City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I call the Gig Harbor City Council meeting of Monday, September 14th to order. And I ask City Clerk Alleman to please call the roll.

Thank you. Please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Before we begin this council meeting, we would like to recognize that we are gathered on not only the ancestral and traditional lands of the Swabash Band of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, but also on the side of one of the largest and longest standing historic villages of their people, the original inhabitants of the Gig Harbor area. Councilor, are there any changes to the agenda? Okay, we have three presentations for you this evening. The first is recognition of our employee of the quarter. Elizabeth Koval is our fabulous employ

And that's what Liz, now you have to come to the front.

Well, I understand that this is her month. So I think that's pretty good. I don't know what more I can add to it.

No, I think we should have her come back on September 28th for another presentation. She is. Okay. Thank you, Liz, for everything that you do. We really do appreciate you. Our second presentation tonight is a proclamation for Constitution Week. And I'm going to read this important proclamation and then present it to Rana Lavrovich, who is here representing the Daughters of the American Revolution. And she will say a few words about the Constitution before our final presentation tonight. Whereas in this 250th anniversary year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed t

Thank you. Gretchen, remind us again the dates that the local library is closed. The 14th through the 26th.

Okay, great. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions? Okay.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. So we will now move to the public comment section on the consent agenda. Public comment on the consent agenda. If you are in the audience and wish to speak about an item on the consent agenda, please come to the podium now or press the raised hand button if you would like to comment. I do wanna note that late this afternoon, we did move business item number two, the adoption of the interlocal agreement with Washington City's Insurance Authority to the consent agenda. So that currently is on the consent agenda. So if you would like to speak o

Second. It was moved by Council Member Eckberg and seconded by Council Member Martin to approve the consent agenda. And we do not have screens tonight, so I'll in favor say aye.

Anyone opposed? So the motion passes 6-0. So for my Mayor's report tonight, we were actually commenting before this meeting started, it seems like forever since we've all been together. I've missed seeing everyone and I'm glad we're back together, but the break is essential for all of us too. This past weekend, fall definitely arrived along with some much needed rain. And I wanted to talk today about the busy September that we have in the community. And I look forward to seeing all of you here and in the community at the many events that are on the calendar. We have two events, especially that

We are happy to start our second year of the Youth Council this school year with 19 young people from around the community. They have had one meeting already, another one later this week or next week, and we'll be reporting back to you soon about their efforts. It's an incredible group of young people who live in the community and attend high school throughout our area. If you have the opportunity to meet with them or hear from them, they're absolutely amazing. And finally, work on the fishermen's home port mitigation has begun. The construction you see in the Maritime Pier parking lot is part

I was hoping it was Zebra Trey. Okay, moving right along, you can tell we're all having technical difficulties tonight. So our business item tonight is the first reading of ordinance 1566, adopting a multifamily tax exemption, parentheses MFTE program. And I'm going to turn it over to our housing health and human services program manager, Shay Smiley for the staff report.

So I will now ask Council, are there any clarifying questions about the presentation that you just heard? I am not seeing any clarifying questions, so I will now open public comment on this agenda item. If you're in the audience and wish to speak, please come to the podium now. If you're on Zoom, please press the raised hand button. And I'm not seeing anyone, so I will now close public comment on this agenda item and open it up for council deliberation. Council Member Eckberg.

Thank you, Mayor Barber. We've been working on this for quite a bit now. It's a huge challenge to provide more workforce housing in our community that has been pushed down upon us by the state and a condition of what we wanna do. I think this council shares the goal to provide more housing for different ages, stages, and wages, and I'm proud of the work that we've done so far. There's not one silver bullet for this problem, but I think MFTE is a big lever that we can pull on to help move the direction. We've studied the housing conditions in our community. We've done lots of work here, and I a

Are there any other comments from council?

And then we would need to have a second ordinance that has the boundary in it as well.

Okay. Council member Eckberg. Hearing no other comments, I'd like to move to approve ordinance 1566, adopting the multifamily tax exemption program in Gig Harbor.

Second. It's been moved by council member Eckberg and seconded by council member Martin to approve ordinance 1566, adopting a multifamily tax exemption program. All in favor, please say aye.

You're saying aye or nay? Nay. Okay. Motion passes five to one with council member Coronado voting no. Thank you, Council. Okay, we have no staff reports tonight. So I now want to open the public comment period for comments on non-agenda items. If you are with us tonight and wish to make a comment about something going on in the community, something you want to talk about, please come to the podium now. Or if you're on Zoom, please press the raised hand button. All right, I will now close public comment on non-agenda items. Are there any reports from Council tonight? Council Member Ekberg.

Just one quick comment. Yesterday was the 16th running of the Race for a Soldier here in Geek Harbor. I saw Councilman Coronado out there with his kids running. I was out there with my son in the finish area handing out drinks and snacks. It's an outstanding event. It's one that's personally close to me. And it's a great testament to the work from our public works, our police, our city that helped put that on here. So thank you to everyone that had a hand in making that event such a success.

Yes. On this Saturday, the 19th from 12 to one at Uptown, there's going to be a let's beat breast cancer rally. I'll be representing the city for that. As the mayor mentioned, there are many things occurring on the 19th and we're trying to split our time here. I encourage everyone to show up because there's going to be a really neat special item that is going to be presented, but you've got to be there to see it first. So I look forward to doing that. Thanks.

It's so cool. any other reports you have one or no okay great there is a list of upcoming count city meetings in that is attached to the agenda and if there are no other comments or agenda items i will ask for a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second all right all in favor say aye aye aye