City Council - workshop

I would like to call to order the City Council study session of July 7, 2026. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

There it goes. Deputy Mayor Bushnell? Present. Council Member Diaz? Here. Thank you, Council Member Diaz. Council Member Hines? Is absent. Councilmember Palmer? Here. Councilmember Rumbaugh? Here. Councilmember Sadalge? Here. Councilmember Scott? Here. Councilmember Walker? Here. And Mayor Ibsen? Here.

All right. Thank you very much. Our first agenda item is the Roadmap to Recovery. I'd like to call on City Manager Hyun Kim to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, members of Council, and Mayor. I am here to give you an update. on the roadmap to recovery. Today is your opportunity to ask some questions. But more importantly, I have three major things I want to convey for the council and the public. The things that we have taken action on already that have netted out savings today and then savings tomorrow, as well as the way we're seeking out innovations. With that, I'm going to just breeze through here. The what and the why here. Again, the roadmap to recovery is a multi-year plan strategy to essentially address our structural deficit. as well as get us into more abundance. I'm getting a little feedback here. I'm not sure if anyone else is picking that up. Oh, there we go. Perfect. So that is what the Roadmap to Recovery is. It's essentially to structurally align our efforts and activities at the city so that we are addressing what is the problem. And that problem is that we have expenditures that are growing at essentially two to one when it comes to our revenues. And why this is important is that the Roadmap to Recovery is a roadmap strategy to present council touch points for options that you can take, specifically at this time that we find ourselves right now, We're going through the biannual budget process right now. We're going to present to you options going forward, and we want to talk to you about those. What's caused this problem? Simply put, in the general fund, in the general government, higher demand for city services, increasing labor costs, health care costs. Those are growing at a pace that is not sustainable. And so with that, we also have other efforts where the federal government, the state government, in programs that are being eliminated for funding, grant opportunities, we have an acute opportunity here to also address those at the same time. So that is the what and the why. Again, this is the takeaway for the public, for our amazing teams that are potentially watching this now or in future recordings at this point. I want to talk to you about three things. First thing is the immediate savings, the plan that was blessed by the city council through a hiring freeze, contracting freeze. I'm here to report on some good news there. This council is taking action. The city of Tacoma is taking action. And in the coming weeks and months ahead, we have future savings. I need to just be blunt with this one. Through the budget process, the team and I will be bringing to council for consideration program reductions, program eliminations for your consideration that will net out ongoing savings for the city of Tacoma so that we can contain what we are doing now and maybe do a little bit more with little efforts. with hard efforts, some hard choices there. So tens of millions of dollars in future savings. I'll talk a little bit more about all these. And then innovation, new ways to work and deliver value for our residents and our patrons that count on the city of Tacoma. So on the immediate savings front, through our hiring freeze, a little over 84 total positions we have frozen at this point. Just for the general fund, we are projected to save by year end a little over $2.2 million. And then through all of the general government, additional 65 positions, we are projected right now to save about $7.4 million total. And for council consideration here, for your awareness, we currently are sitting at about, year to date, about $4.8 million, so a little under $5 million in all savings, just on positions alone. The questions that you may be wondering, of those positions, how many positions there are essential, they're all essential positions in the general government. And that's what we're doing right now. I thank the department directors who have taken this arduous task of identifying positions to hold freeze so that we can have these dollars to address not just the here and now, but also take a look at how we are actually situated when it comes to staffing. Future savings. So as I mentioned, right now in the budget development cycle, the calendar, all internal service departments, we've asked for a 10% reduction, along with public safety at 5%, the courts at 5%. Right now, we're done with the internal service proposals right now. When I say done, we're going to be bringing those packages to you together. Here in the next two weeks, we'll be receiving presentations from all of our external departments, including police, fire, and library in the general fund. And they are bringing those reductions as well. So I'm looking to bring you some really hard choices, but recommended steps for reductions and potential eliminations for programs. And then long-term cost controls, really through the roadmap, future savings. Right now, I am keenly focused on health care. As you received the update from finance some two, three weeks ago, our health care costs are unsustainable. And so we are having those conversations with first you all and then with our labor partners to have the conversations on where we can control the costs for what is a large and material driver to our sustainable funding. And then in the innovation side, just an update for you all. WE HAVE PLANNED TO MERGE BY JANUARY 1 OUR PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT AS WELL AS OUR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT TO A NEWLY CREATED DEPARTMENT, THE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1. IT DOES NET OUT TO ONE REDUCTION, A DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR. ADDITIONALLY, WE ARE PROPOSING FOR THE 27-28 ELIMINATION OF THE DEPUTY CITY MANAGER POSITION. I'LL TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW WE'RE GOING TO BE anticipating how we support through the city manager's office all of our departments. Internal service realignments, we have shifted over our labor relations team out of legal. So they still will work with our legal team. They'll report to human resources. And our continuous improvement, our innovation team, we're going to be moving them out of HR into the city manager's office. So Ben Thurgood, who you've worked with, he'll be on loan from the from HR to the city manager's office. We're going to utilize Mr. Thurgood to help support us with this loan executive program that we have here at the city to pinch-hit support our efforts as we don't have a second deputy city manager in The city has been operating for some years with two deputy city managers for internal and external services. We want to continue to provide that service. And then I shared this with the team, the IPI team, the continuous improvement team that we're bringing in from HR, data analytics. How do we actually capture the results of where we're saving and contouring where we can do new innovations, new innovative programs. This is the team that we're going to be dropping into IN SUPPORTING ALLISON, MYSELF, AND THE FULL CITY MANAGER TEAM. AND THEN ANOTHER CHANGE THAT WE ARE MOVING FORWARD, WE HAVE NOTICED ALL THE DEPARTMENTS THAT ARE IMPACTED FOR CED AND NCS DEPARTMENTS. WE ARE CONSOLIDATING OUR HOUSING TEAM OUT OF CED, OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT. and we're putting them with our NCS department, their focus will be human service programming, housing, and homelessness services, so the Triple H. That is another change that we're going to try to innovate and find efforts to streamline services and, quite frankly, do more with less potentially. That is the name of the game for our roadmap here. And as we look forward, this is the roadmap. So where we find ourselves right now in 2026, we are in the alignment and options stage. So the options that we'll be presenting, it's through the biennial budget. We'll be exploring options, providing options for council. And of the tens of millions of dollars potentially in reductions, I am not stating here in this public meeting that that's what we will do. The council will decide. You all as a body will decide what changes you can accept, what other questions, what other ways you want to operate through the budget. And then additionally, what other areas do you want to invest our precious resources into. And then as we move forward, we're going to spend the biennium on analysis and refining those options, health care options, big changes when it comes to plan design, when it comes to contributions from our employees. We want to do the righteous bargaining that is necessary and right. So we want to work with our OUR UNION PARTNERS, OUR CITY EMPLOYEES, TO MAKE SURE THAT WHATEVER WE DO, WE'RE NOT DOING JUST ACUTELY TO SOLVE A CRISIS TODAY, BUT PUTS US ON THE SURE FOOTING THAT WE'LL BE READY TOMORROW. AND THEN LONG-TERM RECOVERY, CONTINUE TO CHANGE, IMPROVE OUTCOMES AND DELIVER SUSTAINABLE CITY SERVICES. COUNCIL, I'M HERE TO TELL YOU THAT AS WE ARE TALKING WITH OUR PARTNERS FROM THE STATE, FROM THE COUNTY, And to a certain extent, limited extent, when we hear from changes at the federal government, government will be shrinking. How do we adapt when it comes to more of those services that are required by our community? That's what we need to start focusing on, and that's what we want to do as we present more options to you all. And again, I just want to close out before I get to the report card where people can find and watch what we're doing. is, again, we are saving money today. We're going to have additional savings tomorrow with the budget development and adoption. And then we're going to continue to innovate and do things differently. And change is in the air. And that's what's on the menu right now. And I look forward to that dialogue with you all in partnership. Because this is a partnership. And it is your budget. So I want to share that with you. And then as we move forward, this is where people can go. So forward slash roadmap to recovery. anyone in the public or city employees if they want to take a look at the current savings from the frozen positions if They want to look at all the details of we have presented today This is where they can find it forward slash so Tacoma.gov forward slash roadmap to recovery and with that I stand ready to take any questions or concerns Thank You city manager Councilmember Walker

Thank you Deputy Mayor and thank you for this. I really appreciate the approach and I think you know showing that we've already had cost savings is really important. It all sounds logical and good. I think what the challenge always is and this is with planning the budget as well is the numbers are absolutely vital but what does that mean for services and I don't know what the answer is in terms of how to communicate that with the public but when we say that we've saved nine point six million dollars there are things that we're not doing because of that right so how do we communicate that or where could somebody dig in if they did want to know more I mean I on the website it says what those positions are, but is there like a programming content piece of this in addition to the numbers piece of it?

They'll come through the budget development, the options that we present to you, the budget. We'll have the trade-off conversations of how this will impact because what we're doing right now to just preserve cash, and I think the public will understand this too, is what we're doing right now from a positional savings, frozen position savings standpoint is to have the I'll say it this way, the dry powder for council to tackle the challenge. As we mentioned in our last check-in, the forecasted gap is $40 million. These savings, this is a one-time thing, but it helps the council have options to move forward. In the budget development for every program reduction or elimination, we will have, and we're going to speak it emphatically and very clear because we want to have the public to be engaged in that. For every program that we're going to be eliminating, there is an impact. For every that we're going to be reducing, there's an impact, even on the internal service end. I think we will try to do our best as we have those conversations with you as well as with the public and the public hearings as well. The team, from an engagement standpoint, will be going out to community. We will be, Allison, myself, with the budget office, we will be doing our best to get out to neighborhoods, to neighborhood councils, to groups that we don't engage with. We want to be out there and talking about these things when it comes to our services. So, yes, we need to do a better job, and we're going to keep doing a better job. And we're going to make mistakes along the way, and we're going to get better for that reason. I don't know if that answers your question specifically.

I think so. I mean, I think just the recognition that that's coming and that there are things behind the numbers. Yes. So on the website, the Roadmap to Recovery, is that connected to the budget website, or is the budget development website or webpage different than this one?

It'll be different. So the roadmap to recovery will be high level, highlighting what's coming out of the budget web page. So the page that we hold for our budget development, that has the more content in there. The roadmap to recovery is the strategy page.

Okay, great. And I really appreciate the second to last slide, the roadmap to recovery graphic. I think that helps think through this. I think you said a lot of really important things on that slide in terms of just the reality of government shrinking. And we can't continue to ask partners whose governments are also shrinking, like at the state level, to save all the things that we want to save. And so it is going to be painful. But addressing the structural deficit is imperative. We can't continue to do this every time. I think that's both a really good visual, but also I really appreciated the things that you said there. And I think that sets us up for the budget process. And we always go into the budget process with a lot of asks and there's a lot of needs in the community, but we have to figure out a way. to do this You have talked a lot about meeting with our labor partners There's also oh this was it was that same slide that said partner with community Are there conversations that are also happening with community partners like nonprofits and service delivery partners outside of the labor?

Yeah, I would readily admit Probably not enough. You know we're joining our partners at Pierce County when it comes to the The safety net organizations that we're talking about, impacts from the federal government, those are not led by the city of Tacoma. When we talk about our nonprofits that are tied to program funding or awards from NCES for human services, we will be having conversations, and we will be giving notices. also engaging in the process of please get engaged too. The righteous process has to be you have to hear about the impacts, understand it. They don't need to accept it because they also have to come talk to you all about please protect these programs. This is a natural budget cycle. So we'll be doing more on that one. I'm going to take that as a to-do task.

And I think that there's a lot of solutions that lie within those organizations. They're nonprofits at large are always thinking creatively about solutions. And I think we would be well served to set those up as conversations for input in addition to the reality check on the budget.

Yeah, thank you very much for that question.

Great. And thank you for the presentation and for keeping this top of mind for us.

Thank you. Council Member Sedalge.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Building on a question that... COUNCILMEMBER WALKER HAD AROUND SERVICE CUTS. IF I LOOK AT THAT SLIDE, I GUESS THIS IS SLIDE FOUR THAT SHOWS THE 9.6. THESE ARE SERVICE CUTS WE ARE ALREADY FEELING IN MANY WAYS. CORRECT. CORRECT. WELL, IN EVERY WAY BECAUSE THIS IS JUST CONTINUING TO DO THAT. ON THAT SLIDE, I JUST WANT TO CONFIRM THE GENERAL FUND IMPACT OF $2.2 MILLION When future budget presentations are made, is that going to carry over and that $40 million in the general fund reduced to $38 million, or we're still talking about $40 million, and this is a potential 2.2 that could affect that.

That's a great question. And just before I answer your question, I want to set a clarification here. I should have caught it when Council Member Walker was asking the question. The total projected savings from our hiring freeze at year end is a total of $7.4 million. Of that, $2.2 million is from the general fund. But to your question specifically. Got it.

It's not 9.6. It's 7.4. It's 7.4. 2.2. And so we should also, I guess the earlier question was we shouldn't expect, you know, the reason I was asking the question is the expectation from the audience watching isn't that we just reduced our $40 million general fund deficit by $7.4 million.

It is the dry powder we'll be using because many of these positions are essential, critical. try to preserve cash wherever we can.

We're preserving cash to give us the most flexibility going into a tough budget. So we should still be thinking about a $40 million. Bingo.

Because the reason why this is a multi-year, multi-biannual strategy IS THAT I CAN PRESENT TO COUNCIL A STRUCTURAL FIX. IT'S JUST I DON'T BELIEVE THE COUNCIL SHOULD ACCEPT THAT KIND OF REDUCTION IN ONE YEAR OR TWO YEARS. AND SO WE'RE GOING TO BALANCE THIS WITH THE NEEDS OF THE COMMUNITY WITH THE WHEREWITHAL TO FUND THESE PROGRAMS. SO IT'S GOING TO BE, BUT I DO PLAN ON BRINGING REDUCTIONS THAT WILL BE ONGOING THAT WILL ADDRESS THE $40 MILLION. WE DO NEED TO GET THAT. We have to have a balanced budget and I mentioned this in my last touch point with you. I do plan on bringing you a balanced budget for 27-28. It will be predicated on using cash along with reductions and potential layoffs as well. Yeah.

Yeah. And thank you. I did want you to continue to reiterate that point that this in the roadmap to recovery, this is an early step in preparing for the longer term decisions we're going to have to make as a council, which are going to be really tough in dealing with it. And in your responsibility as city manager, you are coming up with some free cash that gives us more flexibility than we've had the last time we talked about it.

Yes. And just I want to add two things that you're not prompting, Council Member Sidaghi, but I would like to take this opportunity. First and foremost, your previous city manager also instituted some contract increases. We are going to see some available resources from ending fund balance from last year as well. We're going to use those dollars too. And then the second point, I just made a callous statement in saying there will be layoffs. I want to speak directly to our employees that you care deeply about. We're about six months from potential, four, five, six months from budget adoption. And for our employees and the service reduction proposals and service elimination proposals for our employees, we're taking the time right now for any at-risk positions to work with not just those employees, to get them placed in other, because there are other enterprises here at the city. And so that's what we're doing. My partner, Jackie Flowers, has been very supportive. Director Chavez has been very supportive from the utility side. If you have vacant positions in enterprise lines of business, please hold those positions open. Director Cook, TVE, because if we have at-risk positions that council is considering to eliminate or reduce, based on my recommendation that I own, I want them to know that we're going to spend the next four to six months trying to place those employees and do that at the same time. because that's the right thing to do as well. So I just wanted to, you didn't ask that question, but I didn't want to leave that hanging. I do plan on talking to our employees tomorrow as well at an all-town hall. So this is the message I'm taking to them as well. And our employees are asking the questions, am I at risk? When will you know? I don't know yet. We are working through that process right now. We're going to find those things. Why don't you know? Now I'm on a tangent here, but we have... CONNECTECOMA COMING UP. WE HAVE OTHER IMPACTS THROUGH POTENTIAL ACTIONS AT NOVEMBER THAT MIGHT HAVE IMPACTS TO OUR WHEREWITHALS OF CITY TO PROVIDE SERVICES LIKE THE STATUS QUO. SO I'LL PAUSE THERE. OKAY, THANK YOU.

AND I JUST WANT TO kind of reiterate to the general public, we talk about the general fund because it's our biggest, most open kind of fund. We have a lot of enterprises fund, which is all these other fees that have to be directed where they go. I want to remind people we can't take money from Tacoma Creates to plug a general fund gap. It's literally illegal. And so when people offer suggestions like that, those aren't tools that we have. I also want to remind people what we learned the last time we had a budget conversation, which is our $40 million is really covered. You know, $27 million is a structural issue between how much we can collect and what our costs are going up, right? That is a structural issue that we would have had that $27 million just It is something we've been trying to work with our state legislature on fixing. We had a couple of whammies this year. The first whammy being almost $10 million, $9 point something million in healthcare costs, as you mentioned. I'm going to use my position on this soapbox to say I continuously remind people that we're a year and change into a federal administration that has been removing health care protections across the country, and these are the consequences of federal-level policies. I believe we're going to continue to see an increase. We shouldn't think that this $10 million is the only thing we're going to hit, because come January 1st, we have some really massively draconian policies that are being implemented around Medicaid and Medicare, ostensibly to reduce fraud. But what it will end up doing is remove more people from care, which increases costs to everyone else. I'm not making this up. We've literally lived this story several times. Decades ago, pre-ACA, it's the reason why the Affordable Care Act ended up passing. Because we were seeing these things, I cannot believe it is only less than two decades since, I think only 16 years since it passed. that we are basically suffering the same consequences that we had. So that's another $9.7 million. We had another $6 million just from liability because we get sued all the time. It's not massive lawsuits. It's the sum of a lot of smaller lawsuits. Their joint and severable liability on a municipal level has actually hampered our ability to do really good things all across this state. Those were the reasons why we're where we are. It is not because we waste money, because as I tell everyone, wasting money implies that we have money to waste, which we do not have, right? We have to be about as... Efficient as possible. I I am taking this moment to remind people of this because I do want to explain where we are why we're here and Why we have to have the responsibility of having hard conversations that say it is not that this isn't important But our line cutoff line has moved and we just have to deal with it. And unfortunately in the general fund Most of the general fund a vast majority of the general fund police fire and libraries Right Yes, sir some homeless services, some other little stuff. Not to say that it's little, but percentage-wise, it's much lower than the rest, if I'm not mistaken. I think it's over 80% is police, fire, and libraries. So we don't have a lot of choices. and going through so we're gonna have to continue having these conversations and talk about the structural issues that we're facing just like Just like we're facing in our in my household with rising costs that my neighbors are facing in their households and Their budgets in rising costs and and knowing that you know, we can't afford everything that we used to be able to afford So, thank you.

Thank you customer Palmer Thank You deputy mayor Just as a question that just came up, how much of the budget is libraries versus, like, fire and police?

So I'm going to get fact-checked here, but overall, the fire department represents about $118, $120 million. Police is larger than that. Library services on a binary basis, it's a little over $33 million. $30 million is your takeaway there.

But it's pretty small compared to those other two buckets.

It is. But from a standpoint of where we have allocated costs to other functions for the city, the library is a pure general fund. And that's why it's there. And that's why it's part of that package, too.

Thank you for clarifying that. On slide six, the innovation slide, can you help me understand the consolidation of human services, housing, and homelessness within neighborhood and community service? Am I confused because that's something that's already been

It's starting now, so effective this month. We have the housing division moving over from CED into NCS. And the purpose of that is to just clearly focus economic development department into economic development along with our arts and cultural vitality division. and then have NCS focused on human services, housing, and homeless services. So that full circle life cycle of how we can support the community with services, starting with our safety net human service providers, to housing providers, and then to shelter services through our homeless services, as well as our engagement teams that are involved in that as well.

OK. I guess I'm confused because I feel like we were in the Community Vitality and Safety Committee We're hearing from the neighborhood and community services mostly when it comes to homelessness. I'm not sure if has the other departments come to that Maybe Council Member Rumbaugh can help me understand.

Thanks for the question, Council Member Palmer, because I've been thinking about this since I found out about what we were doing. TCRA was one of the committees that comes to us, and that is definitely an economic development tool with housing. Also, Felicia Medlin, who heads up housing, affordable housing stuff, That's all part of the bucket. That's the NOFA that we go to for the federal government. So it really does tie in to be part of CVS. But I would say a lot of times all of these things are all over the place in different committees. But I can see why it makes sense. I also understand what you're talking about.

OK. I guess I'll just air the concern of consolidation. I understand the need. Don't get me wrong, but I'm hoping, you know, when it comes to things that should be top priority for the city, like homelessness, to then tuck it even further under another department is a concern for me. And so I'm wondering, like, if this has to happen, what can we do in other areas, maybe in committees or commissions, to still highlight the homelessness issue in Tacoma. I know we're doing the regional approach, but it feels like it needs to be top of mind and a top priority.

Yeah, and NCS's mission doesn't get degraded because we're bringing over the housing division. Homelessness is a top priority. The HEAL team will stay in NCS, and they'll be focused on the daily contacts, the 301 contacts, THE OFFER OF SHELTER SERVICES DOES NOT. BUT I WANT TO BE REALISTIC HERE. THE IMPACTS TO FEDERAL STATE FUNDING PULLBACKS IN TERMS OF WHAT WE'RE DOING OF THIS 1,200 SHELTER BEDS THAT WE OPERATE NOW, COUNCILMEMBER PALMER, The city does not have the wherewithal currently with a $40 million structural deficit to maintain our shelter services. And so in the previous years, we've gotten somewhat of a reprieve through the state of Washington through a commerce grant to keep some of our shelters online. We still have to solve that problem, but I hear you. It is a top focus. IN TERMS OF, I DON'T WANT TO SAY WHAT THE NUMBER IS IN TERMS OF ALL OF OUR SHELTERING SERVICE COSTS THAT WE'RE USING NOT JUST GENERAL FUND DOLLARS FOR RIGHT NOW. WE CAN'T AFFORD THAT TODAY. WE COULDN'T AFFORD THAT YESTERDAY, SO WE HAVE TO FIGURE THAT OUT. AND THAT'S WHY WE'RE TRYING TO DO NEW THINGS. THAT'S WHY WE BROUGHT ON DIRECTOR ESPARZA And she is working through the process of developing a strategy for the city council for consideration on how we're going to do this when the finite resources are not there to do what we're doing right now.

Thanks. And maybe that leads into my next question of innovation. When I see restructuring is... a tried and true way of trying to make the most out of the resources that we have. When I think of the word innovation, though, I'm thinking of what can we try that we haven't tried before? Or what can we try that other cities are doing that maybe we can mimic because they're doing it well and it's having a good effect? And so I guess maybe it's a challenge of are we looking outside the box for solutions to some of these issues. When I think of, again, I'm just going to reiterate, I think we have some opportunities when it comes to like our committees and our commissions in order to activate them more in some of this work and how much would that take off of the staff that we currently have so that they can focus on other things. So just wanted to bring that up. And then I know I've kind of asked staff a couple times about, I know we have our dashboard for the budget. I'm hoping that council, me being a member of council, are able to see a little bit more of what's provided on that dashboard. I went in and looked myself at what was available or what was there last year. I do my research, right? I like to look and get into the weeds. And I still had questions. I still had questions about some of the expenditures and did we hit our goal there in certain places or not? And so I still have, I guess, ongoing questions when it comes to can I see the budget that's not not on the dashboard. Gotcha. And then we briefly had a conversation also about, you know, I went to the Association of Washington Cities, and I understand that some other councils will have an opportunity to look into revenue and expenditure reports. And maybe Attorney Boccia can help clarify that. When, how and when is needed for a council member to be able to see those reports? What's the requirement?

And if you could clarify, council member, what you mean or referring to by the reports?

So, it's my understanding every department is going to have revenue and expenditure reports. And some other councils in other cities will review those on a normal basis.

Okay. I've worked in probably seven, eight different cities, and every city approaches its budgetary process differently. I've worked in cities where council members looked at every invoice. Those are obviously smaller cities than you have here. And so it's really up to the council members to decide what level of information they want and ask their employee, the city manager, to provide that. So there's no restriction on access to that information. It's just a question of asking for it and asking for information that you need in order to answer your questions.

Would that take something like a resolution or is that something an individual council member could ask for?

It would just be a question of you asking the city manager to provide it.

Okay. That's good to know. All right. Thank you.

And just for where we're at in the budget cycle, Council Member Palmer, we're at the proposal stage. So departments are developing the proposals. The budget is your budget. And so if you would like, we can offline that. We can have more access to that if you want to see the, you know, the year-over-year actual difference, I would invite that inspection, and we can work directly with that. It's a pretty robust budget, but at the same time, I think what you're posing to your colleagues as well as to staff here is that you want more access. Yep, let's work together. Thank you.

Council Member Rumbaugh.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and thank you, Hyun, for putting this together, bringing it forward. I wanted to just say that it was interesting when we were talking about moving housing under NCS. My concern is that housing gets buried, not homelessness. And I just wanted a reassurance, and I talked to your staff today in my check-in for CVS, that That is not the case. I feel like it's more like they're lateral, all of these issues. But I also want to just say out loud that homelessness doesn't always mean affordable housing, and affordable housing doesn't always mean homeless. They're not always related. So I just want to say we're not just solving for affordable housing because we have homeless people. We have people who can't afford to live here, which is a different problem to solve. So I just wanted to say that. I had a question for you. When we talk on the first, and I really appreciate you putting this together about what caused the problem. I think we have just like a really savvy and incredible group of citizens in our city who really care about what happens here or they wouldn't reach out. And so when we say there's higher demand for city services and evolving community expectations, I think that's true. And we know that from when we look at 311, how many people write in. And I want to say I'm trying to understand how we stack up with other cities as far as how people use services. And one of the things I think that's really great about our city and also bad about our city is that we're a full service city, meaning we would provide all of those things and they're not on contract basis. So there is an expectation of better quality service because I have what I consider, I have my trash can, my trash and my recycling is picked up at my house. And if I go just a quarter mile down the street, it's optional that you can get that in Pierce County. So just an understanding of if I could have an idea how we rack up to other cities our size as far as what we provide as services compared to contract services, I would like to know that. The other thing I think would be really helpful, as you start going through our services as a city, what are the priorities needs that are necessary? like sewer, the sewage, having that water, utilities. And then the optional things. What do other cities consider optional? I want to understand better, because when we're talking about providing people a level of service that they're used to, hard to do when you're talking about cutting things. So I would love to know more about that, if that's possible. I don't know if anyone else is interested in that, I am?

Yep.

OK. The other thing I just wanted to ask a question about, as we're asking more of our employees who are just, that's what makes our city so great. And I just want to recognize that there are staff in this room right now. And we really appreciate all of you. I want to understand what we're setting up to support them as we see that we may have layoffs that you've mentioned. I also want to make sure that they have what they need to feel that if they feel like, I mean, I see us adding more things to people's plates than what they had before. And I have an example, but I can share it offline. Just my concern is asking someone to do more doesn't mean you get more. And so I just want to know what the solution is or how we're going to talk about that.

Council Member Rumbaugh, thank you very much for those prompts more than questions. Starting with what you just asked about our employees, wherever this camera is, I'm speaking directly to our employees. The roadmap to recovery is predicated on asking our employees to do more. So your question is the right question to ask myself and senior staff, what are we providing to our employees, all right, from the standpoint of if we're asking you more, if it's not more compensation necessary, or if it is a way in which we're providing. I think that's a two-way conversation that we need to have with our employees, starting with our labor partners, to talk about this is happening, and to Council Member Sadagi's point, There's external factors that are happening. For those of you that went to AWC, I think you heard the similar notion from most municipalities, local government, that are being impacted right now. We're in this together. How do we get through this? And so I'm proud to report this is not yet ready to say that this is what we have, the signed agreements. It's going to take us months, if not years, to figure out where we bargain rightfully. But in our engagements with our joint labor partners, with Local 6, 26, 31, PPSMA, the 31 unions that we, or contracts that we have right now, there's an open dialogue that's happening right now that this is not something. What our labor partners are asking is open up the books, show us the numbers. What does this look like? We want to have a part in the solution. And that's what we're asking for is to be part of that solution. So maybe we do have conversations about, well, what does work look like going forward? What does it mean to have the best benefits or benefits that we currently have, I want to be realistic. If we need to change something in terms of, let's say, for instance, plan design for health care coverage, if it's too expensive now, it may involve taking a look at the design of those plans. But it also could be, is that what's the most important to our employees? I want to hear that. You want to hear that. And then we need to look towards, well, where else can we find relief to at least contain the costs The roadmap to recovery, I'm going to use my hand here, it's not a plan to do this. We're never going to go back to our employees and ask for concessions. We're asking, let's slow it down and work in partnership so that we can get through this next couple of years. Because unfortunately, this is probably the trappings of the system that we're in. Not the city, but just the system. It's cyclical. This happens. We don't want to have boom and bust. And so everything we're doing for our employees, when we ask them to do more, we don't want to just do it for now. We want to make sure it's durable and sustainable.

Thank you for that. And then you mentioned program cuts. And so when we talk about program cuts, a good example, I don't know if this is happening, but tidy up Tacoma. If we cut tidy up Tacoma, then we're going to have unintended consequences over here. So I'm just trying to figure out, like, are we weighing those things? Because we have a lot of really great programs in environmental services, and I would hate for them to go away because they actually do make a difference. For instance, putting up poop, I don't remember what it's called, but the poop bag. You know, the stands that we have. Doggy stations. Doggy stations, thank you. When we put those up, it keeps poop from being in the stormwater, which, like, helps keep it cleaner. And so I'm just, I just, I think, I hope that, is that something we're kind of thinking about?

Well, I can actually answer that one. Okay. The proposals right now that are being generated, there's no proposals to reduce or eliminate, tidy up.

Okay, great.

And staff understands it's council's decision. It's probably more so there's council ideas to enhance the programs. We also know there's a disparate impact because Tidy Up is funded by utility taxes. And so those charges for services has an impact there too. So we're not looking to eliminate Tidy Up or reduce Tidy Up. And quite frankly, it's been doing a lot of, I can't tell you, as your city manager, I don't know how to explain this to you, but I'm immensely proud of the environmental service team, Tidy Up team. I never knew that tidy up cans would be so popular for the additional, you all did, but I didn't know, and we received so much feedback of, We're hearing from neighbors. We want a tidy-up can here. We want it here. And so we're trying to level set, and the team's trying to figure that out. So that's not what we're looking to do.

Okay. Thank you so much for answering. I didn't say anything about tidy-up to come a going away. Right. No, I assumed that everything was good with that. So thank you.

It's good on that front. And we're acutely looking at the general fund in terms of what those programs are. We just don't have enough in the general fund. The one question that I've posed myself, I'm not going to project that someone's asked me this, what does it mean for the general fund to shrink if we have all these enterprises and they're fine? It's not a good outcome. When you don't have a general fund that can sustain the operations, you don't have a city that can sustain the operations of those enterprises, too, because our public relies on services being taken care of THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO ALWAYS LOOK TOWARDS A CHARGE FOR SERVICE OR UTILITY TAX TO PAY FOR THOSE THINGS.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER ROBA.

COUNCILMEMBER HINES. THANK YOU, DEPUTY MAYOR MICHELLE. I'LL MAKE THIS RELATIVE BRIEF. THANK YOU, HEN, FOR THE PRESENTATION AND THANK YOU, YOU KNOW, FOR ALL YOUR WORK TO GET US TO KIND OF THE PROJECTIVE SAVINGS WE'VE HAD. I KNOW IT HASN'T BEEN PLEASANT OR, YOU KNOW, WHAT YOU PROBABLY GOT IN THE WORK TO DO, BUT I THINK IT SHOWS THAT WE'RE, HAS A FORESIGHT OVER How do we kind of start chipping away at what we have in front of us? The question I have, and I don't need an answer right now, and I'll just make it really brief, is I would love, and I have not yet seen, the issue of higher demand for city services and evolving community expectations. I do think we probably need to lay bare how much we've increased the services we provide since, I don't know, say 2020. Yes. I mean, even if I go just back to my time on the council, because we're Walker's time on the council, when I started here, we had no HOPE team. When I started here, we had one member of the HEAL team, Allison? One member of the HEAL team. We now have eight. When I started here, we funded maybe 200 shelter beds, and now we're up over 1,200. When I started here, we didn't have Tidy Up Tacoma. The fire department did not do basic life transportation services. They only did advanced life support services. So when we say service demands have shifted, it's not some kind of like... Oh, the public just wants us to be polite, and they have a higher expectation. It's like we have seen all these needs that the community has brought to us, and we are trying to meet those needs. And that has expanded how much things cost. And I don't know if we've quite laid that out, so I guess maybe for a future presentation, I'd love to see, when we talk about expanding levels of services, how much will be expanded in certain areas from, say, 2020 until now. Because I think that'll be very clear for a lot of folks. Because one of the things I think has been really clear with me in this conversation and talking to other cities is we were very lucky in that the federal government provided us with ARPA funding in 2021. And that was over $60 million of money that was given to us in order to meet emergent needs we saw in our community. And we put that into things like homelessness. and shelter services and all the other pieces. And there's a question to be asked, which would be, well, why did we spend all this one-time money on these ongoing issues? And my answer to that question would be, well, if the city had millions of dollars laying around and the community told us, here are the issues, and we said, well, we can't use that money to pay for those issues because we don't know if we're going to have the money later, I don't think the community would have said, okay, just sit on the money and hold it until you find something you can spend it on for one-time money. That wouldn't have happened. And we took the dollars we had and we put them towards the most important issues identified by the community. And again, I just want to reiterate that, that we didn't spend money on what, say, Council Member Walker wanted to spend money on or what I wanted to spend money on or what any council member back then wanted to spend money on. We spent money on what were the highest priorities identified by the community at the time. in order to meet the service demands. And I think just by looking at that change, it would be good to think about what would it look like to revert to 2020 levels of service. I mean, I don't think any of us are ready for that conversation yet, but it would be interesting just to see what that would look like and just to kind of know what those level of services look like.

That's a great direction. We'll noodle on that, and we'll bring that back to you, because I think that is something that your constituents will want to see as well.

Yeah, I do think as we're having the conversation about we don't have enough resources to meet the demand, no one is talking about going all the way back to pre-2020 levels of service. We're all talking about landing somewhere maybe better than we were six years ago, but maybe not as good as we were a year ago. That is to be determined by this council. We'll have to have a conversation about how we want to do that. But I do think that would be really clear for the public to see. I think people do forget like where we were six seven years ago Thank you.

Thank you Thank You councilman behind so anybody else have any questions or comments anybody online All right, I just want to thank you so much city manager for all your work on this and and I Also to all the employees and directors and everybody else, I know this is very stressful times for everybody, a lot of uncertainty out there. And I truly believe that no stone is being left unturned at all levels to try and making sure that we try to find a path forward that works for our community to support our employees as best we can and make sure that the city of Tacoma has the best services that they can provide within our ability to provide. One of the questions I had is that there's conversations about reviewing our CBCs. I was just kind of curious if you had any updates along that. whether that's a part of this kind of efficiency process, because staffing CBCs is actually a significant investment on the city. And I know that there's been some work around what those look like as well.

Yeah, so absolutely. If you remember our previous deputy city manager, Sonia Hallam, she had completed interviews with you all and done an assessment of all of our 30-plus CBCs to take a look at the steady state and what could be done Councilmember Palmer's point That's not necessarily just on your side of the ledger staff needs to support you all about just Reimagining how we support our CBC's there's the immediate Work planning for all of our various commissions and boards in terms of what they're doing on your behalf in a lot of ways how they're chartered through their creation they are large part advisory to the City Council and And so realigning that is an area of immense, whether it's innovations or improvements, that's really important. And then the conversation about, as I'm doing on with the staff standpoint, from the department standpoint of consolidating departments, might there be a conversation about duplications and potentially putting more teams together to give more of an opportunity for our volunteers that are serving on the CBCs to support you all. And then there's also the conversation about various and perhaps council committees as well about how those changes might be part. So that's coming to you all. Let me come back to you as far as maybe a special study session for that report to be daylighted for the public so the public can see that report as well. And then speak with you all about getting your direction on where you want to go next with the various CBCs and might you want to seek some innovations or perhaps directions for those various CBCs. I don't mean any offense, because there are some CBCs that are pursuant to RCW, like the Planning Commission. They have a very robust work plan. Some CBCs, they just need direction or some conversations and dialogue, what they're doing on your behalf and the public.

Yeah. Yep. Great. Yeah, no, I think that would be a really good conversation. Thank you so much. I think that's all the questions that I have, and I appreciate the conversation that's been had here. Any final bite of the apple? All right. Seeing none, thank you so much, City Manager.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

All right. Next up, we have other items of interest. And our second agenda item is critical areas preservation ordinance amendments. There are several proposed changes. I'd like to open the floor for those council members to speak on their individual proposals. We'll start off with Council Member Rumbaugh.

Thank You deputy mayor I just wanted to share that there's a few changes to the critical areas that we're going to be talking about tonight So I wanted to draw attention to an item that will be on tonight's agenda tonight's the first reading of the critical areas preservation ordinance and And I will be bringing forward a substitute for consideration. This is a substitute instead of an amendment for convenience's sake. It makes a lot of small changes throughout the ordinance. These minor changes are cleanups that were brought up in public written testimony and would be good to implement. The first one is the Department of Ecology submitted comments requesting minor revisions related to the definitions of mitigation and wetlands so that they more closely align with the state's requirements. Public comment highlighted the need. The second one is the public comment highlighted the need for additional clarity regarding the classification of a biodiversity area to clarify that the update is not reducing protections. These are both fairly small and support the basic protections of the critical areas ordinance, and I appreciate your consideration this evening.

Thank you, Council Member Rumbaugh. Any questions on this substitute ordinance? Council Member Walker.

Not a question for Council Member Rumbaugh's amendments in general. Are we passing those tonight, or are they getting passed with the final version of the ordinance?

With respect to that resolution, Council Member, it's the option of the council whether to vote on it tonight or put it down tonight. Move it to another agenda. I would just advise the council that the 21st is the last date for the council to meet in order to also form the foreign against committees I Think you're on a different wrong. I'm sorry This is first reading tonight. I'm sorry.

Yeah, this is first reading so we have a number of amendments Do the amendments go with the first reading or the final reading I?

Well, my understanding is that the amendments will be voted on tonight.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right. Thank you very much. Any other questions or clarifications? All right. Next up, I'm going to have Council Member Robo.

I am. Thank you.

Council Member Hines. Yeah, just a question. So this is a substitute because what you're asking is touching so many parts of the code that it would be cumbersome to have an actual amendment. Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have some amendments from Council Member Sedolge.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So the way it was done, there are three different amendments. They're all related. They're related in that they are in collaboration with and taking into consideration the letter that the Port of Tacoma wrote to all of us earlier this year around critical areas, and the draft ahead of us. AMENDMENT NUMBER ONE, THIS AMENDMENT WOULD ACTUALLY REMOVE ANY CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE DRAFT ORDINANCE AND THE ADOPTED TIDE FLAT SUB AREA PLAN REGARDING ALLOWED USES IN THE CRITICAL AQUIFER RECHARGE AREA BY ALLOWING THE SAME USES IN THE CARA THAT WERE ALLOWED IN THE RECENTLY ADOPTED TIDE FLAT SUB AREA PLAN. As most of us know, but just as a reminder, the Tide Flat Subarea Plan was a multi-year, I believe seven years or longer, multi-agency process. If I try to count the number of jurisdictions, it would be City of Tacoma, City of Fife, Port of Tacoma, the Puyallup Tribe, and the county. There you go. I'm like, I knew it was five. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Walker. to come up with, you know, that created new zoning districts and carefully considered all allowed uses. It is the city's most comprehensive framework for balancing environmental protection, public health, industrial land use, and economic vitality for the Tide Flats. And as a city council, I think it's important that we maintain our commitment to those stakeholders and community who partnered in creation of this plan. So I also want to point out that this does not add just critical areas review. It would revert back to the allowed uses, but all those allowed uses would still be subject to the same critical area review to ensure that mitigation on those sites in that small section that's in the critical aquifer area is appropriately done. So it does not weaken any protections. In fact, in my opinion, it strengthens protections slightly more than what we already had in the tide flats. At the end of the day, experts at the Port of Tacoma, experts on our side, did talk through all of this, all three amendments to come up with language that would work for everyone around. As I get into the next two amendments, both are technical amendments. Again, this was through discussions between the Port of Tacoma and the city. These would really clarify metrics as they're applied by the city in analyzing reasonable use of critical areas, private property. These technical amendments provide necessary clarifications to sections covering legal tests, general mitigation requirements, and wetland mitigation ratios. These refinements align the code with state law and best practices while improving regulatory clarity and consistency for both the applicants and administrators. And so these technical amendments are really around this idea of clarity and consistency. So specifically in Amendment Number 2, it would clarify metrics as they applied by the city in analyzing reasonable use of critical area private property. When a property is mostly or fully within a critical area or buffer, Washington state law requires allowances for reasonable use of the property so long as it impacts the critical area. Sorry. and our buffer are mitigated. The draft critical area code provides language on how much disturbance is allowed and this amendment is proposed to clarify this language. And amendment number three, some specifics around that. This amendment would clarify the mitigation requirements for vegetated buffers around wetlands and streams by defining illegal fill based on the date of the Growth Management Act allowing improvements permitted under other critical area code sections to remain in the buffer such as trails and utilities and requiring vegetated buffers to be protected using critical areas, tracks, parcels, or conservation easements. including notice on title. I will admit if there are questions about those last two, I will have to call a friend to get some details around that because it was pretty technical on those. And I am happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Council Member Saldana, Council Member Walker.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Sedalge. I know you and I had a conversation, and I told anyone who is interested, as long as this matches with the Tideflats subarea plan to your points earlier, I'm happy with it. My question is maybe for staff. In the text, it does not mention the Tideflats subarea plan, but does mention the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District overlay. Why is that?

Good afternoon, Council Deputy Mayor. Robin Bolster-Grant. I'm the Division Manager for Land Use. So thank you for your question. If I understand, you're wondering why it's not explicit in the code language itself about Tide Flats versus South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District. I don't think that there's a specific reason for that. I think because because we need to be consistent with STGPD because it's all part of the same CARA, right? It is treated differently because it is closer to actually where groundwater is drinking water. So it was more important, I think, to reference that to make everything cohesive in terms of what the CARA includes. The tide flats... I guess I'm not clear how we would have introduced that other than making changes to be consistent. We certainly can talk about that, but I guess I'm trying to figure out what the context would be for mentioning if it's just like a line saying this is consistent with the Tide Flat sub-area plan. Is that... Is that sort of getting to your question?

No, I know you're taking my question to the next level The first part was the answer to it was that this is the technical language includes the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District overlay the the plan is not the technical language So it doesn't need to be mentioned.

It just is consistent with the technical language it is but we do have to refer to it to make sure folks know that it is all of a piece and Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hines. Yeah. Oh, Robin, before you walk away. Sorry. It's because I think what, just to make sure I'm clear on this, right? So the consistent with base zoning of seaport zoning districts. So the base zoning of seaport zoning districts was something that came out of the sub-area plan.

Correct.

So by saying that it's consistent with that, it is saying it's consistent with the sub-area plan.

Exactly right.

Okay. So it's There could be like a little parentheses, but that's fine. OK. That was just to clarify for that part. Thank you.

You bet. Council Member Palmer.

Thank you. This might be another question for you. Thank you. I was curious about, I was doing a couple of, another deep dive, as I do, in the Planning Commission meetings. Can you help me understand the time frame for when the Planning Commission started to discuss these changes, these amendments?

Can you be a little bit more specific? When they started to discuss... the entire pieces, the amendments, the CARA piece. Certainly after the public hearing that was, I believe, in August, the end of August, that is when we received public comments, including the port's recommendations, things that they would want to see, again, specifically to what the Councilmember Sadalge's amendments speak to. We brought in additional information about the mapping. So that started the conversation. Lisa Spadoni, of course, my subject matter expert who has abandoned me, tragically, today. No, she'll be here tonight, so everybody knows. But that started the conversation about the disparity, the lack of consistency with respect to the specific high impact uses. And at the end of the day, it was the Planning Commission's desire to be more protective. But as I think I've said before, Neither alternative, what is in the draft now, nor the amendment that is going to be before you, are inconsistent with best available science. We've talked about before, I think, best available science is a range, high, medium, low, all dependent on the location and other physical attributes of the area that we're talking about. The Planning Commission took a more conservative approach, but the amendment is not inconsistent, if that makes sense.

So the Planning Commission was considering, it seemed like it was about a year, right, that this has been in discussion?

Again, I... There wasn't a robust discussion until we heard from the port. So it really was the letter that we received leading up to the public hearing in August. So from then until now, we've had that discussion about what makes sense. We totally understand the need for consistency, and we have been talking about that for a long time. That's certainly our goal. But at the same time, Planning Commission took a bit of a more conservative approach.

Thank you. And then when was the tied flat subarea plan voted in? December.

December 25.

Okay. So then the... this was under consideration during that time is what it sounds like.

It was not.

No.

This is a separate, critical areas ordinance is separate from the tight flat subarea plan. What was going to happen is some of the things that were passed in the tight flat subarea plan, the critical areas ordinance as has been presented to us would have modified some of those tight flat subarea plan initial adoption.

What I'm hearing, so we started the conversation about the critical areas area's ordinance in the CARA, and we were talking about it in August.

That was the public hearing. We started the conversation. There is some overlap, but it wasn't explicit. I mean, in terms of, and I'm referring to, I'm looking over to Brian Boudet, to the date that Tide Flats was finalized.

Yeah, honestly, I don't have that data on the top of my head. So I do think there was some level of overlap in the beginnings of the critical areas ordinance update conversation and the completion of the tied flat subway plan. But obviously, the particular issues, I think, as the deputy mayor mentioned, the particular issues that the port has brought up really was just in the last eight months. Yeah, so.

Yeah, I guess that's my main question is if this was something that, I understand it was different groups that were considering these things, but if this was something that was known during the Tideflats of Area Plan conversation, I guess I'm wondering why it's not being perceived as something that existed then. It's not something new that's coming up as a question.

I think that, and I wasn't around for the Tide Flats, so I can't speak to that, but I can say that they were discrete projects, right? I don't know that it was contemplated during the Tide Flats conversation, discussion, adoption, that we needed to update our critical areas ordinance. I don't know that those conversations happened concurrently. Perhaps Brian does.

Yeah. I mean, I'll just say, I mean, the Tide Flat Subway Plan was long in coming and was very broad, but did not necessarily address every single issue forever and always. So there was a recognition in going through the Tide Flat Subway Plan that there would be future code updates, including critical areas, including Shoreline Master Program, things like that. At some level, those were issues that were left, to some extent, the additional detail to those future projects like this one.

Thank you. Thanks for that. I have additional questions, but I do have a meeting later on to hopefully get some of those questions answered. I'll say, just with the understanding that this wasn't something that the Planning Commission put forth willy-nilly. They did a lot of research. They did a ton of outreach. I feel like I haven't quite settled on being okay with an amendment to that specific the critical areas plan, so we'll see if I can get my questions answered, but Thank you for answering that initial question of course Thank You councilman Palmer or throw it back to councilman behinds Hey Robin so quick question so the critical areas ordinance is something required by state law it is fleet and

The subarea plan is not a process required by state law that we need to complete.

That is an important distinction. You're right, Councilmember.

When we talk about timing, the subarea plan was a project that started way before Councilmember Walker and I started here and was ongoing for six plus years. And the critical area ordinance did not consider it because it's a state law requirement. And the planning commission was not at the table for the sub-area planning conversation. I mean, the final rules that were put forward came out of it. But just to think about why they are timed up, one was a process by which we engaged with five parties to understand the future of our port. And one is a state law requirement to manage our critical areas even outside of the port of Tacoma.

Correct.

And so the timing does seem like they're like, well, it's interesting how they operate. separately, but one is mandated by state, one is we voluntarily took it on.

Thank you. And if I can add to that, this specific amendment would effectively, I wish we had a map that we could show. It is a small, one of the, it is the westernmost finger, I guess, of the amendment. OF THE PORT AREA. IF YOU KIND OF LOOK AT IT ON A MAP, THEY KIND OF LOOK LIKE FINGERS. IT IS THE WESTERN MOST FINGER RIGHT ACROSS FROM THE FOSS WATERWAY. DURING THE TIDE FLATS SUB AREA PLAN, THERE WERE SEVERAL USE CATEGORIES THAT WERE DECIDED AGAIN BY FIVE DIFFERENT JURISDICTIONS COMING TOGETHER. AND THERE WERE USES THAT WERE ALLOWED IN IT. This amendment is saying we want to respect that very long seven-year process that took a lot of community and stakeholder interest into account to figure out what is and isn't allowable, Effectively, this does is say we will still allow those uses. They will be subject to critical area ordinance review for if there are industries that come in that develop in those uses and they are going to locate in a part of the port. that has a critical area, they will have to do mitigation. The end product of what the Planning Commission recommended and the reason why the letter came in in April this year is The recommendation doesn't exist until the recommendation is made to the council. We ultimately have final authority to review recommendations for our considerations. We have the power to pass it. What this is saying is we will revert back to what this group had done over years and add the requirement that we review the critical areas, and in collaboration with the port, and I do want to point out and thank both city staff and port staff for getting together and really discussing what that means, add clarity and definition in how things can be mitigated because we are required to ensure that we are not stopping development. We're allowing for economic development while being responsible to the environment. To me, I see this as collaboration and a win-win that takes into account both the recommendations that were made by Planning Commission and allowing for us to respect a process that had taken a very long time to get to where we are. We're not completely removing any of the work that has been done by either group, but finding a more happy medium, in my opinion, with this amendment. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sedalge. Any other questions or comments for his amendments? Seeing none. The next one we have is from Council Member Hines. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I'll make this relatively brief. So this amendment is really just meant to streamline the installation of minor utilities which have a temporary or no impacts on critical areas as allowed, as allowed activities and activities allowed with staff review. So currently you can see the code. There is a maintenance and repair of legally existing utilities, roads, structural facilities used in service of the public within the right of way that's currently allowed. This just reminds clarity around the idea of temporary or installation of minor utilities, which are temporary and have no impact or which have temporary impacts or no impacts on these areas. And to say that they would be allowed to, but still have to follow all the other rules that are currently listed in the critical areas ordinance. have to answer any questions. The idea why this is coming forward, we have infrastructure that happens to be along some of our rights-of-ways. Some of these rights-of-ways do happen to intersect with some of our critical areas. We do have to provide opportunities to maintain and protect infrastructure so that we don't have bigger issues that come with it. And this just provides clarity around the idea of minor utilities if necessary.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Hines. Any questions on this amendment? All right. Seeing none, I appreciate each and every single one of you for putting these amendments together. I know it did take some staff work and collaboration. I've been supportive of all of them. I really think that a lot of them are common sense amendments and to help make sure that we're and continue to make sure our critical areas are maintained. but in a way that benefits our entire community. So with that, any other final questions or comments? Anybody online? All right, seeing none, we are on to our next item. And our third agenda item is a council consideration request beyond the block sponsorship. And I'd like to call on Council Member Palmer to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I'm excited to bring forward a council contingency fund request for $10,000 to sponsor a new program called Beyond the Block. I will also mention this is my first council contingency fund request. Beyond the Block is a series of free drop-in events for young people between the ages of 11 and 16 at the Bryant Neighborhood Center in the Hilltop neighborhood. It is held in collaboration with our Sisters House Hall Outdoors and Push for Dreams. Events will take place every Wednesday and Friday from 5.30 to 8 p.m. through July and possibly into August. Each session of the Beyond the Block program is going to feature a different culturally informed theme to help participants gain valuable life skills and support. Some of the themes that I think are going to be great for young people include social media, safety training, and discussion on topics like conflict resolution, public speaking, mental health, stress management, and self-esteem. Participants will also receive a free meal and snacks. Our sponsorship would help ensure significant staffing for all sessions, meals, and snacks for participants, program supplies, and location costs at Bryant Neighborhood Center. I believe this type of programming helps advance a number of the City Council's goals including keeping young people safe and engaged. Not all our young people are able or get their needs met by attending a school or parks location for evening events in the summer, but they still need a place to go. So Beyond the Block will help fill this gap. Beyond the Block has also invited any of the council members who are interested to join one of the sessions. So I want to thank my co-sponsors, Council Member Rumbaugh and Council Member Scott, And I hope you will all join us in support of this proposal on July 14th.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Palmer. Council Member Rumbaugh.

Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor. And I just want to say thank you so much, Council Member Palmer, for bringing this forward. I was really happy to be a co-sponsor of this. These are really great organizations. And I think this times out well with late nights. but doesn't fit the bucket for getting funding from Tacoma Creates because of the mission. It doesn't fit arts and cultural and heritage or science. So I just want to say that I'm really happy that we could find a solution for them this year. I'm hoping that if they continue to do this, we can help them in another way next year. I also want to just call out that we did also get some funding from a nonprofit as well, another $2,500. So we We're bringing $12,500 as a council to help out this organization, these three organizations this summer. So thank you so much.

Great. Thank you so much. Any other additional questions or comments? Thank you so much for bringing this forward. Oh, did you want to go?

I just wanted to thank Council Member Rumbaugh for taking that additional effort to bring those funds in. I think it's going to be super helpful. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Council Member Palmer, for bringing this forward. I'm looking forward to supporting it. All right. Seeing no additional questions or comments, we do have another item of interest. I'm going to call on Council Member Rumbaugh.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I just wanted to remind people that on July 17th, I know it's a week ahead, but maybe you can put it on your calendar. It's the 17th annual Crystal Judson Family Justice Center parking lot social. We've changed it from a barbecue to a social because they're doing tacos this year instead of barbecue, which I think is fascinating and fabulous. It's Friday, July 17th from 1130 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's at the Family Justice Center parking lot, which is 718 Court Street. Tacoma I hope that that people will come they they suggest you register ahead of time I think you could just register there too as well but they'll be raffle prizes and this is a fundraiser for their foundation that they have for the extra things like when they're trying to get a motel room for a family that's experienced domestic violence or for bus passes possibly a cell phone because the person's phone was taken by their abuser just things like that that aren't covered necessarily by the advocate dollars that they have. And I just am so proud of our council and our city for being a part of Crystal Judson Family Justice Center and the good work that they do to support those who are survivors and victims of domestic violence. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rumbaugh. I've had a chance to go to those barbecues in the past, and it's always a really good time to support. Any other items of interest? Seeing none, any committee reports to share? None, I will call on Deputy City Manager Alison Griffith for agenda review and city manager's report.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Deputy Mayor and Council, for your awareness this evening, there's one ceremonial on tonight's agenda. That's proclaiming July 2026 as LGBTQIA2S Plus Pride Month here in Tacoma. There are no modifications on tonight's agenda. There is one opportunity for public comment this evening. That's under regular public comment, which is regarding motions, resolutions, and ordinances on tonight's agenda. Please let us know if there's any questions so staff can be prepared. And for your review, attached to the study session agenda is the weekly report to council. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy City Manager. Any final questions or comments from the council? Hearing none, I will entertain the final motion.

Move to adjourn. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Have a great day.