City Council - Regular Meeting

now 6 30 and the meeting will come to order good evening and welcome to the july 21st 2026 kennewick city council meeting council meetings are streamed on live on our website go to kennewick.com viewers can enable closed captioning by accessing this feature this setting feature in their preferred web browser either during the live broadcast or when watching the recording will the city clerk please state who is present and whether quorum is established

Thank you. Is there a motion to excuse the absences?

It has been moved by Council Member Anderson and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Torelli to excuse the absence of Council Member Trumbo and Council Member Beecham. The floor is open for discussion. There being no further discussion, it has been properly moved and seconded to excuse the absence of Council Member Trumbo and Council Member Beecham. Will the clerk please start the vote?

That's passed five to zero. Thank you. Next, we'll have our Pledge of Allegiance. Will Chief Guerrero please lead the pledge?

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. No one's registered this evening to provide tonight's invocation. Persons interested in giving the invocation can find information on our website or through the city clerk's office. Next, we'll have a proclamation for Parks and Recreation Month. Will Parks and Recreation Commissioner Ruby Creek please join Council Member Anderson at the podium?

Thank you. Next we'll have the City Manager 2026 Award of Excellence. City Manager Erdmann, will you please take this next session?

Thank you very much, and thank you for your service. What a great example of dedicated employees and people that really want to make a difference in our community. Next on the agenda is visitors. For clarification, our public hearing this evening, which will be later in the agenda, should concentrate on testimony concerning the moratorium or the placement of LRA facilities in our community. Comments regarding the moratorium will need to wait until the public hearing is officially opened later this evening. testimony related to specific LRA projects or facilities does not align with the guideli

Ken, sorry, your time's exhausted for this evening.

Would anyone else like to speak this evening? Yes, please.

Ubi. I may as well call on the president of Henwick.

Thank you. Anyone else would like to speak this evening? Yeah, please.

Thanks, Warren. Any other comments this evening?

All right, this comment period is closed. Next item is approval of the agenda. If a council member would like an item removed from the consent agenda, please be recognized by the mayor and state the item number you would want to remove for further discussion, and that item will be considered separately. I'll entertain a motion.

Yes, Council Member Milbauer. I'll second the motion. It has been moved by Mayor Pro Temporelli and seconded by Council Member Milbauer to approve the agenda as presented. The floor is open for discussion. There being no further discussion, it's been properly moved and seconded to approve the agenda as presented. Will the clerk please start the vote? Next item is the approval of the consent agenda. All matters listed within the consent agenda have been distributed to each member of the Kennewick City Council for reading and study. are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion

Council Member Milbauer. I'll second the motion. It has been moved by Mayor Pro Temporelli and seconded by Council Member Milbauer to approve the consent agenda as presented. Will the clerk please start the vote? That is passed unanimously. Next is a public hearing regarding the six-month moratorium prohibiting less restrictive alternative housing. An emergency moratorium is a temporary, legally binding pause on a specific activity enacted by the city to address an urgent crisis. It halts ongoing actions to prevent further harm while council members study the issue and draft permanent regulati

Thank you. Ms. Beaton, will you please provide a staff report?

THANK YOU. ANY QUESTIONS OF STAFF THIS EVENING? All right, so next we'll have our public hearing, and this public hearing is now open. This hearing is required by RCW 35A.63.220, and it's important that the testimony is specific to the emergency moratorium rather than for or against a particular person, site, or project. The city clerk has informed me that no one signed up to testify remotely. If anyone in the audience would like to address the moratorium or discuss the placement of these facilities in our community, please raise your hand.

With no public comments, this public comment period is now closed. I'll entertain a motion.

has been moved by Mayor Pro Tem Torelli and seconded by Council Member Milbauer to affirm the findings of fact and adopt the ordinance as presented. The floor is open for discussion. Council Member Clipper.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to say that I wholeheartedly support the adoption of this ordinance, this moratorium, and encourage a unanimous yes vote. Thank you.

Any other comments this evening? I'll take a moment and just express appreciation again of our staff who've worked very hard to get this to the point where we can put some security into our community for a short period of time here as we try to understand the regulations that we can put forward. And I just recognize again like we did as we passed the moratorium earlier that if the staff needs additional time for that, that's something I would be very supportive of if we find that with the comp plan updates and other things that are going on that we just can't finish these regulations within th

Good evening, everyone. Last week I attended the Glow Crazy Party at Numerica Pavilion. I had the opportunity with my daughter and her two young, my two young granddaughters, her daughters. I enjoyed it very much. It was well attended. It was very well organized. They had a ball. It was just great to see all the kids. I just want to thank staff, Numerica, Parks and Rec, the commission over there working at it. It was very well. Thank you for that. Also, yesterday I attended the AWC Large City Advisory Committee. We had discussions on AWC's 2027 legislative agenda dealing with public works, tra

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. had the honor and privilege of going to the employee appreciation luncheon at the sports complex, and the city manager did a great job of recognizing some employees today. More of them were recognized at the luncheon, but I just want to say one more time thank you to everyone who worked so hard for the city of Kennewick. You guys are awesome. We appreciate you, and thank you for making our city the great city that it is.

Thank you. Aaron, can you tell us, I mean, this is looking into your crystal ball, when do we think a final design would be considered for final approval for City Hall? Because I think that's been confusing for folks where there's been this thought that we finalized the design a couple of months ago. I know I've had that complaint that the city's already finalized the design, and we're not even close to that yet.

Yeah, so again, this is really the beginning of that public process to understand what the impacts could be and then make sure the public has an opportunity to begin to comment on that now. Not the end of the process.

Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. I too wanted to add on and pile on for the compliments towards River of Fire. It was a great event this year. I will say that the number one complaint I had was people could not understand why they couldn't get into the park. And I had to help them understand that the park is closed when there's too many people there. And so we had people waiting for others to leave so that they could come. What a great event and what a great opportunity for our community to enjoy. I did hear people were coming into Kennewick from miles and miles around, nearby comm