City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it is now 6.30 and the meeting will come to order. Good evening and welcome to the August 18th, 2026 Kennewick City Council meeting. Council meetings are streamed live on our website, gotokennewick.com. Viewers can enable closed captioning by assessing 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 a quorum is established?

Thank you. Will Don Wicks please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening? 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 is registered this evening to provide tonight's invocation. Kennewick residents interested in giving the invocation can find information on our website or through the city clerk's office. Tonight, it's our pleasure to honor men and women in our community who are recipients of the Purple Heart. Before we begin, I'd like to i

I would ask and thank you for those kind remarks. Can I have Don Wick's retired Army First Sergeant and a Purple Heart recipient meet me at the podium to accept the proclamation? Whereas this past July our nation celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and whereas this milestone was only possible because of generations of brave, selfless men and women who have sacrificed themselves in defense of our freedom, our liberties, and our nation, And whereas George Washington established the Badge of Military Merit in August 1782 to recognize and honor persons injured or k

One more. Please, Kevin. Let's show it to the crowd and then we'll turn around and show it to the council. Jim?

Thank you all. Next on our agenda this evening is a proclamation acknowledging the importance of regular school attendance. Will Dr. Luann Ayers, President and CEO of United Way of Benton Franklin Counties, please join Council Member Anderson at the podium. Thank you.

This will test if I pass the literacy test. That's right. Whereas regular school attendance is essential to student achievement, well-being, and graduation rates, helping students be proficient readers by third grade, have higher achievement rates in middle school, and higher graduation rates in the high school level. One out of every four, this is surprising, one out of every four students in the Kennewick School District were chronically absent, missing 10% or more of school days for any reason in the 24-25 school year. And the impact of chronic absence hits low-income students and children

Thank you all. Next on the agenda is visitors. This is the only opportunity to comment at tonight's meeting. Visitors are welcome to state their opinion on any topic except for election matters. The city clerk has informed me there are no online visitors signed up for to speak. If someone in the audience wishes to speak, please raise your hand. The public comment period is not an opportunity for mutual conversation with council members or for posing questions with the expectation of immediate answer. Council members will listen closely to your comments but will not directly respond to you. The

Thank you. Additional comments this evening?

Thank you, Kathleen. You can pass that to Crystal. Tina, please.

Thank you. Additional public comments this evening? 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 want to remove for further discussion, and that item will be considered separately. I will entertain a motion. Mayor Pro Tem Trellis. I move to approve the agenda as presented. Is there a second?

It has been moved by Mayor Pro Temporelli and seconded by Council Member Anderson to approve the agenda as presented. The floor is open for discussion. There being no further discussion, it has been properly moved and seconded to approve the agenda as presented. Will the clerk please start the vote?

Yes. And that motion is passed unanimously. The next item is the approval of the consent agenda. All matters listed within the consent agenda have been distributed to each member of Kennewick City Council for reading and study are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion of the council with no separate discussion. I'll entertain a motion. Mayor McShane. Mayor Pro Tem Trello.

It has been moved by Mayor Pro Temporelli and seconded by Council Member Anderson to approve the consent agenda as presented. Will the clerk please start the vote? That is passed unanimously. All right, next on our agenda is council comments and discussion, and I think we will start down with Mr. Trumbo. Council Member Trumbo, please.

Thank you, Mayor McShane. I attended the Law and Justice Commission meeting last Wednesday. There was considerable discussion about the spreadsheet for... identifying the processes needed and the steps necessary to complete criminal justice for both the adult prosecutorial efforts and also a separate plan for the juveniles. This has been a very laborious effort with a lot of input from members of the various entities in the criminal justice system. there are more than you imagine. And I commend the effort because it started out with a spreadsheet graphic showing in color which steps or which a

Thank you. I'll piggyback on that. I was not able to attend that meeting. I was out of town, but... PFT will have free fair rides for the fair and rodeo. And so go to that. Go to Kamiakin. Lampson Stadium, there's a place in Pasco, a place in Richland. So I think it costs you $10, $12, $15, $20 to park your car now. It takes forever to get out of that, especially after the rodeo. So ride the bus. I think they were charging last year. I think we did $1, $3 a donation. I can't remember. It's changed every year. This year it's free. So go use it. Don't pay for parking. It's a good service for sur

Thank you. Council Member Bilbao. Thank you, Mayor. A little over a week ago, I attended the ribbon-cutting for Luton Services. They now are in the old Amazon warehouse, I think it was, and beautifully remodeled and very large. So I look forward to them continuing their services in our area. I also attended the active KPD shooter training that took place in the convention center this year. So I applaud all those that put that together and those that participated. It was well done. And I thought it was a good choice to have it there to be as real as it can get. So with that, that's all I have.

Council Member Raderson. Just a reminder that it's National Night Out, just in case you forgot, on Thursday. Thursday. I was just wondering for city manager if we could get an update where we're at as a city on the economic development front. It doesn't have to be tonight. It could be in the future, but just kind of wondering where we're at on that.

Yeah, what's our movement, what's our direction, where are we going with that?

Council Member Beechoff. I'm sorry, I did have one more.

I didn't remember until the city manager said something over there. Saturday, I got a phone call from the Corvette Club, and they were freaking out. Some stuff had happened to them, some change in a permit for Columbia Park. They've been doing this for 16 years, and all of a sudden they'd had some big changes. They weren't able to do what they had done, and some rules had been put in place from the city of Kennewick that we weren't aware of. I was able to reach out to the city manager today. And in her speedy way, in about 45 minutes, handled the whole problem. And the guy that was ready to ju

Other things of note for me, I appreciate the comments that have been made this evening. I did get an opportunity to help kick off the Washington Economic Development Association Conference that was held here in Kennewick. I got a chance to speak with Kat Brigham, who's the chairwoman of the Board of Trustees for the Umatilla Commission. Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, as well as our other mayors from the cities. The mayor from West Bristol would say the Quad Cities, but I would say the Tri-Cities still, to have that opportunity. And, you know, really focused on economi