City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, August 11, 2026 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with all council members present, including council member Green, who is joining us remotely tonight, along with our city manager, Jay Burney, who is also joining us remotely this evening. Just a few announcements before we adopt our agenda. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the passing of Nisqually tribal chairman, KEN CHOKE, WHO RECENTLY PASSED AWAY. THE OLYMPIA CITY COUNCIL EXPRESSES OUR CONDOLENCES FOR HIS PASSING, AND WE EXPRESS THOS

Congratulations, chief. Any comments from the days? Well, I will just express the council's gratitude for you, for your service. And we look forward to seeing what you do during your tenure as our fire chief. I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to mention that you are the first woman, I believe, to lead our fire department. The same is true for our police department now. And it's really important because I think it's so important for our young girls and young women to see somebody such as yourself in a leadership role like being the fire chief. So congratulations. All right. So

All right. All those in favor of the agenda is published signify by saying aye. Aye. We have an agenda. So we have no special recognition tonight. So we are going to move on to public comment and I'll turn it over to the Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. We have a number of people signed up in person and online. We'll go ahead and start first with the folks in person. I'll call a few of you down so you can get ready and come to the podium. When it's your turn to speak, please do state your name for the record. I apologize in advance if I mispronounce your name. Please do correct it for us. And... So back to housekeeping. For those of you that might not know, public comment is two minutes. And so when you stand at the podium and you begin, the two-minute timer over there will start counting down for you. And then there's also

Thank you mayor pro tem and as you make your way to the podium I do just have a statement that I like to read because I know we have a few folks here in chambers offering comment tonight as it relates to our waste resources. Future decision so I know that we have a number of people who are interested in speaking tonight about this so I just wanted to provide a little bit of context as to what's going to happen in the future before we begin our comments tonight. So we're still very early in this process and no decisions have been made or will be made in the near term. What we do know is that we

Thank you. We always love to have more people public commenting. Well done. We have Aaron Cole, followed by Rochelle Martin, followed by Desiree Tolliver.

Thank you. Desiree Tolliver, followed by Chad Kate, followed by Grace Fletcher.

Thank you. We have Grace Fletcher followed by our final in-person public commenter, Richard Burgess, and then we'll move to virtual.

Grace, I'm going to ask you to please share your comments via email. All right. Richard Burgess.

Sorry, I have to wrap you up. Well, thanks.

Thank you. All right, so looking at staff, we're moving to virtual public comment. And then I see Kyle Kimball first on my list. I'll just give a moment. OK. Oh, hello, Kyle. I see you when you have a moment or yeah, when you are ready. Yeah, go ahead and unmute and then your two minutes will begin. Go ahead.

Mr. Kimball, Mr. Kimball. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to stop and interrupt you. So because we are currently in the middle of an election season, you are prohibited from speaking in support or opposition to a candidate or ballot measure in a city council meeting according to state law. So we have to interrupt you. I'm sorry. All right. No worries.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. All right, next we have Issa Levine. Okay. Then Issa, I see that you've hopped on our screen. When you get a moment, you can begin your public comment.

Thank you. Next, we have Nicole Canning.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- That's all right. ELLIE WILSON- And go ahead and begin.

Thank you. All right. Moving to Brian Potvin. OK. So it looks like Brian's no longer with us. We can circle back at the end and see if they've rejoined. We have Elizabeth Williamson. Hi, Elizabeth. Go ahead and begin.

Thank you. Moving to Kyle McQuarrie? Not signed in? Okay. Did Brian Potvin rejoin us? No? Okay. Well, with that, that concludes public comment. I'll hand it back to you, Mayor.

All right, thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem. Are there any comments from the council? Council Member Madrone.

Thanks everybody for coming out this evening. I'm gonna reserve any thoughts that I have around the future of our solid waste folks and our waste resources until our study session next week. But Grace, I think you're back there. Oh, I see you. I really wanna thank you for coming out tonight. I know that this... this work around a food system plan is really, really important to you and that you're very engaged in your neighborhood and across all neighborhoods. I really, really share your eagerness for tangible action coming out of this food system plan. And I really share the need to partner wi

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone who came out. All of the people who talked about the waste resources, thank you. The food assistance, Grace, thank you. And also the Walnut Division and Richard, too. One thing I wanted to mention is on the consent calendar tonight, I'm not going to have this pulled, but I did want to note There's a $75,000 appropriation from the Waste Resources Department to clean up the jungle. It's money that was spent to clean up the jungle. If we didn't have the garbage utility, this wouldn't have existed. We wouldn't have been able to do this. It's just a tool. It's

Thank you. Council member Barron. I do believe we had a commenter that didn't make that point. Um, but you just gave us something very specific. Uh, any additional comments from council council member Vanderpool?

Yeah. I'd like to thank all the folks for coming out. Um, yeah, next week we'll be having that conversation on waste services. As you probably know, I'm not a fan of privatization. It's just a variety of reasons, and we'll talk about that more next week. I also want to thank folks coming out for talking about the food systems plan. This is something that my council member, Dan Madrone, is super excited about in a way that is palpable and exciting just to be around. So I'm very interested in how that conversation tonight And then to the folks that came to comment about the trail subdivision, I

Tim, would it be possible for the folks who signed up to public comment tonight, I don't know if we can ask to put their contact information into that so they know the hearing is coming up? I don't know if that would be possible to get that pooled. Yeah, yeah, get their contact information. We can put it on the list for when the hearing happens.

Appreciate it. Very well. Thanks, Council Member Vanderpool. Additional comments? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I also appreciate everyone that came out tonight and just wanted to say to the folks that are coming out in support and sort of a protective effort of our Olympia's waste resources is that hear you I really hear you and for what it's worth I don't think anyone on this council as I've experienced it is taking pleasure in this in this conversation and making light of the the amount of jobs and what we would lose I really believe that we do have something special and I am going to follow the process. And I think that your showing up, your emails, if you're part of the folks that also emailed in,

Okay. I'll just say I appreciate everyone that's come out tonight, especially those of you who were here for the waste resources subject. I understand that this is obviously a concern for people in the community. As I said at the top of public comment, no decisions will be made in the near term, but it is our job as the want to set policy for the city it's it's our job to weigh these options and so next week at the study session those will be presented to us and so I encourage you to either tune in or show up in person if if you're interested in if you can and this is a discussion on how we in

All right. We have a motion and a second. Is there any requests for polls for questions or comments? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor of adopting the consent calendar as published signify by saying aye. Aye. Consent calendar is adopted. So our first item of business on the agenda tonight is item 6A, and it is the approval of the Mars Young Park public park concept design. And we have Stephanie Johnson, who is our arts program manager, who will introduce Andrea Wilbur Sigo here in a moment. Hi, Stephanie.

All right, thank you. That was a great closing line. With that, we can all go home. Thank you so much. Are there any questions or comments from the council? Council Member Madron.

Andrea, it's so, so nice to have you back in council chambers. And of course, we just saw you recently with the welcome poll. I'm just so excited to see your artwork all over this city. So just heartfelt thank you to you and to Stephanie and the Arts Commission working with you on all of this. I really look forward to seeing this in action.

Thank you Thank You councilmember Madrona any additional comments I All right, I have no questions. I think these are beautiful. I'm looking forward to walking along the trail and seeing them all, especially if it'll be three-dimensional. Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention your most recent piece, which is Haqqishqa Bay, or the Mother of Restoration, who is at Isthmus Park, facing where Bud Inlet and the Deschutes Estuary meets. And we thank you for that beautiful carving I see online that so many people throughout the community are visiting it and taking pictures with her. And i

Yes. On that, love to see the baby in the basket. Yes. I wonder how that's going to look. Yeah. And then it's all finished up and it just looks really, really, really lovely.

All right. Well, if we have no further discussion, I need a motion and a second to approve. Council Member Gilman.

I would move to approve the Marge Young Public Park art concept design by Andrea Wilbur Seigel. Thank you.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Thank you. Okay. Motion passes. Thank you very much. All right. Yeah. It's great to see you. Okay, so that takes us to our next business item on our agenda item 6 be which is the approval of the use of Council goal funds in the economic development reserves for a local food systems plan and we have so on and the house or who is our director of parks arts and recreation presenting tonight. I saw on.

Oh, well, thank you very much, Sylvana. Thank you. And thanks for being here and despite having me. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Madrone to kick off our discussion. Thank you.

Um, first I want to really think Silvana and the parks department, you know, council puts in a referral and staff are like, okay, who's going to have to do the extra work. And well, Silvana, honestly, it landed with you. Um, and the parks department, not just because of the ties, the parks department has to community health, um, and community gardens and the work that you're doing with the school district on the freedom farm. But also you're just very, very passionate about local food and about having a healthy community. So you win the prize. And I'm really glad to see the really, really well

Thank you, Council Member Madrone. Additional comments? Council Member Barrett.

Thank you. I'll keep them very short. because I think Councilwoman Madrone did a great job of summarizing them, but I do believe that on the issue of affordability, this is one of the hallmark actions we can take to move the ball on making a basic need in the community more affordable, and that if we make a step forward in that, this will be a wild success. I think that there are a lot of disparate resources available and that this process is really going to be key in kind of identifying them all and bringing them all together to work in unity and unison. uh, bring our community to the next le

Thank you, Councilmember Barrett. Councilmember Green, followed by Councilmember Gilman.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Savannah, I really appreciate this plan. I appreciate all the work that's gone into it, and I know, you know, and I take Councilmember Madrone's feedback seriously. I know this is a place where she and a lot of community members have really dug in. I think the question that's just bouncing around for me, and maybe it's just a little bit of a I don't know if sticker shock is the right word, but I agree with some of the comments that we've received that just that amount of money for ultimately a consultant, and I mean a very significant body of work, as I see your deliverabl

Let me just do 1 follow up question. So, uh, with with the Rebecca Howard park plan, uh, was there sort of written like, what were the parameters of when someone would get a stipend? Because as I think about this plan, and I, I hear about, like, all the, the organizations and individuals throughout the community that are going to be engaged, like.

Yeah. No, thanks for that. So I appreciate that. I, you know, just candidly, I am struggling a little with the cost because we don't have those things laid out, um, or don't have a little more of a budget breakdown. Um, so just, I don't know, I'll continue listening to some of the other conversation, but thank you.

All right. Thank you. Council Member Gilman, followed by Council Member Vanderpool. Thank you, Mayor Payne.

So I want to speak in support of the proposal, as it was described, of the 50,000 of council goal money and the 195 of the economic development reserves. I recognize that as council, we direct a very limited amount of discretionary funds. But I also know that the way we spend our money is the way we express our values, our priorities, and that Something I've learned over time with the city is that the language of local government is these studies and public processes. It's the way that we prioritize work and investment and allocation of resources going ahead. So for me, this is a really import

Council member Vanderpool I also want to speak in support of this You know there are several things in here. I'm glad our answered and spoken to right Looking at our existing organizations and systems in the community is very important right we have a long history in this community of looking at and food systems, whether it's grub, whether it's work that the co-op does, whether, I mean, there's a variety of history in our community for something like this. And the other part of this I'm looking forward to is that action plan on the other side of it, right? It reminds me of our housing action p

Yeah, Council Member Madrone, you started us off on this conversation and you were doing organizational shout outs. for a second there, and I wrote in big words, Kiwanis.

Yes, they've, you know, they care. They've been engaged. And yeah, I just, I appreciate how this conversation's going. I do really appreciate the concern with the dollar amount and you know, seeking justification for why that is. Um, and, and you shared, and I think you, you spoke really well to that. Um, Sylvanas is really the opportunity to gather more perspective, um, to, uh, to also, uh, compensate people. And, um, this is, uh, something is my belief that people often don't get compensated. Well, uh, in this industry. And then when we asked for, we're shifting now and moving forward at the

The plan is finalized. That's why we're wrong. Okay.

prioritize so so anyway that's sorry oh no no don't yeah uh you guys make me smile you're every time when I feel like you're really like on fire you know in a good way you'll finish with an apology no I like that I would like more of that um so that's actually a really great segue so I hope you're all of your hard work and your thoughtfulness with bringing this forward to us and your uh, college girl cramming, uh, pays off tonight because I certainly am looking forward to supporting this. Um, yes, it's a lot of money and, uh, I think it's worth it. Uh, a lot of times we, uh, we do things for,

Thank you any additional comments. All right, well, I'll just start by first thanking our primary sponsor Councilmember drone for bringing this referral forward along with our colleagues Councilmember Gilman and mayor put him when thank you for joining Councilmember drone and cosponsoring the referral. So what I appreciate the presentation, but more importantly what I really appreciate is the context that you gave with Tom waters who systems plan. And the fact that you said that they spent about $40,000 which is a significant significant difference from what we're seeing here, but you also gav

Sure. Thank you, Silvana. Yeah, and I'll just add lastly that this is, in some ways, it's sort of, you know, it's our responsibility to do mitigation planning. And so I do see this as an aspect of that, you know, of sorts. And this is worth the investment in doing this work and seeing, you know, where it could take us. I'm very excited about the thought that's been put into this and all the ways that the plan will touch various aspects of this issue for our community. So thank you to my colleagues again. I will turn it over to Council Member Madrone to make the motion.

Thanks again, Silvana. You guys, I'm so excited. I move to approve the use of $50,000 of the Council Goal Fund and $195,000 of the Economic Development Reserves to fund a local food system plan for our Olympia community.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much, Silvana. Thank you. And thank you again, Council Member Madron, and congratulations. All right. And congratulations to our residents. More importantly, it's an important issue. Okay, so item 60 on our agenda is our final business item for tonight and it is a discussion on the city's housing incentives to encourage affordable housing projects in Olympia and we have to send us touches was our housing manager and community developm

Sure. Councilmember Barrett has a question.

I have a lot of questions, but I had a question about that last slide. Why would we provide incentives for market rate? Or are these buildings partially affordable and partially market rate?

So we're essentially just encouraging market rate housing in some cases.

Mm-hmm. Councilmember Vanderpool has a question.

I guess a little bit of a follow-up to that. So one of the things about the affordability emergency is it has a 25-year covenant on it to require affordability. I guess for... Clarity for the ones that have affordable units that are using the MFTE Is there how long are they required to be affordable?

And when they renew, it'll still be locked in at the price that it was prior if they decide to renew for another 12 years?

Can I ask the question from a different perspective? So if you're a tenant and you're under that covenant and you're at 80% cap and then they renew it, if I'm that tenant, Yes, would it be the same rent possibly or would it be it would be different potentially?

I think You're getting at where I'm trying to get out is that I is my concern is that someone's in there for that 12-year period and their rent is Coveted because it's a covenant you're as you were saying on some of these units. I Get concerned about a jump Before the 12-year before they renew and and that effect on the tenant. That's that's my yeah.

Okay. All right. So it's not a solid lock at that year. It is a rolling year.

Yes. Sorry. Additional comments or questions? All right, back to you, Jacinda.

Sure. I can't see Council Member Green, so just checking in. Okay. Yes, and I see you, Council Member Barrett. I do have a question about, so we made those revisions to MFTE just a few years ago. And so we know we need the, was it the 14,000 plus units by 2045? And I think you said 6,700 plus of those need to be market rate. So what are the interim goals? So we know we have a goal of that many by 2045, but what are the interim goals to determine, like what are the measures of success for whether or not the MFTE is doing what we want it to do? Because, sure, development is happening, and we cou

Thank you. I had a series of questions. Do these impact fee exemptions only apply to multifamily or do if a developer that was developing a dozen houses came to you with a with those single-family houses be eligible for for similar exemptions if the developer applied for them.

Are there many that have applied for them or is it just an unutilized option?

Great. This is a follow-up to Council Member Vanderpool's question on the extension of MFTE. How many... extensions do we have that are alive in the city if any i just have people i know that mft hasn't been around forever so you know i don't know maybe we haven't even hit the the mark yet but i wanted to know if developers have come and asked for an extension uh on projects that are in existence and receiving that benefit

One thing that wasn't disclosed is the cost of MFTE. It's exciting that all these projects are going on and that there's a lot of projects benefiting from getting up and running because of this incentive, but I was wondering about the cost side. Is that information available? Meaning, what is the cost to the city of the tax exemption Um, there are people in the community who, who worry about the cost shift, you know, and, um, I, I, I certainly think, uh, affordable housing is a substantial benefit to the community, you know, and so, you know, that's, that, that warrants strong consideration, b

I would very much like to see that dated presentation without having to recreate it necessarily. That would give me an idea. I'm just trying to figure out if this is bigger or smaller than a bread box as far as the fiscal impact to the city's budget and whatnot. And I had just one final question. Are there state incentives that you didn't list? You kind of listed some, you know, state housing council funding and whatnot. Are there other incentives that are outside of the city's purview that these developers get that weren't on the list? I was kind of under the impression there were, and I coul

Thank you, Jacinda. This is all very good, and I really appreciate your presentation. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Council Member Madrone followed by Council Member Gilman.

Thank you so much, Jacinda. I really appreciate the presentation. Earlier tonight we were talking about plans that don't sit on shelves, and I think you are proving that our housing division also does not keep plans on shelves. The question that I have, when we did update the structure for our multifamily tax exemption program, One of the things that the housing team did was commission a study of pro formas for what does it cost to build downtown, west side, east side, and the eight year tax exemption was based on the actual cost to build. Because that's one of the challenges we have is like,

Thanks for that reminder. And to do those revisions at a timely part in the year where there's not projects in the queue. I know that was a conversation we had before, too, where it doesn't impact those projects. All right. Council Member Gilman. Thank you.

Thanks, Jacinda. First, I'm glad that you have metrics developing. It's been a conversation for a long while. And this presentation and this conversation over the last several years has been really devoid of numbers. We don't talk about the costs, and we don't talk about the like the public investment per unit versus the percentage of the cost of the unit that's being saved? What's the effect or the impact of the incentive of the public subsidy? I would suggest that frequently utilized doesn't speak to the value of the incentive, because who would say no to free money? And who wouldn't say, wo

Thank you, Councilmember Gilman. Councilmember Vanderpool.

I appreciate the comments. Councilmember Gilman, I'm, you know, one of the things I wrote down leading into this meeting is thinking about the next steps, what's happened, what are things we're working on. I mean, we're working on community opportunity purchase policy. We've been working on that for quite a while now, but I'm interested in seeing how, when we come to that, I'm very excited about that. But a couple of things that I think about from that process, and Council Member Gilman talked a little bit about this, the cost, the upfront cost to help create a lot of cooperative housing and t

All right, thank you additional comments. Um, thank you just send a, um, I will just, uh, up looks like we have a question or comment from council member green.

Just a quick comment mayor. Thank you. Um, just and I just, I really appreciate this presentation and really my only comment is, uh, I think what I. learn most from this was, you know, particularly with the incentives for the affordable units, you know, seeing brand new developers coming into the area, the MFTE seems to be a little more familiar names. I'm not putting judgment on that. It just seems to be the thing. But to see that these incentives, I won't say they brought other developers here, but certainly just brought, you know, gave the opportunity for new folks to come into the communit

Thank you, Council Member Green. Yeah, and I'll just wrap us up by saying I'm not questioning whether or not MFT is leading to successful development. Obviously, we can clearly see that it has. But more specifically, for me, the question is about that development rate, as I mentioned earlier, as a metric, because we need more affordable housing. it appears that the rate with which MFTE is being utilized for affordable development is lagging behind that of market rate development and we need less of those units. So I just want to make sure that as we develop those metrics that we do so in a way

Despite the agenda for this evening, I don't actually put in all that many referrals. However, this is a referral co-sponsored with Council Members Gilman and Green. Thank you both very much. We also discussed it at our council dinner. So I know we're all in the loop on this, but just to speak to the referral, at the end of 2023, the council approved a resolution supporting a ceasefire between Israel and occupied Palestine. And of course, recognizing that as a city government in the United States, there's not much that we really can do to influence what's happening in the Middle East, but we c

All right. Well, thank you very much, Council Member Madrone. Are there any questions or comments? Yes, Council Member Gilman. Thank you.

I appreciate that we're bringing this forward. And I just wanted to highlight that the combatants for peace are made up of veterans, people who were fighters for both IDF, the Israeli army, and for Hamas. And their goal isn't a particular political solution, but that they don't want their younger siblings or their children to follow in their footsteps and go kill each other. So that's the kind of actions they've been taking and they've been putting a lot of energy into marking the loss of lives from both sides of a prolonged conflict. So I just wanted to give that context that I've been able t

Thank you. Additional comments? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I'll just keep it brief. I'm really glad to see this come around. I'm looking forward to supporting it. I'm hoping that the days end up being where many of us can attend. That would be great. But it's just important that it's happening overall. Yes, it's been some time since our ceasefire resolution, and it's ever relevant. So I think it's important that we continue to support whenever there are ways that we can, and I just really appreciate Council Member Gilman, you also sharing that context too. I think that's really important is, you know, what is the intention of it? Yeah. So looking forw

Thank you. All right. Council Member Vanderpool.

Um, it's still in the planning phases at this point. Um, and it's, it'll occur later in September. And like I said, they're still figuring out the exact dates and the events that will be taking place over that time. So, um, I'll make sure that that information is available to all of us, um, uh, as, as it comes together.

Thank you. Um, I just have, uh, just some comments, believe it or not. December of this year, it marks three years since we voted on the ceasefire resolution, which I can't even believe how fast that went. But I just want to make sure it's clear that although this is derived sort of from more of a global issue and an issue that happens somewhere else in the world, that this work is very much centered on what is happening in the Olympia community. And we know that Islamophobia and antisemitism have been on the rise over the course of these last three years. And so, and I would imagine that we a

I move to approve the allocation of $10,000 in council goal funding to Interfaith Works to support a community event featuring Palestinian and Israeli activists organizing for collective liberation.

Second. All right, we have a motion and a second all those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye aye opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you councilmember drone councilmember Gilman and councilmember green for sponsoring a referral. All right, so that takes us to council reports. Um, I'll just begin with a very brief mayor's report and mentioned, uh, that we had a great national night out, uh, this year. Once again, um, I want to thank the chief, uh, for driving the city manager and me, uh, around to each of the neighborhoods. But, um, uh, we really had a really great time with, u

I'll just report back quickly. I judged that pie contest. It was lovely. I ate almost half a pie. That's my report. Nice.

I can't beat that. So I didn't expect that, actually. I should have. But I only have a few items here. So on Sunday, I attended the Olympians for People-Oriented Places meeting. They're back. And one of the things we talked about were third places. First place is your home. The second place is your job. And the third place is the coffee shop, the park, places like that. And we had quite an interesting conversation of what are places that we've enjoyed the most? Why did we enjoy them? And then the who, they asked about what if we did a community forum on this? And I was like, well, even more fu

All right. Thank you. Questions or comments for Council Member Vanderpool? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Just a quick comment. Thank you, Council Member Vanderpool, for your attendance at Bonadori. I saw you make a puppy dog face when the mayor gave shout-outs.

I had four events that day, and I brought Charlie along and Alicia, and by the time I got there, Charlie was asleep, and it was 7 p.m., and his bedtime's 9, so I was just like, I don't know if I want to deal with grumpiness. So I came by, I said hi, and then I had to go home

All good. We have many requests when we're on council, including requests for meetings, and we all do what we can.

Thank you. Yes. And good things can come from Lacey, too. We all get ideas from each other.

Boy, it's kind of a competitive report giving tonight. This morning, Chief Parker very generously arranged for me to do wake-ups with the walking patrol in the morning, to meet with some of the department leadership, and to talk about the evolution of the staffing and the policies that we have downtown. And I want to say that I left that morning really greatly reassured And I know, you know, they'll continue to be tensions and we'll continue to work them out. But I saw nothing but respect from the officers I walked with and, um, uh, was just really honored by, uh, a serious conversation with t

Yeah. Thank you, Councilmember Gilman. Look no further than the U.S. military to see how that went when you don't require vaccinations. All right, any questions or comments for Council Member Vanderpool, or excuse me, Council Member Gilman? All right, seeing none, Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I don't have any reports. Just been doing my thing.

Council Member Barrett. I just have a few quick things. I attended the Home Builders Tour the week, it was the last week, and it was great. toured, they highlighted a project of multiple units going up on 21st in Southeast Olympia and kind of what was happening, the challenges with that development. Learned a few things about the real estate market in Olympia Lacey and Tumwater. Toured one of the 25 least expensive units for sale out of the thousand that are for sale in Thurston County, and it was in the $415,000 range. This was one of the 25 least expensive. And I only say that to illustrate

Thank you, Council Member Barrett. Questions or comments for Council Member Barrett? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Perhaps I should touch on the Olympia Downtown Alliance's summer barbecue, where I provided comments. I do do things. I just don't often feel the need to report them, but thank you. I think that's a nice prompt. Yeah, we have a great relationship with the ODA, the Olympia Downtown Alliance, and we got a chance to... be on the patio, outside on a summer evening with the ODA board members, some of the business and employees of businesses in the downtown area, and many council members there too. Oh, we heard from Congresswoman Strickland, and then I think it was the night before the primary, so t

Yeah, thanks for that reminder. And thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for representing at ODA. All right, Council Member Green.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I just have one piece of good news I wanted to report out from the Joint Animal Services Commission meeting yesterday. We had a wonderful presentation from an organization called Posado Safe Haven. And they are... hopefully soon, uh, they said definitely by the end of the year, uh, opening a low cost spay and neuter clinic in the community. So it'll be in some water, but, uh, they'll do low cost spay and neuters four days a week. They expect to be able to do 35 a day, all for cats and dogs, but dogs of all sizes. And, uh, I kinda, I said, okay, well, what, what's afford

Yeah, that's, that's really great. Council Member Green, thanks for sharing that. Do you know if they're in, if they're going to be interested in helping spay or neuter community cats?

They will, they will partner with joint animal services and other rescue organizations as well, which is just part of their work. They also have a sanctuary. They also they have a pretty big body of work. So yeah.

Yeah, that's great news. Thanks. All right. And last but not least, Assistant City Manager.

All right. Thank you very much, everybody. It's been a great meeting with lots of great discussion. So with no further business before the Olympia City Council, we're adjourned.