeting are people like Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, the Port of Tacoma director, Eric Johnson. Seaport is a huge investor. Multiple presidents of banks. Ryan has gone a number of times with me.

Ryan Windisch has a couple presidents of local colleges, investing companies, but it's people that actually own the investing companies that are there. And then Michael Katze, he's the director of the Economic Development Board, and he's just been appointed to Christine Gregoire as creating a committee because there are people in this state very concerned about economic development as a state and how we need to ensure that we continue to grow. So, I will do my best to bring back information from these meetings now as we move forward because it could have some, great impact because we do own the largest manufacturing industrial center here in Pierce County. That's our intent and hope. But they also talked about the fact that there are conflicting initiatives.

And one of the things we're going to commit to as a board is, and at the working level is to not let the conflicting initiatives become so great that nobody can get anything done and in fact we're going to acknowledge what each other are doing and how we can help each other. So that's a really big thing. Hopefully we do the same thing with the Main Street Association here, right? Just jump on what potentially is going on in the city. Then, Shape, I still sit on the South Sound Housing Affordability Partners.

Director Ryan Windisch, he's on that as well. So I'm the vice chair of that. We'll most likely move up to the chair next year. They have a huge project going on out at Fredrickson. So Sunday I took a drive out there and kind of pinned down where the property's at so I could actually look at it. So now I can continue to drive out there. You know, Shape helps with funding for affordable homeownership. And everybody has an opinion on affordable homeownership, and everybody has something to say about affordable homeownership. All I'm going to say is we need it. There are a lot of people trying to come into the market that needs some place to live.

There are a lot of seniors being driven out of their homes because of the cost of living now. So again, another great entity down here in, Pierce County, that we participate, on that board firsthand. So then I'll move on to my three pages of notes if anybody wants to know about these. These are actually really fun. So National Police Week.

Last week, if you guys didn't know, the nation celebrated National Police Week. So myself and city administrator Jason Wilson, we took some snacks and some great stuff down to the police department and some other community members, I guess, showed up as well and brought, showed their support. And this is a big deal, as chief McCurdy wrote. National Police Week is a big deal. National Police Week is both a time of, solemn remembrance and a celebration of, men and women who serve with integrity and bravery every day.

It reminds us that behind every badge is a story of service, sacrifice, and family. And as I've stated up here a number of times, I have quite a few, first responders and police officers in my family. So I take it, you know, very seriously. I really am quite proud of what these people do. So again, I'd like, to thank all our officers and police staff. We also have a very special recognition coming up next week to honor the retirement of, Chief Brad Maricke. So that's a really big deal, and we do invite everybody to come into that. You know, it'll be right here at City Hall. Can I talk about the training I took last week?

Sure.

Okay. So there was an opportunity for me to do did you hear about it? Oh, So there was no, I didn't get tased. Unless you want to share it now. So there there's a lot of extensive training that goes on here and a lot of it, you know, back in the old day, in my day, you know, you would go out somewhere in a field and shoot at pop cans on the fence.

You're trained. I hear, chief Maricke didn't even get bullets, but they gave him a gun, but that's his story to tell. So, with that said, though, so, I got invited down to do some training over there, where the police are at. And I thought, oh no. So the room's empty and there's these two things on either side of the room where the red, they kind of keep control. You put on these virtual glasses, right? So as soon as you put this stuff on, you are now in a different world entirely. Well, if you don't know me very well, I've got terrible balance. And I always forget that we're on TV, so I better keep this story appropriate. So we go in there, and there's these variety of scenarios they put you in.

I cannot hit the broadside of a barn. I've shot and killed people I shouldn't shoot and kill. I mean, there are is this the story you heard? Yeah. Marked it. Okay. And so but they I think they could tell I was a little wonky. So, anyway, the nice person that was helping me is it detective Ellers? Yeah. He's a great guy. He's like, on this one, you need to lean up against the wall. So I mean, I have shot a roof to pieces. It was just a disaster. I shot an innocent man trying to get his child. This is why I'm not a police officer.

But I'm gonna tell you what, if there is a shooter in a building and if I see a person with their head blown off, I'm gonna turn and take you out at 40 yards right there. I did it, didn't I? They go, dang. She took them down at 40 yards because I mean, you're in this scenario. Yeah. Boom. So, yeah, it was a fun time. Know, Jason's very good at it. Everybody else is great and I'll hear that other story later but it's just, it's very unique. You know, this training and what they use these days is pretty awesome. So I really enjoyed it. At first, I said, I can't put that on. It's my hair. My hair was long, and it was up. So I was worried about my hair, but enough of that.

Thank you, though, for that. Tell them thank you. National Public Works Week. Wow. So, this week is National Public Works Week and you may wonder about, Police Week and Public Works Week being back to back but it is fitting since they work together on so many things. In fact, when people say public safety is their top priority, they're often thinking about avoiding crime. But each of us today has turned on a tap expecting clean water. We flush things down the drain that we expect to be treated before returning to our environment. And we've driven on roads and walked on sidewalks that we expect to be in good condition. So with that said, our public works staff contribute greatly to our everyday safety.

So I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of our public works Department employees for your dedication. So thank you very much. That's greatly appreciated. Well, this Friday, there's another coffee with Carla. It's pretty fun. My next one's this Friday. It's at noon at Van Leer Up Garden Market. There's no agenda. There's no set topic, And it's just a chance for us to chat about whatever's on your mind. And I get every topic from, are we gonna put an ICE agency in the city to, you know, the trees who chooses what trees to why can't we paint sidewalk, you know, barriers yellow.

It's it's there's a lot that comes in. So now we're working on. I've had two of them and, I've met with a number of people upstairs in my office. So now we're finding ways in which we can start answering all these questions. It's a it's a really good deal. So, looking forward to that. And then Memorial Day. Finally, VFW will be celebrating Memorial Day, once again at our own Seminary Cemetery. And they'll be putting up flags this Thursday afternoon, and the official ceremonies on monday at ten. I'll be there.

So whether you personally know someone or not who gave their life in service to our country, you and I have all benefited from the service members. So please consider joining this special remembrance for all in Sumner and other parts of the country who've served and lost their lives in battle. So that is this, Monday at ten a. M. At the cemetery.

So with that, I'll get back over here to the agenda, whatever I did with it. We do have an executive session tonight, for the purpose of reviewing the qualifications and performances of appointed employees pursuant to RCW forty two point three zero point one one zero one g for twenty minutes and there will be no action to follow. So, the regular meeting is adjourned into executive session at 07:14. Thank you.